Keeley shook her head. ‘No, thank you. I’m completely full too. It was a lovely lunch.’
‘It was, wasn’t it?’ Silvie answered. ‘I like it at this place, very much. Yes, it may be in the middle of the touristic area, but I like the… how do you say… the mood.’
‘I like the mood too,’ Keeley agreed. ‘It feels very grand, but at the same time it’s also cosy.’
‘You have a good feel for places, I can tell,’ Silvie said, taking another drink from her coffee cup.
‘Well, that’s kind of my job,’ Keeley admitted.
‘Really?’ Silvie said, showing surprise. ‘You told me that you work for an estate agency.’
‘Oh, I do. But I work there in a different capacity to Rach. They call me a “house doctor”.’ She smiled at what she considered to be a silly title.
‘A house doctor? What is this?’ Silvie asked. ‘When your home has a little rise in temperature do people ask you to visit and… give it medicine? Or maybe a dose of the vacuum?’
Keeley laughed. ‘No, not like that. I’m a qualified interior designer but, lately, it’s been my job to stage homes before they are put on the market to sell.’
‘How fascinating,’ Silvie said, seeming truly taken with the idea.
‘I do enjoy it,’ Keeley said. She picked up her coffee spoon and absentmindedly stirred it around in the cup. ‘But I don’t think it’s quite enough for me.’
‘What is it you really want?’ Silvie asked her.
Keeley lifted her eyes from the coffee then. ‘To rewind the past year.’ She sighed, preparing to divulge even truer feelings. ‘To have my sister back.’
She swallowed. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said that. Regressing in front of the very person who had enabled her to have a future at all wasn’t really on.
‘Sorry,’ Keeley blurted out.
‘Your sister?’ Silvie queried. ‘She has gone away?’
‘Oh,’ Keeley said, a lump the size of a sugar cube arriving in her throat. ‘You don’t know. I’m sorry. I mean, why would you know?’ She sighed, before starting again. ‘I lost my sister in the accident. The accident I was in.’ She paused. ‘Her name was Bea.’
‘Oh, you poor girl.’ Straightaway, Silvie had reached across the table and enveloped her hand in hers. It was a reassuring, gentle touch but also firm and supportive. ‘I had no idea,’ Silvie breathed.
‘It’s OK.’
‘No,’ Silvie said, sighing, fingers squeezing Keeley’s. ‘It is not OK. Here I am, telling you about my grief for Ferne and you are grieving too. Your sister. Your poor, poor parents.’
Keeley nodded, telling her brain to hurry up and batten down the hatches. She could almost hear Bea telling her to stop being such a cry baby and eat the biscuits that had come with their coffees. Bea, the youngest of the family, but the one who’d had an infinite supply of strength and resilience in pretty much the face of anything. Keeley’s confidante and hair stylist… the one she had whispered secrets to in the night when they’d shared a bedroom.
Keeley took a breath and spoke again. ‘My parents will forever be grateful that they didn’t lose both their children that night,’ Keeley told Silvie. ‘And that is what would have happened if it hadn’t been for Ferne.’
Silvie shook her head, finally letting go of Keeley and picking up a serviette from the table to dab at her eyes again. ‘Look at me,’ she said, her voice rich with emotion. ‘I am leaking again.’
‘I leak too,’ Keeley responded, a small smile forming. ‘But lately it’s mainly from my hair. Cheap products.’ She pulled at a section to demonstrate, then instantly regretted it when a smear of brown appeared on her forefinger.
It earned a light laugh from Silvie and she coiled the tissue up in her hand. ‘How old was your Bea?’
‘She was twenty-four,’ Keeley answered. Forever twenty-four. Always that upbeat, focused, funny individual thinking she had all the time in the world. She forced a smile. ‘She was living her best life which, when I look back at things now, I am so glad about.’
‘What did she do?’
‘She was an engineer,’ Keeley said proudly. ‘She worked for a company designing different components to help repair or maintain bridges. Sometimes she got to design them from scratch. Bea was always the Lego builder of the family.’
‘That is such a wonderfully different job for a woman. Am I allowed to say that?’
Keeley nodded. ‘She was up against six men for the position and she got it, fresh out of college.’ And Keeley still remembered how much they had celebrated the weekend after Bea had received the email. They’d had too much wine and pizza Bea had tried to build a replica Golden Gate bridge out of the crusts. Her little sister had been destined for such great things…
‘It is such a waste,’ Silvie said, tone regretful. ‘All of it. Is it not?’
‘Yes,’ Keeley agreed. She didn’t really know what else to say. ‘Tell me what Ferne did. You said she loved music and animals. Did she do either of those passions for a job?’
Silvie shook her head then. ‘No. Ferne, she was in hospitality. Apart from the music and the animals there was nothing she liked more than people and parties. Her great gift was being able to communicate at every level. She would always treat people exactly the same, you know. It did not matter to Ferne if you were… say, part of the royal family or… someone who sleeps on the streets. She wanted to know you, no matter what you you were.’
Her donor was kind. In touch with humanity. It all made perfect sense.
‘But Ferne was not without her faults,’ Silvie admitted. ‘She could have a temper when things did not go her way. She once gave me the silent treatment for a whole week when I did not immediately get on board with a plan she had for a charity summer fiesta.’
‘Phew,’ Keeley said tongue-in-cheek. ‘I was beginning to think she was a saint.’
‘Non,’ Silvie said. ‘Not a saint. A normal, ordinary girl who was living her best life too.’ She smiled at Keeley. ‘That always gives me comfort also. To know she was happy with life and not struggling with sadness, or illness, or the weight of the world.’
‘Yes,’ Keeley agreed. ‘I feel the same with Bea.’
Silvie smiled again. ‘In a lot of ways we are lucky to have those perfect memories, no?’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘So,’ Silvie said, ‘you have plans for tonight?’
‘I don’t know. Rach mentioned maybe taking in a cabaret show one evening while we’re here but…’
‘Will you do one favour for me?’ Silvie asked her. ‘My son, Ferne’s brother, he is in Paris for Christmas and he has been away for some time. I have two tickets for the ballet tonight, but I need to be elsewhere. Would you go with him? It would be nice for you two to meet and maybe talk about Ferne a little more. To be honest, I think he has struggled with his grief even more than I have, although, he is a man and men can be very inverted. Is that the right word?’ She sighed. ‘What else can I say? Men tend to hide away things that they feel will show a weakness in them.’