by Natasha West
Jamie didn’t have the first clue where they were now. Everyone in the car knew it but no one wanted to say, for fear of making it true. As long as no one spoke the word, Lost, there was a chance that they might not be.
‘It’s not really an address. It’s just a road and a house name’ Henry said as he re-read the text his Dad had sent. ‘Doesn’t the sat nav know where it is?
‘The sat nav thinks we’re in the ocean so probably not’ Jamie said.
‘We need a local’ Max said. ‘Some sheep farmer who knows the land like the back of his hand.’
Jamie gestured at the flat, barren landscape, broken only by the road they were on. ‘Do you see this sheep farmer?’ she asked irritably. ‘Because he sounds fantastic.’
Molly, who’d been silent for the entirety of the car journey through the wilds of Corai, suddenly spoke.
‘Stop the car.’
Jamie pulled over immediately. Molly got out of the back and began to walk back along the road. She’d seen a gap in the bush and she hoped it might be a road. It wasn’t a road, but a dirt pathway, made only for feet. The car wouldn’t be able to get down it.
‘I think this might be it.’
Jamie got out of the car and looked down the path.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked uncertainly.
Molly hadn’t spoken a word to Jamie in hours but necessity was now in play.
‘No. But there’s nothing else for miles. I think we should walk down it.’
Jamie thought it was a very slim chance that the cottage they were searching for was down this dirt path. But she wasn’t prepared to argue with Molly right now.
‘Alright. Guys!’ she called over to the car. ‘Grab your shit. We’re going for a walk.’
Twenty minutes and one nasty nettle sting on Max’s ankle later, they were still walking down the path, single filing along the ever narrowing trail.
‘Does anyone else feel like we’re in a horror movie right now?’ Max asked of the group.
‘The last two days have been one long horror movie’ Molly muttered darkly.
Max had no reply to that. Jamie heard it too and kept her head down. She just wanted them to get to the cottage now. She wanted to release Molly from her. She was a walking disaster and Molly needed to get away from her before Jamie made her life even worse.
Henry was bringing up the rear of the party. He’d quarantined himself out of embarrassment. He didn’t just feel stupid. He felt bad for trying to take advantage of Molly while she’d been sad. But it was so hard to tell the difference between vulnerable and nice.
Henry would have loved to talk to his Dad right now, ask him where he’d gone wrong. But in all likelihood, his Dad would probably be equally stumped. Henry often got the impression that any success he’d had with women in his life had been purely accidental.
Jamie, who’d thought there was absolutely no chance she’d have any cell reception in the back of beyond (and had taken a measure of comfort in that), heard her phone chirrup.
She pulled it out of her pocket and saw that the caller was her Dad. She wanted to reject the call, but she was concerned that the longer she ignored him, the angrier he was going to be.
‘Dad? What’s up?’
Max, ahead of her, turned around to see Jamie taking the call.
‘What does he want? Is he angry?’ he mouthed theatrically at her.
Jamie held her hand up to hear her Dad. A second later, she wished she hadn’t.
‘Where in the name of FUCK have you been!?’ her Dad yelled down the phone.
‘We’re just… we’ve gone to visit a friend. Of Max’s. She’s in the hospital. She broke her clavicle’ she vamped wildly. ‘But she lives way out so we had to go to…’
‘Corai?’
Jamie nearly dropped the phone.
‘Yeah. How did you know that?’
‘Because I tracked your phone. Where’s your brother, he with you?’
Unbelievable. Jamie’s phone couldn’t tell her where she was but somehow, it had given her Dad the exact location.
‘Yeah-’
‘What are you doing out on some shitty little sheep fucker island? Trying to avoid me?’
‘No, we-’
‘I know exactly what happened with the warehouse. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?’
‘No-’
‘I’m not stupid, Jamie. Whatever you and your brother might think. You’ve cost me a lot of money and you’re coming home NOW to face the bloody music.’
‘Yeah, we’ll be home really-’
‘I’d better see yours and Max’s sorry arses back at this house before the end of the day. And then we’re going to have a little chat about the living arrangements. Because if members of this household don’t contribute to it, they don’t get to live in it!’
The phone went dead. Jamie looked from the receiver to Max.
‘What did he say?’ Max asked, not really wanting to know.
‘Oh, he just wanted to tell us that he missed us and wanted to tuck us into bed tonight with hot cocoa’ Jamie answered satirically. There was no way he’d believe a lie but she hoped the sarcasm would mask how horrible that call had been.
‘Right. So he’s doing his nut’ Max replied tiredly.
Jamie gave him a serious look and said ‘Don’t worry. I’ll deal with him. It’ll be fine. But we keep going. One problem at a time.’
‘He’s gonna kick us out’ Max said quietly.
Jamie gave her brother a small, affectionate punch on the arm.
‘One problem at a time, bruv.’
Molly, who’d been listening in, felt a pang of sympathy for them. She pushed it quickly away. She didn’t have time for anyone else’s drama. She was up to her ovaries in her own problems.
The group trouped on for a few minutes more when they heard a scream come from the back of the line. It was Henry. His leg was caught in a rabbit hole, midway to his knee.
‘Help!’ he cried to the other three. They all ran to his aid.
‘I thought someone was getting murdered!’ Jamie said critically.
‘Sorry, it freaked me out. One minute I was walking and the next, the earth was trying to suck me into it. Anyone would scream’ Henry protested.
‘Alright, grab on and we’ll pull you free.’
Jamie grabbed one hand, Molly the other. Max, deciding he would have been a cook too many, watched as they yanked him out. The three of them tumbled to the ground as his leg came free.
‘Good lord’ a voice behind them exclaimed, an older male with an Irish accent. ‘What are you lot doing?’
They all turned around to see a guy - a very lived in sixty years old or so - still with a full head of ginger hair and an enormous beard, looking at them all with astonishment. Molly thought he looked like Henry had come back from the future, now an old man, to warn them of disaster. And he was far too late.
‘Are you Ronan O’Donnell?’ Molly asked him as she got up.
‘I am, as it happens. And who are you, if I may be so bold?’
‘We’ve brought your grandson’ Molly said, dragging Henry off the ground to stand up with the rest of them. ‘He needs to ask for a favour.’
Nineteen
Ronan poured five cups of tea from the pot as everyone sat around his large weathered old table, feeling the warmth creep back into their bones from the nearby log fire. The cottage was not much more than a shack, but cosy in its way.
They were all amazed to be sitting there. They’d found him. They’d actually found him. Henry’s Grandad.
Henry was staring closely at the man that his Dad had spoken so bitterly about and he was fairly confused. This man wasn’t the scary, mean monster that he’d been expecting. He seemed nice.
‘That’ll warm your bones’ Ronan said as he finished pouring the last tea. He turned to Henry. ‘Well, the O’Donnell genes are still going strong, I see. Don’t worry about the nose, you’ll grow into it.’
Henry wondered if he should fee
l a bit offended by the reference to his slightly too large hooter. But seeing as the man probably had the same one, it was hard to be mad at him. And anything he said, in that warm Irish voice, could only sound like music to a person’s ears. Even an insult.
‘Thanks’ Henry said, for want of a better response. ‘My Mum says it’s distinguished but I think she’s trying to be nice.’
Ronan laughed and clapped Henry on the back, saying ‘Distinguished? I’ll have to remember that one.’
Henry couldn’t help but smile. There was just something about Ronan that was difficult not to like. What on earth could have happened between his Dad and this man that would stop them talking for twenty years?
Jamie picked up her cup and took a long satisfying slurp of hot tea as she watched Henry and his Grandad chatting. ‘So, I don’t want to be rude, but we’ve come for a reason. Not just a family reunion.’
‘Yes, I did wander why I found you lot headed straight for my house. I live in the middle of nowhere and I don’t have visitors. I thought for a second you were bailiffs that had tracked me down’ he said with a croaky laugh.
Molly gave Jamie a look that said ‘See? I was right about the path.’
Jamie nodded in acquiescence, hoping Molly might at least give her a smug smile of victory. It would have been something. But she simply turned her face to look at the log fire. Jamie turned back to Ronan.
‘Hard to know where to start with this, but what happened was that Henry had… An accident.’
Molly thought that sounded like Henry had pissed down his leg, not cursed them to an eternity of being stuck together.
‘What she’s trying to say is that he put a curse on us. And his Dad said you might know how to deal with it’ Molly added.
‘Aiden!’ Ronan cried and turned to Henry. ‘How is he, so?’
‘Oh. Errm…. He’s alright.’
‘I don’t half miss him’ Ronan said sadly.
‘Look, I don’t want to get cunty but the situation is quite pressing’ Molly said. She couldn’t believe that Ronan had reacted to the mention of the curse with such casual ignorance. She might as well have said she had a flat tire that needed fixing. ‘Me and her’ she gestured to Jamie. ‘We’re stuck. Together. By Henry’s curse. Which is apparently a family thing.’
‘Oh, yes. That.’
‘Yes. That’ Jamie lamented.
‘Didn’t your Da explain to you about it?’ Ronan asked Henry.
‘No. I think he was hoping I didn’t have this…’ he trailed off, no clue how to describe his problem.
‘The Knack. That’s what we always called it. Comes right down the male line. Jumps now and again but I suppose it landed squarely on you, lad.’
‘The Knack’ Henry repeated, trying it out.
‘But he couldn’t break it, no?’ he said to Molly and Jamie.
They shook their heads.
‘We tried everything.’
‘Tell me the full story. Let’s see if we can do something.’
Everyone looked around to see who was going to tell the barmy tale. Surprisingly, Henry cleared his throat and began to explain. He began with the Quick Snack. He even said what he’d been doing there, with a blush. Molly was less than surprised. The lunge in the car had been something of a clue about Henry’s intentions toward her. But hearing him say it in his own way, the romantic proposal he’d been planning, she sort of wished she hadn’t slapped him earlier. She felt for him. Not enough to let him kiss her. But not without sympathy.
Henry went on to tell the rest of it while Ronan listened with the occasional nod or grunt.
‘And then I fell in that hole and you know everything from there’ he finished.
‘Right. OK. Well, the bad news is that I have no feckin’ idea how to fix it.’
Molly slumped down in her chair. She wanted to weep. She’d pinned all her hopes on this. They travelled all this way and for what? Bitter disappointment in a wrinkled Irish package.
‘The thing about The Knack is… It’s inconsistent. It mutates from O’Donnell to O’Donnell. That’s why I live here now. I can’t be around people. Causes too many problems.’
‘You couldn’t break your own curse?’
‘I can. I learnt the way with mine. But once you’ve shot one crappy football player into the sky in the middle of a match, even if you get the two-left-footed-fucker down pretty quick, it can cause you problems. You get something of a... A reputation. That’s the bugger of it. If you’ve got a temper, and I’m the first to admit that I have, The Knack can get away from you.’
‘Did you... Did you curse my Dad? By accident or something? Is that why you don’t talk?’ Henry asked.
Ronan turned to Henry and said ‘No. Not as such. After Aiden’s Mother died, me temper, it got worse. I was cursing people all over the place. People talked, made life uncomfortable in the town. Made Aiden’s life harder. So eventually, we had to leave. I said I wanted to come here, to get away from people, and he said he didn’t want to live like that. So I told him he could do what he liked. I told him…’ Ronan paused, ashamed. ‘I told him I didn’t give a shit what he did and he could fuck off without me if he wanted. And he said he never wanted to see me again, that I was a selfish bastard that had ruined his life. And I’ve not seen him since. And with a few years to think about it, I know now, he was right. I was selfish. I thought one day I’d get the chance to say sorry, but it’s been so long now…’
‘Ronan, I’m sorry, but there must be something you can do?’ Molly said, interrupting desperately ‘You’re our only hope. You’ve got to find a way to separate us.’
Ronan sighed and racked his brains for a solution. ‘Hang on. I know a wiccan I can ask. Friend of the family from a long time ago. She might know something.’
He got his mobile out and made the call.
Molly and Jamie listened to Ronan’s half of the call as though their lives depended on it. Which in a way, it did.
He explained the gist of what Henry had done to his Wiccan friend, and then they listened to him saying things like ‘Yes’ and ‘I see’ and ‘Of course’. It was impossible to interpret whether it was a positive call.
Eventually, Ronan hung up.
‘She doesn’t know.’
‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ Jamie exclaimed, banging her small fists on Ronan’s table. Max put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, wondering if she should tell him to leave her alone. But she couldn’t do it. The poor guy was having almost as bad a time as she was. He’d been in it with her from the start, living every moment of it with her. She couldn’t blame him for any of this. She dearly would had loved to go off on someone and Max would probably take it like a champ. But she didn’t want him to go down with her. Not this time.
‘Hang about. All isn’t lost’ Ronan said. ‘She said there was a way for Henry to figure it out himself. He just needs a bit of help. She said that the key to breaking a curse is in the original conditions in which it was thrown.’
‘What does that mean?’ Henry asked.
‘I don’t exactly know.’
‘We tried all the words he said’ Molly said. ‘It didn’t make any difference.’
‘That’s the thing. It’s not just the words. It’s something else. At least I think that’s what she meant. She’s a bit… I don’t want to say crackers…’
‘What do you do to break your curse? Didn’t you say something about getting angry?’ Henry asked Ronan.
‘That’s right.’
Max looked sharply at Henry. ‘You were upset. With me and Jamie.’
‘Yeah, but…’
Max sighed. ‘You were rejected. Fuck man’ he said with regret ‘do you think you could handle Molly being mean to you?’
‘I’ve already done that once today’ Molly said uncomfortably.
Henry blushed. ‘No, it’s fine. Let’s give it a go. I did this. If it has to hurt to break it, then that’s that’ Henry said. He braced himself for what was coming. But still, he wasn
’t prepared.
‘You’ve got no chance with me Henry’ Molly said, feeling awful. ‘You’re way too young for me.’
Henry listened miserably, knowing there was a way to make this even worse.
‘What about in ten years?’ he asked, pitiably. ‘When you’re thirty and I’m twenty-six?’
