The Angels' Share

by Maya Hess

  ‘Forget about Creg-ny-Varn? You know that’s not possible. And besides, that would mean forgetting about us.’ Connor’s eyes paled in the light of the fattening sun as it spread on the horizon like a deflating beach ball. He stood and snapped the curtains across the small window, the unusual light causing him to squint. ‘As kids,’ he added in case I thought he was referring to our present situation.

  I sighed. ‘God knows, I’ve tried.’ Again, I caused Connor to become motionless. I knew that he thought I was trying to forget us – now or then – but I didn’t make any attempt to put him right. As self-preservation, I needed him to believe that I didn’t feel anything for him – and how could I, anyway, in such a short time? It had been fourteen years, and my longing for him back then had simply been the need for a pillow fight or for someone to help me lug my homemade go-cart back up the driveway. I’d encountered him only twice since my return. Hardly cause for infatuation; barely time to recognise each other.

  ‘Then why come home?’

  I bit my lip so hard I thought it might burst. My hair was beginning to dry and, so it wouldn’t form wiry strands or unruly clumps, I mussed my fingers down its length. Besides, it gave me time to think. Connor watched as I tugged at a knot.

  ‘Does he have a wife? A lover?’ I decided upon a new tack.

  ‘Not that I’ve seen. We may, however, get the chance to find out.’ Connor’s expression promised information. What he showed me filled me with both intrigue and fear. He reached out to the oak mantel-piece and retrieved an envelope, passing it directly to me. I slipped out a gold-edged card and read.

  ‘What is he playing at? Who does he think he is?’

  ‘Lord of the Manor, perhaps?’

  ‘He’s ingratiating himself and fawning to Manx society, that’s what he’s doing. It’s nothing more than a vain attempt to secure a firmer hold on my inheritance.’ I wanted to toss the invitation onto the fire but found myself gripping it tightly, a new link to Kinrade.

  ‘It’s a Christmas party, Ailey. Not a plan of war. I was wondering if you’d like to be my guest but obviously if you feel that strongly about –’

  ‘No, wait. I’d be honoured.’ I read the words again, another step closer to the workings of Kinrade’s mind. He was going to have a party.

  ‘Something tells me it’s not my company you’ll be after.’

  ‘How right you are. Any chance to wear a silly costume.’ I ran my finger under the last line of the invite and showed Connor. ‘Did you realise it was fancy dress?’ I said with a smile. In other circumstances, it would be fun.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he laughed. ‘I know exactly what we can wear.’

  Connor opened a bottle of wine as the afternoon drifted into evening. I wasn’t sure if we’d eaten a late lunch or an early dinner but I didn’t care as I began to relax and the wine worked its magic on my thoughts. Despite having received the invitation several weeks ago, Connor knew little more about the party.

  ‘Everyone who works at the estate received an invite as well as most of the island’s elite society.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I remarked sourly, then I quickly realised that my employer didn’t even know of my existence yet, having entrusted the running of the house to Dominic. That in itself seemed strange, a gardener fulfilling such a role. ‘It should be me hosting this party, not Kinrade.’

  ‘Has it ever occurred to you that it was your father’s wish to leave his estate to Ethan?’ Connor’s direct question, a plain truth that I had been avoiding since I had learned of my father’s death, sank a wedge as thick as the cottage walls between us. Whose side was he on?

  Connor raised his eyebrows at my lack of response. I could see he wasn’t entirely approving of my battle. ‘I came to call for you the afternoon that you disappeared.’ He leaned forward on his forearms, the skin once again exposed by pushed-up sleeves. I could see their strength, how he had changed from the young boy that once struggled to land a fish. ‘Your father said nothing to me. He just pointed out to sea. When I turned to look, he closed the door and when I asked my father or the other villagers what had happened to you and your mother, no one would talk. Not to a young boy, anyway. I soon learned not to ask and I still don’t know the truth.’

  ‘My mother,’ I began, surprising myself with my clipped tone, ‘had an affair. Lots of affairs, actually.’ My mind began to gallop back to the past, a place I really didn’t want to visit. ‘My father found out and kicked her off the island.’

  ‘How could he do that?’

  ‘He shamed her in every social circle from Douglas to Peel. You know how gossip travels around here. In those days, my mother would never have survived without a constant stream of invites and functions to attend. But I was a child and knew little of what was going on. All I remember is that one day my life was turned inside-out and the people I loved most in the world were gone. And then she ended up running off to Spain with a much younger man.’

  ‘Is she happy?’

  ‘Deliriously.’ I grinned on my mother’s behalf. We had carved a life for ourselves in the sunburnt country and nestled within the community as if we had been there all our lives. As a teenager, I all but forgot the Isle of Man and its dank climate. I was too busy enjoying the thrills that accompanied being a young English girl amongst hoards of sexually hungry Spanish boys. But I couldn’t tell Connor this. ‘And I was happy too. I love my mother and know that she did the best she could at the time. That’s no reason to resent a person’s choices.’

  ‘You said that you were happy. Has that changed?’ Connor shifted uneasily, perhaps expecting me to admit to restlessness.

  ‘I’m not happy that I’ll never see my father again. Somehow, I always believed that one day I would return and get to know him again. Sadly, I didn’t feel able to do that until I’d made something of myself.’ I sighed, allowing my arms to rise and fall heavily. ‘I wanted to impress him and now it’s too late.’

  ‘Is this why you’re so intent on getting back your home?’ Connor paused and cocked his ear to the window, like an alert dog sensing the arrival of his owner.

  ‘Perhaps. And perhaps it’s just because I can’t bear the thought of a stranger living within the walls of my memories.’

  I watched Connor peel back the curtains and then shrug. ‘Thought someone was out there,’ he commented and then there was a sharp rap at the back door, proving him right. He excused himself, relieving me of having to explain my motives further. Would he truly understand that the more I learnt about Ethan Kinrade, the more I wanted him out of my home?

  I heard voices in the kitchen, one of them a girl’s, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

  ‘Come in and get warm,’ Connor said, the voices getting closer. ‘It’s no evening to be out. Drink?’

  ‘I’d love one. It’s nice to be back. I’m exhausted.’ By this time, the voices were in the small living room and I turned, annoyed at having an intimate moment with Connor disturbed – especially as I was still wearing his robe – and welded my eyes to the girl’s face until it slowly dawned on me who she was. She was draped around Connor’s neck, giving him a kiss as they came into the room.

  ‘Ailey,’ Connor said to me, ‘this is Steph. She’s here to learn some new production methods at the distillery.’ He then turned to the fragile young creature that clung to him, brushed a strand of white-blonde hair from her face – he touched her face – and said, ‘Steph, this is Ailey, my best friend from when we were kids.’

  Did he have to say ‘when we were kids’? Was it a temporary role that I’d fulfilled and now I was unable to be named as his best friend? Just because I’d been away for fourteen years, did that make me surplus to his emotional requirements? I was already jealous of Steph, and confused too, my brain scrabbling to thread together the bits of information that were spinning around my mind. It was rather like gathering up beads from a broken necklace. Instinctively, I held out my hand. Steph didn’t take it.

  ‘Steph’s been travelli
ng around Europe for the last few months. She’s come to visit for a couple of weeks. It’s been ages, hasn’t it?’ Connor gave her a squeeze and I thought she might break. Even beneath her winter layers, she would weigh no more than seven or eight stone, and standing next to Connor, who towered over her, only emphasised her petite body. I had all these thoughts before I realised who she was.

  ‘Did you mention a drink?’ she giggled, her pretty Scottish accent turning up at the edges. I still gawped, failing to move up as she joined me on the sofa.

  ‘I’ve just had a bath,’ I said stupidly, tugging at Connor’s robe. Steph looked at it briefly and then clinked glasses with Connor. He had forgotten to refill my glass so I got up and did it myself but when I returned from the kitchen, he was sitting next to Steph, laughing and pawing at her tiny leg with his sturdy hand.

  ‘Well, I’m going to get dressed and then I’ll head off,’ I said. My attempt to drain my newly filled glass in only two mouthfuls exploded in a spray of realisation as I heard Steph say ‘great sex’, after which she dissolved into helpless giggles. It was the intonation in her voice rather than her looks that finally joined the fragments in my mind. I didn’t even have time to consider why she was talking about great sex to Connor.

  ‘Steph, we met on the ferry. Do you remember? We were the only two not being sick? I fetched you a coffee and…’ – I hesitated, breathing in – ‘and then you stole my pocket-book as we were disembarking.’ As I stuck my hands on my hips and positioned my feet in a stance that planted me firm and tall in front of Steph and Connor, I had no idea that the robe had come apart and my left breast was partly revealed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her half smile obviously suppressed in an attempt not to embarrass me, ‘but I don’t think we’ve met before. And, er, your…’ She pointed a slim, painted fingernail at my exposed chest and might as well have hurled an ice dagger at me.

  I tugged the towelling back into place, the shock of revealing my breast considerably less than the surprise that I felt at Steph denying having met me before.

  ‘You must remember,’ I continued. My voice faltered but I refused to let this go. ‘You came and sat next to me as I was writing up my diary and virtually every other passenger was being sick except us. We had a brief chat and then you took out a book and began to read.’ I paused, desperately trying to think what she’d been reading. ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ I said triumphantly. ‘That’s what you were reading and then you told me about your trip to Paris and the good, sorry, great sex that you’d had there.’ If nothing else, I hoped that would turn Connor off her.

  I could see Connor shifting uncomfortably next to Steph, probably wondering if I’d had too much wine. ‘Ailey, why don’t you tell Steph about your life in Spain? She’d love to hear.’ A poor attempt at changing the subject and it didn’t prevent me from raising my eyebrows at Steph and waiting for her reply.

  ‘Nope, sorry,’ she said vaguely. ‘I’m sure I’d remember if I’d seen you. I’m sorry that you think I stole something of yours.’

  ‘Ailey’s under a bit of pressure, aren’t you Ailey?’ Connor’s voice hardened and, while I was in his home and drinking his wine and wearing his robe, I decided to remain civil. ‘She doesn’t mean anything by it. A case of mistaken identity, I think,’ he added, while I nodded in agreement.

  And as a result, my outburst caused two things: enormous self-doubt – perhaps I was going mad – and then Connor placing his hand on Steph’s upper thigh, leaving it there for the next twenty minutes while I regaled her with tales of life in Spain. Both ways, it hurt.

  ‘And what about you?’ I asked, tired of talking about olives and mountains and university life in Granada. Was it all so foreign to them? ‘What are you doing during your stay on the island?’

  ‘Work experience in the distillery mainly. Glen Broath has such a fine reputation.’ My stupid question caused Steph to drool adoration all over Connor and he returned an equally sickly-sweet look that told me he enjoyed the flattery. ‘Then I’ll be going back to the Highlands to help my father in his whisky business. I have no brothers.’ Steph and Connor then entertained me with stories about the whisky business and what a struggle it was to keep afloat in the shadow of massive companies. It seemed that Steph’s family business was a few years behind Glen Broath in terms of world trade and Steph was here to learn. Then it struck me that the female figure I had seen earlier in Glen Broath, when I’d sought out Connor in my distressed state, was Steph. It seemed strange that Connor hadn’t mentioned her before, especially as they appeared so close.

  ‘Like I said,’ I repeated. ‘I’d better be going. It’s a long walk.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Connor barked, finally levering himself away from Steph. He stood and took my elbow. ‘Sit and talk and drink more wine and forget your silly walk back to the beach at this hour. Have you seen the weather?’ Connor briefly exposed the night by tugging on the curtain. It was as if someone was squirting a hose pipe at the window.

  ‘OK,’ I said with a smile. He still cared then. ‘I’ll stay a while longer and hope the storm passes.’

  ‘No, you’ll stay the night with us and not say another word about it.’

  It was as if someone had suddenly opened the window and the hosepipe spray was hitting me directly in the face. A cold, relentless spike of water pounded my forehead and washed away all rationale. The only thought I had was of the word us and it rang through my head like the tolling bell on an ocean buoy.

  ‘Steph is staying with you?’ I think it was a question. Connor could have taken it either way.

  ‘Yes, of course. Where else did you think she would be staying?’ The last time I’d seen that look was when he was eleven and he’d hidden a naughty magazine in our stables. When it had been discovered and presented to my father, Connor denied all knowledge but sported the same mischievous look as he wore now. Was it only me who realised the implications? Two women, equally attracted to one man, spending the night together. It was the unspoken promise that was alluring. The potential of the night more provocative than the reality.

  ‘I’ll have to take you up on the offer. The thought of climbing over those rocks in the dark fills me with fear. And the tide will be in about now.’

  ‘Sense at last. You two get to know each other for a bit. I have to make an important phone call. Do help yourselves, ladies.’ Connor slid the bottle of wine across the table in no particular direction and went into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

  I could feel Steph staring at me even before the waft of breeze that Connor left in his wake had dissipated. The fire crackled and spat behind the glass door but I opened it anyway and nestled another log within the flames. It was something to do other than glare at Steph.

  ‘Sorry I denied knowing you. I didn’t expect to see you again. I’ve read your diary.’ She curled her legs up underneath her and rested her head on a brown velvet cushion with the most self-satisfied grin I have ever seen on anyone. ‘It’s quite shocking really.’

  ‘I could report you to the police for pickpocketing.’

  ‘What, and risk me handing over the evidence?’ She laughed.

  ‘I want it back.’ This was playground banter except there was no teacher to tell.

  ‘And what if I haven’t finished with it yet? We’re about three quarters of the way through.’ Steph twisted around on the sofa, her feline movements showing me just how slight she was.

  ‘We?’ My heart thudded as I poured more wine.

  ‘It’s been great bedtime reading. I would never have thought that such an innocent-looking person could have such deliciously wayward thoughts. Have you ever actually, you know, done what you’ve written about?’ Steph twirled a strand of silver-blonde hair around her tiny finger and, with widening eyes that were already too large for her small oval face, failed to suppress another giggle.

  ‘I demand that you give it back now! It’s personal property.’ I stomped about the living room, opening drawers and cupboards
looking for my journal. I could barely believe that I’d inadvertently stumbled across the wretched Steph – although that’s the Isle of Man for you – let alone comprehend that my diary had most likely been read by Connor. She said we, didn’t she? I would never be able to face him again and the prospect of anything happening between now us had been irrevocably dashed.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t. It’s not here.’ Steph unfurled herself as Connor returned from the kitchen. ‘But tell you what, I’ll drop it round to you. Connor can tell me where you’re staying.’

  And that was it. I knew I wouldn’t get any more from her and didn’t want to cause a fuss in front of Connor. I stared at the floor, unable to look him in the eye in case he realised what we were talking about. I wanted to scream at him and thump him for not confessing that he had read my journal. He couldn’t feign ignorance either, as the book had my name clearly written on the cover and he was aware that I had lost my diary. I mustered courage and turned to his warm, smiling, irresistible face, pretending for all I was worth that he was a repulsive traitor. It didn’t work.

  ‘How could you?’ I whispered. The spitting fire behind me and the steady trickle of water on glass were the only other noises in the breathless room. ‘Connor, how could you?’

  And I gathered my belongings and ran out into the rain.

  7

  Athol Street clicked with the heels of the lunchtime scurry. Dark suits ducked and twisted with mobiles pressed to their heads in the race for a table at the most popular bistros and café bars.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said as a young woman in a trouser suit knocked me with her briefcase. I walked along the street, the financial heartbeat of the island, staring up at the immaculate facades of the Victorian buildings that were peppered with more modern constructions where space allowed. It was hard to acknowledge the change that had taken place over the last fourteen years; the memories I had of Douglas, the island’s capital, while on shopping trips with my mother bore no resemblance to what I now saw.