by Jane Casey
‘Jess . . . Do tell your mother I was asking for her.’
‘Um. OK.’ Or I might not mention it. There was something about Will’s dad that made me nervous. He’d walked into the shop and what little light there was seemed to have seeped out. Intimidating wasn’t the word for him – and that was when he was trying to be nice. You could say I was over-protective but I didn’t want him anywhere near my sweet, gentle mother.
He looked at me as if he knew what I was thinking, and I had to resist the urge to fidget. I just kept staring back, my face as neutral as I could make it, until he got tired of standing there and left. And it was only because of the ache in my lungs that I realized I’d been holding my breath.
9
SO FAR, ALL I’d had were questions – questions that led to more questions, generally. That afternoon I finally started to get some answers. But it’s true what they say: you should be careful what you wish for. Because once you know, that’s it. There are no more possibilities. No more explanations. There’s just the truth, no matter how much you might wish things were different.
After I finished work I went looking for Darcy. She wasn’t at the beach, or in any of the cutesy cafés around town where I expected to find her indulging in some mild posing. I was pretty much at a loss after that; I didn’t know her or Port Sentinel well enough to have any ideas about where she went when she was upset. As a last resort I tried her house, which she’d pointed out to me the previous day, and struck gold.
It wouldn’t be fair to say she was sulking, but she was lying on her bed, headphones on, sketching unwearable shoes with dramatic platform soles. I sat on the edge of the bed and the movement made her look round and take the headphones off.
‘Hey. What are you doing here?’
‘Your mum let me in.’
‘Not an answer to the question, but OK.’
‘You left Fine Feathers in a hurry. I wanted to make sure you were all right.’
She rolled back onto her front. ‘That’s nice of you. I’m fine.’
‘You were upset.’
‘I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have.’
‘I know you were annoyed about the dress,’ I said, treading carefully. ‘But I wasn’t expecting you to leave. I didn’t think you were taking it that seriously. If I’d known—’
‘You still wouldn’t have tried it on.’
‘Probably not,’ I acknowledged. ‘But I might have handled it differently.’
Darcy sighed. ‘It wasn’t really anything to do with the dress. Or you. So don’t feel bad.’
‘Was it something to do with Will?’
‘Maybe.’ She wriggled. ‘I don’t find him easy to get on with.’
‘That’s because he’s not,’ I said, thinking of the prickly conversations we’d been having, the apparently endless potential for giving offence.
‘You seem to manage.’
‘What does that mean?’ There had been a definite undertone to Darcy’s remark.
‘Just that you seemed to be getting on well when I walked up Fore Street on my way home. You were sitting in the window. Ring any bells?’
‘He was fixing Brenda’s hands.’
‘Oh. It looked very cosy.’
‘We were just talking.’
‘Right.’
‘Darcy, do you like Will or something?’
She reacted as if the suggestion was an insult. ‘Totally the opposite. I would never go near Will Henderson. Not for anything.’
From what I had observed, Darcy was never understated about how she felt, but there was something particularly venomous about the way she spoke that shocked me. ‘Don’t hold back, will you?’
She crawled to the top of the bed and curled up against the pillows. ‘I’m sorry if it upsets you, but it’s true. Don’t waste your time with him, Jess.’
‘He said something similar about you. Why don’t you like each other?’
Darcy sighed. ‘It’s not a new development. We’ve never got on. Freya used to say we were like the bad angel and the good angel, sitting on her shoulders, trying to persuade her to do what we said.’
‘Who was bad and who was good?’
‘Depends who you’re asking. We always seemed to be pulling in different directions. He’s not my kind of person. Too serious.’
‘Is that it? He’s too serious?’
‘Sort of.’ She fiddled with the hem of her skirt. ‘I don’t like being judged. I don’t like it when people look down on me just because I like frivolous things like fashion and shoes.’
‘He’s a boy. When it comes to shoes, he’s not going to see the point, Darcy.’
‘Yeah. Well.’
‘It seems like there’s more to it than that, though.’ Will’s warning to me didn’t really fit with Darcy liking fashion too much, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what he’d said.
‘Will Henderson has a real problem with being popular. As in, he isn’t, and he didn’t want Freya to be popular either. He wanted to keep her to himself.’ She sounded bitter.
‘Why isn’t he popular?’
‘The policeman’s son?’ Darcy laughed. ‘This is a small town, Jess. It’s hard enough to keep a secret without involving the cops.’
‘That’s stupid. I doubt he runs to his dad with every bit of gossip that comes his way.’ I was thinking of the look on Will’s face when his father was systematically humiliating him in the shop. I was pretty sure their relationship was the opposite of close. ‘Why would he tell tales on his friends?’
‘He’s done it in the past.’
‘What do you mean?’
But that was as far as Darcy was prepared to go. ‘It’s an old story and I don’t know what really happened. But he got a reputation for talking out of turn and it means no one trusts him. He’s a total outcast. You can’t be friends with him and be popular. It’s as simple as that. So he’s got no mates at all.’
‘That’s so sad. I thought he was just a loner.’ I was trying to imagine growing up in a small town without friends, without the possibility of making friends. It would be worse because there was nowhere to hide. Suddenly London didn’t seem so bad.
‘He wouldn’t want your pity. He told Freya he didn’t care.’ And Darcy was happy to take that at face value, because it suited her to believe it.
‘Freya was his friend. Didn’t she care about being popular either?’
‘No.’ Darcy shrugged. ‘She was always loyal to the people she loved. And being Freya, she kind of got away with it. She didn’t really notice that people treated Will like an outsider. She just assumed everyone would like him as she did, and no one really had the heart to tell her to cut him off.’
‘Except you.’ There was something in the way Darcy’s eyes wouldn’t meet mine as she spoke that told me she had been quite OK with stabbing him in the back.
‘So what? Freya needed to live in the real world. Ryan really liked her. It was her opportunity to get in with his gang, and she didn’t take it, for really stupid reasons.’
Which meant that Darcy had missed out, I thought. Being friends with Freya doomed her to social exile too. It was easy to see what had motivated her to try to separate Will and Freya. I had a problem with her reasoning, though.
‘Hold on. If she’d liked Ryan, Natasha would have skinned her alive. She’d never have forgiven her. I’d have thought that was the quickest way to become an untouchable.’
Darcy shook her head. ‘Natasha would have had to live with it. Obviously she’s crazy about Ryan but it’s more important to her to be in the gang than to keep him to herself. She wouldn’t have liked it, but she’d have pinned her hopes on Ryan getting bored with Freya. He’d have come back to her eventually.’
‘You sound very confident of that.’
‘Ryan and Natasha are meant to be together. They’re made for each other.’
And Darcy was now a fully paid-up member of Natasha’s fan club. They were Natasha’s words she was parroting.
�
��You know, I’m with Freya. If being popular means hanging around with Natasha and her idiot friends, I’d prefer social death, thanks.’
‘They’re not that bad. I like them.’
‘You’re pretty friendly with them now, aren’t you? Now that Freya’s gone.’
She stiffened. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing.’ I was genuinely surprised by her reaction. ‘Just that things have changed for you since Freya died. What did you think I meant?’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked confused. ‘I thought you were trying to say that my life is better now than it was. Because Freya’s dead.’
‘That wasn’t it at all.’ I looked at her curiously. ‘But is that what you think? Even though you don’t want to admit it?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ She had gone red. It was nice to see someone else succumb to the Blushing of Truth that was my speciality, but I was sorry to see it all the same. I liked Darcy – she was fun to be around – but I was starting to see Will’s point of view. I didn’t trust her either.
I left Darcy’s house with a stinking headache and resolved not to think about or talk about Freya for a few hours. Even if I hadn’t needed a break from puzzling about what had led to her death, there was something else I wanted to do with my afternoon. The tricky part was persuading Mum she really wanted to go for a walk through town, all the way down memory lane, to run through the little anecdotes she’d never shared with me about growing up in Port Sentinel.
‘I don’t like not knowing anything about you. People keep assuming I’ve heard all about them and how you knew them and I don’t have a clue.’
‘You’ll pick it up. You don’t need me to help.’ Mum was sitting on the sofa in the holiday cottage, editing pictures on her laptop. She had been out on her own, taking photographs in the countryside around Port Sentinel. Soft-eyed cows featured heavily, as did close-ups of weathered posts, rusting water troughs and delicate greenery. I sat on the arm of the sofa and looked over her shoulder as she flicked through the images. Cow. Cow. Tree. Water in a ditch. Flowers. Cow. A rogue donkey to keep things interesting. Cow. It was all totally fascinating. I wanted to suggest that maybe later on we could watch the mud dry on her wellies to round off the day’s entertainment, but I managed to bite my tongue.
‘The thing is, I’d like you to tell me about what it was like growing up here.’ I kicked the sofa with my heel, making her jump. ‘What’s the point in us coming down here together for the first time if you spend your time hiding here or at Sandhayes and never spend any time with me?’
‘I thought you’d be too busy with your job. And you’ve been getting to know your cousins. You’ve been making friends. I don’t want to get in your way.’
‘It’s not getting in my way to talk to me,’ I pointed out. ‘It would even be a help. I can understand you not wanting to go into too much detail, but I’d really like it if you could just tell me why you left Port Sentinel and decided you’d never talk about it again. It’s like something really bad happened and you were too traumatized to let yourself confront it until now.’
She laughed. ‘You’re so dramatic, Jess. Everything is life or death. It wasn’t a big deal.’
‘So why won’t you talk about it?’
‘Because there’s nothing to say. I met your father when he was down here visiting a friend. He was living in London. We had a long-distance relationship for a while. Then I moved to London. He didn’t get on with the family and it was easier to stay away than drag him down here to be disapproved of. He asked me to marry him and I said yes. Then you were born and I was too busy with you to think about anything else. The end.’ She snapped her laptop closed. ‘Sorry if it’s too boring for you.’
‘It’s not boring. I just think it’s incomplete.’ Will wouldn’t have told me to ask her about it if it was that straightforward. And I was very, very worried that the reason he knew what had happened was because it involved his father, Inspector Prince of Darkness himself.
Mum laughed. ‘You wish it was more complicated than it is because you love secrets.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Of course it is. You look for them everywhere.’
And find them, Mother dearest.
She leaned over and patted my head. ‘I’m not hiding here, by the way. I will come for a walk with you through town, in public, in daylight, and I will tell you whatever you want to know. Happy?’
‘Ecstatic.’
And I was pleased. She was acting like herself again, instead of the edgy, withdrawn version of my mother I’d been worrying about since our arrival. We walked down into town, shoulder to shoulder, and for a while it was how I had imagined our holiday would be. She told me a few stories along the way, about Susan Shefflin and how Mum pushed her off a wall – in fun, she insisted – and broke her arm. That led into a story about the first date she ever had, with a boy named Keith who took her to the seafront and bought her an ice cream.
‘Did you kiss him?’ I wanted to know.
‘Ugh. No. He’d been eating chocolate ice cream and it was all over his mouth like lipstick. And there were far too many people watching. It was a Saturday lunch time in high summer. My dad wouldn’t let me go out at night, which I thought was very unfair at the time.’
‘How old were you?’
She thought for a second. ‘Fourteen.’
‘Did Keith try to kiss you?’
‘He did. I was so appalled I dropped my ice cream in the sand.’
‘That doesn’t sound very romantic.’
‘It was a massive disappointment, for him and for me. I was sad about the ice cream. He was mortified about the kiss. But as first dates go, it wasn’t what I’d dreamed about, that’s for sure.’
‘Did you go on any other dates with him?’
Mum laughed. ‘One was enough. I only went because I was so surprised to be asked.’
‘And you didn’t want to hurt his feelings.’
‘That too. How did you know?’
‘You haven’t changed much. You like to make people happy.’
‘It’s not always a good thing.’ Suddenly serious, she said, ‘You have to be true to yourself, Jess. Don’t do what other people want you to do if it’s not what you would have done anyway.’
‘Words to live by,’ I said lightly.
‘They are.’
‘OK.’ I nudged her affectionately. ‘You’ve done your mothering bit for the day.’
‘You probably didn’t need me to tell you to be yourself. You’re far more self-possessed than I ever was.’
‘So you say. Not always when it counts, though.’ I was thinking about Ryan, and how unsettling it was to be on the receiving end of his attentions. He had answers for everything and most of them were designed to make me blush. Which they did. I wasn’t used to being a target for someone that attractive. I couldn’t quite believe he was really interested in me. Two things had occurred to me: he was using me to annoy Natasha, or he was flirting to distract me from asking questions about Freya. And why would he want to distract me unless there was something he didn’t want me to know? The only time I’d seen him lose his self-assurance was up on the headland. I didn’t like seeing him so rattled; I wasn’t comfortable with what that suggested to me. He’d been shivering like a frightened dog. That strong a reaction made me think that Ryan knew what had happened to Freya because someone who’d been there told him. Or, which was infinitely worse, because he’d been there himself.
Either way, I needed to ask him about it again, and I really didn’t want to put myself in the path of his steamroller charm, especially if he was hiding something truly dark behind the handsome face, the eyes as blue as the deep sea. Nor did I want any more reasons for Natasha to hate me.
And I was thinking about Freya again, I realized. Almost at random, I asked, ‘Who else did you date?’
‘Oh, a few people,’ Mum said vaguely. ‘I can’t remember all of them. I must be getting old.’
‘You must be able to remember some of them. Was there anyone special?’ Like Dan Henderson. I was afraid for a second I’d said his name out loud.
‘There really wasn’t anyone in particular. Not until your father turned up.’
‘Really?’
‘You sound disappointed.’
Yeah, it’s always a disappointment when you think your mother’s lying to you.
‘Not disappointed. Just surprised.’
‘I was only eighteen when I met him,’ she reminded me.
‘That leaves plenty of time to have a proper boyfriend. Years.’
‘Well, I didn’t.’
‘Was there anyone who liked you? Or someone you liked?’
‘Probably.’ Mum stopped and stared at me. ‘What’s up, Jess? Why so interested in my love life?’
‘I don’t know.’ I wriggled. ‘Just . . . I just wondered, that’s all.’
‘Wondered what?’ Her voice was sharp.
‘Wondered if you left someone behind when you ran away to London.’
She gave a tiny gasp, as if I’d hit her. ‘Where did you—? Who have you been talking to?’
‘Am I right?’
Instead of answering, she gave me a long doubtful look that answered my question. And although I was pretty sure she wouldn’t tell me anything else, I didn’t need her to. I could work out the rest for myself from the expression on her face when someone across the street called her name.
‘Molly!’
I didn’t need to look round but I did anyway – Dan Henderson, closing fast. He was smiling and the resemblance to his son was jarring. He came a little bit too close before he stopped, and he stared at Mum as if he was trying to memorize every detail of her face. I had to resist the urge to jump in front of her.
‘Molly Cole. It’s been a while.’
‘It has.’ She looked dazed, but she rallied. ‘Less of the Cole, though. I still go by Tennant.’
‘I thought you were divorced.’
‘That’s right.’ She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and didn’t say anything else. I felt like cheering.