the word ‘irritable’, both placing the emphasis on the second syllable, not the first.
Vivid memories of Mia flew into her thoughts, details from their childhood she hadn’t thought of in years: lying together in the sun-warmed rock pools that smelt like cooked seaweed; doing handstands in the sea with salt water filling their noses; their first bike, cherry red, which Katie would pedal while Mia perched on the white handlebars; fighting like pirates on winter-emptied beaches with seagull feathers tucked behind their ears.
Katie had loved being an older sister, wearing the role like a badge of honour. At what point, she wondered, did our closeness begin to fade? Was it triggered by our feud when Mum was dying? Or maybe it had begun long before. Perhaps it wasn’t one incident, rather a series of smaller incidents, an unravelling, like a favourite dress that over time becomes worn: first a thinning at the neckline, then a loss of shape around the waist, and finally a loose thread opens into a tear.
‘Ma’am?’ A porter in a navy uniform, with dreadlocks tucked beneath his cap, stood beside her. ‘You’ve been here since I came on shift.’
She glanced at the time displayed on the bottom of the arrivals board. Two hours had slipped away from her.
‘Somethin’ I can help you with?’
She stood suddenly, her knees stiff from holding the same position. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘You hopin’ to find someone?’
She glanced to where two young women were embracing. The taller one stepped back and took the other’s hand, raising it to her lips and kissing it.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘My sister.’
*
Later that day she heaved the backpack onto the bed and looked around the motel room, hands on hips. The walls, glossed beige, were decorated by two framed prints of tulips, and the windows wouldn’t open so the warm fug of other people hung in the air. She noted the television remote bolted to the Formica desk, and the Bible and phone directory stacked on the bedside table. It wasn’t the sort of room that encouraged a lengthy visit, but this was where Mia had stayed, so Katie would stay here, too.
Her first impulse was to unpack, but she was a backpacker now following Mia’s route, moving on again tomorrow, and the next night, and the night after that. As a compromise she fetched out her washbag and placed it in the windowless bathroom next to the thin bar of soap provided by the motel. Exhausted from travelling, she wanted to lie down and rest, but it was only five o’clock in the evening. If she allowed herself to sleep now, she would wake in the night, battling to keep the dark memories at bay. Deciding she would get something to eat instead, she splashed cool water over her face, reapplied her mascara and changed into a fresh top. She grabbed her handbag and Mia’s journal, and left.
The receptionist gave her directions to the Thai restaurant where, according to the journal, Mia and Finn had their first meal. Katie wound her way through San Francisco’s wharf area as the sun went down, stopping only to call Ed to let him know she’d arrived safely.
Evening fog hung like smoke over the water and she pulled her jacket tight around her shoulders, wishing she’d worn another layer. In the journal, Mia had noted that San Francisco was a ‘melting pot of artists, musicians, bankers and free spirits’, and that she had loved ‘the electric pulse of the downtown’. In another time, Katie might have agreed and found herself smitten with the quirky architecture, the winding streets, and the eclectic shop fronts – but tonight she hurried on.
She arrived at the restaurant, a lively place where circular tables were packed with people talking, laughing, eating and drinking. A waiter led her towards a window seat; a group of men looked up appreciatively as she passed, conversation only resuming when she was well beyond them.
She straightened her jacket on the chair back while the waiter removed the second place setting. Jazz played through sleek speakers in the corners of ochre walls and above the music she tuned into a wash of American accents. The smell of warm spices and fragrant rice reached her and it struck Katie how hungry she was, having not managed to eat anything on the plane. She ordered a glass of dry white wine and by the time the waiter returned with it, she had chosen Penang king prawns.
Without the prop of a menu there was nothing to occupy her attention and she felt faintly conspicuous dining alone. It would be one of many small hurdles she’d need to face each and every day of this trip and suddenly the scale of the undertaking daunted her. She locked her legs at her ankles and tucked them beneath her chair, then flattened her hands on her thighs, consciously trying to relax. She congratulated herself: she had boarded a plane for the first time in years, and was now sitting alone in a restaurant, in a country she’d never visited. I’m doing just fine. Reaching for her wine, she drained half of it, then set Mia’s journal in front of her.
On the plane she’d only read the first entry, enough to learn where Mia and Finn stayed and ate. She had promised herself that she would savour each sentence, breathing life into the entries by experiencing them in the places Mia had been. Opening the journal, she felt oddly reassured by the company of Mia’s words, as if it were her sister sitting in front of her. She smiled as she read, ‘Even Finn blushed when the waiter swapped his chopsticks for a spoon. Not even a fork – a spoon!’ She pictured the remnants of Finn’s dinner spread across the starched white tablecloth, Mia laughing the infectious giggle Katie had always loved.
She thought of the times she’d heard Finn and Mia’s explosions of laughter through her bedroom wall, great whooping sounds that would go on for minutes, each of them spurring on the other. If she went next door, she might find Finn with a pair of trousers belted at his ribs taking off one of their teachers with uncanny accuracy, or see that they’d drawn handlebar moustaches and wire spectacles on each other’s faces in black felt-tip. She wished she could step into the room and laugh with them but often she found herself frozen in the doorway, her arms folded over her chest.
It wasn’t that Katie resented their friendship – she had a tight group of friends herself who she could call on in any crisis. What she did resent, and it took her some years to pin down the essence of this, was the way Mia responded to Finn. She laughed harder and more frequently in his company; they talked for hours covering all sorts of topics, when Mia was often a silent presence at home; and he had a knack of diffusing her dark moods, which Katie seemed only able to ignite.
‘Excuse me? Is this chair free?’
Startled, she glanced up from the journal. A man in a pastel-yellow polo shirt indicated the chair opposite her.
‘Yes.’ Imagining he intended to remove the chair, she was taken aback to find him lowering himself onto it, placing a tall glass of beer at her table and stretching a hand towards her. ‘Mark.’
His fingers were short and clammy. She didn’t return her name.
‘I’m here with my squash buddies,’ he said, nodding to the table of men she’d passed on her way into the restaurant. ‘But having lost, again, I couldn’t sit through the point-by-point debrief. You don’t mind me joining you, I hope?’
She did mind. Enormously. In other circumstances, Katie would have explained that she was unavailable, softening the blow with a flattering remark, and then the man could have been on his way, dignity intact. However, with the weariness of the day leaning on her shoulders, her usual social graces eluded her entirely.
‘So,’ Mark said, taking her silence as
