by Beth Moran
Eventually Eddie finished, muttering something about not having the distraction of girlfriends next time so they could actually get some work done. Leaping up, I dove into the kitchen to find a dried-up, hissing disaster where the paella used to be.
“Oh no, no, no, no, no.” I whipped the pan off the hot hob and grabbed a spoon to inspect the damage. Scraping beneath the surface of the rice I found a thick black layer of carbonized sludge.
I skimmed off the top layer, dumped it in a serving bowl and chucked in some water from the kettle, stirring it maniacally in a vain attempt to rehydrate the non-scorched rice.
“Argh!” Some water splashed out of the bowl and landed on my pale blue T-shirt in a greasy, grainy splodge, right in the middle of one breast.
“Well. At least I hadn’t boiled the kettle first.” I used a teaspoon to scoop up a rice blob and taste it.
“Hmm. Well. It’ll taste better hot.”
I shoved the bowl into the microwave, taking a frantic minute to figure out how to turn it on before realizing it wasn’t plugged in, and then sponged at the mark on my top with a dishcloth.
Lovely. I now had a much larger brown circle covering my chest. For a second I contemplated adding a second circle to the other side to balance it out, before a wave of forced laughter through the dining room wall yanked me back to the situation at hand.
The microwave pinged. I dumped the now sizzling bowl back on the side, plucked a few leaves from a shrivelled basil plant on the windowsill, and scattered them across the top.
“Perfect. No one will even notice.”
I looked at the leaves bobbing about in the grey liquid, surrounded by flecks of ash.
“It’s a new trend. Scorched – no – seared paella. Yum. Only someone totally out of style would admit to not loving it!”
Hot humiliation prickled my eyes. This wasn’t funny. It was Perry’s big deal-making dinner, and I’d fried it to a frazzle.
Perry smiled at me as I brought through the bowl of charred slop, carrying it awkwardly in an attempt to hide the stain on my shirt. I looked at the guests in their chic smart-casual outfits, their nails manicured and teeth bleached. On the wall behind the table a huge mirror reflected back my fraught face: red cheeks, out of control hair, a smear of sauce on the side of my nose, eyes red rimmed. For a second I was back in the pigeonhole I had put myself in for so many years – one of them not us.
Huh. I glanced down at the bowl and back up again. I have a lot to hide. A burnt paella and messy top don’t even register on the secrets scale.
I placed the bowl on the table, slightly harder than intended.
“Okay. This is burnt, and is, quite frankly, inedible. There’s nothing else in the cupboards except for dry pasta and a sachet of custard. Charlie’s Chips, however, is open until eleven. They do an excellent battered sausage. Oh, and the stain on my boob is burnt paella juice.”
The silence hung above the table for a couple of seconds. Then Lucas coughed and said, “I’ll have a haddock and chips. Lots of vinegar and mushy peas, please.”
Fleur blinked a couple of times. “Um. Do they do anything gluten-free?”
“The kebabs are pretty good.” Perry winked at me. “Or how about a pickled egg?”
In the end, the men decided to walk to the chippy together. To my surprise, Fleur and Dedicoat’s girlfriend Starr came to help me clear up, equally outraged, sympathetic, and impressed when I told them how I’d created a three-course meal out of leftovers in under an hour.
“And Eddie’s rambling anecdotes meant it got ruined. I apologize on his behalf, Faith. Usually I kick him under the table to shut him up but he’d warned me to be on my best behaviour in front of Dedicoat. Having said that, if he sprang a dinner party on me with less than forty-eight hours’ notice I’d be kicking more than his shin.”
“The only thing I can cook is pizza and Pot Noodle.” Starr marvelled at my desserts chilling in the fridge. Individual Irish cheesecakes made using an old packet of ginger biscuits, a tub of cream cheese, Perry’s secret chocolate stash, and a splash of Baileys.
Starr lent me a spare top. “I always carry a couple, ’cos I sometimes end up staying out all night, and I might have a meeting at work.”
“This is what you wear to your work meetings?” The top was low-cut and completely transparent. I decided to wear it over my T-shirt rather than instead of it. The blotch of sauce still showed through the netting, but at least the crystals and picture of a dog in a onesie provided some distraction.
The men returned, boisterously banishing plates and cutlery in favour of tiny wooden forks and chip paper. Lucas made me feel a lot less self-conscious by accidentally squirting ketchup over his shirt, and we ditched any lingering trace of formality along with the table.
Lounging on the sofas, cans of pop in their hands, Lucas and Eddie toasted a done deal over their empty wrappers, while Perry rummaged through his dresser looking for a pack of cards. Starr and Fleur giggled as they googled wedding paraphernalia on their phones, swapping stories of the best and worst ever in various different categories: bridesmaid dresses, best man’s speech, first dance.
Amongst all this merriment, I sat back and gave myself a mental pat on the back. If this was how posh married people’s dinner parties went, I could handle it. I could even look forward to it. Perhaps next time I’d think up a fast-food menu – do a home-made pizza with chintzy paper napkins and a tablecloth you could colour in while you waited.
The doorbell rang. Feeling quite the hostess with the mostess, I wandered through to answer it.
And there, standing in the porch, soaking wet, reeking and dishevelled, was the reason I had finally given in and said yes to Peregrine Upperton.
I quickly pulled Sam into the kitchen, searching his face for the telltale signs of drugs or alcohol. Flicking on the coffee machine, I pushed him into a chair. “Don’t move.”
I threw the cheesecakes onto a tray and carried them into the living room. Perry stood handing out pens and pieces of paper. “Who was it?”
I hesitated, causing the guests to look up at me, suddenly interested.
“It’s Sam.”
“Ah.” Perry had only met Sam once, the day he left the treatment centre. As Perry had paid for it, I figured the least I could do was introduce them. What I had chosen not to mention was that the centre didn’t only treat mental health issues – which had crippled Sam for years. It also provided rehabilitation for those suffering from addictions. And my poor, lost, smashed-up brother ticked that box too. In the three months since then, Sam had moved back into his flat half a mile from me in Houghton, kept up his medication, and willingly attended his support group once a week. He had even talked about painting again – his rickety means of earning a living. But I had been waiting for the crash. Expecting it. I had been through this too many times before to hope the cycle was broken. I knew the symptoms of my brother’s plunge into the black whirlpool of mental illness all too well. The shadows in and under his eyes. The self-obsession, the increasing fixation on trivial matters like a dripping tap or the pigeons on the neighbour’s roof. The inability to sit still or keep the thread of a conversation, the escalating chaos both external and within.
And then, inevitably, the crash.
“Is everything okay?” Perry stood to take the tray from me. “Sam is Faith’s brother. He lives the other side of the village.”
“Oh, how lovely!” Starr looked up from her phone. “Bring him in so we can meet him.”
“Well, I would, but he’s not feeling great. I’ll just be a couple of minutes. Please start without me.”
Perry met my eyes, his unanswered question hanging in the space above the tray. I gave an infinitesimal nod, and left them to their world, rejoining mine in the kitchen.
Sam slumped onto the breakfast bar, his arms over his head. I poured him a coffee and brought it over. “Drink this.”
He ignored the cup, and me.
“Sam.”
Pulling hi
s head up from under his arms, he looked at me with utter bleakness, eyes swimming in despair. “He’s coming out, Faith.”
“What?” An invisible, icy hand clamped itself around my neck and began to squeeze.
“In two weeks. They’re letting Kane out.”
The last things I heard were the smash of the coffee mug into a thousand shards on the Italian tiled floor, and, a split second later, me crashing down with it.
Chapter Three
Sam started drinking almost as soon as the trial finished, eighteen years ago. We were living with our grandmother, back in Brooksby, and still reeling from the hideous shock of our mother’s death. At six, I had been more sheltered from the horrors of what had come before, and the night that ended it all. It was only as I grew older that I began to grasp what both my mother and Sam had shielded me from. This being, primarily, the monster we called Kane.
Upon moving to Grandma’s house Sam continued his role as protector – coming to hold me when the nightmares came, brightening my days with silly stories and surprise presents like a flower, or a piece of paper twisted into the shape of a mouse, coaxing me out of my hiding place in the wardrobe. He walked me to school every morning, before sprinting to reach his secondary school on time. He helped me with my homework, took me to the park or the library when Grandma needed a rest, and every single day made sure I felt safe, loved, and that I was not alone.
But the previous years had taken their toll – done deep damage that refused to heal long after Sam’s physical scars faded. Grandma tried, but she was hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the anger and hurt of a boy with Sam’s level of trauma. When I remember that time, I still feel my growing distress as my hero began to disappear – frequently staying out well into the night, retreating into his bedroom the rare times he remained in the house, and meeting Grandma’s worried questions with silence.
It was only when I got the unexpected invitation to a classmate’s party, held in a pub, that I realized the smell accompanying my brother was alcohol.
By fifteen his attempts to drown out the pain had progressed to cannabis, pills and, soon after, cocaine. He scraped through school for my sake, still surfacing enough to be a surrogate daddy as best he knew how. But the stealing and the lies, the fights and the increasingly bad reputation were more than Grandma could cope with. The week after his seventeenth birthday, when a man showed up at the door with a baseball bat looking for money, she finally cracked. Sam came home the next day to find his meagre possessions waiting in a suitcase in the hallway.
For the next three years my big brother was a fleeting shadow in my life. Without him, I felt as though I had lost a lung – every breath a challenge, I clambered through the days exhausted, faint-hearted, a whimper of a girl. The days I would exit the school gates to find him slouched against the wall across the street were like brief bursts of oxygen.
We would hug, for a long, long time, before setting off to walk around the village, or find a seat in the café if it was too cold or wet.
“How are you?” he would ask, eyes hungry as he searched my face.
“I’m fine. I got an A in English.”
He smiled. “Good for you. You look taller. Have you grown again?”
“I’m taller than Grandma now.”
“Is she being okay? Managing to take care of you? Does she give you enough money for clothes and things?”
I felt too anxious to tell Sam that for weeks now I had been the one doing all the shopping and paying the bills.
“Yes. We’re fine.”
“Good.” He sighed, and I caught a whiff of the toxins on his breath.
Look closer, Sam. Look at me. I’m not fine! I need you. Grandma keeps forgetting things and getting tired all the time and I’m trying to keep everything tidy and make her pension last till the end of the week, but it’s so hard. I need you. Come home. Come back to me.
We would chat a little longer, but soon his hands would start to twitch and eyes wander beyond me to the café door. Sometimes before going he asked if I could lend him money. Other times he would offer out a fat roll of notes. I didn’t take them. Those notes scared me. They were tainted with the unmentionable things he must have done to get them. Instead I would lie about how Grandma had doubled my pocket money that month (which could have been true – zero doubled is still zero), or how I’d babysat for a neighbour.
But even when the months stretched past without a visit, every night I went to sleep thinking of my brother. Praying for his safety, wishing he would come home, imagining the dark and dangerous places and people he dwelled amongst.
And then, one morning, I woke up to find Grandma cold on the bathroom floor.
And I learned my wildest imaginings hadn’t come close.
Sam fled before the coffee had cooled on the tiles, but by the time Perry had carried me to a sofa, tidied up the mess, and said a charming, if brisk, goodbye to the guests, I felt recovered enough to get up again.
Perry found me in the kitchen. I turned from loading the dishwasher, a thousand apologies on my lips.
“Leave that. I can do it. You need to sit down.”
I mustered a weak smile. “No, I’m fine. Just embarrassed. I didn’t think I could top that meal, but…”
Perry leaned against the countertop, his hands in his pockets. “What happened with Sam?”
“It wasn’t Sam. I’m really sorry he came round – he does that sometimes when he’s not well. And when he texted me earlier this evening I mentioned I was here. But I must have had a weird migraine. Or maybe the residual smoke overpowered me. It’s been a really busy day.”
He walked over and took my hands in his, lifting one to kiss it. “I’m sorry I caused you so much stress. You were amazing tonight. You saved the day. And the Baker deal. I’m so glad you were here. Will you come to all my disaster parties?”
“If you give me a couple of days’ notice, they might not be a disaster.”
He gazed at me. “Fifteenth of August.”
“Now that should be enough notice.”
He was no longer laughing. “Marry me on the fifteenth of August. Come and live with me and you can burn my dinner every night.”
“You expect me to cook you dinner every night when we’re married?”
“You can do whatever you darn well like. Just marry me.”
I took a deep breath. “The fifteenth of next August?”
“The very next one.”
“HCC will be booked up right through the summer.”
“They had a cancellation.” He quirked one eyebrow, knowing I would guess his hefty sway at the club would have had something to do with that.
“Let me think about it.”
While Perry drove me home, I thought. About Sam, and my empty bank account, pathetically dependent on Perry since my income had been slashed. About how this rich, charming man had laughed off the disastrous evening, allowing me to avoid answering his questions about my wreck of a brother. About the fun we had together, the simplicity of our relationship. Then I considered the alternative to marrying him, which made me shudder.
Perry walked me to my door, which wasn’t far, the front path of my tiny terraced cottage stretching three steps from pavement to porch.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I could come in for a bit.”
“No, honestly. I just need to sleep.”
He waited while I unlocked the door, then kissed me goodnight. “Sleep well. I’ve meetings until late tomorrow. But I’ll call you.”
I took a deep breath as he turned to walk down the path.
“Yes.”
He froze, spinning slowly back around to face me.
“The fifteenth of August. Next year. Yes.”
Perry burst into a grin, scooping me off the doorstep and swinging me around a couple of times before jigging down to the street and back again, kicking his heels up. “Fifteenth of August!” he roared. “Eleven months and she’ll be mine! Hallelujah!”
He let out a whoop a
s I stepped inside, smiling. “Keep it down! It’s nearly midnight.”
“I don’t care! I’m getting MARRIED!” He fist-pumped the air as the upstairs window opened next door and my neighbour called out.
“Fer mercy’s sake, Faith. Can’t you just invite ’im in like a normal person?”
“Ah no, kind neighbour,” Perry replied, ever the gentleman. “Surely you know there is nothing normal about Faith Harp?”
I said goodnight and closed the door, leaning on it for a moment while my brain slowed down enough to think.
Perhaps my fiancé knew me better than I thought, because he’d got it spot on. Nothing about me, or my life, had ever been normal.
I certainly didn’t feel normal as I lay awake, listening to the creaks and groans of my ancient house, shuddering with terror at the thought of the evil that was Kane, prowling the streets, hunting for revenge.
The next morning I stuck my game face on and went to see Sam. I took the bus to the supermarket first, loading up with bags of ready meals, cereal, fresh juice, fruit, and other simple food a sick man could eat with minimal preparation. Upon letting myself in, I did a quick walk-through of the flat, searching for the all-too-familiar paraphernalia that accompanies drug use. Finding nothing in the living area but empty cola bottles, ten thousand cigarette butts, piles of dirty dishes, and sticky filth coating every surface (pretty impressive since I had cleaned the entire flat only five days previously), I moved on to the bathroom.
