‘Sorry, you know what it’s like. Listen, I’ve found the perfect thing for Mum’s Christmas present, but it’s a bit more than we’d usually spend – do you want to come in with us?’
‘Sure. What is it?’ Kelly kicked off one boot, then the other, only half listening to her twin sister’s description of the vase she’d seen at a craft fair. They were halfway through November; it was weeks until Christmas. Kelly suspected she had been born without the shopping gene, always leaving things to the last minute and secretly enjoying the fevered atmosphere in the malls on Christmas Eve, filled with harassed men panic-buying over-priced perfume and lingerie.
‘How are the boys?’ she interrupted, when it was obvious Lexi was about to move on to suggest presents for the rest of the family.
‘They’re great. Well, a pain in the neck, half the time, obviously, but great. Alfie’s settled in to school brilliantly, and Fergus seems to have a good time at nursery, judging by the state of his clothes at the end of the day.’
Kelly laughed. ‘I miss them.’ Lexi and her husband Stuart were only in St Albans, but Kelly didn’t see them nearly as much as she’d like.
‘So come over!’
‘I will, I promise, as soon as I get some time off. I’ll check my duties and text you some dates. Maybe Sunday lunch sometime?’ Lexi’s roasts were legendary. ‘I think I’ve got a few rest days together at the start of December, if you don’t mind me crashing on your sofa?’
‘Brilliant. The boys love it when you stay over. Although not the third – I’ve got a reunion to go to.’
The almost imperceptible hesitation, and Lexi’s subsequent deliberately casual tone told Kelly precisely what the reunion was for, and where it would be held.
‘A reunion at Durham?’
There was silence at the other end of the phone, and Kelly imagined her sister nodding, her jaw jutting forward the way it always did in anticipation of an argument.
‘Freshers of 2005,’ Lexi said brightly. ‘I doubt I’ll recognise half of them, although of course I’m still in touch with Abbie and Dan, and I see Moshy from time to time. I can’t believe it’s been ten years, it feels like ten minutes. Mind you—’
‘Lexi!’
Her sister stopped talking, and Kelly tried to find the right words.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? Won’t it …’ she screwed up her eyes, wishing she was having this conversation in person, ‘bring everything up?’ She sat forward, on the edge of the chair, and waited for her sister to speak. She touched the half heart at her throat, suspended on its silver thread, and wondered if Lexi still wore hers. They’d bought them that autumn, just before they went off to uni. Kelly down to Brighton, and Lexi to Durham. It was the first time they’d been apart for longer than a night or two since they’d been born.
When Lexi eventually answered, it was in the same measured tone she had always used with her sister. ‘There’s nothing to bring up, Kelly. What happened, happened. I can’t change it, but it doesn’t have to define me.’ Lexi had always been the calm one, the sensible one. The two sisters were theoretically identical, but no one had ever struggled to tell them apart. They had the same squared-off chin, the same narrow nose and dark brown eyes, but where Lexi’s face was relaxed and easy-going, Kelly’s was stressed and short-tempered. They had tried to switch places many times as children, but no one who knew them was ever fooled.
‘Why shouldn’t I celebrate the good times I had at uni?’ Lexi was saying. ‘Why shouldn’t I be able to walk round the campus like the rest of my friends, remembering the nights out we had, the lectures, the stupid jokes we played on each other?’
‘But—’
‘No, Kelly. If I had left after it happened – changed uni like you and Mum wanted me to do – he’d have won. And if I don’t go to this reunion because I’m scared of the memories it might drag up, well, he’ll be winning again.’
Kelly realised she was shaking. She put her feet flat on the floor and leaned forward, pressing her forearm over her knees to keep them still. ‘I think you’re mad. I wouldn’t go anywhere near that place.’
‘Well, you’re not me, are you?’ Lexi exhaled sharply, doing nothing to mask her frustration. ‘Anyone would think it was you it happened to, not me.’
Kelly said nothing. How could she explain to Lexi that was exactly how it had felt, without implying her trauma was somehow on a par with Lexi’s own? She remembered the session delivered at police college by someone from Occupational Health. They had worked through a case study of a pile-up on the M25; dozens injured, six killed. Who had post-traumatic stress disorder? The trainer wanted them to guess. The Highways Officers, who had been first to the scene? The traffic sergeant, who had to comfort the mother of two dead children? The lorry driver, whose lapse of concentration had caused the devastation?