Free What You Left Behind by Samantha Hayes Page A

have to bring these to you.”
    Lana snapped off the rubber gloves and opened the back door.
    “Has Mum been having a sort-out?” she asked, but Gil was already shaking his head.
    “Mum’s nowhere to be found,” he said.
    Lana smiled, guessing she was tending to the horses. Gil often got muddled, sometimes even forgetting that he was her uncle or that Tony was his elder brother.
    He handed the bags to Lana just as one split open. An assortment of male clothing puddled at her feet, as if their wearer had magically disappeared from inside them. And when Lana saw the rugby shirt with the stitched-on name label at the breast, she realized that was kind of true.
    “Bye then,” said Gil, and headed for the door.
    “Wait.” Lana bent down to retrieve the rugby shirt and ran her finger over the embroidered name. Simon Hawkeswell . It was the second time in five minutes that she’d been faced with her dead brother. “Whose idea was it to get rid of this stuff?”
    “Tony said to bring them, he said they were in the way. I tripped over.” Gil rolled up the leg of his long shorts to expose his kneecap. It had the red crown of a fresh bruise.
    Think patella , her mother said in her head. Consider X-rays. Cartilage. Hairline fractures. Reduce the swelling. Immobilize and ice …
    “Ouchy,” Lana commented.
    She knew the tack room had been used for all sorts of dumping over the years, not least for Gil. He’d been moved out there not long after Simon died, when his artwork took over the house. Her dad had got fed up with all his mess and converted the little outbuilding into a place for his brother to enjoy some independence. Lana had felt bad for him at first, as if he were an unwanted possession, likeSimon’s things—stuff that no one had the heart to get rid of completely but didn’t want in the house.
    “He likes it out there,” her father had said.
    “He’s perfectly happy,” her mum had agreed.
    And Gil did seem content living in the tack room. It had a wood-burner, a kitchenette with a couple of cupboards from Ikea, an old sofa, and an ancient boxy television rigged up to receive all the channels. There was no bathroom so Gil used the gardener’s toilet and washed standing up by the kitchen sink. Lana always knew when he’d sneaked into the house for a bath because of the earthy scent he left behind.
    “Thanks for bringing the stuff, Gil.” She tried to sound grateful. She’d had no idea Simon’s things had been bagged up to be given away. She’d not been in his bedroom since it happened.
    “Dad said you have to give them to the homeless people,” Gil said.
    Lana felt a pang of sadness. She smiled and nodded, placing the bags on the table. When she looked round, Gil had gone.

    S IMON HAD BEEN big and healthy, sprouting out of himself for as long as Lana could remember. Abby was twig-like and drugged, her head poking out of the wide neck hole like a dried-up autumn berry. Simon’s shirt was massive on her.
    “How do I look?”
    She was lying on her bunk, smoothing the bloated curve of her belly, the only large thing about her. Lana thought she looked like a famine victim.
    Think mineral and protein deficiencies , her mother shrieked in her head. Electrolyte imbalances, dehydration, and muscle atrophy .
    Her stomach clenched at the thought of the exam results. She remembered her papers being collected up and whisked off to anunknown marker who would decide the rest of her life with a few quick flicks of a pen. She felt sick. The pressure was on, now that Simon was gone.
    “You look great,” she said quietly.
    Sometimes she hated Simon for what he’d done to them all. He’d played in the first fifteen. He was fit. He was the best-looking lad in his school —the jock , Dad used to tease proudly. He’d gained a scholarship to university for that autumn, won essay-writing competitions. Got straight As and played the violin. Everyone was his friend. The girls adored him. He was going to be a vet.