The Sea Sisters Read Free

answerphone. Katie tried searching out job opportunities using her recruitment contacts, but fixing Mia to something was like pinning a ribbon to the wind.
    Noticing a pair of mud-flecked running shoes, she remembered the evening Mia announced she was going travelling. Katie had been in the kitchen preparing a risotto, slicing onions with deft, clean strokes. She tossed them into a pan as Mia wandered in, a pair of white earphones dangling over the neckline of her T-shirt, to fill her water bottle at the tap.
    ‘Going running?’ Katie had asked, blotting her streaming eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘How’s the hangover?’ When she’d gone to shower before work, Katie had found Mia asleep on the bathroom floor wearing a dress of hers borrowed without asking.
    ‘Fine,’ she replied, keeping her back to Katie. She turned off the tap and wiped her wet hands on her T-shirt, leaving silver beads of moisture.
    ‘What happened to your ankle?’
    Mia glanced down at the angry red cut that stretched an inch above her sock line. ‘Smashed a glass at work.’
    ‘Does it need a plaster? I’ve got some in my room.’
    ‘It’s fine.’
    Katie nodded, tossing the onions with a wooden spoon, watching their sharp whiteness soften and become translucent. She turned up the heat.
    Mia lingered by the sink for a moment. Eventually she said, ‘I spoke to Finn earlier.’
    Katie glanced up; his name was so rarely spoken between them.
    ‘We’ve decided to go travelling.’
    The onions started to sizzle, but Katie was no longer stirring. ‘You’re going travelling?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘For how long?’
    Mia shrugged. ‘A while. A year, maybe.’
    ‘A year!’
    ‘Our tickets are open.’
    ‘You’ve already booked?’
    Mia nodded.
    ‘When did you decide this?’
    ‘Today.’
    ‘Today?’ Katie repeated, incredulous. ‘You haven’t thought it through!’
    Mia raised an eyebrow: ‘Haven’t I?’
    ‘I didn’t think you had any money.’
    ‘I’ll manage.’
    The oil began to crackle and spit. ‘And what, Finn’s just taking a sabbatical? I’m sure the radio station will be thrilled.’
    ‘He’s handed in his notice.’
    ‘But he loved that job…’
    ‘Is that right?’ Mia said, looking directly at her. The air in the kitchen seemed to contract.
    Then Mia picked up her water bottle, pushed her earphones in, and left. The pan started to smoke so Katie snapped off the hob. She felt a hot flash of anger and took three strides across the kitchen to follow but then, as she heard the tread of Mia’s trainers along the hallway, the turning of the latch, and finally the slam of the door, Katie realized that what she felt most acutely was not anger or even hurt, it was relief. Mia was no longer her responsibility: she was Finn’s.
    *
    It was mid-afternoon when the phone rang. Ed glanced up from his laptop; Katie shook her head. She had refused to speak to anyone, allowing the answerphone to record friends’ messages of condolence that were punctuated with awkward apologies and strained pauses.
    The machine clicked on. ‘Hello. It’s Mr Spire here from the Foreign Office in London.’
    A nerve in her eyelid flickered. It was Ed who reached for the phone just before the message ended. ‘This is Katie’s fiancé.’ He looked across to her and said, ‘Yes, she’s with me now.’ He nodded at her to take the phone.
    She held it at arm’s length, as if it were a gun she was being asked to put to her head. Mr Spire had called twice since Mia’s death, first to request permission for an autopsy to go ahead, and later to discuss the repatriation of Mia’s body. After a moment, Katie pressed her lips together and cleared her throat. Bringing the phone towards her mouth, she said slowly, ‘This is Katie.’
    ‘I hope this is a convenient time to talk?’
    ‘Yes, fine.’ The dry, musty warmth of the central heating caught at the back of her throat.
    ‘The British Consulate in Bali have been in