Soul Beach

‘I’ve tried not to think about it. We went to the bar where the ball was, and then I wanted to go to a club and Tim said we should get back early because it was your birthday do the next day. That’s how it started. I don’t remember how it finished.’
    I think of the CCTV images they broadcast on the news, showing the two of them on their way to the masked ball party in the union bar, then Meggie and Tim arguing outside and walking back to halls together, before a final shot of Tim back in the student union bar much later on. ‘You left together at about one. That’s the last anyone knows.’
    ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ She sighs. ‘How, Florrie?’
    ‘How what?’
    ‘How did I die?’
    ‘You were . . . you were suffocated.’
    She gasps.
    ‘What? Sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.’
    ‘No, Florrie, it’s OK. It explains something.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Only that I always used to get these nightmares. When I was a kid.’ Her voice is hesitant.
    ‘What kind of nightmares?’ I ask, though I have a horrible feeling I already know.
    ‘Of, well, of being buried alive. Of fighting for air, and the earth coming down on top of me, and nobody hearing.’
    ‘Oh, Meggie.’
    ‘Don’t fuss,’ she snaps and I know that warning tone means don’t you dare try to comfort me.
    Instead, I gaze out towards the horizon. The sun is beginning to set, so the light has changed to warmest peach, and the sea is darker, almost green. I don’t know what to say.
    ‘Meggie?’
    I hear a snuffling in my left ear. ‘Meggie, are you crying? Don’t cry. Please. I’m here.’
    But the crying continues. My sister was never a crier. Not even when her brace was fitted, or when she broke her wrist on next door’s trampoline the weekend before she was meant to be taking the lead in the school production of Les Mis . She still played Cosette, of course, holding her broom with one arm, her plaster cast camouflaged by rags. There was no way the understudy was taking the spotlight off Meggie.
    ‘I wish I could be with you,’ I say, but that makes her cry more. And anyway, what use would I be even if I was there? I don’t do comforting. I’m the one who always needs comforting, whether it’s Cara trying to distract me with dirty jokes, or Dad doing the world’s crappiest magic tricks, or Meggie singing lullabies . . .
    That memory gives me an idea. I’ve never bothered to sing. Why would I have even tried when my sister was so talented? But, right now, she sounds so hurt that anything must be worth a shot. I take a deep breath.
    ‘ Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound . . .’
    My croaky voice reverberates in the headphones. It’s not a sweet sound at all . I try to whisper tunefully instead.
    ‘ That saved a wretch like me.’
    She’s stopped crying, at least. I keep going, the words coming back to me phrase by phrase as I remember it was her song, the one that made the headlines after she performed it so beautifully in the second episode of Sing for your Supper . She reduced grannies to tears with her sincerity, even though behind the scenes she joked around, wondering smuttily what exactly was so amazing about Grace . . .
    ‘ I once was lost but now am found,
    Was blind, but now, I see.’
    I hum now, because I don’t know the second verse.
    And she takes over.
    ‘ Through many dangers, toils and snares . . . we have already come.
    T’was Grace that brought us safe thus far . . . and Grace will lead us home.’
    Her voice falters over the word home, but she’s sounding like Megan Songbird Forster again. I don’t need to see her any more, because hearing her is enough to make me remember everything that’s important about my sister.
    ‘ When we’ve been here ten thousand years . . . bright shining as the sun.
    ‘We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise . . . than when we’ve first begun.’
    When she finishes, I clap next to the laptop microphone. ‘Oh, Meggie, it hasn’t affected your voice,’ I say.
    ‘What hasn’t? Being dead?’
    I don’t say anything.
    ‘I haven’t sung once, you know.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Since I arrived . . . here. Not once. It’s not that kind of place. Climbing up on the jetty and doing my diva thang is not the way to keep a low profile, eh?’ She’s back to being funny, sarcastic, normal . I feel better momentarily, then immediately I feel worse. She shouldn’t be trying to cheer me up. It’s her that’s dead.
    ‘You don’t have to pretend, Meggie. You don’t have