My hands shake as I punch the number into my phone. ‘Get it together, Flynn!’ I crash the toilet seat down and stand on it so I can keep an eye on the exit.
It’s ringing!
‘Hello?’
It’s her. Be cool, it’s her … ‘Hiya, Emerald?’ I’m picturing her beautiful, sad, not-green eyes.
‘Hi.’ She sounds jittery.
‘It’s Liam,’ I say. ‘From the other night, at the shelters.’ I know she knows it’s me. I don’t know why, but I do.
‘Yeah, I remember,’ she says, a little flatly and my heart drops low in my chest as I crumple back down on to the seat.
‘You sound … disappointed.’
‘Do I? I’m sorry,’ she laughs. It’s a gorgeous laugh, quick and free. ‘I thought it might have been about the babysitting ad, that’s all.’
‘No babies, yet! None that I know of anyway …’ Oh, man, did I just say that? ‘Sorry, that was a joke. A bad one, obviously,’ I add, jumping off the loo and attempting to pace forward and back in the tiny cubicle while eating my fist. ‘Actually, it is about the ad. I found your card at the Metro. I work there, I mean, I work here.’
‘Really?’ she says. ‘Small world.’
Now, I don’t know if it’s because I so desperately want it to be true, but I get the feeling she’s just smiled. And then, like I’m expecting a buzzer to go off and the flowery card to disintegrate in my hand, that twenty-second-bolt-of-whatever, fires up from somewhere. ‘Would you like to come to a party with me on Saturday night?’ I hold my breath in the silence, which feels very long.
‘A party?’ she asks, saying the word like it’s the first time she’s heard it.
I hear a voice getting louder outside the toilet door.
‘Flynn, you in there?’ Christ, it’s Lorcan!
‘Yeah, a party,’ I whisper as quietly as I can.
‘OK,’ she whispers back.
‘OK? Did you just say OK?’
‘Yeah, OK.’
I slide down the wall and on to the grimy floor. ‘Magic. Thanks.’
Next thing Lorcan slams his hand against my cubicle. ‘I’ve a queue of mammies out there looking for lattes. Would ya c’mon!’ he shouts.
I scramble to my feet. ‘On my way!’ I call out, happy-dancing on the other side of the locked door.
EMERALD
Truth is, I lie all the time
I’ve been in Portstrand exactly two weeks today. How can fourteen days feel a whole month long?
I don’t think I’ve uttered so few words in one week, ever, and that includes the six days before we came here, when I was blanking Mum for turning up to Prize Day both late and drunk.
There was a presentation for all the prizewinners and we each had to have our photo taken with McKenzie. It was bad enough I’d won the Citizenship Award, for ‘notable friendship and leadership skills’, a day after I’d covered up the incident with Iggy Darcy, but then Dad had some business drama and couldn’t come at the last minute. The other three prize-winning girls from our year were flanked on either side by a doting, presentable parent and when it was my turn I had to stand there alone with McKenzie’s icy fingers gripping my shoulders way too tight. It was like she too was willing me not to cry as I looked out at the entire school with their shiny, happy families.
Then I caught a glimpse of Mum at the back of the marquee. She was wearing the prim blue shirt I’d left out for her but she’d tucked it into these weird too-tight white jeans, but it wasn’t even that I’d tried to dress her like someone else’s more conservative, more middle-aged mother: it was the lipstick. Bright, London Bus red lipstick. I could see it smeared on her teeth from where I stood. She hoisted the gold handbag chain further up her shoulder and waved up at me, crying out my name.
Who does that? Everybody looked at her and then at me, their faces frozen, mouths gaping, suspended somewhere between pity and horror. It was wrong, all wrong. I knew it and it felt like everybody in the marquee knew it too. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. My guts churned and my mouth filled with liquid like I was about to be sick. I fantasised about fainting but I had to get rid of her. She was a bomb about to go off and I had to stop her. I walked down off the stage and kept going forward, looking straight ahead. I eventually intercepted her, staggering towards me from the back of the tent, I linked her arm and dragged her all the way back outside to the car park. Once I got her in the car, I bent over double, hoping to puke, hoping for some release, but the waves of nauseating pressure refused to crash.
As though we hadn’t endured quite enough shame already, Magda was dispatched in a taxi to drive us home. At the junction with the main road, I watched one of the thundering quarry trucks approach and I swear, I honestly thought how much better if would be, for all of us, if Magda were to simply drive out into the road in front of it.
It’s awful to admit I once had this thought. I can’t bear to think about it now.
*
But today is different. I’ve woken up knowing I have something to do that’s not a trip to the shops with Grandma or a decent programme to watch on TV. I pretty much aced the whole babysitting set-up and now I’m off to a party with garage-guy, Liam. I’m not sure it’s right to feel this excited, though as soon as I gave Liam Grandma’s address on the phone, I knew it was a mistake. Given how much she grappled with the idea of a babysitting job, the idea of a party, with boys and alcohol, might finish her off altogether. Also, if Liam called to the house she’d only interrogate him, probably call Dad too. In fact I wouldn’t put it past Dad to get Liam on the phone and ask him his intentions there and then. Together they’d get the wrong idea and I’m not up to that level of humiliation just yet, so we’ve agreed to meet at the stripy kiosk by the beach at eight. It was the only landmark I could think of.
Of course I couldn’t tell Grandma about the party so I needed a watertight cover story. I’d spent hours thinking when one fell into my lap while I was out for a run yesterday afternoon.
I must have been running for half an hour when I found myself in a new estate of houses on the edge of the town, well outside the circuit I’d driven with Grandma. I took my headphones off and sat down on the perfect, fake-looking grass beside a large rock with The Glenn carved into it. Clusters of happy kids milled about and I lay back and watched the houses glistening in the sun, listening to their chatter. A blond boy with a dirty face wearing a dinosaur onesie rode up beside me on his bike.
‘Hi!’ I was just being friendly but he didn’t answer. He was sizing me up like I was an outlaw when my attention switched to a girl, cartwheeling elegantly nearby. Her long, slim legs suddenly stopped and she looked over to the open hall door behind her. ‘Jack! Dinner!’ she called out, spinning back around. Both dino-onesie and another much older boy, who was kicking a ball about nearby, turned in the girl’s direction. ‘Jack DUGGAN,’ she shouted by way of qualification. ‘Dinner!’
Older Jack returned to his keepy-uppy and Dino-Jack rolled his eyes before pedalling in the direction of number 18. When I got home to Grandma’s I googled ‘Duggan, 18 The Glenn, Portstrand’ and discovered Mark and Sinead Duggan put in for planning permission in May.
My fantasy babysitting family took shape before my eyes. Truth is, I lie about Mum stuff all the time so I know I can pull this off.
I practically bounce into the kitchen. ‘Morning. D’you sleep OK?’ I ask Grandma, who’s engrossed in a magazine.
‘Good morning,’ she says, flicking a look over the top of her reading glasses. ‘I did. How about yourself?’
‘Fine.’ I busy myself with the new coffee machine Magda sent over, twirling the long box of coffee pods between my fingers. ‘Cappuccino, latte, espresso?’
‘No thanks,’ she says, nodding towards her pot of tea.
There’s a nervous flurry rising in my belly. Perhaps it’s the massive lie I’m about to tell. Then again, I have agreed to go out with a total stranger tonight, to a party full of even more strangers, which may be contri
buting to the jitters. I realise I’ve done a lap and a half of the room holding the milk.
‘There’s a film on with that DiCaprio fella later. The Times gives it four stars.’
I expect she’s been saving up this little nugget all morning, dying to tell me. There are literally five channels on her TV so there is never anything good on. I should probably engage here and at least ask which film it is, but I’m kind of desperate to get on with my plan. ‘I’ve got a babysitting job tonight. Forgot to say.’
I say it like it’s no big deal, but her eyes dart back up at me. ‘You do?’ she says.
‘I had a call yesterday. You were in the garden.’
‘For whom?’
‘Family called Duggan. His name is Mark. They’ve got two kids, a boy and a girl. Said they wouldn’t be too late. Midnight.’ I blurt it all out, just like I’d rehearsed in my head.
‘Duggan?’ Her little eyes fire and I watch them scan several random objects in the room in a matter of seconds. ‘Where do they live?’
My palms sweat and I can’t believe the boom-boom inside my chest isn’t loud enough for her to hear. ‘Er, I’ve written the number on a piece of paper upstairs, but it’s The Glenn. Near the train station.’
‘Oh, quite a way away,’ she says, loosening. ‘I’ll drop you off.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll walk. I know exactly where it is. I’ve passed it on my run,’ I say, turning around and clamping the milk-frothing gadget into its little slot to avoid looking at her. ‘He said he’d drop me back after too.’ I leave it a few seconds before I twist back towards the table with a smile.
‘Well, that’s cheered you up,’ she says.
I pop a coffee pod in and hit the button. Part of me is weirdly pleased with my scheming and I wonder if winging-it is a legit talent. I watch her return to the magazine I know she’s now not really reading. I look around and stare at the dark, creamy liquid dripping into my cup.
‘Pet?’ she says, after a few minutes. ‘You’ll give your dad a call to let him know, won’t you?’
Can’t say I wasn’t expecting this. The only consolation is how much worse it would be had I told her the truth. ‘I’ll do it now,’ I say carefully, clutching my over-full coffee as I push back into the hall.
I park myself on the bottom stair. I’m about to dial Dad on the home number when I spot the curled up old Post-it note still stuck to the front of Grandma’s well thumbed address book. I put the handset down and examine the other relics of Grandma’s life neatly ordered on the hall table: a crystal golf ball paperweight, a faded block of Post-it notes from one of Dad’s companies, a bowl of dusty potpourri and a half-empty bottle of holy water. I place my hand around the plastic bottle of the Virgin Mary and she feels nice and warm from the sun. I slowly punch the number from the Post-it note into the phone.
‘Hi, this is Emerald, I’d like to speak with my mum, Eliza Rutherford, please.’
‘One moment, Emerald.’ The woman’s voice drags each syllable out, painfully slow. My bare foot taps against the leg of the table as I try not to think about what I’m doing. ‘Putting you through now.’
Before I can thank her, I recognise Mum’s breathing on the other end of the line. ‘Em?’ She sounds shaky.
I panic. For a moment I genuinely consider saying nothing, but then I did call her, and I’m a week late. ‘Hi,’ I say, a little bluntly. The image of her face lying in vomit flashes before my eyes.
‘Thank you for calling, darling.’
The foul smell from her dressing room hits me again and I almost retch. ‘S’OK.’
Mum and I aren’t practised at being honest. Neither of us is comfortable saying things as they are. She could be dead had I not found her. Despite what Nick said about it being a cry for help, I can’t but wonder whether dying was her actual plan. How do we know she even wants to get better?
She sighs deeply. ‘It’s so good to hear your voice.’
Even though I know Foxford Park isn’t like this at all, I picture a dark corridor with a line of inmates behind, all waiting for the one phone like in some old TV prison show. I think about saying something, but it’s difficult to talk about anything else when she still hasn’t addressed what happened. One of us has got to bring up that afternoon, but surely that’s up to her. I wait.
‘How’s everything in Portstrand?’ she asks.
It sounds so absurd I almost laugh. ‘Fine.’ I can’t pretend this small talk isn’t ridiculous.
‘Darling …’ She sounds like she’s going to cry. I know the face she’s making now: the one where her nostrils flare and her lips press together like she’s trying to hold the tears in. I’m ashamed to admit it but I want her to cry. I want her to bawl at me. I want her to break down like I want to.
‘Yes?’ I press hotly.
‘About everything, I’m –’ But she stops.
Go on! Say it! I wait with Grandma’s heavy receiver clamped against my ear but there’s nothing more.
‘I miss you.’
That’s all she says. I want to tell her I miss her too. I want to tell her that I’ve missed her for years, but I can’t and I just wait, hoping she’ll continue. She doesn’t and now I don’t know how to respond, or if I’m even meant to. We both exhale into the long silence. Oh God, Mum, is it really so hard to say it?
‘Are you eating all right? Is Annie … looking after you?’ she asks. I’m thinking about her choice of words, the weird hesitation in her voice. Something from somewhere blazes inside me. ‘Yes! Of course she is! She’s my grandma!’
‘I’m just concerned.’
‘You’ve got a funny way of showing it.’ My heart is pounding.
‘Emerald!’
I stand up. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Wait, Em, please!’ But I stay silent. ‘You can come and see me, you know. As soon as next week they said. Will you?’
Oh yes, Family Days. Nick told us about those. Apparently we sit around with all these other families and they get you to cry and then everyone promises to change and then nobody does. OK, he might not have said exactly that, but I know I’m right. Sounds like a total waste of time. ‘I dunno.’
‘Think about it? Please?’
‘OK, maybe.’
‘I love you, Emerald.’
‘Yeah, OK. Bye.’ I hang up the phone too quickly and scrunch myself up on the last step like a crumpled tissue, cradling my head in my hands. I immediately want to pick the phone back up and say something different. I want to start the call all over again.
Why was I so harsh with her? Why couldn’t I be nice? I didn’t even ask her how she was. It must be awful to be there with those psychiatrists and only allowed to call home when they say so, but I can’t understand why she can’t just say sorry. Or if she can’t say that, I want her to tell me that she didn’t really want to leave me. Or at least that it wasn’t my fault.
LIAM
It’s a promise, and sometimes that’s enough
I’ve ants in my pants, as Mam would say. I’ve been like this all day. I’ve been on clock-watch the whole afternoon and now there’s only twenty minutes to go. Kenny was in earlier, sorting out what booze needed buying. Him and Murph were making a trip to the offie. I put in for a naggin of vodka for Emerald. She doesn’t look like a girl who drinks beer, but then maybe she is. Kenny suggested white wine so he’s getting a bottle of that too. I hope she won’t think I’m a presumptuous tool but I figure it’s best to be prepared. Dib, dib, dib, ’n’ all that!
I’m beginning to think the face I remember is one I made up and not hers at all. Da was out last night so I spent hours playing my guitar. Words kept coming. I started to record another song for SoundCloud: just a Johnny Cash cover, but I didn’t get round to uploading it. I haven’t the balls to put any of my own stuff online yet. There are now fifty-four likes and four reposts for my first cover of ‘When the Stars Go Blue’. I bet that Ryan Adams fella is shitting himself.
‘Who’s Emerald?’
These are the first words I hear stepping out of the shower. Laura is poking her nosy head around the bathroom door and grinning at me. I don’t have time for this.
‘Get out!’
‘She your girlfriend?’
I grab a towel and flick it at the door. ‘Get OUT!’
‘I was just asking,’ she bleats, all wounded.
‘Yeah, well, don’t.’
I hear her fall against the other side of the closed door. ‘See! You never tell me anything.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ I towel dry my hair and consider the sad reality that this is one hundred per cent true.
‘Liar. I heard you talking to Kenny.’
I open the door straight into her devastated face. I lower my voice. ‘Stop sneaking around me, Laura. Please!’ I close the door again.
She jams her foot inside the room. ‘Or what?’
I lift her foot out of the way with my own and she growls through the flimsy timber. ‘I’ll tell Da about all your online guitar stuff –’ she says.
I yank the door open, but she’s holding it shut on the other side for self-protection. ‘Laura!’
She suddenly lets go and I fly backwards against the sink. I’m standing there, glaring at her. I don’t need to say anything; this is a matter of loyalty. Her flushed red cheeks confirm as much. To be fair to her, she’s kept this secret until now. God knows I’ve done it for her, countless times, like last week when Turbo saw her swigging from a bottle of Jägermeister down the beach. She promised me it wouldn’t happen again and I haven’t breathed a word of it to Mam or Da.
Laura’s silence on the music thing is the only favour I’ve ever asked of her. She knows Da would flip if he thought I was entertaining the notion of ‘throwing it all away’.
Mam knows of course; she knows everything. When it’s only us at home during the day, I’ll play with my door open. Sometimes I play Adele or Joni Mitchell just for her. I’ll hear her singing along downstairs, with Evie. It’s our secret; she’s way too wise to ever go there with Da.
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