‘Is this the radio?’
He takes off his sunglasses. ‘It’s … a new playlist,’ he says, his face softening. I’m not sure my face can hide its surprise. ‘Y’all right there, Scout?’
Dad’s always called me this.
‘Everything’s going to be OK, love,’ he says now, looking at me with that dad face. Dad’s kind of handsome, or so Kitty says, though I hate her mentioning it. ‘You were great in there with Nick. And, Em,’ he says, putting his hand back on my knee, ‘I want you to know how much I appreciate your …’ I watch him feel around his mouth for the right word, ‘cooperation … on everything. The past twenty-four hours have been horrendous for you, I know that, but Mum’s in the best place now.’
I taste the desperate pleas loading themselves on to my tongue and consider how they might sound out loud. I want to beg him not to pack me off to Grandma’s. I want to tell him how much I don’t want to be in Ireland on my own for the next eight weeks. I want to beg him not to steal my chance of a real summer. But of course I can’t.
‘It was like it wasn’t really her,’ I say after a while.
‘She’s medicated, honey. That’s all.’
‘D’you think it’ll work?’
He exhales slowly and I watch him try to smile. ‘Foxford Park is the best treatment centre there is,’ he says, without answering my question.
I want to go home. I want to curl into a ball on my own bed but I can’t even do that. Dad’s court case starts on Monday, miles up the motorway in London, and he’s clearly decided I can’t fend for myself at home so my summer exile will start in Portstrand later today. We drive under the dark dome of a railway bridge. I want to hide here in the darkness, never to reappear.
Dad clears his throat. ‘Look, I know it’s hard, but let’s try to be positive.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Nick said rock bottom is the best opportunity for a lasting recovery. And remember, Em, these are Mum’s issues, not yours.’
Dad’s mouth seems to have been hijacked. He’s never talked about Mum’s issues before so even this tiny chink of truth feels awkward but he smiles his toothy grin, which makes it hard not to at least attempt a smile back. ‘I’m really sorry you’ve had to miss your last day.’
I know it’s not cool to admit it but I actually like Speech Day. Plus I wanted to be part of all of the end-of-term goodbyes, but honestly, with everything that’s been going on with Bryony lately, it’s strangely OK to be missing out. The one upside to the whole awfulness is not having to put on my game-face for a day.
I sense Dad turn to face me again. ‘Hey, what is it?’
I want to shout EVERYTHING! But I look at his tired eyes and say nothing. I never do. Acres of golden fields whizz by outside my window. ‘I’m fine, Dad.’ I lie.
He takes his foot off the accelerator and looks over. ‘Em?’ But he knows me too well.
I open my mouth, genuinely unsure of what’s coming. ‘Won’t it be weird? Me staying with Grandma, after –’ I don’t finish the sentence; I’m not sure I know how. I’ve never talked to him about what happened with Mum and me in Grandma’s house that Christmas. When I try to remember, it’s only ever flashes and the pieces don’t join up. What I do know is that until then we spent every Christmas there with her but we haven’t been back to Dublin since. Grandma still phones and stuff, but it’s not the same.
Dad doesn’t say anything and I immediately feel guilty. He leans over and turns the music down. ‘You and Grandma always got on a bomb.’
‘But it’s been like forever.’
‘Five years isn’t forever,’ he says. I sit straighter as he reaches out to turn the music back up. Our hands brush in the no-man’s-land of the enormous dashboard and we both pull back. ‘Anyway –’ he flashes a quick smile – ‘Grandma’s excited to see you.’ He feeds tiny morsels of the steering wheel between his fists without looking at me.
I can’t think of anything to say back so I busy myself unplugging my phone from the charging dock. I ran out of battery at the hospital last night and spent the whole time flicking through crap magazines while trying to sleep on Dad’s shoulder. I was way too wired with anxiety and Diet Coke to pass out but Dad found a pack of cards in the family room and we spent hours playing Old Maid and Gin Rummy. It was all quite Victorian.
Just two texts; both from Kitty wondering where I am. There are the constant WhatsApps from Bryony about Kitty’s party too, but these are to me and eighty-nine of our closest friends. It’s so strange to think Mum nearly died and nobody even knows. I’m not sure I can face telling Kitty about this yet, let alone the fact that I’m about to drop off the face of the earth for the next eight weeks. Feeling reckless, I decide to text Ru. I’ve spent six months fancying the way-out-of-my-league Rupert Heath, and after weeks of shameless stalking I managed to get with him twice, the last time being at the Fifth Form Ball (the annual cross-pollination of what McKenzie calls ‘our nice Hollyfield Girls and the fine Cliffborough Boys’ – ick!).
Wanna chat later? Xxx
Thoughts of the ball only lead to a horrible flashback to the knicker-picking image. Please God don’t let Ru have seen the photo before I untagged myself.
I reread my text and remove two of the kisses.
Ed Sheeran belts out another ballad as we hit the motorway and Dad sings along, bopping his head out of time. While I definitely can’t pretend this is normal behaviour, it’s impossible not to love him for trying. Nothing back from Ru. I consider replying to Kitty but how do I even begin to explain everything in a text? Can’t call though. Not with Dad in the car. With a glance at the clock, Dad turns off the music and switches on the news, which is all about the migrant crisis. The reporter clears his throat and adds that the body of the missing schoolgirl was pulled from the Thames Estuary this morning. His reporter voice rambles on but all I can think about is what would happen if I were to be washed up by the sea. My head fizzes wondering how they would describe me and I can’t decide what would be worse: drowning or the world’s press photographing me without my editorial control.
Bloody hell, I performed CPR on my mother last night. Why am I even thinking about a stupid photo? My head hurts. At least I think it’s my head. Wish I had a word for this horrible weariness; that feeling like I want to slip under but also like I’m too jittery to even close my eyes.
Dad screeches into the airport car park. He whips his seat belt off and grabs his files from the back seat. ‘Dublin here we come!’ he announces, sarcasm only thinly disguised. Hopping on a plane is the last thing he needs now.
I lean forward and my damp T-shirt peels off the leather seat. ‘Thanks … you know, for coming with me.’
‘After the night we’ve had, love, I’m hardly packing you off as an unaccompanied minor.’
‘Dad, I’m sixteen!’
He laughs. ‘It was a joke,’ he says with a wink. ‘Still, it’ll be nice to see the mother.’
I quickly dab on some lip gloss and reach for the car door once more.
LIAM
One big, unapologetic anticlimax
‘Oi oi Flynn, turn off that porn!’
I hear Kenny snickering to himself outside but I want to finish this line so I ignore him. I reread the lyric I’ve just written and it’s woeful. I’m sure there’s a finer word to illustrate just how crap, but I can’t think of it now.
‘These babies aren’t going to drink themselves, Liamo,’ Kenny roars again, even louder now. God, he’s such a knob. I fling the guitar down and go to the window. There he is, the sorry-arsed eejit, standing on our rain-slicked drive, waving his bag of cans like a raffle winner. I can’t help smiling at him.
‘I need you, man. I’m just about holding it together here,’ he says, clutching his chest. We’ve been nursing the tragedy of Kenny’s broken heart for weeks now, which isn’t easy for Fiona, his new girlfriend. ‘Come on, ya prick. The night’s not getting any younger.’
Years of ginger jibes have done little to dent Kenny�
��s ego. I bet there are few lanky-looking redheads in Ireland with such a high opinion of themselves. I stick my head out. ‘Give us a few minutes,’ I shout.
‘Here wait! I’ve got one for you: Dany Targaryen or Sansa Stark? Is that a high-class problem, or what?’ He bursts into a wide grin.
Kenny’s been my best mate since were kids – three or four year olds – and for as long as I can remember he’s been asking me this same question: ‘If you had to choose between …’ and here he inserts two choices; it could be people, items, or scenarios. Anything, from which death-metal band you’d be in, to whether Murph’s ma’s hotter than Turbo’s. He’s relentless about it too.
‘G’wan, you have to pick!’ he’ll say. If you don’t do it in time he’ll belt you right across the head like you were asking for it. There’s no grey with Kenny; he’s a black or white kind of fella.
I shake my head.
‘Do the fine women of Westeros mean nothing to you?’ His face is a knot of disbelief.
‘Is Dany the one with the dragons?’ I ask, but he’s tutting under his breath now, like I’ve forgotten the rules.
‘Feck’s sake, Flynn!’ He begins his countdown. ‘Five, four, three …’
‘All right then, her, the one with the white hair. Jaysus.’
I’ve yet to get to the end of a Game of Thrones episode but I’m not going there now. Anyway, Kenny is rubbing his hands together gleefully, which would indicate this was the right answer.
And so it begins, another night on the piss. Who knew the summer would hold such pleasures? To think this was supposed to be the big one! The Leaving Cert exams are finally over and we’re finished school forever, with almost seven weeks left before the reality of results and real life bitch-slaps us into submission. This was to be the summer it all made sense, the milestone, the one to remember, but so far it’s one big unapologetic anticlimax. Even if I get the college course I supposedly want, it’s all a lie, but we’ve had too much bad luck in this house for me to be getting any notions. Just the thought of results and I want to take the edge off.
I poke my head around the door of my baby sister’s room. Evie was the accident, as they say; arrived when it was all kicking off and Dad was in the thick of the layoffs. Pregnant at forty-two! Mum was mortified. I overheard her telling the neighbour she felt like an irresponsible teenager, off buying pregnancy tests.
Evie’s graduated to a real bed but she can’t get the hang of it at all. I scoop her bundle into my arms and lay her back on the soft mattress. After I tuck the sides in, good and tight, I place my cheek on hers to listen to her breathing. Her breath is sweet and warm.
‘Goodnight, monkey,’ I whisper. Then I’m off down the stairs three at a time. I leap for four on the last rung.
I walk into the kitchen to find Laura pretending to dry plates but mostly being a prima donna. ‘Everyone in my class is on holidays, Mam. I’m the only one who never has a tan.’ Mam is doing her best to ignore her but my sister is persistent. ‘They’re all in Marbella or Croatia. Why don’t we ever go away any more? It’s not fair!’
‘Shut up, Laura!’ I shout.
Mam drops her scrubbing brush into the sink, making the dishwater splash back up. ‘Liam!’ She sighs, but Laura’s already left, slamming the kitchen door behind her.
‘What?’
‘Don’t speak to her like that,’ she says, wiping away the stray bubbles that hit her face.
‘She was being a little cow.’
‘Liam!’
‘Well, she was, Mam, and it’s not right.’ I hate myself for doing it, but don’t I get up and storm out of the room too?
I find Laura in her usual sulking spot at the bottom of the stairs. ‘What’s your problem?’ I ask, my outstretched hand shaking. I know I’m angrier than I have any right to be.
‘I was just asking,’ she says, blowing at her fringe. This gets my blood up even more.
‘You were just asking why we aren’t going on holiday, were you?’
‘No!’
‘What then? What were you asking?’
‘Stop it, Liam!’
‘Look at me, Laura. Don’t make Mam say it. Because that really isn’t fair.’
Laura looks at me that way she does, like I’m the meanest person on earth, but there’s a glint; a tiny undeniable glint in her eye that knows I’m right and that’s enough for me.
‘Have you any money?’ She whispers this bit. ‘I’ve no credit on my phone. G’wan, Liam … please?’
She says it like she hasn’t eaten in days. Cashed my first paycheck from the Metro Service Station yesterday, so I give her a tenner, but I can’t resist a quip. ‘Snapchat’s gonna rob you of your ambition.’
‘What do you care anyway?’ she says, stomping up the creaking stairs, already forgetting the favour.
I swing around the bannisters and shout up after her, ‘Whatcha mean, what do I care?’
‘It’s true,’ she hollers back, with a lash of her ponytail. ‘You never tell me anything any more. You never let me hang out with your friends!’
‘You’re thirteen!’
She storms into her bedroom. ‘God, you SO don’t get it!’ she screeches.
Da’s van rattles into the drive. Home late again. He holds the phone in one hand, barely raising the other palm off the wheel to wave at Kenny, who’s now kicking a ball against the wall outside. Da’s never grasped the concept of hands-free.
I take him in, in his overalls, coming home for his now cold dinner in the beat-up Transit. I can tell he’s not talking to a friend. It’s the way his shoulders seem higher up, closer to his ears.
As family companies go, Flynn Construction was a hefty outfit once. Between Da and Grandda they built half the new houses in this town, but in three years it’s all crumbled to dust. I remember the days when Da left early for work, looking all smart, getting into his blue Beemer, the smell of shaving cream and purpose lingering in the hallway. At one point they had four or five big jobs on at once. Da’d be gone all day; going round the sites checking everything was hunky dory.
The worst thing is Da seems to like putting up flat-pack furniture for gobshites now. It’s as though he accepts his fate; sporting his handyman overalls and sorry little toolbelt like it was all a lifelong ambition. The fight’s left him.
He didn’t get out of bed for a week after it happened. Evie had just been born so Mam had the two of them at home under her feet. Grandda had been buried less than a year at this stage. They had thirty men on the books at the height of it. That’s thirty families like us. Only we got hit worst because Da, being the principled eejit he is, insisted on paying his men what they were owed, despite the fact that Horizon, the developer, pulled the plug, leaving him with nothing but a half-built estate and a crew of angry workers. Most of the lads he laid off hit the pub. There was the night when him and John-Joe put a bottle of whiskey on the bar in Moloney’s, after a feast of pints, and yer man Moloney, the aul fella, had to call Mam to collect him at two in the morning. Everybody around here knew about the bankruptcy. People were making Mam lasagne and Pyrex dishes full of food were flooding into the house as though Grandda had died all over again.
Da glances up from his call and catches me looking. He squints at me through the windscreen and his eyes shine. I smile back at him. I’m his hope, the chance to make it all better.
I can’t bear looking at him any longer so I head into the kitchen where Mam is laying his plate of chops on the table. I’m thinking about apologising to her when Dad comes in and strikes me over the back of the head with a tin of Swarfega.
‘Howrya?’
‘Yeah, all right.’
‘Are you coming with me in the morning?’
I don’t answer; I’m thinking. Tonight will be a late one but I love mornings on the boat with Da when it’s just the two of us. He’s good on the boat: hardy, dad-like and in control again, sailing with his leathery face to the wind, chopping up the waves all the way to the island. It’s a chance to
pretend he’s a king once more; that he’s not really relegated to carrying the weekly shop over to Lord Rosloe. Together we are free men, out on a trip, father and son on the high seas of North County Dublin.
Mam plants a kiss on Da’s cheek and walks out with an armful of neatly folded laundry. Da looks at his plate and looks at me. ‘Is it a bit late after twenty-one years to break it to your mam that I hate peas?’
We both laugh. I love seeing him happy. That he can walk in here, limping, unshaven, and joke about stuff despite all the shite. He’s the get-by type. He’s not one for picking at the wound. I’d be right in there scratching the scab.
‘Who were you on the phone to outside?’ I ask.
He’s scrubbing his hands in the sink. ‘Rosloe’s new gamekeeper.’
‘What happened to Frank?’
Da shakes his head. ‘Didn’t get that out of him,’ he says, grabbing a tea towel from Mam’s other pile of ironing and wiping filthy brown streaks all over it. It’s just as well she’s upstairs. ‘He wants things done proper now.’
‘Called you to say that?’ I ask, joking, but he looks sombre.
‘So that means no more solo jaunts for you. D’you hear me?’ he says, picking up his plate and scraping the offending peas into the bin. I nod guiltily. I took Kenny out for a spin in the boat a couple of weeks ago. It was the day we finished our last exam and we went all the way out to the lighthouse and burned our school shirts on the rocks while all the roseate terns and kittiwakes looked on. Kenny was impressed I knew the names of all the birds, but I could have been making them up for all he knew.
Mam walks back into the room. ‘Kenny’s outside on the wall.’
I nod. ‘Sorry for being a dick earlier, Mam.’
‘Watch your language, Liam.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK, love.’
‘I will go with you in the morning, Da.’
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