‘No,’ we answer together.
Christ, what is she going to do about whatever is under her foot? I look at the Garda’s face and the horror is rising up through me. I want to shout at him and explain that the drugs are McDara’s and he probably meant to throw them at me. I need to let him know none of this is her fault.
‘Names and addresses please. You first,’ he barks, walking towards Kenny and stabbing him gently in the chest with his pen. He has to reach up slightly to do it.
‘Yes, Guard. Paul Kennedy, 4 Seaview Park,’ says Kenny, like he’s in court before a judge.
‘Liam Flynn, 217 Newbawn Lane.’ My heart is banging like a Kango hammer but it’s mixed with rising excitement as I realise the girl is going to have to speak again and the whole delicious mystery might start unravelling. She clears her throat as he steps towards her.
‘Emerald …’ there’s a blink of a pause, ‘Rutherford –’
‘And where do you live, Emerald Rutherford?’ the guard asks, loosening a bit, like her two words have just greased his rusty gob.
‘There!’ she says, pointing into the concrete wall behind her. ‘Up there I mean, just off the main road, I’m staying there.’
‘Emerald Rutherford.’ I say the remarkable name silently to myself, enjoying the feel of it inside my mouth.
‘You’re all aware of the recently passed bye-law prohibiting the consumption of alcohol in this public space?’ he asks.
‘Just having the one, Guard,’ says Kenny, moving to cover the bag of cans on the bench behind him.
‘On your way now, lads. There’s to be no drinking out here,’ he says, as he shunts down towards her. ‘Miss Rutherford, you’d best be off home now too. We’ve had word there was trouble around here tonight.’ She nods.
The Garda turns to go but then he stops and tilts his head at me. ‘How’s your father, Liam?’
His suddenly slow words prick at me like a thousand tiny pins. ‘He’s grand, thanks.’ I hate this kind of pity.
He smiles. ‘Tell him Tim O’Flaherty was asking for him.’
‘I will, yeah.’
‘We’re off now,’ Kenny shouts after him, like the lapdog that he is.
He waves a salute to the Garda who gets back inside the car alone and drives off up the beach.
‘Hole-eey shit!’ Kenny cries and then he does a one-eighty to face Emerald. ‘I didn’t have you pegged for that. Cool as a bleedin’ cucumber you were,’ he says, draining his can.
She looks puzzled and frightened in equal measure. Kenny starts talking again in his almost-drunk hieroglyphics but I’m not listening, I’m looking at her. Her sad eyes flit around all nervous and she bites down on her bottom lip as she tucks her chin into the collar of her coat. I notice the splay of freckles over her nose and the little crossover of front teeth on her full lips. I’m staring at her now like I knew I would.
She bows her head and as she bends down to pick up the little plastic bag at her feet, her long, fair hair falls in a cruel curtain covering her eyes. ‘I guess they were looking for these?’ she says, clutching the bag of pills high up by her face. She forces a laugh that’s full of panic and her eyes scan ours as though searching for something far more than me or Kenny will ever have to give.
‘Whoa!’ says Kenny, reaching to take the bag from her.
She takes a step back. ‘Shall I leave them here in case that guy comes back?’
‘Not so hasty,’ says Kenny, taking another stride closer. ‘We can stash ’em for McDara down at the dunes,’ he says decisively and snatches the baggie out of her hand. ‘I don’t fancy being the enemy of that lad. Besides, there’s a fair few in there,’ he says, shaking the bag. ‘And you never know when we might have a yen for something lively ourselves,’ he adds, with a skip. ‘Let’s get out of here though. Come on, come on!’ He jumps from the concrete ledge and offers Emerald his hand from the sand below. To my disbelief she takes it, briefly, and vaults down. I hurl down after them. ‘Woo hoo!’ Kenny howls, running along the wet sand.
I look at Emerald, trailing behind him and I too want to beat my chest and howl into the new and promising darkness.
‘Who are you?’ I ask, managing to catch up so we’re walking alongside each other, heading towards the dunes.
‘You’ve a deadly name by the way,’ Kenny shouts back, interrupting.
‘Oh, everyone calls me Em,’ she says, trailing her bare toes along the shoreline. ‘Emerald is a bit of a mouthful.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I say, and she swivels her shoulders around to me. The rain has stopped and the surface of the water shimmers as though lit from beneath. She flicks her hair off her face like an elegant pony, which for some reason makes me grin, stupidly.
‘It’s a bit embarrassing really.’
‘Why?’
‘My eyes aren’t even green.’ I watch her not-green eyes glisten. Oh good God, help me.
‘Up here!’ says Kenny, running up a dune with more athleticism than I’ve witnessed in our entire fifteen-year friendship. Em slips off her flip-flops and hikes off behind him. I follow them up the steep hill to the back of a grassy mound. ‘Let’s put the bag inside this.’ Kenny says through a mouthful of beer and then he shakes the can to remove the last few drops before attacking it with his keys.
‘We could bury it?’ I suggest, hoping this might be a useful contribution.
‘You might want some kind of marker,’ says Emerald. ‘All these dunes look the same,’ she adds. I kneel down beside her on the cold, damp sand, trying to work out if I’m dreaming.
‘Good thinking!’ says Kenny, wagging his finger. ‘We need ourselves some sticks.’
Together we watch Kenny run off towards the fence by the golf club. I’m close enough to catch that sweet chocolatey scent again. ‘You still haven’t told me who you are.’
‘Who I am?’
‘Yeah, like … how did a girl like you get here, tonight?’
She laughs, thank God. ‘On a plane!’ she says, all smart-arse. ‘I’m staying with my – Oh no, Grandma! What time is it?’ she asks, searching through her pockets.
I look at my watch. ‘Coming up to half ten.’
She stands quickly and brushes the sand from her legs. ‘I’ve got to go.’
I immediately wish I’d lied so I could hold her here longer. ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ she says, tying her hair back into the little band from around her wrist.
‘Maybe I’ll see you again?’ I shout after her and then I wince; it was more of a plea than I’d planned. In my head it sounded casual.
‘Maybe,’ she cries from the bottom of the dune.
It might be the light, but as she dips to pick her flip-flops up, I think I see her smiling. Maybe is good, I decide. Maybe is not no. Maybe implies possibility.
I watch her run off into the darkness; coat trailing behind like a giant cape. When she reaches the shelters she turns back, like she knows I’m watching.
I am.
EMERALD
Mikados?
It’s completely dark by the time I get back to Grandma’s. I go to tap the heavy brass knocker but find myself tumbling inside the opening door instead. She’s been waiting.
In spite of my racing heart and guilt at being late, I feel strangely better. For the first time since we arrived, I look Grandma properly in the eye, but now that I do I can’t help but notice how fragile she looks, all wrapped up in her flowery robe. She’s changed so much. Of course she has, but it’s not only the time that’s passed; Grandma Annie was never just some tired old lady who smelt of lavender. I never even thought of her as old before. She had gumption and a mischievous twinkle in her pixie eyes, but now she looks wilted, like the sad rose cuttings in the vase behind her. In Instagram filters, she’s faded from the fairy-tale brights of X-Pro II to some black and white one no one ever uses. Willow perhaps?
‘Sorry, I lost track of time.’
‘It’s fine,’ she says, but the angle of her head says otherwi
se. ‘I was hoping you didn’t get lost, that’s all. I must get you a key. I’ll have a spare cut.’
We stand there examining each other. It’s awkward, which makes me sad. I never thought it would be this way with her. I can smell the cold off the old coat and there’s a scent of polish in the hallway I must have missed earlier. We both go as though to speak before the silence gets louder.
She gets there first. ‘D’you fancy that tea?’
‘I’d love it.’
‘I’ve put the immersion on. If you’d like a bath?’ she says, sliding the coat off my shoulders and placing it back on the rack behind her.
I follow behind as Grandma drifts slowly around the pastel blue room, which looks exactly how I remember, including the cream Aga and the same row of untidy geraniums by the window. She pulls two teabags from the ancient, striped tea caddy thing before I spot an iPhone charger Dad forgot hanging from an ancient socket by the fridge. I plug my phone in.
‘What did I do with that pot?’ she asks, opening and closing cupboards. Then, moving on from the teapot, she takes down the shiny brown ceramic chicken from the large dresser and removes a packet of biscuits. I’d almost forgotten that chicken. I pull out a chair and take my place at the round wooden table, which feels oddly like doll’s furniture in the large room. I don’t remember these chairs feeling so small.
‘Aren’t these lovely!’ she says, handing me a pink marshmallow and jam biscuit, before nibbling on one herself. ‘Once I start …’ she says and her veiny hand disappears inside the chicken again. She doesn’t finish the sentence.
‘Thank you, Grandma,’ I say, but it’s for more than the biscuit. I take a bite and it tastes sweet and stale. ‘Haven’t had one of these before.’
She makes a surprised face. ‘Mikados? I expect they might not have them in England. I got them for your dad but didn’t he get stuck on that phone. Sure he’d barely touched his tea when it was time to go.’ Her eyes are suddenly wet. I want to take her ivory hand and hold it in mine. She sets her teacup down again without drinking any.
The moment passes, so I just smile. I wonder whether she knows about the sticky crumbs dotting her top lip, but mostly I wonder how long she’s been this sad. I drag my chair across the floor, sitting closer to her now. ‘I wish Dad could have stayed, even for tonight. Don’t you?’ I say it without thinking. It was a stupid question.
‘I know!’ Her hand flies to her heart. ‘And that Dublin Hilton Hotel is so awful! It’s not even near the airport. Sure we’re as close here, but there’s no talking to him.’
For a moment I wonder whether she heard me properly. ‘Dad’s gone back to England, Grandma,’ I point out but she looks confused. ‘He’s not staying at a hotel.’ As soon as I say this her face distorts like the biscuit wrapper she’s twisting in her hands. Then, just as fast, her eyes go sort of blank and she stares into the distance, as though studying thin air. I pretend not to watch.
‘Oh, I do get befuddled these days!’ she says, running her nail over the tiny chip in her china cup before getting up and shuffling more of the peculiar biscuits on to a plate.
It’s a surreal end to an already way too surreal day. ‘Will you have another?’ she asks, placing the head back on the chicken and returning it to the dresser. Without waiting for my answer, she is gone.
‘Grandma?’
‘There’ll be plenty hot water by now,’ she shouts from the hallway.
For some reason I begin stirring my sugarless tea and as I look over to Grandma’s place I see she hasn’t touched hers. Apart from my slurping and the strange new ringing in my ears, the room is deathly quiet.
She tiptoes back in. ‘I’ve left a towel on your bed. Goodnight, pet,’ she says, kissing my forehead before making for the door again. ‘We’ll say a prayer for your mam tonight.’ She announces it from the corner of the room.
She’s still looking at me as I brush away the flecks of dried coconut left on my cheek by her wet lips. ‘Night, Grandma!’
It’s not like Grandma to leave a room with a pot undrunk. ‘It’s not blood running in that woman’s veins,’ Dad would say, when she’d visit us in Bath, ‘’Tis tea!’ I used to count how much she’d drink and in one day, she had twelve cups! Maybe she’s cut back. Anyway, I’m not sorry to be on my own now. I want to think. I want to go through everything that’s happened. I cradle the hot cup in my hands and glance around.
My eye lands on a large framed photo of Dad and me, hanging on the wall beside the fridge. I get up to have a closer look and smile at my reindeer jumper and earmuffs. It’s from Christmas five years ago: that Christmas, the last time we were all here. I’m holding Dad’s hand. We both look really happy. I remember Grandma bought me a purple Furby, which I pretended to love, even though I was eleven, and how on Christmas night, Dad and me played Twister Dance in the living room until he fell and bruised his coccyx. But before I can grasp a proper hold, each flash of memory sparks and disappears, leaving only a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I force myself to think about something else. I didn’t even give my full name down at the beach. Does that mean I’ve lied to a policeman? He interrupted before I got the chance, so it couldn’t technically be a lie. Is it? They’ll hardly be able to trace me back to Grandma. I sip some tea. Dad would be horrified. I’m sure it is just adrenalin but I’m strangely exhilarated. My thoughts are too fast for my brain. Seriously, what was I thinking following those boys down to the dunes? I want to tell Kitty about the drugs and the beautiful wide-open sea. I wonder what she’d think of that guy, Liam, and his stupidly blue eyes.
That’s if I’m even talking to her.
It’s late. I think about posting a picture with the crazy biscuits. Deciding it would look better with Grandma’s old chicken thing in the background, I carefully rescue it from the dresser and place it behind the piled high plate. I open Instagram, hold a biscuit to my mouth and snap! It takes a few goes to get a half-decent shot of my face. I scan through the filters and settle on Lo-Fi, which feels suitably tacky. NAME THIS LOCATION? Scrolling through the list of existing Portstrand locations, I eventually hit CREATE ‘Grandma’s house Dublin’ and tap SHARE. I figure this is one way of announcing my departure.
Of course I’m holding the phone in my hand, hoping for immediate likes and a chorus of ‘Where are you, Em?’ comments to flood through, but after waiting a whole thirty-seven seconds there’s still nothing so I swipe through my Instagrid at the montage of bright and beautiful squares I know so well: endless blurry pics from Glastonbury – our wellies knee-deep in mud, wrist-banded arms, waving our cider cups, relentless selfies, goofy Boomerang videos of Kitty and me after our last exam, Rupert and his dog by the lake, a team pic on the way to the netball tournament at Charterhouse, my new leopard print Adidas fishnet pink socks. I keep going, scrolling through to the lavender fields behind our house, then on to Mum. There she is, my beautiful mum, with her piercing green eyes, beaming out from our kitchen like a glossy magazine article.
I stop. If I didn’t know me, maybe I’d believe I really lived this rosy life with all the doubt and confusion filtered out. Maybe I wouldn’t notice the growing space between the me in those lovely images and the me that sits drinking tea in Grandma’s kitchen. Guess that’s the whole idea.
I’m staring at the screen when it starts clattering around loudly on the countertop: it’s Kitty! The nausea is instant.
‘Hi,’ I say, abandoning my earlier anger. Instead I’m instantly justifying myself, explaining how my phone died when I was at the beach, but she’s already talking.
‘There you are!’ she exclaims, and without waiting for me to speak, she continues. ‘Where were you today, Em? You didn’t reply to any of my texts and then I get one from you saying to call urgently, BUT THEN I see you’re eating biscuits in front of some chicken thing on Instagram. You’re in Dublin? Seriously –’
‘It’s Mum.’ I cut her off mid-rant and let the silence happen.
‘Oh,’ she says. I
can sense her shuffle about. ‘Everything OK?’ she whispers.
‘Not really. And Dad’s tied up in London, so here I am in Portstrand, with my grandma.’
‘Oh God, babes, that completely sucks,’ she says, stating the obvious. ‘But hey, you got out of Speech Day, which was unspeakably boring. And you’ll be back for the party –’
‘Actually, I won’t.’
‘What?’
‘I have to stay here for the summer.’ Saying it again is like pulling the plaster off a gaping wound.
‘That’s a joke, right?’
‘Nope.’
‘But how can they make you stay in Ireland for the entire summer? That’s ridiculous.’
‘I don’t have a choice. Mum’s treatment is going to take eight weeks.’ I think this is a pretty heavy hint. I start to pick the jam out of the half-eaten biscuit with my finger.
There’s a long delay. ‘D’you mean like, rehab?’
I can’t bring myself to answer.
‘Oh shit,’ she says and it’s obvious I didn’t need to. I can tell she’s not going to ask any more. Mum talk is one of the few things that has Kitty lost for words. She’s the only person I ever speak to about Mum, and even then I hardly tell her the half of it. It’s not that I don’t trust her; I do, it’s just that Mum doesn’t get fun-drunk like her mum, Camilla, who after a heavy Sunday lunch has been known to become – wait for it – a bit of a flirt. No, Mum drinks for oblivion now and it’s hard to explain that to someone who thinks hardcore drinking is sipping vodka from an Evian bottle at the Fifth Form Ball, and considers being pissed to be the most hilarious thing ever.
‘Are we OK?’ Kit says suddenly.
‘You regrammed Bryony’s photo!’ It just bursts out of my mouth. I count four seconds of silence.
‘Em,’ she says eventually, ‘she’s been so worked up about the whole Iggy thing. She’s convinced McKenzie knows it was her. I was just trying to be supportive.’
‘She was warning me. Like, here’s your retribution for snitching. Say anything else and this could get so much worse.’
No Filter Page 4