Chapter 11
Looking out the window, Grace let her dad’s chatter about the latest goings-on in Emerald Bay wash over her. Mrs Tattersall had a bee in her bonnet (he thought he was hilarious dropping that in) about the hives Hannah had insisted be installed down the back of the pub beer garden. Hannah worked for the charitable organisation Feed the World with Bees and could never be accused of not giving the project her all. She’d worn their mam and dad down when it came to the hives, but these days, their dad fancied himself a bit of a beekeeper, being partial to the reward of fresh honey.
Apparently, Mrs Tattersall had been stalked by a bee as she sat in the late-spring sunshine trying to enjoy her sherry and lemonade. Liam had attempted to pacify her with a pot of honey, but she’d taken umbrage, saying she wouldn’t be bought so easily. Two pots hadn’t worked either. Grace couldn’t help but smile on hearing the old bite had still taken them, though.
‘There’s not much else to report, other than she’s got a petition on the go to ban motorised scooters inside the pub.’ Liam said, and Grace could feel him eyeing her. ‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Just tired, Dad, is all.’ It was true.
‘Well then, how’s about some music?’
Grace was about to say anything but his awful goth music, but she was too late. The cab was filled with a spooky synthesiser tune followed by a fast guitar and drumbeat. A haunting voice began singing. Her father instantly began tapping the beat on the steering wheel, occasionally joining in with the lyrics.
Grace was wide awake now. ‘Ah, no, Dad! Not The Cure. Can’t you put something decent on?’
‘What, like that rubbish you listen to? I can’t be doing with your Taylor Fast One. My car, my music. Sure, The Cure is quality, like.’
‘Taylor Swift, Dad, and I’m not a fan.’ For the briefest second, she fancied, she could hear Chris’s rasping rock voice and see the way he’d hold that microphone… it sent shivers down her spine.
Grace blinked. She couldn’t have thoughts like that when she was sat beside her father. ‘Well, your stuff’s depressing.’ Banishing Chris, she thought about the photo in one of the old albums she and her sisters used to have convulsions over.
Wily blue eyes fixed on her. ‘Then why are you smiling?’
Grace’s smile swiftly morphed into a snigger. ‘Because I’m thinking about that photograph of you standing outside the Shamrock in your great coat and Doc Martens all moody like with the black eyeliner, smeared red lipstick and teased black hair.’ The snigger turned into laughter.
‘I was expressing myself by channelling my inner Robert Smith,’ Liam said primly.
‘You were nicking Nan’s hairspray and make-up. Nan said the villagers used to cross themselves when they saw you and your goth pals clomping about the place.’ It amused her no end to think of Mrs Tattersall’s reaction to her teenage father’s goth phase. ‘She also said you turned her grey before her time.’ It was a refrain all the Kelly family had heard many times from their nan, and Grace knew how her dad would respond before he opened his mouth. She mouthed the words along with him.
‘What goes around comes around. Sure, haven’t I raised five girls? That’s enough to turn any man grey, so it is.’
‘You’ve no cause for complaint. We were angels, Daddy. The lot of us. And besides, redheads don’t go grey. They fade to sandy.’ And if she was Pinocchio, her nose would have just grown, at least concerning the teenage Kelly girls all being angels.
Liam snorted, but he did turn the music down.
‘Who took that photo anyway?’
‘I don’t remember.’
There was something about how fast he’d replied that made Grace think otherwise, but she wouldn’t pursue it.
They skirted around Salthill framed by a rainbow, and it wasn’t long before the road they were following had quietened off. It slithered ahead of them, hugging the craggy hills that would give way to carpets of dense peat moss before they reached Emerald Bay. On the other side of the road, a low stone wall shielded them from the Atlantic. The sea was calm today, but any local knew when its ire was raised, the waves would thrash against that wall.
Grace looked past her dad to watch a lone seagull riding the wind currents. If the window was to be opened a crack, they’d be blasted by fresh salt air. It was a smell she missed sometimes when she was in London. She wished it could be bottled. She thought about that canal boat again and what it would be like to live upon a body of water. The bird dipped from her view, and she fidgeted in her seat, because now wasn’t the time for daydreaming. She opened her mouth then closed it again.
‘Would you spit it out,’ Liam said, not taking his eyes off the twisting road.
He could read her like a book, and Grace knew what was holding her back from saying her piece was the prospect of being offside with him. She’d told Chris she was a daddy’s girl, and she was. Which was why she was curling her toes inside her trainers and digging her nails into her palms, trying to figure out how to explain she hadn’t been entirely truthful with him over her living arrangements since Ava had moved out.
‘You’re starting to worry me.’ Liam’s eyebrows had dipped so low Grace could barely see his eyes. ‘Is this a conversation your mam should be present for?’
‘No.’ Grace frowned. ‘It’s not what you’re thinking.’
‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’
Grace shook her head. Just as he could her, she could read him like a book. He was envisaging himself a grandfather before he was even sixty.
Grace was quick to reassure him. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, Dad.’
‘You can tell me anything – you know that.’
Grace’s lips pursed. She did know that. ‘I just don’t want you to go off on one, Dad.’
‘Who? Me? If I were any more laid-back, I’d be lying down.’
Not for long, she thought. ‘Will you promise me you won’t go mad?’
‘Grace, I promise.’
‘It’s just, I don’t know where to start.’ Grace nipped her bottom lip.
‘I usually find the beginning’s as good a place as any.’
Grace nodded, clasping her hands together on her lap tightly. Her palms were clammy. ‘OK, so you know how I got a flatmate in to split the rent and bills with after Ava left.’
‘Chris, who plays in a band.’ Liam was nodding. ‘You said they’re very good. The Shamrockers, isn’t it? Easy to remember.’ His lips twitched. ‘I’ll look forward to hearing them play at this festival of yours.’
Under normal circumstances, Grace would have cheekily replied, ‘They won’t be your cup of tea. There’s no one playing a synthesiser.’ But these weren’t normal circumstances, and this time she forced out what she had to say. ‘Well, the thing is, Dad, you know him.’
Liam shot her a quizzical glance. ‘Oh yes?’
‘Yes. It was a coincidence we bumped into each other, and with the timing it made sense he move in. Better the devil you know, and all that.’ She was speaking to fast and her giggle was high-pitched. ‘Erm, well, the thing is, dad, his surname’s Dorrance.’ Grace held her breath watching as her father’s eyes bugged then narrowed.
‘As in Mark Dorrance’s son?’ His voice was quiet, dangerously low, a rumbling volcano.
Grace nodded.
The volcano erupted, and hot angry words spewed forth because Liam Kelly did not keep his promise not to go off on one.