Love at First Hate

by JL Merrow

  The view from the window was a hell of a lot better than the one he’d had in Luton. It overlooked a large, overgrown garden—another thing Sam could help with—and beyond the fence were unbroken fields. The skies above them were filled with swooping birds whose raucous calls Sam could just hear through the open window. He drew in a deep breath. It felt, all at once, like he could breathe, like he’d been living on half rations of oxygen in Luton.

  Well, that was air pollution for you. It was going to take him a while to get used to the quiet again too, without planes flying low overhead every couple of minutes before coming in to land at Luton Airport. Or police sirens every night. Or one of his housemates having a screaming row with her boyfriend. That’d been what’d hit him, going back to his hometown to live after the years in Edinburgh. The noise. Yeah, Edinburgh could be busy and loud too—especially around August, when the festival was on and you couldn’t move for tourists—but that was different. That was the sound of people having fun, not living grinding lives of desperation.

  Of course, moving back home in disgrace to find his mum had let out his room and he’d have to fend for himself had probably coloured his perceptions a bit.

  Sam sat down heavily on the bed, which creaked to remind him it wasn’t as young as it’d used to be and probably ought to be treated with more respect. He hoped Mal and Jory’s bed was in better nick. Lying awake at night listening to the rhythmic creaking of them shagging would just be the icing on the cake.

  Enough of that, though. Sam jumped up again with all the energy he could muster. Fake it till you break it, right? He dug around in his backpack until he found his phone charger and the book he’d been reading—The King That Never Was, because it couldn’t hurt to make sure he had all the facts at his fingertips—and bunged them on the bedside table.

  There. Moved in.

  Then he jogged back down the stairs.

  Mal looked up from his English Heritage magazine and bounded to his feet. “Found your room all right?”

  Sam couldn’t help contrasting Mal’s obvious energy with his own. “Yeah. Thanks. Listen, I really appreciate all this. You and Jory putting me up, ’specially when you don’t even know me.”

  “Oi, it’s no big. Not a problem. You’re Jory’s mate, and you’ve gotta look out for your mates, right?”

  “What did he tell you about me?”

  “Uh, he met you in Edinburgh, but you’re not Scottish. Oh, and not to get you started on the historicity of the Arthurian legends.”

  Sam laughed. “You mean, the lack of it?”

  “Moving on, now. Moving on. Cup of tea?”

  “That’d be great. Cheers.”

  It was a bit awkward, being here on his own with Mal. Sam kept wanting to apologise again for putting him out, but if he did that, Mal would have to go on saying it wasn’t a problem and they’d be stuck in an eternal loop of politeness.

  “So, uh, Jory’s out, then?” Sam asked, partly because he’d been wondering where the bloke was but mostly just to make conversation.

  The rat had disappeared somewhere—hopefully into a cage—so there wasn’t even that to talk about.

  “Oh. Yeah, sorry, mate, didn’t I tell you? He’s gone to see his nipper.”

  “His what?”

  “His son. Gawen.” Mal spun round and whipped a photo off the top of a bookshelf. He shoved it under Sam’s nose. “This is a recent pic. He’s a good lad, he is. Well bright.”

  Shell-shocked, Sam stared at the photo, which showed a blond, tousle-headed boy in his early teens—his teens?—proudly holding a lizard and grinning at the camera. “That’s Jory’s son? How flippin’ old was he when he had him?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Bloody hell, he kept that quiet.”

  “Uh, yeah.” Mal was looking worried now. “Prob’ly shouldn’t have told you about him, come to think about it. I mean, Jory prob’ly wanted to tell you himself.” He scratched his head and gave Sam a rueful smile. “You any good at acting?”

  It didn’t sound like a serious question, so Sam laughed. He could see why Jory liked the guy. “Sorry. But we could say I saw the picture and asked, if you like.”

  “Nah, I’m crap at lying. Right, you want this cuppa? Or a coffee, if you like? We’ve got decaf and all. Both kinds.” Mal threw out his arms as if to say the world was Sam’s coffee shop.

  “Coffee with caffeine, if you’ve got it, please.”

  “Right. One cup of instant anxiety coming up. White?”

  Sam grinned. “Nah, I’m Indian, mate.”

  Mal laughed. “Wanker. Just see if I offer you any sugar.”

  Jory turned up half an hour later, which was a bit of a shame as Sam had been about to get the story on how Mal had first met him. He loped into the living room with that earnest expression on his boyish face that Sam remembered so well. “Sam, so sorry I wasn’t home when you got here. Did you have a good trip?”

  Christ, it was good to see him. “Yeah, not bad, thanks. And don’t worry. Mal’s been taking good care of me.”

  Mal grinned. “Yeah, I’ve been telling him all your dirty secrets. How’s JJ?”

  “He’s okay. And stop calling him that. His name is not Jory Junior, and Kirsty hates it.” Jory bent down to give Mal a kiss, then joined him on the sofa.

  “She ain’t here, is she?”

  “No.” The two of them shared a weirdly intent glance that left Sam baffled.

  Jory turned to Sam. “Um. I expect Mal explained about Gawen?”

  “Uh, yeah. He looks a lot like you,” Sam said, because Oi, what’s all this about a secret family? wouldn’t have been very polite. “Doing well at school?”

  It was clearly the right question to ask. “Very. We’ve got high hopes for his GCSEs, and his teachers are already talking about Oxbridge.”

  “That’s great. Going to have another academic in the family, then?”

  “That’s up to him. When he’s older.” Jory made a face. “My brother’s keen for him to go into the family business, and Gawen looks up to him quite a lot.”

  “Yeah, how’s Gawen doing about that whole thing, anyhow?” Mal put in.

  Jory sighed. “Better, I think. Although it’s possible he’s only saying what he knows we want to hear, and doesn’t actually believe it himself. My brother was attacked just over a week ago,” he added to Sam.

  Sam stared, going from confusion to concern in nought point six seconds. “Seriously? Is he all right?”

  “He’s been better. A couple of cracked ribs and a concussion, and now he’s come down with pneumonia as well. They had to readmit him to hospital in Truro—he’d only been home a day or two.”

  “Bloody hell. But he’s going to be okay?” Pneumonia was serious. All Sam could think of was how they used to call it the old man’s friend, because it killed you off nice and quick.

  But that was before antibiotics were around, and Jory’s brother wasn’t that much older than him, was he?

  “He should be. Yes, I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s in good shape generally, and he doesn’t smoke. Although his diet could be healthier.” Jory’s mouth turned down.

  Sam tried to be reassuring. “A bit of extra weight can’t hurt at a time like this.”

  “Um, well, if anything he’s too thin.”

  Mal clapped Jory on the shoulder. “He’ll be fine. You wait. Bran ain’t the sort to let a little thing like pneumonia slow him down. He’ll be back home in no time.”

  “I suppose . . .”

  “Stop worrying. And stop feeling bloody guilty, all right? You’re as bad as Gawen.”

  Jory must have caught Sam’s baffled expression. “He was on his way home from going to see Gawen when he was assaulted, so of course Gawen’s been blaming himself. You know what kids are like—he kept asking Bran to stay a little longer, and Bran did, and now Gawen’s convinced it’s all his fault his uncle got hurt. And it’s made him nervous about walking around on his own, as well.”

  “Jeez. Poor ki
d. You don’t expect that kind of thing in a place like this.” Sam hadn’t, anyhow. He’d thought he was leaving the seedier side of life back in Luton. Then again, people were the same everywhere, weren’t they? “S’pose at least there weren’t any knives involved in the attack. So what was it? Mugging? Gangs?”

  “Gangs? Do we have those around here?” Jory glanced at Mal, who shrugged. “Nobody knows who attacked him, and Bran can’t remember.”

  “Rough.”

  Mal snorted. “If you ask me—”

  “Nobody did,” Jory said.

  “—they ought to check out who he’s evicted lately.” Mal gave Jory a defiant look. “What? I know he’s your brother, and Gawen likes him, but seriously, he ain’t exactly Mr. Popular around here. You don’t even like him.”

  “I care about him!” Jory protested. “And he’s . . . better than he used to be.”

  Mal clearly wasn’t buying it. “You only think that cos you don’t see as much of him as you used to. Now you’ve moved out of the stately home and all.”

  Sam goggled. “Stately home? What, you escaped from Downton Abbey or something, mate?” Another thing Jory had never got around to mentioning while they were at Edinburgh together.

  It was Mal who answered. “Nah, more like Toad Hall. And guess who’s Mr. Toad?”

  Jory rolled his eyes. “I suppose that makes me Ratty.”

  “Nah, don’t be daft. That’s me, innit? You’re Mole. I mean, come on. First date we went on, you took me down a flippin’ tunnel, dintcha?”

  “That wasn’t the first date,” Jory protested. He made a face at Sam. “On our actual first date, we went to the pub. Which I then got thrown out of and barred from.”

  “Yeah, and that was all your bruv’s fault too,” Mal said darkly.

  “Blimey, what did he do? Start a bar fight?”

  Sam stared, bemused, as Jory and Mal started to laugh.

  “Sorry,” Jory said, straightening his face with a visible effort. “But, um, no. Very much not.”

  Mal was still cackling. “Bloody hell, I would love to see Bran’s face when he hears he’s been accused of being drunk and disorderly.”

  “So what is so bad about the bloke?” Sam asked, confused.

  “You mean apart from the stick up his arse the size of Land’s End?” Mal drew in a breath, like there was going to be more, but stopped when Jory nudged him.

  “He’s just . . . old-fashioned, that’s all. He means well.” Jory looked uncomfortable.

  Mal looked like he had something to say about that too, but cut himself off with a glance at Jory’s face. “You’ll find out, anyhow. Right. Are we eating tonight, or what?”

  “Food would be good,” Sam agreed quickly. Last thing he wanted was to be a spare wheel in a domestic. “Anything I can give you a hand with?”

  This Bran bloke couldn’t be that bad, Sam reflected ten minutes later as he chopped onions with a manly sniffle. Jory’s kid liked him, and Mal was obviously expecting Bran to be around, else how would Sam find out what he was like?

  Maybe Bran just didn’t approve of Mal, who, from the way he talked, was a fair few rungs down the social ladder from posh-boy Jory. Course, the same could be said of Sam, so maybe he should brace himself for some arsey behaviour.

  Maybe it wasn’t the class thing at all. Maybe old-fashioned was a euphemism for homophobic. Then again, if Big Brother Bran was a bigot, would Jory have defended him?

  Maybe it was just the rats. The poor sod could have read 1984 or The Rats at an impressionable age, or something.

  Sam grinned to himself. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for Bran if that was the case.

  Bran loathed being back in hospital. The nurses had all turned into tutting schoolmarms—including the male ones—who scolded him incessantly for failing to do his physio (it hurt), failing to eat his dinner (he had no appetite), just generally . . . failing. Even in his private room he barely seemed to get a moment to himself. God knew how patients on the public wards managed.

  At least, the larger, more laudable part of him loathed it. There was a shameful fraction of him that felt safe here. Cocooned from the world in harsh sheets and stiff cotton blankets. And it was shameful, because there was so much he needed to be doing. He couldn’t even call his solicitor about the Constantine Bay property, as Bea had neglected to bring him his phone and there wasn’t one by his bed. Apparently there’d been an outcry over excessive charges and it’d been got rid of. Bran was all for stopping people preying upon the vulnerable in principle, but he wished those principles hadn’t left him entirely cut off. There was, presumably, a payphone somewhere in the hospital—Bran doubted they’d entirely got rid of the things, given that mobile phones had to be kept switched off in some departments to avoid interfering with the machinery—but it might as well have been on the moon. Even going to the bathroom exhausted him.

  Bran hadn’t expected another visit from PC Sally Peters, and was pathetically pleased to see her. His fever had gone down, leaving him with bone-deep tiredness and an aching frustration over this new setback. He had so much to do.

  “Have you caught him?” he asked brusquely, desperate to get the words out before they made him cough.

  She waited until his hacking had subsided before answering. “No joy, I’m afraid. Have you managed to remember anything else?”

  Bran shook his head. “CCTV?”

  “It’d be nice, but no. The nearest areas with coverage to where you were attacked . . .” She shrugged. “That close to the centre of town, there are way too many people milling around to single anyone out. And there’s nothing to suggest anyone was going your way.”

  “Residents?”

  She seemed to catch his meaning. “I went door to door, but at that time of night everyone had the curtains drawn and the telly on. Nobody saw or heard a thing. Not until the gentleman who found you raised the alarm.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Mr. Harper. On his way home from the Sea Bell public house when he pretty much tripped over you.”

  “Harper? He’s married to Gerren Ede’s daughter.” And the Sea Bell was Jago Andrewartha’s pub, as she must know. Unease prickled along Bran’s spine.

  “I had a word with Mr. Harper and Mr. Andrewartha. I’m satisfied they didn’t have anything to do with your assault.”

  Easy for her to say. Bran looked away from her and stared out of the window at gulls swooping in the sky.

  “Mr. Roscarrock?” Her voice was gentle. “Whoever attacked you can’t have counted on you suffering a loss of memory about the attack. They’d be expecting arrest, and it’s not easy to conceal that.” She paused. “Although granted, there was a street lamp out. It’s possible they were hoping you hadn’t seen them clearly enough for identification.”

  It gave Bran vindictive pleasure to think of the perpetrator living in fear of reprisals. They must have been in agony, waiting for the official knock on the door, and racking their brains as to why it hadn’t come. Did they assume he was playing with them? Bran liked to think so.

  Equally likely, of course, they were now sitting at home congratulating themselves on having got off scot-free. Perhaps even planning a further attack? His chest tightened painfully, and the coughing began again.

  Twenty-Seven Years Ago

  It was months before Bran realised something was wrong with Bea. He’d been at his boarding school, naturally, and she’d been at hers, so it wasn’t until the Christmas holidays that he knew.

  He’d written to her, of course. But she hadn’t written back. And besides, he’d had his own worries, after what . . . that man had said to him. Everyone said that Meadows in the fourth form was a poof, but Bran wasn’t like him, with his girlish laugh and his uselessness at games. He wasn’t.

  Everyone looked at other boys in the showers when they could get away with it, didn’t they? It was only natural to . . . to compare. It didn’t mean anything.

  His first sight of his sister when he got back home was like a
punch to the stomach. She was a tiny, shapeless mound on the sofa, her legs curled underneath her the way she’d used to sit when she was a little girl and her legs were too short to reach the floor. She had on a big, baggy sweater and ski pants; her face looked pale and too thin above her unnaturally lumpy figure.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked sharply.

  She gave him a sour look. “Happy Christmas to you too.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t got an eating disorder or something, have you?” Leighton’s sister had been hospitalised for making herself sick after meals. It had been all over school, mostly because Leighton was on the large side himself and had knocked another boy’s tooth loose for suggesting he ought to try following her example.

  “Don’t be an idiot. I’m pregnant, that’s all.”

  “But . . . how?” He blushed, realising how stupid he sounded. How naïve. “I mean, I know how, obviously, but—”

  She huffed. “You do remember Alan, back in the summer?”

  “Alan?” It came out too quickly, too loud, his voice too high. Bran’s chest felt as though she’d plunged a knife into it. “You mean he— I’ll bloody kill him!”

  “And how are you going to manage that? You don’t even know his last name.”

  “Do you?” he snapped back.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” It hurt, that this had been going on for months and he hadn’t known. She was his sister. His twin.

  She shrugged. “It’s not like you could have done anything about it.”