by Abigail Mann
***
‘Where do you think she is?’ I ask, zipping up my raincoat. Outside, rain lashes the windows in gusts so violent it’s like a caricature of terrible weather.
‘I dunno. She might have gone straight there with Jacqui. Ha’ you seen outside?’ he says, pulling on his mud-streaked work boots. ‘Would you want to walk over in this?’
I shake my head and check my phone again, if only out of habit. ‘And you’re sure the animals are fine? We don’t need a sheep floating in the brook when they come to do the survey tomorrow.’
‘Ava, dinna fash yersel’.’
‘Hmm?’
‘Sorry, English translation: stop worrying.’
Chapter 31
‘Oh, aye! Is that Kian with a lass on his arm?’ says a voice from the illuminated porch of the church hall.
‘All right lads? Just helping Ava navigate the potholes. How you doing, Gary? Allan, good to see you.’
‘I’m fine from here,’ I lie, my heel sinking into a puddle rippling with droplets of rain.
‘So, this is the reason you’re not down The Banshee anymore?’ says Gary or Allan. I’ve taken an instant dislike to them both, seeing as they’re referring to me through objective pronouns despite the fact that I’m standing right in front of them.
‘No, boys. Got a lot on at the farm. Ava’s been volunteering.’
‘Oh, aye? Not even paying you? You’ve got to save money somewhere, right, Kian? He buys all the runts destined for the sausage factory when we’re down at the cattle market, so it figures,’ says Gary, finally addressing me. Well, someone’s already won the Biggest Bell-end of the Week Award.
Kian drags a hand through his hair and forces a smile.
‘Any chance we can go inside? It’s freezing out here,’ I say.
‘Oh, aye. After you.’
I nod to the two men and step over the threshold, where the metallic fizz of rain is replaced with the thwack of a drum and the chattering of voices greeting each other. The strip lighting that illuminated my corned-beef legs during aerobics has been replaced by fairy lights wound round the ceiling beams. Below, plastic tealights on each table flicker with an almost believable flame. A man at the back of the hall plucks violin strings and plays with amplifier dials, as other musicians pause every now and again to sip ale, stepping forward in turn to test their sound levels. Ross chats to an accordion player, his arms folded over the instrument like it’s a protruding belly. I shuffle out of my coat and hang it on a peg as Ross snatches a glance at me. He rolls his sleeves up to the elbow, something I’ve noticed he does when nervous.
‘Hey, thanks for that,’ says Kian, nodding towards the porch.
‘Oh, no worries. Thought you might need a good excuse to flee.’
‘It’s all banter, but it does get boring after a while. They’ve been dining out on the fact that I’m vegetarian since I came back to Kilroch.’ He pauses, raising a hand to John, who has a small child balanced on each hip. ‘Ah, best say hello. John never gets a night off. Shout if you see Moira, all right?’
Kian heads over to one of the tables set up around the edge of the hall, paper tablecloths scattered with cardboard coasters, bowls of crisps, and salty peanuts. Everything looks better with fairy lights and bunting. It’s the cheapest way to disguise the peeling magnolia paint of community halls. Mum knows this fact well, which is why we have an entire cupboard full of them at home.
I step to the side as Allan and Gary push past, each with a keg balanced on their shoulder. There’s a whoop of support from the men in the room, but it’s only now that I notice how outnumbered they are by women. It’s the most people I’ve seen in one place since I left London. Three red-headed boys run from one side of the hall to the other, dropping down to their knees to see who can slide the furthest across the parquet floor. Concerted as their efforts are, they’re beaten by a small girl with a mass of curls that flops in front of her eyes as she skids across the floor in thick woollen tights. She comes to a halt near my feet with a sudden loss of momentum that forces her back onto her heels. I offer a hand to help her up, which she takes, glancing over her shoulder to grin smugly at the boys who have lined up at the back of the hall to try again, their elbows up by their armpits.
‘I’m the best at this,’ she says, pushing her hair off her face with a flat palm.
‘You are. I bet you can get even further next time.’
The little girl nods vigorously and runs off, leaving me squatting on the floor.
‘You all right down there?’ says Ross.
I stand up and reach for his arm, which I use to pull him into a hug. He raises a hand behind my back to acknowledge some newcomers. Oh. We haven’t done this in public. I shift my stance and pat him on the back.
‘If I linger here for too long, will Eileen have words with me?’ I whisper, on tiptoes. By the kitchen hatch, Eileen folds her arms and makes a comment to Jacqui, who tightens her apron strings and catches my eye. Hmm. If Jacqui is here, Moira must be.
‘If Eileen asks you to try the sausage rolls, say no,’ says Ross.
‘Why? Did someone leave them next to a radiator?’
‘She may have tucked a razor blade between the pastry layers. Take out the competition, you know?’ he says, his eyes drifting down my body. Dear Lord, give me the power to get through an evening without gaining the reputation of a village harlot.
‘Oh, have you seen Moira?’
‘No, actually. I thought she was really keen for a ceilidh.’
‘I’m telling her tonight,’ I say, dropping my voice. ‘As soon as she arrives.’
Ross breathes in slowly and squeezes my arm. ‘Good luck. You’ll be fine, just be honest. And patient. She’ll have a ton of questions, I’m sure.’
The drummer taps out a staccato beat and there’s a whoop from the edges of the room as the band kicks into a folk song. Amongst the noise of shuffling feet, there’s a groan from a handful of middle-aged men who anchor themselves to their pints, draining their glass like there’s someone drowning in it before being physically dragged away from the table.
‘Need a partner?’ says Ross.
I nod and follow him to the middle of the room, where we join four others in a circle, all of whom look far more prepared than me.
‘I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing,’ I say to the woman next to me.
‘Ah, you’ll be fine, lovie. Just don’t stand on my feet, I’m fresh out of a bunion surgery.’
I nod, a little put off.
By a trestle table bowed under the weight of three kegs. Allan takes a shot glass out of his coat pocket and hands it to Kian. Still no Moira, or I’m sure she’d be at his shoulder, insisting that she could match him drink for drink.
Ross jumps up on the plywood stage to thank everyone for coming, leaving me to run over the steps in my head from this morning, but it’s a blur of footprints against a backdrop of inky clouds.
The caller announces the opening dance and after a brief run-through of the steps, the band kick off and we’re hopping in a circle, hands clasped, boobs bouncing (in my case, anyway). I didn’t think to wear a sports bra, which was a gross oversight. Each time I jump up, they seem to be going down, resulting in a slingshot manoeuvre designed to cause maximum discomfort. Between looking at gaps in the crowd for Moira and changing direction every few seconds, I’ve chest-bumped with so many people I could pass as a frat boy.
As the fiddle playing becomes less frantic, I disentangle myself from the mass of interlocked limbs and clap the band, grinning despite my inability to follow the steps. I clutch Ross’s shoulder, catching my breath as two women I recognise from aerobics head in our direction.
‘Need a drink?’ he says, eyeing them nervously.
‘Definitely.’
We head to the kitchen hatch, where a plastic ice-cream tub acts as an honesty box for the makeshift bar. Two dozen glasses are upturned on a tea towel, a row of Iron Bru and boxed wine beside it. Everything is laid out with unif
orm precision. It’s the most organised refreshments stand I’ve come across, and I’ve seen my fair share. The PTA mums would be wild with envy.
‘A white wine spritzer and a Tennent’s, please, Eileen.’
Eileen shifts from one foot to the other, her nostrils flared. She looks from me to Ross and glowers, her burgundy lipstick disappearing in the thin line of her pursed lips. I scratch my arm and turn to smile at Ross, but he’s been sidetracked by John, who flicks peanuts in his mouth after each sentence. Inside the kitchen, Jacqui turns from the sink and peels off her Marigolds. She wears a deep green wrap dress and her signature scowl, which she aims in my direction.
‘Hi, Jacqui. Is Moira about?’
‘No.’ She opens the fridge and pulls out trays of beige food, garnished with clumps of parsley like a vintage Delia Smith cookbook.
‘Oh … is she OK? She was supposed to come over earlier.’
‘She hasn’t been out of her room all afternoon. In short, I don’t know if she’s coming. She barely said three words to me before I left,’ says Jacqui, using a fish slice to transfer the canapés onto a tray wrapped in tin foil.
Eileen drops a single ice cube in my glass. I pick it up with trepidation, but after a sip it’s clear that the ratio of wine to soda water is so disproportionate that a mosquito would struggle to get drunk if it fell inside. Ross leans over my shoulder, his wallet in hand.
‘I’ll get this,’ he says.
‘Honestly, let me.’ I stuff a fiver into the tub. ‘Cheers.’
We tap our glasses together and sip. It’s lukewarm and has a vinegar aftertaste, but it’ll do.
‘All right?’ Kian leans against the window sill, an empty glass in his hands. He has a loose stance, like his joints have been over-oiled.
‘Yeah, not bad. Hey, have you heard from Moira? Jacqui said she’s not coming,’ I say.
‘Eh? That’s odd. She’s never missed a ceilidh. She didn’t speak to me for bloody ages because I couldn’t come to the one she threw for her eighteenth birthday.’
My heart thumps and a prickly warmth creeps up the back of my neck.
‘Do you think she’s all right?’
Kian nods and tips beer foam into his mouth from his near-empty glass. He swallows a burp, his hand on his chest. ‘If she’s not here in fifteen, I’ll call her landline from the phone box outside.’
‘I’ll be back in a second, guys,’ says Ross, squeezing my hand before walking shoulder first through the crowd.
‘You look really tired,’ I say to Kian.
‘Nah, I’m fine.’
‘She’s great, isn’t she?’
‘Who?
‘Moira.’
‘She’s one of the best. Always has been. Always happy,’ he says, his lips twitching with a smile.
‘You two work so well together. You’re like Kilroch’s power couple.’ If she’s not here, the least I can do is talk her up. ‘Have you ever thought about giving it a proper go? With Moira?’
‘Ah, that ship is long gone,’ says Kian. ‘We’re family friends, you know? It would be weird. If I fucked it up, that would be that. You can’t go back to what you were before, right?’ Kian says something else, but I can’t hear him over the band.
‘What?’
‘Do you want to join in?’ he says, gesturing to the dance. It’s a couples dance I don’t recognise from our chicken coop rehearsals, but Kian assures me it’s an easy one, so we slot onto the end of the row. As the music builds, the dance gets faster and faster until Kian and I are cheered down the length of the hall, spinning in tight circles until we reach the fire exit. I laugh and clap along, gasping for breath, but Kian hasn’t fared so well. He bites his bottom lip, hands on knees, positively green.
‘Do you need some air?’ I ask.
Kian nods, his cheeks puffed up. I guide him out of the side door onto a pea-shingle path that lines the graveyard. Vomiting in public would be a real mood killer. I should know.
Kian paces like Big Bertha when she’s trying to find a good spot by the slops trough. He puts his hands on his hips and exhales a measured breath.
‘I’ve overdone it. It’s the lads, they always rib me if I can’t keep up shot for shot.’ He puts a hand over his mouth, pausing on the spot. An owl hoots from above, but I can’t remember if this is a good omen or a bad one. Instead of belching, he swallows and rubs his eyes with the palms of his hand. Thank you, my little owl friend.
‘I’m good,’ he slurs.
‘You sure?’ I ask, glancing back to the doors to see if it’s necessary to enlist support. Kian nods, closes his eyes, and tips forward to prop himself up against the wall, his hand beside my head. He’s well within my personal space, but just as I’m about to slip under his arm, I notice a trickle of blood on his forehead.
‘You’re bleeding,’ I say.
‘Nah,’ he says dismissively.
‘You are! What happened?’ I say, reaching up. I push his head to one side, exposing a two-inch cut along his hairline.
‘Scythe fell off the wall in the barn this afternoon. My fault.’
‘Have you tried to stick yourself back together?’ I say.
‘Yeah. No time to go to the doctors,’ he says, smiling stupidly. ‘Superglue.’
‘That’s not meant for your head!’
He opens his eyes, but his gaze is unfocused and hazy. As I step away, Kian loses balance, falling in the same direction, which results in him headbutting my cheek.
‘For fuck’s sake! Ouch!’
‘My tooth!’ cries Kian, clutching his mouth.
‘It landed on my cheek! Fucking hell!’ I clutch my nose and rub my face to divert the pain, my palm covered in balmy pink. Oh, blusher. You were good whilst you lasted.
‘Have I walked into something?’ says a voice from the direction of the graveyard. Kian squats by my feet and heaves by the drainpipe.
‘Moira! You’re here! Where’s your tartan ceilidh skirt?’
Moira steps in front of an ornate tomb criss-crossed with ivy, dramatically lit from the disco lights thrown from the church hall windows. Her face is pale, eyes puffy and pink. I take my hand away from my cheek and take a step towards her, but she tenses.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘What happened?’ she says in a tone I’ve not heard her use before. ‘Shouldn’t you tell me? Or am I really the last person in the world who knows that you’re my sister?’
Chapter 32
‘It was meant to be tonight. I was going to tell you tonight.’
Moira doesn’t look angry. Instead, she glances from Kian to me, her eyes wide with confusion. I wince from the after-effects of Kian’s drunken headbutt, but other than saying ‘sorry’ in between heaves, he’s too preoccupied to lend his attention elsewhere.
‘Were you?’ says Moira, biting her lip. She twists the wrist strap of her jacket in her hands, not wanting to meet my eye. I feel entirely sober, more so than I ever have done in my life. It’s like my insides have shrivelled up, gone black, and been plucked out with a cocktail stick.
‘It looks like you and Kian have had a proper laugh tonight. Can’t say it’s been so fun for me.’
‘No, that’s not what this is. Moira, honestly, I planned to talk to you about it tonight. It was supposed to be nice. Special, even. I know how much you love ceilidhs, so I was going to tell you here, honestly.’
‘Can someone tell me what this big secret is?’ says Kian, looking over his shoulder at us like Gollum squatting beside The One Ring.
‘No … yes. Later, I need to—’ I stutter.
‘Ava’s my half-sister,’ says Moira. She walks towards me. John spots her from inside the hall and gestures for her to go in, but she shakes her head and looks up at the branch of a pine tree, blinking.
‘What?’ says Kian, dropping back onto his heels.
‘Moira, I asked Jacqui where you were and she wouldn’t say. I would have come over to the house if I’d known that you found out like this.’
&n
bsp; ‘Ah, you spoke to Mum? Is she the one you refer to as the … hang on a minute, I took a screenshot.’ Oh, shit. No, no, no. ‘“The Hilltop Sasquatch of Kilroch”? Because I can’t think of anyone else who was on the cliff the day you almost drove the quad bike onto the rocks.’
Moira’s face is lit by the backlight of her phone, her hair in rat-tail tendrils from the rain. She scrolls with her thumb, eyes scanning the screen. I simultaneously want to hug her and kick the phone out of her hands.
‘I sent the diaries in, but that part is not me. I didn’t use those words; someone else did. I’m going to fix it. I’m so sorry.’
‘Did you or didn’t you come up here to write about us?’
‘I did. But I didn’t have an agenda,’ I explain. ‘I know that sounds bad, but – shit. This isn’t coming out properly. Moira, I came up here to meet you. As soon as I got to know the village, it felt … grubby to write about everyone in that way, especially you. What I wrote isn’t what ended up on that website. Duncan – my boss – he edited it without telling me. But I’m going to fix it. When I get back to London, I’m going to sort everything out. I’m sorry. This was meant to be a celebration. I didn’t mean for you to see it.’
‘What do you mean, “you didn’t mean for me to see it”? Do you think we’re all so thick here in Kilroch that we can’t figure out how to open a web page?’ says Moira.
‘No, that’s not what I meant. I know I should have said something straightaway. I know that, OK? But I wanted to do it properly. Those articles are awful, I’ll be the first to admit that. My colleagues at Snooper … they don’t understand everyone here. I know they come under my name, but they aren’t my thoughts.’
She bites her lip and shifts from one foot to the other. Her body language isn’t bitter, but protective; wide-eyed, forlorn, shoulders round like she’s trying to form a cocoon.
Kian kicks at the gravel with his heel and tries to sit up straight. He scrubs his head with his knuckles like a gorilla, forearms propped on his knees. ‘So, Andrew’s your dad,’ he says, pointing to Moira. ‘And your dad.’ He points to me. I nod. ‘And you knew this before you got here?’