LITMIR.BIZ

       10. Jess

      Watching Downton Abbey fades in importance as I listen to Max apologize for calling so late on a Sunday. I study him as he speaks. He’s tall, with tight cut hair and brooding, heavy-lidded eyes. On the third finger of his left hand there is the faint tan line of a thick wedding band. He reminds me of someone; an old college tutor of Anna’s whose name I’ve forgotten. As he shifts uncomfortably on our tatty sofa, I wonder what possessed Anna and me to bring it home. Even if we had ever got around to reupholstering it, as planned, it really is too big for one and too small for two.

      He’s taking in the room, eyes scanning left and right. They linger on a large black-and-white canvas photo of Anna and Rose that I have on the wall. Pug, delighted at new blood, is pushing a tennis ball along the floor, hoping that Max will take the hint and play with her.

      ‘How’s Anna’s little girl?’ Max asks.

      ‘She’s doing well. Considering. She’s a happy child.’

      ‘That’s good. Does she miss her, I mean obviously … can you tell if she does?’

      I’m surprised at his bluntness. There’s something refreshingly honest about it and, rather than disarming me, I’m drawn to him.

      ‘There’s times – she asks me about Mummy being with the angels.’ I raise a palm in the air. ‘Not my doing. I never told her that. It was something her father told her way too soon. A couple of weeks after … It was much too soon … Anyway, she’s away on holiday with him at the moment.’

      I stop talking, not sure why I’m rambling about Sean’s belief in the afterlife.

      ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.’ Max suddenly seems nervous, pulling on his shirtsleeve every few seconds.

      ‘You don’t need a reason. You’re a friend of Anna’s.’

      ‘I’ve always thought you must have a million questions, about that day.’

      ‘Did you see what happened?’ I watch as his Adam’s apple reacts to my question.

      ‘Yes.’ He pulls himself together. ‘A group of us were sitting across the valley, looking through the binoculars to see if we could spot them. They had gone up top, all of them off-piste.’

      ‘Go on,’ I urge him. He’s looking at me as if he’s not sure I’m ready to hear. He’s probably right but I press him anyway.

      ‘We heard it first. We hadn’t heard the boom, that sound you hear when it’s a controlled one. When the snow came, it was as if the whole of the mountaintop just slid downwards.’

      I feel an ache in my chest that seems to have started in the centre of my heart and is sending gripping, clawing pains outwards. My hand automatically rests there. Pug is circling my left foot, looking up at me. She whimpers softly.

      ‘I was watching her ski,’ Max continues. ‘She was a great skier, beautiful to watch. That day she was dressed in an all-in-one red suit.’

      The one I bought for her last Christmas. I searched high and low, contacted every ski store in the land until I found the one she’d circled in a magazine. On Christmas morning, she had whooped with the delight of a two-year-old getting their first doll. That was our last Christmas together, the three of us. We—

      ‘One minute I could see her, then snow, so much of it, and I saw her go. She tried to out-ski it, but I saw her disappear …’

      His eyes fill quietly and immediately I envy him. I envy him the ability to cry when I’m left with this constant, searing pain in my heart. He wipes the tears away with his sleeve, looks across the room at me. I avoid his eyes and, afraid that he will judge me some sort of cruel, unfeeling woman, tell him, ‘I haven’t been able to cry. Not since … Not at all. It’s bizarre really, I could cry at Bambi beforehand and now, now …’ I stand. ‘It’s like my tear ducts are permanently blocked.’

      ‘I can’t stop,’ he says. ‘I was the one who asked her to come on that holiday with us.’

      ‘You feel guilty.’

      He nods aggressively.

      I want to tell him that he should, that it’s not my job to assuage his guilt, and that if he had kept his mouth shut that Anna would still be here with me and Rose. Instead, I tap his shoulder reassuringly as I walk across the room to the fridge. I imagine Anna trying to out-ski it. She would have tried. She would have tried hard because my daughter would have wanted to live. Every sinew in her body would have stretched to the max. I pour a large vodka from a bottle, hold it up in his direction. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners. Would you like a drink?’

      ‘No, thank you.’ He shakes his head, angles it. ‘Is that her phone?’

      I sit down, place my drink on the table beside me. ‘Yes, it is. The police had it, they’ve just sent it to Anna’s father. I can’t help feeling it has been sitting in some evidence locker, ignored all this time. I actually thought she had it on her.’ My voice drifts.

      ‘I gave it to them,’ he says. ‘She’d asked me to look after it while she skied.’ He shrugs awkwardly. ‘After the accident, I gave it to them, knew they’d be trying to ping it to try and …’ He’s struggling to find a way to say ‘locate her’.

      I pick it up again and it’s moments before

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