Chapter 6 #2
His face hardens – a look I’ve spent twenty-seven years learning to read.
A look that doesn’t need fists because words have always done enough damage.
The look that says, You’re not Kit, you’re not enough, you’re not the son I wanted for this.
He wields disappointment the way other men wield their hands, and the bruises last longer.
‘Then stop,’ I say, and my voice comes out harder than I intended. Low and flat, the voice I use on the lifeboat when things are going sideways. ‘You want to yell at ghosts, do it on your own time. Not here.’
He turns on me then, and the pause stretches – him calculating, me not backing down. It’s a new dynamic, this. I’ve spent my life stepping aside for him, letting Kit be the one who pushed back because Kit had the currency of being the favourite. But Kit’s not here. And I’m tired of stepping aside.
‘You don’t know what they did,’ he says, low enough that only I can hear. ‘What they cost this family.’
‘Then tell me. Because all I’ve got is business rivalry, and we both know that’s bollocks.’
A memory shifts behind his gaze, only a shadow, and only for a second – just a second – he looks old. Not angry-old. Lost-old. It’s a confusion I’ve been pretending not to notice for months.
Then it’s gone, and he’s Reuben again.
‘You’ll learn,’ he says, backing towards the door. He points at Brynn like a curse, but his hand isn’t quite steady. ‘You don’t belong here, girl. Never did. And I won’t stand by while you—’ He stops. Blinks. Then: ‘while your mother’s lot poison this place all over again.’
Your mother’s lot. Brynn’s not her mother. Brynn’s mother left when she was a baby. He’s mixing things up again – confusing the generations, the grievances, the women. But he’s already slamming the door, hard enough to rattle the tools on the wall, and the moment to question it has passed.
The silence that follows is enormous. I can hear my own breathing, too fast. Can hear hers, deliberately slow. Can hear the crowd outside pretending to disperse while absolutely not dispersing.
‘You’re not going to defend him?’ she asks. Voice flat as a held line.
I lean against the doorframe, suddenly bone-tired. ‘Not sure which one of you needs defending.’
‘Right.’ She lifts her tea. Sips it like we’ve been discussing the weather. ‘Well. I’ll add “local fury” to my welcome basket.’
‘He’s not—’ I start, then stop. Because he is. He’s exactly that. ‘He’s scared. Not that he’d ever admit it.’
‘Scared of what? Me?’ She almost laughs. ‘I’m five foot four and I weigh nine stone. What exactly am I going to do?’
‘Come back. Stay. Make us deal with whatever happened twenty years ago that he’s spent my entire adult life pretending doesn’t exist.’
She goes quiet at that. Sets down the cup with that precision that means she’s thinking hard.
‘Your brother’s in New York?’ she says, changing direction so fast I get whiplash.
‘Yeah.’
‘And your mother?’
The question hits like cold water. ‘Gone. Long time ago.’
She nods, not looking at me. ‘Things we lose when we’re young tend to leave the biggest holes.’
I don’t know if she’s talking about my mother or her grandfather or Peter or all of us – this whole fucking village built on absence and silence and pretending the gaps aren’t there.
‘Yeah,’ I say, because what else is there?
A beat. Then she picks up the manual again, casual as anything, and says over her shoulder: ‘Your hydraulic problem. On the Mary Jane.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s the feed line, not the pressure valve. You’ve been coming at it backwards.’ She turns a page. ‘I watched you struggling with it yesterday. You had the right spanner but the wrong diagnosis. Intermittent feed pressure drop. It’s a worn seal in the distribution manifold, not a valve fault.’
I stare at her. She’s not even looking at me – just reading, tea at her elbow, like she’s casually dismantled my professional competence as an afterthought.
‘How did you—’
‘Because I know engines. Because I’ve been trained. Because your harbour hasn’t had a proper mechanic since Peter died and it shows.’ Now she looks up, and those dark eyes are steady and challenging. ‘You need help, Jude Harding. Whether you want it or not.’
She goes back to the manual. I’ve been dismissed.
I’m being dismissed. In her shed. That she’s right about.
Because she is – I’ve been fighting the pressure valve for two days and getting nowhere, and if the problem’s actually in the feed line, then I’ve been wasting my time and Peter’s notes would have told me that if I could read his bloody handwriting.
I make it to the door before she speaks again.
‘Jude.’
I turn. She’s not looking at me, focused on the manual like it holds the answer to everything.
‘Your father called me “your mother’s lot”. I’m not my mother. My mother left when I was a baby. She’s got nothing to do with this.’
I file that away. Another piece of a puzzle I can’t see the edges of.
‘I know,’ I say, though I didn’t.
‘Good.’ A pause. ‘The seal you need is a Parker 2-012. Nitrile, not silicone. Peter kept spares in the third drawer down, left-hand shelving unit.’
‘You’ve been here one day and you’ve already memorised his storage system?’
‘I’ve been here one day and his storage system makes sense.’ She still doesn’t look up. ‘Unlike most things in this village.’
I leave her there, surrounded by Peter’s tools and Peter’s manuals and the ghost of a workshop that was always hers underneath. The sun’s going down, turning the harbour gold and shadow, and I can feel her watching from the window as I walk away.
My leg’s acting up, as it always does when the weather’s turning, and I know I’m limping more than usual. I reckon she’s cataloguing that too, adding it to whatever list she’s keeping.
Tom’s waiting by The Ship, probably sent by Tilly to do damage control. ‘Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Is she staying?’
I look back at the shed, the light in the window making it look lived-in for the first time since Peter. ‘Yeah. She’s staying.’
‘And Reuben?’
‘Is going to make everyone miserable about it.’
‘So business as usual, then.’
‘Pretty much.’
Except it’s not. Because Brynn Trelawney’s back, living in a shed that was always hers, reading the manuals we should have read months ago, diagnosing problems we couldn’t solve.
She’s got steel in her spine and sadness in her eyes and she knows things – about engines, about the leaving, about the holes people leave behind.
I should hate her. Family loyalty demands it. Dad expects it.
Instead, I’m standing here wondering what would have happened if she’d stayed.
If they’d never left. If I’d held her hand properly instead of shoving a fistful of stolen pick ’n’ mix at her and running.
If Peter was still alive to meet her, to compare notes on engines, to hand over the shed with that big laugh and say, About time a Trelawney came back for this.
If my mother had stuck around to see any of it.
Too many ifs. Too many ghosts.
‘You all right?’ Tom asks.
‘No,’ I say, surprising us both with honesty. ‘But I haven’t been all right for a while, so what’s one more thing?’
He claps my shoulder, and we head back into The Ship where Dad’s probably telling everyone how the Trelawneys are back to destroy us all. Where Tilly’s managing the fallout with pasties and careful conversation. Where Nina’s absence is just one more empty chair in a village full of them.
Through the pub window, I can see the shed light still burning.
She’s not what I expected. I don’t know what I expected. I never let myself think about it long enough to form a picture, and now she’s here and the picture won’t hold still.
She’s right about the feed line. I know she’s right. I’ve known for two days that I was chasing the wrong fault and I kept at it anyway because admitting I couldn’t fix it felt too much like admitting everything else I can’t fix.
The Mary Jane. Dad’s mind. Kit’s absence. Peter’s death. This family. This harbour. This life I never chose but can’t seem to leave.
She diagnosed the problem in one afternoon with a dead man’s manual and a window.
Maybe that’s what terrifies Dad. Not that a Trelawney’s back – but that she might be exactly what we need.
This won’t end well.