This Book Made Me Think of You(9)

She gives her sister a hug, catching a breath of her citrusy perfume.

“It’s nice to see you. I didn’t know you were coming over. No Raj?” Tilly braces herself for the sound of footsteps lumbering up the stairs. Not that she doesn’t love Harper’s boyfriend, but recently her small talk game is seriously lacking.

“Just me. I just got back from my trip,” replies Harper as she plonks the takeaway bag down on the table and starts helping herself to plates and cutlery from the cupboards. “And I wanted to come see you, especially as I missed your birthday, which I’m still gutted about.”

“It’s fine, I told you all I didn’t want to do anything.”

It had been hard enough to convince her parents that she really wouldn’t be coming back to Hay-on-Wye for Christmas, so they’d been disappointed when she said she also didn’t want to make plans for her birthday. For a while she worried they were going to turn up anyway, but then she used the widow card, and they thankfully backed down. Ever since Joe’s death, her parents have treated her like a fragile vase, tiptoeing around her and being especially gentle. Harper’s approach, on the other hand, has been to treat her like a broken vase that needs fixing.

“You didn’t have to bring food again. I could have ordered us something.”

“Well, I’m here now, and I figured you could probably do with a proper meal.”

“I eat proper meals.” Tilly thinks of the pesto pasta she’d planned to make later.

“Pesto pasta is not a proper meal, Tilly.”

A memory enters her mind of Harper calling her when she first left home to go to university two years after Tilly, freaking out because her jacket potato had exploded in the microwave and covered the entire thing in molten cheese. Back then Tilly had managed to calm her down and talk her through how to clean it before her new housemates found the mess, but the jacket potato days seem a long time ago for Harper. Harper has kept Tilly’s freezer well stocked over the past seven months with Tupperwares of home-cooked stews and curries, made using recipes picked up on her travels.

“Well, this does smell great. Thank you. Remind me where you were this time?” Tilly asks as she helps Harper peel back the lids from the takeaway cartons, the satisfying smell of spices filling the air.

“Phang Na. So this takeaway was probably a terrible idea, because there’s no way it will be as good as the real thing, but I’ve been missing Thai food since I got back.”

Harper’s job at luxury online travel magazine Voyageur takes her all around the world. Growing up, Harper had been adamant that she was one day going to see the whole world, whereas Tilly was always more comfortable reading about places than actually dreaming of visiting them. Harper stopped traveling as much for a while when Joe died, but she’s back to her usual workload now, a workload that can see her in several different countries in the same week.

When Harper asks what’s new with her, Tilly hesitates for a moment. “Actually, I received an unexpected gift on my birthday. Something Joe arranged for me before he died.”

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Harper says once Tilly has explained the gift. “And Matilda is the perfect choice. I remember you obsessing over that book when we were kids and becoming convinced you were Matilda. Do you remember when we tried to master telekinesis?”

“Oh god, I’d forgotten about that,” replies Tilly, a smile breaking across her face. “We broke so many mugs.”

“So, have you reread it yet?” Harper asks as she munches on a prawn cracker.

“Not yet.”

“Isn’t it aimed at seven-year-olds? It’s the perfect thing to get you out of your reading slump.”

Tilly has tried telling Harper that her inability to read is more than just a reading slump, but she doesn’t seem to get it.

“I don’t have time for reading. Work has been crazy. I’m working on a new memoir that’s set to be a big one…”

“Your work has always been crazy. Yet you still used to find time for reading. You’ve always been a reader. It’s just who you are.”

Tilly thinks of the line in Joe’s letter. What her sister doesn’t get is that the person she used to be died when Joe did. She’s different now, in a way that she isn’t sure Harper will ever really understand. There’s a darkness to her that wasn’t there before, that sometimes feels like a fog and other times like a stone lodged in her chest. She carries the darkness with her everywhere, all the time, even if on the surface she might look the same as before.

“The food was great, thanks for bringing it.”

Harper opens her mouth as if to push her again about the book, but instead she stands up, saying, “Let me help you tidy.”

Harper loads the dishwasher, stacking things in a haphazard way that Tilly will correct later.

“When are you going to clear some of this stuff?” Harper says once they’re sitting on the sofa nursing cups of tea, and gestures at Joe’s desk behind them. One of his sweaters is still draped over the chair, and the desk is covered in papers and framed photos of his family. Teetering piles of files and boxes litter the floor. “It’s pretty depressing in here, Tils.”

“It doesn’t bother me.” She just has to do a light amount of parkour over the living room furniture to get from one side of the room to the other without knocking any boxes over.