Chapter 11
11
Lijah couldn’t put off the trip to his mother’s house any more. She no longer lived there, she no longer lived anywhere, but the whitewashed cottage, halfway up Smuggler’s Pass, a narrow lane barely wide enough for one vehicle, would always be his mother’s home. She’d fallen in love with Mor Brys years before Lijah had been in a position to buy it for her. When she’d first pointed the house out, promising him that one day they’d live somewhere as beautiful as that, he’d been about seven or eight, and they’d been living in a flat above the fish and chip shop on the outskirts of the village, the smell of which had clung to every item of clothing they owned and had driven their first dog, Colin, half-mad with longing. Mor Brys wasn’t a particularly grand house, but it was perfect in its own way. The cottage was double fronted with a heavy wooden door and perfectly spaced windows, that somehow made it look as if the building was smiling. It was like a child’s drawing of a house, and his mother had waxed lyrical about it every time they passed by. It wasn’t until years later that they saw the inside of Mor Brys.
When Lijah was ten, his mother’s dream house had come up for rent. Maria was working more by then, but she still couldn’t afford the place on her own and his father had just walked out of their lives for the final time, after years of coming and going. When his mother had asked Lijah how he’d feel about Claire moving in with them, he’d been delighted. She’d been like a second mother to him all his life and they’d spent as much time in her tiny little end of terrace house as in their own flat, although it would never have been big enough for them all to live in. Instead, Claire had rented out her house and the income she got from that had helped them afford the rent on Mor Brys. The new situation had worked out perfectly and for the first time Lijah understood what it felt like to have more than one parent on hand. Whenever Maria wasn’t going to be home, his aunt would cook Lijah’s favourite dinner of homemade pizza. Later on, she’d toast bread in front of the huge inglenook fire for supper, and ply him with plenty of snacks in between.
Claire had never had children of her own, and his mother had never had another partner after she’d split up from his father, at least as far as Lijah knew. He’d asked them once why they didn’t go on dates, or try to meet someone else, like some of his friends’ parents did, and his aunt’s response had been short and sweet.
‘Because we’re happy as we are.’
He’d never doubted it was true. They weren’t just siblings, they were best friends. They spent weekends together and went on holiday together, choosing one another over the chance to spend time with other people. The three of them were a tight knit little group, which became a group of four when Amy had become a part of their lives.
When Lijah had wanted to move to London to pursue a career in music, he’d been desperate for Amy to go with him. Leaving his mother and aunt behind had been tough, but they had each other, and he knew they’d be okay, but he hadn’t dreamed he’d have to leave Amy behind too. He’d been sure she’d go with him. At first she’d promised she would, and had secured a place during her gap year to study for her nursing degree at South Bank University, instead of Plymouth as she’d originally planned. Then she’d started having doubts, telling him she wanted to study somewhere closer to home and that they needed time apart to see if they were meant to be together. For a long while he’d tried to persuade her that she was wrong, but she wouldn’t listen, and in the end he’d done what he’d had a habit of doing his whole life and had pressed the self-destruct button.
When he’d realised Amy wasn’t going to change her mind, Lijah had told his mother and aunt to stop passing on news about her, and had deleted all the photographs he had of her on his laptop. He wasn’t leaving the door open for their relationship in case they were meant to be together, the way Amy had suggested, he was stamping out the last ashes of it instead. It wasn’t because he didn’t still love her, or wish they could make things work. It was because he needed to protect himself. She’d already made the decision not to come with him and he couldn’t keep hanging on hoping for something to change. Making the decision to cut her off completely might have hurt like hell, but sometimes a clean break was the only way to prevent further pain. It was a habit he’d developed as a result of his relationship with his father, at least that’s what a therapist had told him once, before he’d decided that therapy raked up more trauma than it was worth.
The legacy of his father’s disinterest had caused Lijah more issues than anyone apart from Nick and Claire knew. Amy had known how much it affected him, back when they were together, but in some ways it had worsened over the years. It was behind the crippling anxiety that would often take hold of him just before he was about to go on stage, the imposter syndrome and fear of failure a consequence of rejection by a parental figure according to another therapist. It made sense he supposed; after all, if one of your parents considered you to be of no value in their life, what kind of value could you possibly have? It didn’t matter how many people were screaming his name, or buying his records, none of that could fill the gap.
Lijah had quickly worked out that seeking validation through a string of meaningless liaisons wouldn’t work either. That wasn’t to say there hadn’t been relationships, but the one-night stands had always left him feeling worse about himself instead of better, because in a weird kind of way they felt like another form of rejection, even if the decision to keep things casual was often down to him. He’d promised his mum that he wouldn’t be another fatality of fame and, after she’d died, it was probably that promise that had saved him. His aunt had reminded him of it the day after they’d lost her, when he’d been so desperate to numb the pain he would have taken anything. But because of her words, he’d stuck to the medication the doctors had prescribed, and when that started getting out of hand, it had been the promise to his mother that had made him get help. Throwing himself into work hadn’t seemed like an issue, and he’d kept going and going until the burnout had knocked him off his feet. Now he was back outside the cottage on Smuggler’s Pass, about to see his aunt face to face for the first time since his mother’s funeral.
The landlord had put Mor Brys up for sale just after Lijah’s first album had hit the number one spot on both sides of the Atlantic – the album he’d penned in the wake of his breakup with Amy – and he’d been desperate to buy it so that his mum and aunt could stay in the home they loved. It had been a shock to discover that, unlike in the movies, he didn’t suddenly get mountains of money the moment he had a hit record, and they’d almost missed out on the house, after someone put in an offer for the asking price. Fate was on their side, though, and by the time the sale fell through, Lijah finally had scraped together the money to buy it. Later on, when the money did start rolling in much faster, he’d offered to buy Maria and Claire something bigger and better, but his mum had turned him down flat.
‘There is nowhere better.’ And that had been that. Mor Brys was their dream home, and they’d insisted they wanted to stay there forever. Only none of them had realised that Maria didn’t have forever, or anything like it, and within four years she was dead.
‘Oh my love, am I dreaming, or is it really you!’ Claire threw back the door before he even had the chance to knock. Her cheeks were flushed with colour and her eyes shining, as she reached up and took his face between her hands. ‘I can’t believe you’re here, I’ve missed you so much.’
‘I’ve missed you too.’ There was a lump in his throat as he spoke, because there was someone missing, someone who should have been standing in the doorway beside Claire. It was what had made it too hard to face coming home before now. There were memories of his mother in every corner of the house, and he knew her absence would be gut-wrenching once he stepped inside. But the longer he stood on the doorstep, the more chance there was of someone spotting him. That would create another set of problems he wasn’t sure he could cope with right now. The last thing either he or Claire needed was the press hammering on the door.
‘Come in, come in. Where are your bags? You are staying, aren’t you? Please say you’re staying.’ Her words came out in a rush, but there was a pang of desperation which proved how much she wanted him there. Guilt prickled at Lijah’s scalp again. His aunt was the only person who’d felt the pain of his mother’s death to the same extent he had, maybe even more so in some ways, because she’d been left behind in the house they’d shared, confronted by Maria’s absence every day. Yet Lijah had let her face it alone. After the funeral, he’d left straight away, burying himself in work like never before. He could pretend to himself that his mother was back home in Cornwall, bustling around the house, listening to Absolute 80s on the radio and cooking up a storm. Except now he was about to go into the kitchen and the space she’d always occupied would be empty. He wouldn’t be able to pretend any longer, and suddenly he wasn’t sure he could do it. It was as if Lijah was frozen to the spot and, as he looked at his aunt, he couldn’t even respond to her questions, let alone step across the threshold.
‘Oh love, I know this is hard.’ Claire wrapped an arm around his waist. He hadn’t needed to explain it to her, she understood because she’d lived with the loss of her beloved sister every single day for the last six months. ‘But you can’t stand out there on the street forever. Sometimes, even when you know it’s going to hurt, you have to do it anyway. If you don’t, you’re never going to be able to move past what you’re feeling now.’
Lijah nodded and allowed his aunt to sweep him into the hallway, with her arm still around him, almost as if he was a young boy again. The breath caught in his throat at the familiar scent of vanilla – his mother’s favourite smell. She’d always had wax melts on the go, filling the air with the aroma that reminded him of her baking, even when she wasn’t busy whipping up a batch of cupcakes or her famous Victoria sponge. Baking was just what she always did, and then suddenly she was gone.
‘Come on my love, I think we need a cup of tea.’ Claire led the way down the hallway and for a moment he wanted to laugh. That had been the solution to everything when he was growing up. He’d drunk champagne in some of the most exclusive clubs and best hotels in the world, but none of that came close to matching how it felt to sit across the table from his mum and aunt, just chatting about nothing much at all. It was just one more thing he hadn’t realised meant as much as it did, until the chance to ever do it again had been taken away. Now he would give anything – anything – to be able to sit down with them both, for a cup of tea and some cake, and to put the world to rights. Being in his mother’s kitchen without her was every bit as painful as he’d expected it to be.
‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’ They were the same words he’d said to his aunt when he’d come home for the funeral, and they’d cried together. He’d told himself at the time that he was already through the worst of it, but deep down he’d known he was lying to himself. He’d only glimpsed the pain, before stuffing it back down inside. Eventually it had come bursting out, like a broken jack-in-the-box that refused to go back in, no matter how hard he tried to force it.
‘I couldn’t either for a long time.’ Claire flicked the switch to boil the kettle, and Lijah took a seat at the kitchen table. ‘At first, I’d wake up every morning and it would hit me all over again.’
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t come home sooner. I let you down, but I just wasn’t ready to face it.’ Lijah could see the pain etched on his aunt’s face, but she was already shaking her head.
‘Don’t be daft, if I could have got away from Port Kara, I’d have gone in a heartbeat. I kept seeing people out and about who looked like Maria from behind, because they had the same hair, or they walked the way she did. I’d convince myself it was her and that it had all been some horrible mistake, I even called out her name once or twice, and I honestly thought I might be going mad.’
The two of them had done everything together, and it used to be a running joke that you never saw one without the other. As teenagers, they’d been convinced they were going to be a singing duo, taking the eighties music scene by storm. The closest they’d ever got was belting out eighties hits at the regular Thursday karaoke night at the Lord Nelson in Port Tremellien, the same pub where he’d performed some of his earliest gigs.
Lijah knew that both his mother and aunt were incredibly proud of him for living the dream they’d once had, but they’d never treated him any differently. It had grounded him, making him feel normal. It was the same trick Nick had managed and he was so grateful to have people in his life who loved and valued him for who he really was. That circle had diminished when his mum had died, and he’d reduced contact with his aunt to text exchanges, so he wouldn’t feel the absence of his mother quite so keenly.
‘I’m so sorry.’ He repeated his apology and she shook her head again. ‘I ran away, and I knew I was leaving you to deal with all of this alone, but I just wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. When I’m on tour it feels like another world, and that’s where I wanted to be, in a world where I hadn’t lost Mum.’
‘Of course you did. So did I, and I really do understand.’ She wrapped her arms around him from a standing position, as he sat in the chair, squeezing so tightly that he had to turn his head to the side to stop it feeling as though he was suffocating. That was when he spotted what looked like holiday brochures spread out across the table. He’d seen the word Tenerife and a photograph of whitewashed villas below an azure sky. If his aunt wanted a holiday, he was determined to pay for the best hotel, wherever she wanted to go, and however long for. It was the least he could do and, if she even tried to decline his offer, which he knew she would, he’d tell her she had to accept. It was the only way to alleviate some of the guilt she was insisting he didn’t need to feel.
‘Thank you for not being angry with me, you’re the best.’ Gesturing towards the brochures as she finally released him, he fully expected her to dismiss the idea of a holiday, before he even had the chance to offer to pay for it. His aunt and his mother had always been careful not to hint at wanting anything, to ensure he didn’t offer to pay for it for them. But he needed this chance to make things up to her, at least in some tiny way. ‘Are you planning a holiday?’
‘A holiday?’ Claire looked towards the brochures and colour seemed to flood her face. ‘Oh, they’re not holiday brochures. They’re details of properties.’
‘Properties?’ Lijah reached over and pulled one of the glossy brochures towards him, reading the text printed at the top of the cover page.
Vista Paraiso, Los Cristianos, Tenerife.
Just below the photograph of the whitewashed villas was another line of text.
Exclusive development of three and four-bedroomed luxury villas.
‘Are you buying a holiday home?’ Lijah looked at his aunt again and tried to remember if she’d ever mentioned wanting to visit Tenerife, let alone live there. But maybe she had visions of spending the winters somewhere warm. She was due to retire soon, after forty years working as a teacher at the local primary school. She’d always joked that her job was why she’d never wanted children – that and having a nephew like Lijah, as she’d often teased him – but it had been obvious she adored kids, and she’d been the best aunt he could ever have asked for. He suspected her decision not to have a family had more to do with the difficult divorce she’d been through before Lijah was even born, and the pact that she and his mother had made not to get involved with anyone after the breakdown of his parents’ relationship. The sisters had each other and Lijah, so why would they want the hassle of anything else?
‘Not a holiday home. Just a home. I’m moving out there Lij, to Tenerife.’ If his aunt had said she was moving to a colony on Mars, he wasn’t sure he’d have been any more surprised.
‘What do you mean you’re moving out there? Have you even been before?’
‘Twice in the last six months.’ Claire made it sound so normal, as if she’d just popped down to the Co-op in the village. ‘In fact, if you’d come to visit last week, I wouldn’t have been here, I’d have been out there.’
Lijah couldn’t respond for a moment. The idea of his aunt moving away was a lot to process. He knew he should have come back sooner, but he’d never dreamed she’d come up with a plan to change her life this drastically, let alone so soon after his mother’s death. It didn’t seem right and he had to make sure this wasn’t just a reaction to everything that had happened. He hated the thought of Claire living with regret, as well as the grief she was already feeling. ‘Visiting a place twice doesn’t seem like enough of a basis to move countries. What about all your friends here? And your job?’
‘I’m retiring at the end of term and I’m studying to be a counsellor, so hopefully I’ll be able to start a little practice once I’m settled. I’m after a four-bed villa and that way, even if I set aside a room for counselling appointments, I’ll still have a couple of lovely spare rooms for friends to come and stay, and hopefully my nephew too.’ She shot him a smile. ‘I’m sure I’ll see plenty of everyone, especially in January and February when the weather here is about as appealing as a week-old dishcloth.’
‘What are you going to do without Thursday night karaoke, and your art classes, or yoga on the beach, or…’ He was clutching at straws now, trying to list all the things that should tie Claire to Port Kara and he wasn’t even sure why. He hadn’t been home since the funeral, and before that his visits hadn’t been anywhere near as frequent as he wished they’d been. She was right, too, he was in a position to be able to visit her wherever she was living. So why did he hate the thought of her not being at Mor Brys quite so much? He might have no idea, but his aunt was one step ahead of him again.
‘Thursday night karaoke isn’t the same without your mum. I tried it a couple of times, but it just hurt so much that she wasn’t by my side, and when I sobbed my way through “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, the landlord said he was thinking about barring me for making his customers so depressed they wanted to leave. I’m not even sure he was joking.’ Claire’s smile wobbled, her eyes shining with unshed tears. ‘As for the art classes, they have those in Tenerife, and I can do yoga on the beach all year round there if I want to. I know it will feel strange, not living here, but I think it’s time. I can’t bear being on my own, and it isn’t a home for either of us without your mum here, is it? Much as I love you Lij, and by God I do, I know coming back to see me isn’t the same. I can’t even begin to fill the gap your mum left behind, and the truth is I don’t want to try. I want to be somewhere new, where every little thing doesn’t remind me of her.’
‘I get that.’ Lijah nodded, because everything his aunt had said was true, but he was still worried she might be rushing into things and choosing to move thousands of miles away, to a place she barely knew, on a whim. He might not have been around much lately, but that hadn’t stopped him worrying about his aunt and checking in on her by text. She’d never once mentioned a plan to move abroad, and she hadn’t even told him about her trips to Tenerife. It all just seemed so sudden, and so random, almost as if she’d stuck a pin in a map and chosen to go on holiday there, to see if it was somewhere she could live. ‘But why Tenerife? Do you know anyone there?’
‘I’ve got a good friend who lives there, her name’s Dee.’ As Claire said the other woman’s name, her eyes seemed to change, and the haunted expression turned into something completely different. ‘We used to work together at the school, but then, about ten years ago, she went out to Tenerife and started working as a singer. We kept in touch via email, and she invited me and your mum out there to visit, but we never made it. When Dee heard about Maria, we started to email more often, and she invited me to stay again. I went over and ended up staying for three weeks. Then Dee said she’d come over here to visit me and, for the first time since we lost your mum, I remembered what it felt like to look forward to something.’
Claire’s gaze met his and he didn’t need to ask the question that had been forming in his mind. The way his aunt was talking about Dee wasn’t the way anyone spoke about a casual friendship. She was talking like someone who’d fallen in love. He wanted to be thrilled for her, but the idea of her being in a relationship was so unexpected. The last few years had made him jaded too, realising just how many people who’d come into his life had done so with an ulterior motive. The thought that Dee might not be all she seemed, and that she might be taking advantage of his aunt in some way, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. ‘Are you and Dee going to live together out there?’
‘I hope so, eventually, but she’s got her own place, and I don’t want to rush things. I’ve had an offer on my house in Port Tremellien, and I’m going to buy a place in Tenerife, so I can spend more time with Dee first. If it works out the way we’re hoping it will, I’ll probably rent out my place in Tenerife as an Airbnb, like I did with the house in Port Tremellien. It gives me the security of knowing I’ve got my own place to go back to if I ever need to.’ Claire reached out and squeezed his hand. When he’d bought Mor Brys, she’d insisted on holding on to the little terraced house she’d bought when she split up with her ex-husband. It was her bit of security and the money she’d got from renting it out had been used to fund the trips she and Maria had gone on, giving them a reason to turn down Lijah’s offer to pay for their holidays, no matter how hard he’d tried. Mor Brys had been bought in his mother’s name, even though as far as Maria and Lijah were concerned it had belonged to both of them equally, and Claire wouldn’t hear of it when Lijah had told her he was signing it over to her after Maria’s death. She outright refused to sign the paperwork because, in her words, she already had her own house in the neighbouring village. It had always been important to Claire to hold on to something that was hers and hers alone, right from the start ‘just in case Maria gets fed up and kicks me out one day!’ It had been a joke, of course, but Claire had been sensible then and, deep down, Lijah knew he could trust her to be sensible now. He was still reeling from the news, all the same.
‘Why don’t you keep the house in Port Tremellien and let me give you the money for the villa? You might miss the cold, grey winters after all and want to come home.’
‘Oh love, you know I’m never going to accept an offer like that, don’t you?’ She took hold of his face in her hands again. ‘And anyway, I can’t give myself an easy route back here. I’ve got to give making a new life for myself without Maria my best shot, somewhere completely different. And I can’t do that if it’s too easy for me to come back.’
‘Do I get to meet this Dee and decide if she’s good enough for my aunt?’
‘She’s more than good enough and your mum liked her; they met a few times back when Dee and I worked together. I just never dreamed things would develop like this, I didn’t even know…’ Claire trailed off for a moment. ‘I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, let alone another woman. I thought I loved Richard, before he cheated on me, but it was never like this. It sounds ridiculous, but I feel as if I’m glowing from the inside out when I’m with her. You know, like those old Ready Brek porridge adverts on telly.’
‘You’ve lost me there, Auntie C, but then you are bloody ancient.’ They both laughed, as she pretended to try and slap him, but then her expression changed to something far more serious. ‘You don’t mind then, the fact that it’s a woman?’
‘Oh my God, of course I don’t. Why the hell would I?’ He shook his head, incredulous that she could even think that. It was a huge shock to hear that his aunt was leaving Cornwall and he had no idea how to feel about that, but he did know what he wanted for her. ‘I’ve got to admit that you leaving Port Kara is the last thing I expected, but you deserve to be happy more than anyone I know and I’m so glad you’ve found someone who’s brought that back into your life. I’ve been dreading coming here and feeling the loss of mum all the harder. But this is what she would have wanted, to know that you’re finding things to look forward to again, and that’s what I want too, more than anything.’
‘For me, or for you?’ She was one step ahead of him yet again, and he nodded slowly.
‘For both of us, and I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need your help to make sure I find a way to do it. Even if you are shacked up with the love of your life in Tenerife, and you can’t think of anything worse than having your annoying nephew hanging around, or ringing up asking for advice.’
‘I’ll always make time for my annoying nephew, I’ve been doing it for the last thirty years after all!’ It was her turn to duck out of the way, as he pretended to make a grab for her. Then she put her arms around him again, pulling him into another tight hug that was so much like the ones his mother used to give him. His aunt was planning a whole new life, one neither of them could have envisaged a year ago, and he was thrilled for her. It gave him hope that he could find a way forward too, even if that was impossible to picture right now. He really hoped so, because his decision to come back to Port Kara had felt like the only way to stop himself from drowning in the grief he’d tried so hard to suppress. Now, with his aunt moving to Tenerife, he wasn’t sure he could even call Port Kara home any more, and once she left he might have nothing at all to come back for.
* * *
Amy had given internet dating a good go after splitting up with Zach for the final time, before she’d decided never again. Her last experience had happened in the run up to Christmas, when her latest match, Aaron, had told her he wouldn’t be asking her out on a second date as he didn’t want to get into anything ‘serious’ when there were so many parties and opportunities to potentially hook up with other people. Yet now here she was, against all her better judgement, diving back into the shark-infested waters of dating again, all because of Lijah. He’d come back into her life and made it feel as if her whole world was spinning on its axis.
Reuniting with someone you’d spent so much time with in your teens, who was now a global phenomenon, had a way of throwing your own life into sharp focus, but there was more to it than that. Reminiscing with Lijah about the night they’d got together, had reminded her what it felt like to be in love and she couldn’t pretend, even to herself, that she didn’t care if she never felt that way again.
Amy had seen what a difference it made to her friends when they found someone they could share the good times with, and lean on when the going got tough. She’d thought she’d come to terms with waiting and hoping that one day it would just happen, without the aid of an algorithm, or swiping on so many profiles that she was in danger of getting RSI. Then Lijah had turned up at the hospital, and she’d remembered what it felt like to look into the eyes of someone who made it feel like butterflies were looping the loop in your stomach. She remembered, too, what it felt like to have someone you could confide in, just as the two of them had done when they were teenagers. He’d been the one person who’d been there for the good times, but every bit as ready to be leaned on when she needed him, like when her father had been ill.
It was Lijah who’d given her a taste of what it felt like to be in that kind of relationship and, deep down, she’d never stopped wanting to experience it again, no matter how grateful she was for all the good things she already had in life. Now here he was, even more beautiful than he’d been at school, when she and everyone else had been utterly convinced he was out of her league. Not only that, he’d strolled back into her life and heroically saved Monty, offering to help look after him while he recovered. No one had a right to be that amazing, especially not someone in Lijah’s position. He was supposed to be arrogant, with a massive ego, because fame had gone straight to his head. And yet as hard as she’d tried to spot those things, or tell herself they must be there somewhere, that wasn’t who he was. He was different in a far more subtle way. Fame had changed Lijah, but she couldn’t put her finger on how. Whatever it was, it didn’t come with the arrogance she’d expected and that made if far more difficult to remember that he wasn’t still the same old Lijah she’d fallen in love with.
It wasn’t fair; he couldn’t just turn up for a summer and ask to see her, acting like they were teenagers again, before disappearing back into a world she would never be part of. It would hurt way too much. Just the memories that seeing him again had evoked had made the longing to go back to those days almost unbearable. That was why she’d had to reactivate her dating profile, and swipe right on James, a physiotherapist from Truro with a nice smile and dreams of ‘finding someone to grow old with just like his grandparents had’.
When she’d told her mother, Kerry, that James had asked to meet her for a drink, Kerry had offered to come and dog sit Monty. She’d left her watching re-runs of the Great British Bake Off on one of the satellite channels, and shouting at the screen that no one had the time or energy to make chocolate eclairs from scratch, when you could buy a four pack from the Co-op for less than three pounds.
Opening the door to her flat, after a somewhat underwhelming date with James, the smell hit her. It was undoubtedly the aroma of a kebab and she knew what that meant, even before she heard her brother’s raucous laugh echoing down the hallway to the front door. She could just go out and turn around again, but she was tired, and she had work tomorrow. Nathan was probably cadging a lift home with their mum, so he’d just hang around until she came home anyway, which meant she might as well get it over and done with.
‘You’re early sweetheart.’ Her mother smiled as she came into the room, and Nathan cut in before she could even respond.
‘All right fat arse, I bet you got a whiff of this kebab, didn’t you, and it sent you racing back like a homing pigeon.’
‘Nathan! For God’s sake, I’ve told you before about engaging your brain before you open your mouth.’
‘Amy knows I’m only joking.’ Nathan pretended to be outraged by the suggestion that he’d spoken out of turn. ‘It’s just how we banter, isn’t it, fat arse?’
‘Yep.’ She gave him a tight smile. Years of experience had taught her that arguing with him, or showing any sign that his insults bothered her just added fuel to the fire. She sometimes wondered what would happen if she replied in kind, honing in on his insecurities, if he had any, and said, ‘Yes, that’s right, it’s just banter, you socially inept moron.’ But she didn’t, because she knew it would probably hurt her mum far more than it would hurt Nathan.
‘So how was the date?’ Kerry patted the spot on the sofa beside her, and Nathan cut in again.
‘Bet he’s halfway to Land’s End by now, ready to jump off a cliff if he thinks Amy is chasing after him.’
‘He’s already texted to ask for a second date, actually.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Amy regretted them. She hated herself for trying to prove Nathan wrong. She didn’t need the validation of her date to prove she was worthy of more respect than her brother gave her, she already knew that. She knew too that Nathan was jealous of her, in a way that ate him up and made him lash out, especially when he’d been drinking, as he clearly had been tonight.
‘Did his guide dog like you, too?’ It was a joke he’d made at Amy’s expense many times before and it really didn’t bother her any more, but her mother wasn’t nearly so hardened to it.
‘Nathan, if you don’t stop this, you’ll be walking home.’ Amy’s family home, where her brother still lived, was over three miles from Port Kara and there was no way Nathan would want to walk it. He stuck out his bottom lip like the petulant child he so often appeared to be, and Amy squeezed her mum’s shoulder. She’d seen how difficult it had been for her parents over the years, with Nathan. No one had ever quite been able to determine the cause of his challenging behaviour. A personality disorder of some kind was the closest they’d had to any kind of diagnosis, but Nathan had refused to see any more specialists as soon as he was old enough to have a say. He’d struggled at school, academically and socially, and he’d resented how well Amy had done, describing nursing as ‘glorified arse wiping’ in the wake of her parents’ obvious pride when she’d completed her nursing degree. Most of the time Amy felt sorry for Nathan, but that didn’t make him any easier to be around. She felt sorrier still for her parents, especially as Nathan didn’t want to engage with the doctors who might be able to help him find a way of moderating his behaviour and mood swings.
‘They just want to give me drugs that will dull my personality.’ It had been his argument every time one of the family had suggested he seek help. Amy had been forced to clamp her mouth shut on more than one occasion, to stop herself from asking why anyone would want to persist with a personality like Nathan’s. Instead, she kept quiet, fulfilling the role of the good, reliable, kind daughter she knew her parents desperately needed, and it had become a habit.
‘Talking of dogs.’ Amy said without missing a beat. ‘How’s Monty been?’
‘Good as gold. Bernie was so gentle too, he must have sensed that his best friend was poorly.’ Kerry gave a small smile. ‘He lay down next to the crate where Monty was sleeping, poor little lamb. At least he’s getting plenty of rest.’
‘Yeah, except when I was dangling the kebab meat through the bars, that got him going.’ Nathan grinned and Amy felt her fingers twitch. She knew he was lying; Monty was in a crate for his own protection, so that he didn’t move around too much. There was no way Kerry would let Nathan dangle kebab meat through the bars, but the thought that it had even crossed his mind made Amy’s hackles rise. She couldn’t react, though, because Nathan would love it, and the only people it would upset would be Amy and her mother. She didn’t want Monty to get aggravated either, if anyone started shouting, so she took a deep breath.
‘Thanks so much for coming and sitting with him, Mum. I’ll take you out to lunch as a thank you, as soon as Monty is okay to be left alone.’
‘You don’t need to do that sweetheart, but thank you.’ Her mother leaned forward to give her a hug.
‘You know Amy, she never needs an excuse for eating.’ Nathan’s verbal barbs didn’t hurt any more because she’d heard them all so often over the years, but that hadn’t stopped them doing damage in the past. It didn’t matter how many times her parents had told her to ignore him, that it was his personality disorder talking and that nothing he said was true. She’d known the comments only hurt because they were true, at least in part. She wasn’t slim, or beautiful, she was ordinary looking and at least a clothes’ size or two bigger than most of her friends. As a teenager that had mattered a hell of a lot more than it did now, and Nathan had managed to home in on every single one of her insecurities, his words reinforcing how she already felt about herself. But she knew she was a nice person, she was kind and funny, and lots of people liked her. She had a good job too and had bought her own flat, all things Nathan would probably never achieve.
It didn’t bother Amy so much now that she was never going to be beautiful or slim, she knew she was so much more than the sum of her parts, but those old insecurities had made her who she was, and she’d worked hard to achieve everything she’d got, to prove her worth to herself as much as to anyone else. It had also made her more willing to try and see past shortcomings in others. That was why she was considering agreeing to a second date with James, despite not feeling any physical attraction towards him, and the fact he’d talked about himself for the entire date, mostly with his mouth full. There were far more important things than just the way someone looked, and maybe the other things had been down to nerves, and a desperate attempt to avoid an awkward silence. No one was perfect after all, but even as the thought popped into her head, she couldn’t help picturing Lijah. She just had to keep reminding herself that her version of Lijah didn’t exist any more, if he ever really had. The whole point of returning to dating was to provide a new focus, and to help her keep any feelings for Lijah that had resurfaced entirely to herself. Like most things in life, that was far easier in theory than it was in practice, but she had to keep trying.
By the time she’d said goodbye to her mother, and Nathan had fired off a couple more insults before disappearing in the direction of Kerry’s car, she’d decided she would give James a second chance. He might never be in Lijah’s league, but then neither was she, and she’d paid a heavy price for giving him her heart first time around. There was no way in the world she was making the same mistake twice.