“They do, actually. Yesterday I was in a situation that would have scared me in the past but it wasn’t a bother anymore.”
“What was that?” He turned slightly and crossed his legs alongside me, looking as chilled out as a man could. Clearly he’d flown a lot and yet I’d only taken my first flight earlier in the year.
“My mother used to lock me in the outside toilet when I was naughty. It was disused and smelt funny. When she’d lock me in there, there was no light, and no escape. It was merely a bog and nothing else. It was tiny. For years, thinking of it has given me claustrophobia but yesterday I used one of those public toilets in the city, you know the tiny ones with the sliding doors? And I wasn’t scared anymore.”
“Maybe it’s less the tablets, and more you, knowing she can’t hurt you anymore,” he said, taking hold of my forearm, gently squeezing it.
With gentle ease I pulled my arm away from him. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea or start thinking we were actually friendly. Not after what he said the other night, which I was still raw about. The more I thought about what he’d said to me, the more angry I became and it was bubbling up from deep down inside of me. I couldn’t let him see that I was still at war with my feelings for Dante, who I’d seen everyday for six years – and now, nothing.
“No, because I sat having a wee, saying to myself I should be anxious, but I wasn’t. I even tried to tell myself I should feel something, but actually, I felt nothing.”
“You have showered since then, right? Those piss stations are fucking rank!”
I laughed. “Ha. What do you think?”
I looked around us at other people sat in first class on the budget airline plane we were crammed into and decided I had a lot of life experiences yet to tick off. I’d taken for granted all the things Dante’s wealth had afforded me, but now I was getting to grips with real life – and it both scared me and drew me closer, too.
He sniggered. “I imagine this is slumming it for you? Big time.”
“Pretty much. Usually by now, Sexton would have tucked me in with an Edinburgh wool blanket, an Irish coffee slowly lulling me into a nap before landing.”
“It doesn’t make sense, does it? Such a gross loss of life.”
“No,” I agreed, grabbing his knuckles again when turbulence got hairy once more, “it makes no sense. He was so kind to me and didn’t deserve to die. We had this great afternoon at the Ritz, it was amazing, just me and Sexton. I still can’t believe it…” I looked Edward straight in the eye, realising for the first time his brown irises were surrounded by dull-amber outer circles. “…I–I–”
I forgot what I was even going to say. God, he was so handsome. Even I couldn’t deny it.
“Miss him?” Edward finished for me.
“Yes.” I nodded, still focused on his eyes, hardly able to tear myself away from them.
Edward held my gaze but then suddenly looked at my mouth. I swiftly took my eyes off his, turning to look out of the plane window next to my seat.
“I still don’t understand how he got killed unless something really bad went down? Nothing about it feels right.”
“Dante didn’t tell me the details but murder is never right, is it?”
“Yes, I know.”
I heard Teddy take a sip of his Scotch and he asked an air steward for one more.
We’d soon be landing at Cork and from there, I’d drive us to Youghal, where Beth and my father were expecting us that night.
Thirty-One
EDWARD WAS SILENT AND THOUGHTFUL, watching out of the passenger window as I drove our hire car along roads that hadn’t changed a bit. I drove the route on autopilot, worried slightly about seeing my father again. Thoughts rattled through my mind. Bad thoughts. Angry thoughts. Mostly sad ones. The toilet thing might have become a breeze, but other matters were still getting me down. As the harbour lights greeted us, Edward remarked, “It really is pretty. Even in the dark.”
It was unspoilt and clean, houses sprinkling the coastline, and beyond the coast were rolling hills of countryside that spanned most of my homeland.
“Seems crazy that I left, right?”
“Not if you were running from something.”
I parked the car on the street and we left our bags in the boot for the time being. Walking into the courtyard, I felt haunted, and not just by my past – but also by thoughts of Dante having been here only a few weeks ago. Our footsteps triggered the security light and Bethan ran out of the main house when she saw we’d arrived. A surge of pent-up emotions erupted out of my eyes when she ran to me, throwing her arms around my neck.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered in her ear. “I shouldn’t have left you, but I was dying here.”
She pulled back and the brown eyes my mother had were looking right at me. I’d got mine from our father.
“Who’s this?” she asked, her eyes landing on Edward.
“Edward Rayworth, a friend of mine. He came along in case the other guy decided to turn up uninvited again.”
“About that other guy…”
“What?”
From a pocket in her jeans, she pulled a letter. “He left you this. He said, in case you came home.”
I took it from her and saw on the envelope, it was his handwriting all right. Quite thick, I wondered if he’d written me a chapter of his biography or something.
Stuffing it into my jeans pocket, I said, “I’ll deal with that later.”
“O’course, why don’t you come in?”
I looked behind me at Edward who looked ghost-white. “You okay?”
“Never better.”
“Shall we?”
He nodded and we followed Bethan into the house.
Walking into the kitchen, I saw she’d set out some food for us.
“Nothing but plastic snacks on airplanes, right?” She winked. “Sit down, both of you.”
We sat down but it wasn’t more than thirty seconds before I asked, “Where is he?”
She gestured with her hand upstairs. “He’s not good these days, Keer. It was… a stroke.”
I watched out of my peripheral vision as Edward got busy stuffing his face with the huge wedge sandwiches Beth had made for us, thick ham and piccalilli, salad on the side. We hadn’t really had a proper dinner on the plane, just mash potato and some sort of sausage thing. Hardly a proper meal, especially for Edward who’d been at the office all day.
“When?”
“Eighteen months ago, not long after Mam.”
“Oh. Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll still go up.”
She shrugged. “Half of this house will be yours, once he goes too. Reckon you have the right.”
“I’m not hungry,” I told Edward, “have mine as well if you want.”
He glugged a huge glass of milk, winking. I caught Beth’s eye and saw her admiring Edward’s appetite and his intense eyes and stark cheekbones. He was a lot more conventionally pretty than Dante, whose face and jaw were long. Edward had that heavy-set jaw thing going on and that perpetual stubble of his only highlighted his square face. I’d never cared what Dante looked like, though; I was drawn to the brokenness in him which reflected the brokenness in me. Edward’s beauty was wonderful, but what about what lay beneath?
“What do you do then?” I heard her ask him as I began to take the stairs up.
“I’m a barrister in London.”
“Feck knows why I’m giving you milk, then,” she said, and I heard the liquor cabinet open promptly, most probably so she could draw all sorts of secrets from him.
I walked the landing before reaching my old bedroom. The door open, I saw inside a double bed replacing my old single one. It was unmistakably Bethan’s room now and as I walked down the corridor, I saw the tiny bedroom she used to have had become an office.
My parent’s room at the end of the corridor loomed before me, like a monolith in an otherwise empty field.
“Is that y
ou, Ciara? I know your step.” He spoke in Gaelic, his voice setting the hairs on the back of my neck on end.
“It’s me, Da,” I said in English.
“Come in,” he said, going with English too.
Dad was one of the few people I’d ever met who could read and write Gaelic with skill and accuracy. It was a dying language.
I opened the rickety wooden door and it creaked as I stepped across the wooden floorboards.
“Hi, Dad. How are you?”
“I’ve been better.”
He was sat up in bed with the lamp on, the radio echoing beside him, some typical Irish music chiming gently. He looked much older than when I’d last seen him, not six or seven years older, but a decade or two older. He’d stopped clipping his bushy brows and his nostrils and ears had got worse, too. A thick stripe of white hair streaked his wiry grey-black hair and his eyes were yellowing, his jaw less defined – his body less vigorous. I blew out a breath, catching myself before I crumbled at the sight of my once-indestructible daddy, a man who used to survive on just a few hours sleep every night, now reduced to being in bed before nine.
“It’s left you limp, then?” I said with a sniff, trying to be matter-of-fact about it all.
“Just on my left side,” he said, talking differently to how he talked before. “I get out, but I need someone with me. I have care and I have Beth, but it’s not been easy for me to–”
He cut himself off.
I walked slowly to the bedside and knelt before him.
“I’m sorry I left.”
“Shut the door a moment,” he said, and I did as he asked. “Come here.”
I sat on the edge of his bed and took his hand.
“I was disappointed,” he said, “and I was an idiot, because you were perfect and I had high hopes for you and suddenly you… you weren’t my baby anymore. I was wrong to shut down but I was even more wrong to have turned a blind eye to your jealous mother. I didn’t know how bad she was until Beth started telling me so. You should have told me sooner.”
“Dadda, no. It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, listen to me,” he said, swallowing a ball of nerves in his withered throat, “grab life, with both hands,” he said, puffing on breath, his veined, wasted fingers reaching out to mimic the need to take life by the balls, “because life is so short. I know.”
I nodded slowly and tears dripped from me. “Dadda!”
I threw myself into his arms.
“I know beautiful, I know,” he said, stroking his good hand through my hair.
“Where’s she buried?” I asked him.
He shook his head, getting even shorter on breath. “Cremated.”
“The ashes?”
“Over the bridge, you know? Up in the paddock, over the stream. She loved it there.”
I nodded, slow, and then fast. “You did right.”
“No, but I know you will.”
I held him as he choked on sobs, my strong body holding his frail one. In his day my father had been so muscular and vibrant. Not handsome, but truly rugged and strong. He’d been a trainer and my mother, a socialite, daughter of a racetrack owner. My mother had obviously fallen for my father but not the lifestyle he led. I think in truth, she was a cruel woman and my da was the only man she ever met who forgave her for it. Spoiled by a moneyed upbringing, she was – and the fact her own mother died young and her father lavished gifts on her. It was strange how Mam had died before her time, too – following in her mother’s footsteps. My grandfather on her side died before I was born. Mam always said it was the shock of her choosing to marry “a twerp farmer”, even though my father was in fact a very skilled horseman. It was just that he’d preferred the simple things in life, unlike Mother who thought she deserved the very best. Mam became very, very bitter after her father’s riches went to her stepmother.
“I’m yours not hers,” I said, and I looked in his eyes, telling him I understood, that I knew he was a victim too, but it was okay – I was long past all that now.
“Bethan’s doing okay but she needs help with the lets. We get the odd guest, but you know…”
“I’m going to check them out. Do you need anything?”
“No, I have everything I need.”
“Good.” I wiped my eyes, looked down at him over my shoulder, and left the room.
The hollow in my heart began to fill in again and I took some deep breaths as I walked down the stairs.
In the kitchen I found Beth and Edward laughing over something.
“I was just telling him about that pair of purple jeans you used to have. They got so holey, you remember? They had more patches than denim in the end.”
I smiled. “I remember. Jaysus, I loved those jeans. I really did. I’d wear them round the yard, get them muddy, and wash them before going down the pub the same night! Good times in those jeans.”
“Let’s see if we can find you two a place to stay then,” she said, standing up.
She ran her hand over a selection of keys hanging from a dozen hooks and slipped one set off.
“We’ll need separate quarters, Bethan,” I warned, in a stern voice.
“Nonsense, I haven’t got time to build you two fires tonight.”
I folded my arms but she insisted, using her finger to get us to follow her.
“I’ll grab the stuff,” Edward said, and I threw the car keys to him.
“Come on. I think he’s fed and watered for the night.” She gestured at Edward, winking.
“I said he’s a friend!” I looked over my shoulder, checking he wasn’t looking and couldn’t hear what we were saying.
“He’s absolutely gorgeous. God, I didn’t think men like that really existed. Sure, the blond guy had something… but HIM! He’s actually perfection.”
“Dante was… I mean… is beautiful, if flawed.”
“That guy getting your stuff out the boot, he’s not flawed and he’s here. He’s–”
“Married,” I told her, “with kids. I can’t go there.”
She looked at me. “He told me he’s separated and it’s all amicable.”
I huffed. “Feckin’ show me where you’re plonking us, will you?”
She giggled, amused she could still get a rise out of me. “You like him.”
“I do. He’s a friend. A nice man, and a friend.”
“Ha. A friend, a friend, a friend… and soon to be boyfriend. He’s gotta be decent, being a barrister and all.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to call myself decent,” he said, creeping up behind us.
Beth laughed harder as she tried to get the key in the lock of Stable 12.
“Give me it here,” I said, and I let us all inside.
“Do you like it?”
The living-room furniture was plain, just a big leather sofa in front of a large fireplace.
“They don’t all have fireplaces?”
“No, only a couple. That’s why we don’t rent in winter. We can’t afford to put heating in this building, not yet.”
“How much do you need?” I asked her.
“Few thousand euro.”
“When I get home, I’ll wire you it,” I told Beth, “anything else you need?”
“Well… I’m a bit behind on Da’s care payments and I could–”
“Could what?”
“Do with some new clothes.” She pulled at her holey checked shirt and her filthy jeans.
I tapped Edward on the shoulder. “He said he’s taking me clothes shopping so he may as well take you, too. How about tomorrow?”
“That would be… really amazing,” she said in a squeak, overwhelmed.
He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it.
“Here,” I said, giving her a fifty euro note. “Go down the pub, have a good night.”
“I can’t take this and besides, your fire needs building.”
“I’ve not forgotten how to build a fire, Beth.”
“Wow, okay. Wow,” she said, handling the
note. “Goodnight. I’ll call me feller and see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight,” we both said, watching her go.
The wooden door clicked shut and I watched Edward move across the room to bolt it.
I gave him a look and he shrugged. “Habit of living in London.”
“What’s to steal here? Seriously?”
He laughed.
I looked around at all the exposed brick, timber beams and sort of shabby-chic décor. “It’s no doubt fishermen who usually stay here, going by the smell. They do tours of the Blackwater and a lot of people also come here for whaling and the dolphins.”
He looked up, admiring the high ceiling. “It’s nice here, I don’t mind it. Quaint, but nice.”
On the other side of the sofa was a tiny kitchen and a table for two in the middle for dining on, I presumed. Then there was just the stairs upwards.
“Do you want anything?” he asked, “you ate nothing.”
“If she’s put something in the fridge, I’ll have it.”
While I started building the fire, he looked in the fridge.
“Milk, and a donut. She put a donut in here!”
“She knows I love donuts.”
“Tea?”
“Look in the cupboard. You might find hot chocolate.”
As the evening approached ten o’clock, it grew colder and rain started falling outside.
“It rains here all the time. When I first came to London, it was like living in Bermuda with all the heat contained by the smog and everything.”
“It rains a lot in London, too.”
“Not half as much as here, trust me,” I told him.
Stacking the fire with twisted newspapers, I rolled a few blocks of coal on top and when the fire started roaring, I put on a log. The room was suddenly lit and warm. Even in August, it could get mercilessly cold – especially without insulated walls.
He sat on the couch with me, handing me hot chocolate and the donut, which I demolished in a few mouthfuls.
“What’s in the letter?” he prompted.
“I haven’t looked.”
“Do it now. Get it out of the way.”
“You mean, you want to know what deviousness he’s up to now?”
“Kinda.”
The Fix (Nightlong Series Book 2) Page 30