“It’s not important,” I lied, placing the hand covered in ladybugs in my pocket to join my phone.
He saw the action though. He waited as Ellen and Isabella rounded a corner in the path up ahead as it bent passed a canal, then he pulled me back slightly, gaining my attention.
“It’s about the ladybugs on your hand, isn’t it?” His eyes were sharp, his face to the point and taut like nothing I had seen before. He was angry.
“Why are you angry?” I asked, feeling my ire at Leonora suddenly shift towards him.
“Because I’ve got enough to deal with at the moment without stupid ladybugs,” he gestured towards my hand in my pocket.
The accusation that they were stupid dug deep. I knew it was ridiculous, but I didn’t need him pointing it out to me. I tried to walk on, raising my chin and desperately looking away from him, but he pulled me back to face him from where our hands were still connected.
“Ivy –”
“Don’t take your anger out at you father on me.” My words were sharp, unfriendly and course. They cut surprisingly deep into him. I hadn’t really meant it; I just wanted his question and his own anger to stop.
“You won’t tell Leonora either, will you? That’s why you argued.”
I pushed away, letting go of his hand as we walked on down the path. He followed behind me, making no attempt to reclaim my hand.
“You know, it kind of hurts that you know all the problems in my life, yet I clearly don’t know all the ones in yours.” He didn’t look at me as he said it. He just walked past, hurrying to catch up with his mum and sister.
I froze for a minute on the path, watching him go and feeling the argument weigh heavy in my stomach. I pulled my hand from my pocket and scratched at the skin behind the doodles.
I followed eventually, ambling on at a slow pace and looking at the wildlife in the canal as I walked. Tye and his mother were far ahead by the time I looked up, yet Isabella was walking back towards me.
“Hi, I thought you could use the company,” she linked arms with me again, happy to be an instant friend.
“Thanks,” I pinned a smile to my cheeks, trying to be just as happy as she was. After a minute of peaceful silence, my eyes drew back to Tye where he was rubbing the back of his neck again in his normal stressed out action as he spoke to his mum. “Isabella, can I ask you something… private?”
“Of course,” the girl smiled, unaffected by my prying.
“How do you feel about your dad and the business? I mean, really feel.”
She raised her eyes from the path to the skyline and the trees around us, her smile had turned sad though she kept it.
“Tye might not have told you this, but when our dad was young, his parents died.”
“Oh god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s alright, don’t be silly,” she waved it away as though it were no big deal. “My mum says that this is why he is the way he is. Desperate to keep us all close.”
“Because he lost his family before?” It was a heart-breaking thought; I could feel the crack of pain in my own chest just trying to imagine it.
“If we go into the business, then it’s a way for him to make sure we’ll never…” she struggled for the right words. “Well, I guess he doesn’t even want us to move away. He can’t stand the fact Tye is in Exeter now.” She whispered the words, as though wary her dad was in the bushes of the canal path and could hear us.
“This is why Tye won’t tell him bluntly that it will just never happen?” The pieces fell into place. How could you tell a man who had already had such heartbreak that you didn’t want to follow his plan and stay by his side? That couldn’t be easy.
“Exactly,” Isabella nodded. “I have been tempted to, many times,” she looked at me, the smile too sad for comfort. “I know Tye never will. Yet every time I consider it, somehow the words falter in my mouth.”
“Maybe it’s something that would be easier for you two to say together?” Yet my words were met with a soft shake of the head.
“I don’t think we can. Things that should be shared are not always easy to talk of. Are they?”
“No,” I shook my head, looking down at my wrist covered in ladybugs. “No they’re certainly not.”
“I’m going out tonight,” she smiled, a genuine smile this time. “I’m going to have a couple of drinks and forget about this for a time. That’s how I cope with it, you know?”
“Ignoring it?”
“Something like that. I think of it as distraction. Putting the sadness away in a locked cupboard.”
Chapter 15
“You doing okay then love?” My dad asked for a second time over the phone. I had hidden in Tye’s garden, still upset from the walk that afternoon. As the evening drew in, Isabella had gone to the pub, desperate to avoid a conversation with her dad. The very act somehow forced my hand and I found myself escaping to the far edge of the garden, sitting on a low tree stump and finding the courage to call my dad. It had been a stunted conversation, not helped by my mood.
“I’m fine.” I lied again. Despite the fact we had already said the same words, my dad could hear it in my tone. He knew I was not. “What is her name? I realised… I hadn’t asked.”
“Clarissa.” He was smiling, I was sure I could hear it through the phone. “She’s nice, Ivy. Honestly.”
“I believe you,” I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. My gaze wandered back up to the house as the night began to pull in. Through the kitchen windows, I could see Tye and his dad sat at the table, arguing again. Behind them, Ellen stood, making tea and not interrupting. “Dad…” The Aritza’s refusal to talk, to put their foot down with their dad was starting to stir something in mind. I don’t really know why. “Mum says you got together with her in April.”
“She did?”
“Was it really April?” I turned my eyes away from the kitchen, down to the ladybugs on my hand. The night’s shadows were creeping in, making it hard to see the doodles. “You know why I’m asking, right?”
“I’m sorry, love. Yes, it was last April. I just…” He paused, trying to search for the right words. “I think we all cope in our own ways. I don’t pretend in the slightest my way was a good way.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t okay though; it was very much the opposite. How could he? I felt myself rearranging on the tree stump, growing more and more restless with movement. “Do you ever think about her, Dad?” I didn’t need to say her name.
“Of course I do,” his voice was soft, whispering. Was he trying to hide the conversation from his new woman? Well guess what, I got here long before she did, I deserved his attention more than she did surely. I didn’t want him to hide me from her.
“You never talk of her. Do you mention her to Clarissa?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, telling me exactly all I needed to hear. I rearranged on the stump again, struggling with the memory.
“We have talked of her,” his words suddenly came through. “I try not to talk of that night. The pub…” He trailed off again for a minute. “None of it should ever have happened.”
“No, it shouldn’t.” That didn’t mean we had to stop talking about her. I was there, I remembered exactly what happened. We couldn’t just polyfiller over the event and pretend that it didn’t! I couldn’t let her disappear.
My gaze drew back to the kitchen as Tye jumped up from his seat at the table, he had his phone pressed to his ear, looking panicked about something.
“I need to go.” My words were sudden, needing to end this conversation. It was a bad idea to have phoned him. It hadn’t helped. I just felt nauseous. I longed for Rosie to be beside me.
“Wait, love-”
I cut the call, despite his protest. I sat perfectly still, unsure what to do when Tye emerged from the kitchen doors, hurrying across the grass.
We hadn’t made up from our argument earlier that day. I expected we would, but I was in no mood to apologise. I just want
ed the day to be over.
“Ivy, I need your help.” Tye’s words surprised me as he reached my side.
“What is it?” I stood, just about seeing his face set in worry lines in the fading sunlight.
“It’s Isabella. We need to go get her. Now.” He turned to walk across the garden, and I hurried to keep up, feeling fear lurch in my stomach.
“What is it? What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t really know,” he ran his hands through his hair. “I just got a call from an old school friend of mine. They’re at the pub where Isabella’s gone – he said she’s out of it. Drank way too much.”
“How bad?” A strange mirror image was appearing in my mind as I ran for the car, suddenly urgent to get her out of there.
“He tried to put her on the phone, she couldn’t form words.” Tye shook his head as he jumped into the car.
My nausea had morphed into something else.
It was dread.
By the time we had reached the pub, both Tye and me were terrified. His friend had called again and through the Bluetooth in the car, we could hear the slurring of Isabella in the background.
Tye burst through the door with me close behind him. It was startlingly like my parents’ old pub. Quaint, old, always busy, dark wood panels and benches, old pastoral paintings on the walls, golden light fittings and it smelled of damp alcohol.
I followed Tye through weaving people, like a maze we meandered past tables and through nooks to an area at the back of the pub.
Around a table were a bunch of people roughly our age, some underage, as Leonora was, others older like Tye. One guy Tye made a grab for, presumably the friend who had called him.
“Where is she?”
The friend pointed to the other side of the table. I ran round a chair to see her on her knees, clutching her head. She was leaning so far forward her forehead was nearly on the floor. There was a girl by her side who I unceremoniously kicked out of the way.
“Let me see her.” I knelt down and slowly lifted Isabella’s eyes. The cocoa irises were practically slits, then they slipped away, showing nothing by white. Tye dropped to her other side, putting his arm around her and urging her to talk.
“Isabella? Look at me,” he tried to turn her to face him, but she couldn’t do it. I don’t think she could even hear him. She teetered forward again. “Isabella?”
“She can’t look at you.” I shook my head and placed a hand on her neck as I had once been taught to do. I had seen the signs before. Seen it all before. Last time it had been so catastrophic, I couldn’t let it happen again.
She appeared to be slipping in and out of consciousness.
“How much has she had?” Tye stood and snapped at the friend, then spun his anger on the others. “Who kept buying her drinks? She’s seventeen!”
One of the guys next to him shrugged.
“We thought she was eighteen. She bought some of her own. She looks old enough.”
“And who bought her the rest?” Tye stepped towards the guy who had spoken, so incensed that he might throttle him at any second.
Isabella made a wrenching sound.
At the noise, my blood ran cold. I had been here before.
I grabbed her around her waist and hauled her to her feet, the door out the back was but two yards away.
“Ivy? Where you taking her?” Tye asked, following behind.
“Outside for this.”
He didn’t understand me. I shoved the door open and pulled her out, allowing her to drop to her knees on the courtyard slabs as Tye knelt down the other side.
She convulsed – it was all so similar.
“Tye – call an ambulance.” My order only made him freeze.
“You think it’s-”
“Yes – it is just that bad. I am telling you, call them now.” My firm voice brooked no refusal and he dived into his pocket for his phone. “Isabella?” I stayed at her side as my hand took hold of her chin. “I am really sorry about this, but it is the only way.”
She made a weird noise, it meant nothing.
I stuck my fingers down her throat, just as I had been shown to do, she convulsed, wrenching again – I pulled my hand away, holding her hair back with my other as she began to throw up, dispelling the alcohol over the slabs.
We spent hours sat in the white waiting room. Tye’s parents on one side of the chairs, him and me on the other.
The doctor’s words had made little sense to them all, but not to me. It was all so familiar, yet this time, it was a different ending.
“We’ll keep her in overnight to clear the alcohol from her blood.” The doctor pushed his little glasses up her nose. “Who made her vomit?” In answer, Tye pointed at me, too numb to be able to speak. “Well done. Without it, she would have had her stomach pumped. That’s never a nice thing.”
I briefly caught the look on Ellen’s face, the relief and the fear. I turned my eyes down to my lap, not able to bear looking at them all again.
“She’ll be alright though?” Héctor asked, with pleading in his voice.
“She’ll be okay.” The doctor nodded. “It’s best you all go home. Come back in the morning to see her.”
“No.” Ellen’s voice held a firm tone the like I hadn’t yet heard her use. I looked up to see her stand to her feet. “I would like to stay with my daughter tonight.”
“She is unlikely to wake for some hours,” he pushed his glasses up again.
“That is fine. Please, I would like to be with her.”
“As you wish.”
Ellen turned back to face us all.
“Come back tomorrow morning.” She ordered Héctor. He nodded and stood to his feet, urging Tye and me to do the same.
“How did you learn to do that? How could you see the signs?” Tye’s voice startled me as we all sat at the kitchen table. Héctor was passing round cups of tea. I wasn’t fond of tea, I preferred cocoa, but this was not a house that kept cocoa powder.
“My parents owned a pub,” I looked at him briefly, then back down at the tea. “I think I told you before. It was a useful thing to learn there.” I wished I had only learnt it sooner.
“I cannot believe it.” Héctor slumped down in his own chair. His pallor was pale with shock, his eyes practically quivering with fear. “You said she bought herself some of the drinks?”
“That’s what they said,” Tye nodded, leaving his tea untouched. “They bought her drinks too.”
“Who is they?”
“Her friends. A couple of people I knew from school too.” Tye placed his hands on the mug, as though contemplating taking a drink, but then changing his mind.
I scratched at the ladybugs on my hand. It felt like any second the ladybugs would jump off my skin and start dancing across the shiny white table surface.
There was no display of affection between Tye and me at that moment. No hand holding of comfort. I was too numb, as was he.
“Why would she do it?” Héctor shook his head in disbelief. “Drink so much. She is a sensible girl. She doesn’t do these kinds of things.”
“We all do strange things when we’re sad.” My words earned a sharp look from Héctor.
“Sad? Why was she sad?”
“Ivy,” Tye’s voice was harsh. “We do not know why she was drinking.”
I looked at him, the cocoa eyes were narrowed in such rage at me. It was as though he was looking at an enemy, not me. Not the person he had been so loving with over the last few days.
“I know why she was drinking, Tye.” In contrast, there was no anger left in my body. I was a shell. I spoke simply, imploring him not to be angry, yet he was. “I spoke to her this afternoon and could see she was sad.”
A sudden thump struck the table – it was Héctor’s hand.
“My daughter was not sad.” The booming words echoed through the clinical kitchen, making Tye look down into his mug. I held Héctor’s gaze, amazed at the expression behind them. The determination of belief. “I know my d
aughter.”
“She was haunted by sadness when I saw her this afternoon.” My plain tone only appeared to rile him more.
“You do not know my daughter more than me!”
“I am not pretending to,” the calmness was merely a numbness. Isabella was alive, thank god. She was safe, yet I never wanted her to be in that situation again, she should never feel so sad that she would want to drink her troubles away. “But I shall tell you why she was sad.”
There was something I could do for her.
“Ivy!” Tye’s words were just as full of fury as his dad’s, showing a startling resemblance. “No more.”
“Why not, Tye?” I looked up at him with surprise. “On the canal bank this afternoon she told me she was sad. She told me how badly she wanted to tell your dad that she never ever wanted to go into the car business, but that she was afraid to do it because of what happened to his family. Afraid as to how your dad would take it. That she wanted to go drinking tonight to forget about it all. She called it locking her sadness away in a cupboard.”
I had crossed a line. It was out there now.
“Ivy!” Tye pushed away in his seat, jumping to his feet and pacing around the room.
“I am looking out for my daughter’s future,” Héctor was almost desperate in his anger. “I am not the thing that is making her sad. I am looking out for her future happiness.”
“Well, she doesn’t think her future happiness resides with the car business. She went drinking to escape her thoughts.”
“Ivy!” Tye shouted my name. The sheer volume stunned me; I snapped my head round. The numbness I had felt twisted into pain at the ire in his face. “This is none of your business. You have no right to talk of these things. Just – be quiet.”
“No right?” I stood slowly to my feet, bewildered by the words. “I was there, Tye. I saw what state she was in this evening. I was there when she said why she was going to do it. Don’t you want that honesty? Don’t you want to know? Would you have rather I kept that from you?”
“You had one conversation with my daughter and you think you know her better than I do?” Héctor was now seething, practically hissing the words across the table.
Distracted By You: Book 1 in The Exeter Running Girls Series Page 14
