Free How to Fall by Jane Casey

past. Leave the door locked. Let the questions remain unanswered. Forget.
    Yeah. There was never really any chance
that
was going to happen.

5
    I MADE MY way down the garden alone, the key to the studio clutched in one hand. It was starting to drizzle again, the sky dark with the promise of real rain, and soon. The ground was waterlogged already. My feet slid on the muddy path – more of a track, really – and I wished I had brought my anorak.
    Tilly had been perfectly happy for me to go and look at her workplace.
    Mum was more perplexed. ‘Why do you want to go there?’
    ‘Just curious, I suppose.’
    She frowned. ‘It’s where your aunt works.’
    ‘You make it sound like an office. It’s a bit more interesting than that.’ I saw Mum wince and wished I’d put it differently. I knew she hated her job. She worked as a secretary for an elderly solicitor who was easing into retirement gradually and spent the summer at his holiday home in Florida. Working for him wasn’t difficult and having the summer off was a nice perk, but it was boring, and badly paid, and I knew she would have loved to try making a living as a photographer if she’d thought she was good enough. Dad had never encouraged her – quite the opposite – so she’d settled for second best. But it had to be hard on Mum to see her sister doing something creative for a living, something she loved.
    Still, I
did
want to see the studio. I looked at Tilly. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
    ‘No. Not at all.’
    ‘Don’t touch anything.’ Mum was using her extra-threatening tone of voice. ‘Don’t play with anything.’ Exactly as if I was three. To Petra, Mum said, ‘You can keep an eye on her.’
    ‘I’m not going. Seen it before.’ The break from the table seemed to have done Petra’s appetite a world of good; she was hoovering up the remaining sandwiches as if she was taking part in an eating contest.
    ‘I don’t think she’ll come to any harm in the studio,’ Jack said, smiling at me over Mum’s head. ‘The kids go down there unsupervised all the time. Or they used to.’
    ‘And I’m not working on anything at the moment.’ Tilly sounded matter-of-fact about it rather than tragic . ‘So there’s really no problem with Jess going wherever she likes.’
    ‘Freya’s stuff is on the right, in the corner. It’s all still there, Mum, isn’t it?’ Petra wasn’t looking at her mother when she asked, so she missed the way Tilly’s expression tightened, even though she answered calmly.
    ‘It’s all there. Almost as she left it.’ And she was smiling as she added, ‘Just a bit tidier.’
    The grass had grown up in front of the studio door, tall and lush. Weeds and nettles were threaded through it. I trod it all down so I could get at the door, wondering how long it had been since anyone else had been there. The key turned at the first time of asking, much to my surprise, but it was a modern lock that was well oiled and the door was solid. Mum was right: it was where Tilly worked, and far more organized than the house was. It was immaculate, the floor swept clean, the art materials filed away, the paintings arranged in racks. There were several big plan chests and I slid open a few drawers, feeling highly self-conscious about snooping. They turned out to contain drawings – preparatory sketches mainly. I couldn’t help being impressed by the sketches Tilly did to prepare for the proper portraits – fast ones that were nothing more than a few lines but captured the essence of a basset hound’s humpy back, or more detailed ones that she had worked on, shading in the delicate feathering of a cat’s fur around its eyes. I could see she was good at what she did, professional and dedicated in equal measure, and it was a lot better than the greetings-card cutesiness I had been expecting. Tilly’s own artwork was interesting too, but not as appealing to me, basically because I wasn’t sure I got it. Darcy had been reverent about