Before I have even reached my parents’ flat across the road, I know I’ve overacted. A feeling of shame and embarrassment begins gnawing at my insides. I shouldn’t have snapped back at Kerry like that. I don’t know exactly what went on between him and his mum. In the same way as I don’t want him to judge me, I shouldn’t judge him. We are as bad as each other. We are both damaged goods.
Reaching the flat, I let myself in and go into the living room. I’ve already decided that I’ll apologise to Kerry later. I’ll let the dust settle and when we are both calmer, I’ll go over and say sorry.
I flop down on the sofa and switch on the TV. Nothing holds my attention. I feel restless. I make myself a cup of tea and bring it into the living room, placing it on the coffee table, next to the bunch of keys for the flat and shop. Idly I play with the keys, sliding them round the keyring itself, ticking them off in my mind like a school register. The key for the front door of the flat. The key for the back of the shop. The key for the front of the shop. The key for the till.
The bunch of keys is familiar. It’s the same bunch my dad has used since I can remember. I know he always kept the safe key separate, for security reasons, but where in the flat he hid it, I don’t know. It’s odd that Mum can’t remember, and even more odd that the spare key’s whereabouts is just as much of a mystery.
I get up and go into my parents’ bedroom. The safe is fixed in the bottom of Mum and Dad’s wardrobe. Kneeling down, I look at the safe. There is no other way to open it than with a key.
I look around the room, trying to determine a suitable hiding place. It would make sense that it’s in the same room as the safe. The dressing table seems the obvious place to start. I’m careful not to disturb anything too much and the things I move, I carefully replace. I feel a bit guilty looking through my parents’ stuff, but I justify it with the need to know for definite whether my dad was mugged or not. The thought that someone would do that is not nice. I hope his fall was purely an accident and finding the takings in the safe will confirm this and put everyone’s mind at rest. Not only that but Roisin’s parting words in the car park still bother me. The way she emphasised the word ‘accident’. As if she knew something about Dad’s fall that I didn’t.
After ten minutes going through all their drawers and both bedside tables, I find nothing. No sign of the key or even a clue as to where they might have put it.
‘Well, Dad, you’ve certainly hidden that key well.’ I huff in frustration and, giving up, I wander back through to the living room and gaze out at the grey waves and white horses crashing onto the shoreline. The wind has picked up and a flag attached to the radio mast of one of the fishing boats performs some sort of crazy hip-hop dance as it flaps wildly in the weather.
The earlier calm I gained from the rhythmic crashing of the waves eludes me now. The tide has turned not only out at sea, but here on land too. With Ed I had felt landlocked. Now I am bobbing like a piece of driftwood, the off-shore drift teasingly taking me into safe waters with Kerry and then pulling me back out again. I need to make a decision. To take control and not let the currents drag me along to unchartered waters.
The first step is to apologise to Kerry. He deserves it. I’m just about to turn from the window when a movement to the left catches my eye. In the dwindling clouded light of the day, I see Kerry as he emerges from the road between the bike shop and Beach Road. He stops by the shop front to light a cigarette. Whether he knows I’m watching or whether he looks up by chance, I’m unsure.
‘Wait there,’ I call through the glass, holding up my hand to him. Animatedly, I tap my chest with my finger and point at him. ‘I’m coming down’
With that I grab my jacket and handbag from the back of the chair and race out of the flat. I go to run down the steps, but then, remembering Dad lying in hospital, slow myself to a more orderly descent.
Safely reaching the bottom, I jog round to the front of the shops. I expect to see Kerry standing there but the street is empty. I look around, completing a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn. Not a sign.
My shoulders droop, disappointment floods through me. He hasn’t waited. Maybe he didn’t see properly or misread my mad hand gestures. He’s probably only gone to the pub, otherwise he would have been on his bike.
I take a deep breath. ‘I’m no driftwood,’ I mutter and, walking faster and more determined than necessary, head for The Smugglers.
As I turn the corner, the pub within a few hundred yards, I let out a spontaneous groan. Walking towards me is Roisin.
‘Look who it is. I was just thinking about you,’ says Roisin, standing square in the middle of the path.
‘Not now,’ I say. ‘I’m busy.’ I sidestep onto the road, intending the bypass her.
Roisin’s step matches mine and once again blocks my way.
I sigh. ‘Roisin, this is silly. We’ve nothing to say to each other.’
‘We have unfinished business,’ says Roisin, pulling herself up straight, ready to strike like a cobra.
‘Not interested,’ I reply. Again, I go to move round Roisin and again she anticipates the move.
‘I know about the baby. Your mum told me what really happened.’
And there’s the strike. Words of venom spit at me, piercing my skin, fangs spiking deep into my heart. I gasp. A physical reaction to the poison Roisin has administered. My mum knows? My mum knows about the baby and she told Roisin?
‘I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ A clichéd response, but I can’t think of anything else as I succumb to the toxic shock.
‘You had that baby,’ Roisin’s lip curls. ‘You’ve lied all these years. You and your mum have kept that secret. My brother was the father. You denied my mother the right to a grandchild. If you hadn’t convinced Niall to run away with you that night, then he would still be alive and my mother would be rejoicing at two lives instead of eternally mourning the loss of one.’
‘You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’ My voice sounds distant. I’m aware I’m not processing any kind of thought, let alone verbalising it. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion on the TV.
‘I hold you wholly responsible for the death of my brother. Which also means, I hold you wholly responsible for the mental state of my mother. She is a broken woman because of you.’
‘Me? You hold me responsible. Your mother is responsible, not me.’ I snap out from the shock. I push the thought that my mum knows my secret from my mind. I think of the guilt I’ve had to live with all this time about what I did. How I was left with no choice. And yet, Roisin blames me when it was her mother who didn’t want me to have the child. The injustice clouds my thoughts and I hear myself snarl back at my old school friend. ‘Your mother wanted me to have an abortion. She wanted to kill her own grandchild.’
The words are out and in that moment I don’t care. To see the look on Roisin’s face is enough; a look of disbelief. For a moment the curled lip and angry eyes are gone. We stare at each other. I can hear nothing but my own breathing and blood pumping rapidly through my ears. Roisin breaks the stalemate.
‘You’re a liar, Erin Hurley, always have been and always will be.’
‘I’m telling the truth.’
‘My mother would never kill her own flesh and blood.’
‘You really don’t know her, do you? I’ve seen the real Diana Marshall and it’s not that pleasant, I can tell you.’
Roisin grabs the collar of my jacket. ‘Liar! Liar!’ she screams into my face. I struggle, trying to free myself.
‘Get off!’ I shout back.
From nowhere, two pairs of hands push between us.
‘Come on, girls. Break it up.’ It’s Kerry. Calm but strong, pulling me back whilst Joe steps between us and grapples with Roisin’s hands.
‘Much as it’s every man’s fantasy to see two women fighting, unless you can do it in bikinis and a mud bath, I’m not interested.’
Roisin continues to yell at me. ‘You’re a liar!’ She jostles with Joe in an attempt to get at me. ‘And I’m going to prove it.’
‘Get her out of here,’ says Kerry to his cousin. He turns to me, taking hold of my arm rather unceremoniously. ‘You, come with me.’
I briefly consider protesting, but taking another look at Joe still keeping Roisin under control, I decide against it. Joe throws a ‘What the fuck?’ look in Kerry’s direction.
‘Don’t ask me!’ Kerry calls over his shoulder as he practically frog-marches me down Beach Road.
Kerry thought about taking Erin back to his flat but after their little set-to earlier, he decided against it. Getting Erin anywhere near his bed would be asking for trouble, he would only want get her into it again and, at the moment, he didn’t think that was a good idea.
Instead he opted for the beach. It seemed the safest choice. Erin didn’t appear to have any objection. In fact, she was the quietest he had heard her. He was holding onto her hand now, despite her being a step behind him. He glanced at her but she kept her eyes fixed on an invisible marker ahead. He thought for a moment he could see tears gathering but she blinked hard, denying their leave.
They reached the beach, the tide was at its peak, crashing noisily on the shoreline, throwing up seaweed and then dragging the dregs away, only to bring them back onto the beach with the next wave.
Kerry led Erin to the sand dunes, a familiar spot where the dunes dipped, forming a small valley and providing shelter from the threatening gale.
‘Glad it’s not just me you’re spoiling for a fight with today,’ he said, sitting down next to her, drawing his legs up and resting his elbows on his knees. ‘Were you planning on having a row with everyone in the village or were me and Roisin singled out for special treatment?’
‘I didn’t pick the fight with Roisin,’ she said, scooping up a handful of sand and letting it pour through her open fingers.
‘But you did with me?’
She turned to look at him. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to come across all high and mighty. Whatever’s gone on with you and your mum, it’s not my place to criticise. You know, glass houses and stones and all that.’
Kerry studied her for a moment. She looked him straight in the eye, unflinching, her face open, she was genuinely sorry. ‘There may have been a slight over-reaction on my part,’ he conceded.
‘Can we scrub all that?’
‘Consider it scrubbed.’ He was aware of the flutter of relief somewhere in the pit of his gut. Erin Hurley was definitely under his skin. Big time. To distract himself from this rather unnerving realisation, Kerry put his arm around her and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on top of her head. She responded by lifting her head, her lips seeking his.
‘That’s better,’ she said as she drew away from him.
‘I have a feeling making up with Roisin won’t be quite as straightforward,’ said Kerry. Immediately, he felt Erin’s shoulders tense. It really was a tricky subject for her. What the hell had gone on between those two?
‘I’ve no intention of making up with Roisin.’ Erin ran the pendant back and forth on the silver chain around her neck.
‘What is it with you two?’
‘Please, Kerry, can we change the subject?’
‘No. We can’t.’ said Kerry. ‘Look, Erin, I think I’ve made it perfectly clear how I feel about you. I really like you, really like you. We get along well. We get each other. And, we’ve both got demons from the past.’ He paused to gauge her reaction. She didn’t pull away. He took this as a good sign and carried on. ‘If we’re to make anything of it, then I think we have to be honest with each other. We need to have complete trust in each other.’
‘I know what you’re saying and, yes, I agree, but you have to earn trust.’
‘Of course you do and sometimes you have to follow your gut instinct about who you can trust.’
‘Do you feel you can trust me?’
She was testing him. He was willing to play. ‘I do. I know I can. You and me, we’re from the same mould.’
‘Tell me what it is that your mother said to make you hate her.’
He had been expecting this and he was willing to sacrifice this for her. It would also explain to Erin his reaction to earlier.
‘As you know, my dad died when I was a teenager. Cancer. It wasn’t diagnosed until it was very advanced. Three months from start to finish.’ He looked out to sea, thinking back to his father. ‘Me and mum, we were pretty cut up, as you can imagine. It was the worst time in my life.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Erin. She placed a hand on his arm and dropped a kiss on his shoulder.
‘After a few years, Mum remarried. Me and my stepdad, we never hit it off. I was a rebellious teenager who didn’t want anyone taking the place of my father. My mum had a baby with him and after that things really got bad at home. To cut a long story short, I wasn’t exactly the model son and I rebelled a bit.’
‘That’s only natural,’ said Erin. She sounded genuine and empathetic.
‘I got into trouble a lot, both in and out of school. Basically, I had a big bust up with my mum and stepdad one night. They called the Guards and kicked me out. I spent the next two nights sleeping rough in a farmer’s barn. Word got back to Max what had happened. He and Joe came and found me. Max gave me a job and roof over my head.’
‘That was good of him. You’re lucky you had someone who would do that for you,’ said Erin.
A silence fell between them as Kerry thought back to when he was kicked out of home. It was so much more than just an argument, but even thinking about it now still cut through him. Sliced through his heart like a stake post being driven into the ground. ‘I always thought a mother was supposed to love her child unconditionally. I always believed a mother would never turn her back on her child. I was wrong.’
He felt Erin shift her position next to him. Her body tensed. From out the corner of his eye he saw her swallow hard. Her first attempt to speak failed. Her second attempt brought with it a wobble to her voice.
‘Sometimes,’ she began. ‘Sometimes, the motives aren’t always clear, but I’m sure a mother always loves her child.’
Kerry let out a scoffing noise. ‘Jesus, Erin, you’ve got some fairytale image of mothers. That may well be true of your mother or your sister, but it’s certainly not true of mine.’
‘So tell me what happened. Trust me,’ she coaxed.
‘She made it perfectly clear what she thought of me. The last words she said left me in no doubt.’ He dug his hand in his jacket pocket, pulling out his baccy. Deftly he rolled a cigarette. Cupping his hands to shield the lighter from the breeze, he drew hard on his cigarette. He was aware Erin was waiting for him to continue. ‘There was no place for me in her life. She had her new family. I didn’t fit in.’
‘What exactly did she say?’
Kerry drew on his cigarette again, buying time. He had never told anyone what his mother had said. The words gouged his heart too much. Fuck it. Hadn’t he just preached to Erin about telling the truth and not having secrets? He dug his heel into the sand and drew a deep breath. ‘She said she wished I had never been born.’
There. He’d said it.
‘She said that?’ Erin sounded shocked. In some perverse way, Kerry was pleased with her reaction. It meant all these years of pain, feeling rejected and unloved were justified.
‘Yes. Those were her exact words.’
‘Weren’t they just said in the heat of the moment, though?’
‘I don’t think the heat of the moment lasts for nearly nine years, does it?’ Kerry stubbed his cigarette end out in the sand. ‘I don’t want to speak to her. I’ve cut her out of my life completely.’
‘But she sends you letters,’ said Erin. ‘Doesn’t that tell you something? She might be apologising. Trying to make amends. I’m sure she still loves you. Maybe she…’
Kerry cut her off. ‘Don’t. You don’t know her. You don’t know what she’s like.’
‘Yes, but…’ This time Erin stopped herself.
‘But, what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, go on. What were you going to say?’ He could feel himself getting angry. This was a stupid idea and more the fool him for thinking that by telling Erin that she would understand.
‘That a mother loves her child no matter what.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got a mum who loves you. You’ve come from a stable home. You weren’t rejected by your own mother. A real mother wouldn’t do that to their child.’
‘It’s not always that simple,’ said Erin. She began drawing circles in the sand again.
‘It is in my book.’
They sat in silence for a while. Kerry had no desire to continue the conversation about his mother’s behaviour and he was glad Erin didn’t seem interested either.
The wind blew across the dunes, making the long grasses bow in unison. Gradually, the thoughts of the confrontation with his mother and all he associated with it began to drift from his mind and, with it, the tension eased from his body.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘This is why I can’t deal with it. I get too mad.’
‘It’s because it hurts,’ said Erin. ‘And that hurt goes both ways.’
Kerry wasn’t sure he agreed, but he didn’t want to talk about it any more. ‘I could do with a pint. You fancy a drink?’
‘Now?’
‘Yeah, now.’ He stood up and held out his hand to help Erin to her feet. ‘Don’t think you’ve got out of telling me your secret.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Erin with a smile. ‘You’re going to ply me with alcohol to loosen my tongue.’
‘Something like that.’
The pub is quiet and I’m glad Kerry texted Joe to check Roisin wasn’t about. Bumping into her again isn’t something I would relish just yet.
Joe and Bex are sitting in the corner of The Smugglers and have already got a drink in for us.
‘Where are the children?’ I ask as we sit down.
‘Max and Louise have taken them out for a while,’ says Bex. ‘It feels odd not having Breeze bundled up in front of me.’
‘We can all relax and enjoy a drink together,’ says Joe. He lifts up his pint. ‘Cheers.’
‘Let’s hope it stays this way,’ says Kerry, as we all make an approximation of clinking glasses.
‘Don’t be worrying about Roisin now,’ says Joe. ‘She’s gone off home. She’ll be fine tomorrow. Probably just having an off day.’
‘When isn’t she?’ I can’t help but mutter the remark, albeit quietly into my glass.
‘Ah, come on, Erin. She’s not that bad,’ says Joe. ‘She’s had a lot to contend with since…’ His voice trails off.
‘Since the accident,’ I say. ‘Well, she’s not the only one.’
‘It was and has been difficult for all of us,’ says Bex. ‘Admittedly, more so for others.’ She gives me a comforting look. Bex is kind, always the peace-maker. ‘Don’t mind Joe, now,’ she says. ‘He’s always had a soft spot for Roisin.’
‘That might be so, but Roisin and myself, we go back a long way,’ says Joe. He leans over to Bex. ‘But you, my love, know I have eyes for you and you alone.’
‘Is that so?’ says Bex, tapping his arm. ‘I always remember when we were teenagers, how you and Roisin were glued to each other’s sides. I used to think you were going out with each other.’
‘God spare us,’ says Kerry.
‘We were friends,’ says Joe. ‘Sure, we were more like brother and sister back then. Wouldn’t you agree, Erin?’
‘A proper double act,’ I say. I realise I haven’t quite managed to inject the banter into my voice that everyone else has been enjoying. Three pairs of eyes look at me in an awkward moment of silence.
‘Right, who’s for another round?’ says Kerry, putting us all back on an even keel. ‘Come on, Joe, you can help me at the bar.’ He gives his cousin an indiscreet kick under the table.
We spend the next couple of hours on safer subjects, the atmosphere being warm and enjoyable.
It’s early evening when we part company with Joe and Bex at the top of the High Street. I lean into Kerry as we wave them off down the road.
‘I think your plan to get me wrecked has worked,’ I say.
‘Not too wrecked, I hope,’ says Kerry. ‘I’ve got plans for you.’ He gives me a tap on the backside.
‘And I have plans for you.’ I return the gesture.
I’m not sure what time it is when I wake up, but the evening is drawing in, the last flecks of daylight shimmer against the dipping sun. I pull the duvet up and snuggle against Kerry, who is sleeping soundly. I feel relaxed and happy despite the altercation with Roisin earlier.
I think about it rationally. Okay, Roisin found the photograph of me and Niall. I don’t know how or where as I don’t know what Niall did with it after I gave it to him. It’s irrelevant, really. The fact of the matter is that Roisin has it. The words I’d written on the back, one plus one equals three, were obviously a giveaway and she must have guessed I was pregnant when I was with Niall. And the reason for her resurrecting it all now, well, that’s simple. She wants revenge. She’s always blamed me for the accident and hated that anyone should feel sorry for me or my family. I remember between the accident and the funeral, she was going around the village telling people it was all my fault. Apparently, she hated it if anyone sympathised with me. I’m not sure whether she’s hedging her bets that she knows what happened to the baby or not.
Kerry stirs and rolls over, his arms slipping round me. ‘Hello, there,’ he says, his voice heavy with sleep. ‘You okay?’
I wriggle even further into his embrace. ‘Of course. You?’
‘Silly question.’ He squints and rubs at his eyes so he can see the face of his watch. ‘Half-eight. We must’ve been asleep a good hour. Cup of tea?’ He rolls over out of bed, pulling on his jeans and t-shirt.
I get myself dressed and follow him out to the living room, where I make myself comfortable on the sofa, curling my legs up underneath me.
‘I’m not used to all that afternoon drinking,’ I say, accepting the cup of tea Kerry offers me. ‘I feel like I’m getting a hangover now. I’m such a lightweight.’
Kerry sits beside me and we drink our tea in silence for a while until he speaks. ‘So…,’ he says.
‘So?’ I repeat, although I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming next. I brace myself.
‘Soooo, what’s the story with Roisin?’