One Under

by JL Merrow

  “There’s no need—”

  “Don’t be daft. You took care of Mal, didn’t you?”

  Mal, Jory couldn’t help but notice, was looking more and more exasperated. “Pint of cider,” he said quickly. “Please.”

  “Rattler, Strongbow, or Scrumpy Jack?”

  Just what he needed. Further choices. “The first,” Jory said, trying to sound decisive.

  Mal grinned and held up his half-full glass. “Good innit? That’s what I’m on.”

  Jory wasn’t sure what made him glance round as Tasha pulled his pint. Some kind of sixth sense that he was being watched, perhaps. A man in his sixties or so was working at the other end of the bar—at least, he was on the working side of the bar, although he was in fact perched on a stool and drinking a pint of beer. He looked vaguely familiar, and his gaze was fixed firmly on Jory.

  As their eyes met, the man put down his pint and, without hurrying, got to his feet. He headed down to their end of the bar.

  He wasn’t smiling.

  Jory startled as Tasha put his drink in front of him with a “There you go, babe.”

  “Th-thanks.” He took a gulp, hoping to steady his nerves.

  “Well, well. We don’t often see the likes of you in here.” The barman’s tone was gruff and not precisely welcoming. He turned to Mal, who seemed as confused as Jory felt. “Surprised to see you drinking with him.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Tell you his name, did he?”

  Mal frowned. “He’s Jory. Works up at the museum.”

  “Actually that’s just temporary—”

  “He’s a Roscarrock.” The barman said it flatly. Coldly. As if it was a bad thing. “Brother to Branok and Beaten Roscarrock.”

  Jory swallowed. Everyone was staring at him now. “Ah, well, yes.” He wondered desperately what his family could have done to provoke such hostility. Jory had an idea that Bran could be a little ruthless when it came to property, but surely that was all business?

  This seemed personal.

  “Didn’t tell you that, did he?” the barman went on.

  Mal’s face had changed, and not in a good way. “No, he didn’t.”

  “You didn’t ask! I mean, we didn’t exchange surnames. W-what’s this all about?” Jory hated how his stammer came back in times of stress.

  “My bruv,” Tasha snapped. “Mal’s best mate. Devan Thompson.”

  Jory frowned, baffled. “Who?”

  Mal pushed away from the bar and walked off a couple of paces. Then he turned back, his face hard. “Not funny, mate. Seriously, not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be—”

  “Can I bar him?” Tasha asked the barman. “Can I?”

  Jory just stared at them, wishing he’d never come. How the hell had it all gone so wrong so quickly? He should have stayed at home with his books and his computer. Or gone to see Kirsty and Gawen. Not accepted invitations from good-looking strangers. When had that ever ended well for him? He should go, now, but his feet seemed rooted to the spot.

  “I think you’d better leave,” the barman rumbled, and that broke the spell.

  Jory fled.

  When he got back home, Jory scrambled through the house until he ran down Bran in his study. “Who’s Devan Thompson?” he demanded.

  Bran glanced up briefly, then returned his gaze to the file he’d been leafing through. “Who?”

  “Don’t play games with me. He’s the man who just got me thrown out of a pub, despite the fact I’ve never even met him.” Jory’s face was hot with remembered humiliation.

  “What?” Bran’s face darkened as he stood up. “That’s an outrage. Which pub? Was it the Sea Bell?”

  “I . . . It doesn’t matter.” The last thing Jory wanted was to cause any more bad blood.

  “What were you doing in a pub?”

  Oh God. Jory should never have started this. “Tell me about Devan Thompson,” he said quickly.

  Bran’s glare deepened for a moment, but then he let out an exasperated huff and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “I suppose I’d better tell you. I don’t want you bothering Bea about this. You won’t remember—you were just a baby—but when Bea and I were in our teens, there was a . . . regrettable incident with a boy visiting for the summer. Devan Thompson was the result.”

  Jory stared. “He’s Bea’s son? Our nephew?”

  “Only in the strictest sense. He has no claim on us. I thought all of that would have blown over by now. And you have met him,” Bran added. “You were the one who let him into our house in the first place.”

  Jory recoiled at the accusation in Bran’s tone. “I— What? When?”

  “Last summer. When he came looking for Bea.”

  “Last summer? And neither of you told me?” Jory desperately tried to recall the occasion. He’d met his nephew and he hadn’t even known?

  “It was nothing to do with you.”

  “Nothing . . . He’s family, for God’s sake.”

  “No, he’s a mistake.”

  “How come nobody forced her to get married?” Jory couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone.

  “She was far too young for that, and there was no question of her keeping the baby.” Bran’s tone was brusque.

  “How old was she?”

  “Does it matter?” Bran made an impatient noise. “He was born when we were sixteen.”

  Sixteen . . . Jory would have been seven. In his first year of boarding school . . . “Is that why I had to spend Easter in London with Aunt Sarah?”

  Bran nodded. “Mother took Bea away for the final months, and Father didn’t want to be left with you running around underfoot.”

  Jory couldn’t believe it. He could still remember the rush of hurt and bewilderment when Aunt Sarah came to pick him up from school instead of his mother, and told him only that his parents had thought it best that he didn’t go home. He’d been devastated at not seeing his best friend from Porthkennack, Patrick.

  By the time summer holidays came around, Patrick had found a new best friend. One who wouldn’t be away for the greater part of the year.

  And Bea had been . . . Well. Bea. Perhaps a bit quieter than before? Jory honestly couldn’t have said. Maybe Bran had been a little angrier—but then he’d never had a great deal of patience with his much younger brother in any case. “What about the baby?”

  Bran shrugged. “Given up for adoption, obviously. She really should have got rid of it, but you know how girls that age are about babies.”

  It. As if it hadn’t grown into a young man since then.

  Christ. Jory had a nephew only seven years younger than he was. That was less than the age difference between Jory and the twins. And the barmaid at the Sea Bell was that nephew’s sister, and Mal—the young man Jory had been interested in—was his best friend.

  Jory didn’t often drink, but right now he felt the situation justified it. He marched out of the study without another word and headed straight for the dining room, which was where Bran kept his very expensive single malt whisky.

  Bran wouldn’t be happy about Jory drinking it, which would make it taste all the sweeter. Christ, he’d known Bran was . . . how he was, and of course Bran didn’t have any children of his own, but how could even he be so callous about this poor unwanted child? Jory grabbed the decanter, poured himself a generous few fingers of whisky and tossed back a gulp. Smooth as it was, the burn of the alcohol didn’t hit him until after it had gone down. Jory shuddered and put the glass down, blinking a little. Maybe he’d drink the rest later.

  Maybe he’d chuck it down the sink. He needed to think what he was going to do.

  He was still sitting there when Bea returned home.

  Jory heard her get in before he saw her. Not because he’d been listening for the door, but because Bran didn’t catch up with her until she was directly outside the dining room, and angry whispers tended not to stay whispers for long.

  They came in to talk to him together, as they
always did. Jory had often wondered how much of the united front was just that—a front—but they were no closer to giving anything away tonight than they ever were. The whisky churned uneasily in Jory’s stomach. He wished he’d finished his pasta instead.

  Bea spoke first. She had what Jory thought of as her networking clothes on: a sleek, expensive navy dress that still looked crisp and uncrumpled despite the heat of the day. “We’re not going to fight about this.”

  “Nice of you to let me know,” Jory snapped back.

  “You’re making a fuss about nothing,” she carried on coolly. “The matter was dealt with last year.”

  “The matter. That’s an interesting way to refer to your own flesh and blood.” Chair legs scraped against the stone floor as Jory stood without conscious decision.

  Bran stepped forward, putting himself between Jory and Bea. As if Jory were a threat, for Christ’s sake. “Don’t you think Bea’s suffered enough in all this, without you adding to it?”

  Guilt stricken, Jory slumped back down into his chair, his head in his hands. “I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

  He heard a chair being pulled out beside him, then Bea’s cool, even voice. “We thought you had enough on your plate, what with Gawen’s troubles.”

  Jory’s head snapped up. “And what about Gawen? Don’t you think he deserves to know his cousin?”

  “No.” Her tone was firm and final. She softened it when she spoke again. “There would be no advantage for Gawen in getting to know Devan Thompson. How is Gawen, by the way? I haven’t seen him for a while. Is the schoolwork still going well?”

  It was a blatant attempt to change the subject. Jory hated himself, a little, for succumbing to it. “Very much so. He’s pretty much certain to get the maths prize this year.”

  “And Kirsty?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “And are the two of you any closer to . . .?”

  She left it hanging. Jory looked away. “I wish you’d leave that alone. It’s not going to happen.”

  “But if you—”

  “Just leave it, all right? How do you think you’d feel if it was you and this Devan’s father?”

  Bea recoiled as if he’d slapped her.

  Jory felt as wretched as if he had. “Oh God, Bea, I’m sorry—”

  Bran was gathering Bea up from the chair like a child, and she was letting him. “Christ alone knows why you even bother to live here with us,” he snapped, his tone clipped and vicious. “You’ve got no sense of family, of obligation . . .”

  Jory couldn’t look at his sister as he stumbled from the room. He needed to get out of the house—he couldn’t breathe in this place. Almost without conscious decision, he found himself outside the back door, staring over the old kitchen garden, where he could dimly remember his mother tending her fresh herbs.

  Bran had had it grassed over years ago. Jory had been vaguely surprised he hadn’t just poured on concrete; after all, even lawns required a bare minimum of nurture.

  The path behind the house was an old friend, leading up to the pinnacle of Big Guns Cove, where the cliffs jutted proud into the sea, jagged rocks guarding their base like merciless sentinels. The clifftops calmed him, as they always did. Perhaps it was because Bea and Bran never came this way. How many Roscarrocks had stood here before him, maybe watching for a light or a glimpse of sail that told them their ships were coming home, laden with spoils?

  Jory stood for a long moment right on the edge, staring down at the waves far, far below as they crashed on the rocks, sending up bursts of spray. He crouched down, wanting to feel the scrubby grass, softer than it looked beneath his fingertips, the crumbling of the cliff edge as he ran his hand over and down onto the stone. Gulls shrieked around him. The souls of dead fishermen, he’d been told, but just as likely, those of long-gone smugglers and pirates, or hapless sailors, their ships lured onto the rocks by a falsely smiling lantern.

  He’d often thought of getting his climbing gear out of the old stables and abseiling down these cliffs . . . but he could picture Bea’s and Bran’s faces, and knew he’d never do it.

  Up here, he felt far closer to his father than he ever had when the old man had been alive. Perhaps he’d been more of a family man when the twins were small, but to Jory he’d always been a distant figure, stern and, if not quite disapproving, always seeming on the verge of it. So different from his friend Patrick’s father, who’d played cricket with them on the beach, flown kites, and let the smaller children ride on his shoulders.

  Perhaps bad parenting was in the blood. Or perhaps the Roscarrocks had simply never learned how it should be done.

  Jory turned to look back at the house, solid and unchanging for centuries.

  No. He wasn’t going to do this Bea and Bran’s way.

  He was going to seek out this Devan Thompson, and . . . be an uncle to him.

  Whatever that might mean.

  Mal still wasn’t sure about it all when he got up next day, had a stretch and a scratch, and wandered over to the bedroom window to see what the weather was doing. It was midmorning, cos he’d had a rough night. Bad dreams. Really bad dreams, but he wasn’t going to think about them, and he didn’t need to anyhow, cos he had to sort out what he was going to do about Jory sodding Roscarrock.

  On the one hand, he was a bit pissed off about being made a fool of, but on the other, the bloke had had a point about nobody ever bringing up surnames. And on the other other hand, Mal hadn’t finished all he’d wanted to do at the museum, cos of being interrupted by Mum’s phone call, which he also wasn’t going to think about, so he could do with going back there. And on the other other other hand—seriously, people should have more hands, it’d make all this a lot simpler— Sod it, he’d forgotten what he was thinking about now.

  But anyhow. The bloke had seemed pretty decent, up until Dev’s name had been mentioned, when he’d denied all knowledge. Mal wasn’t sure what he thought about that. He’d assumed the bloke was telling porkies, because how could he not know about Dev? But if he had been lying, he’d been doing a bloody good job of it. Mal could have sworn that look of total bewilderment had been genuine, which meant Jory was blameless, didn’t it? Course, there was the Roscarrock thing, but it wasn’t like he could help that any more than Mal could help his name, and—

  —and Jory was right there, over the road and leaning on the wall, which Mal could see from the window, and shit, he probably ought to put some clothes on cos if Jory looked up now, he was going to get a proper eyefull. Mal yanked the curtain back into place, stumbled across the room, and pulled on his jeans from yesterday. T-shirt, T-shirt . . . did he have any clean T-shirts? Oh yeah, there. Pile on the dresser. Ironed and everything. Tasha was still being nice to him, bless her. Mal pulled one over his head, grabbed a couple of socks at random from the heap next to the shirts, and put them on too.

  Then he jammed his feet into his trainers and was down the back stairs and halfway across the lane before his brain caught up and asked him what the bloody hell he thought he was doing.

  Jory gave him a nervous smile as he approached. “Hi.”

  “What are you doing back here?” Mal asked. “Uh, don’t mean to be rude, but, yeah. ’Sup, bruv?”

  “I didn’t know,” Jory said earnestly.

  “What, that Dev’s me mate? Yeah, I kinda got that.”

  “No, I mean . . . I’m aware this is going to sound incredible, but I honestly didn’t know about . . . Dev, you called him? Not Devan? They never told me.”

  Mal gave him a sidelong look. “Seriously, mate? Cos my sister’s up the duff right now, and trust me, it’s the sort of thing you notice.”

  “I wasn’t here. Boarding school from the age of seven, remember? They kept me away from it all.” Jory took a deep breath. “I want to meet him.”

  Yeah, right. “No, you don’t.”

  Jory frowned. “Yes, I do.”

  “Yeah? What about your brother telling Dev he’d have the law on him if
he kept hanging round the family?”

  “He what? Oh God. I’m so sorry about Bran. He gets very, um, concerned about the family’s reputation.”

  “Wasn’t only him, though, was it? How do you think Dev felt when his own mum—your sister—told him to fuck off?”

  Jory closed his eyes briefly. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine it. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “See, that’s where I don’t get it. I asked about you. You’re their brother, aintcha? So how come?”

  “We’ve never been close. There’s nine years between us and, well, they’re twins.”

  “But you live with them, right? In that big house?”

  “I do now. Last year, when Devan came to see her, I was only visiting.”

  “But you were there?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know anything about it. Bran just said . . . Honestly, I can’t remember what he said. Probably something about it being a business matter. Bea’s very involved with various local enterprise initiatives.” Jory rubbed the back of his neck. “If I’d known Dev was my nephew . . . I can’t believe I opened the door to him and I didn’t even know.”

  Yeah, Mal was having trouble believing it and all. “You must’ve heard them talking. I don’t care how thick the walls are in that old pile.”

  “I didn’t, I swear. Have you got a picture of him?”

  “On my phone.” Which was upstairs on his bedside table. Mal hesitated. “Look, you can come in, all right, but keep the noise down or you’re gonna have Jago and Tasha to deal with, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

  He led Jory up the back stairs, desperately hoping Tasha wouldn’t choose this precise minute to stumble out of bed, and breathed a sigh of relief when they made it to the box room Jago had cleared out for him.

  It felt weird, having Jory in his bedroom, standing six inches away from his unmade bed. And yesterday’s kecks, which he’d stripped off last night and let fall on the floor. Mal managed to kick them under the bed when he went to grab his phone.

  He turned back to Jory, who was standing around looking awkward and way too big for the room, and scrolled through his photos until he found a picture of Dev and Tasha. “There you go.” He handed Jory the phone.