Chapter 5
Chapter Five
KIT
‘Same again?’ Ayo raises an eyebrow, already reaching for my empty glass.
‘Might as well,’ I nod, ignoring Jude’s smirk. ‘Nothing better to do, is there?’
Friday night at The Ship Inn. Just like every Friday before it, and probably every one after. As reliable as the tide. As familiar as breathing.
The place wraps around me like an old coat – frayed at the edges, smelling faintly of damp wool and fryers that haven’t been deep-cleaned since the Nineties.
Woodsmoke clings to the low ceiling beams. The salty air sneaks in through the door every time someone opens it, a briny undercurrent beneath the scent of beer and battered cod.
The floorboards still creak in the same damn places. The fishing nets sag the same way from the rafters. Even the dent in the bar where I rest my elbow feels like it belongs to me – carved into the wood and into habit.
Maisie’s tucked away in our usual corner, pink tongue poking out between her teeth in concentration as she draws something monstrous with a glitter pen. It might be a horse. Might be an alien invasion. Jury’s out. A half-flattened packet of salt and vinegar crisps lies abandoned beside her elbow.
‘You ever think about getting an actual babysitter?’ Jude asks, dropping into the stool beside me with a grunt, shifting like his leg’s bothering him again. He won’t say it. Rule number one: don’t talk about the leg.
‘What for?’ I say, waving a hand towards Maisie. ‘She’s happy here.’
I tried the sitter thing after Jess passed.
Every local teen and middle-aged mum with a DBS check and too much energy got chewed up and spat out by my daughter.
Not with tantrums – but with interviews.
She asked one sitter for their tax code.
Left another a note rating their snack choices.
She set booby traps for a third. Glitter under the couch cushions.
Jessica would’ve found it hilarious. She always knew how to handle Maisie.
Even at the end when she was tired and weak.
‘Kindness with boundaries,’ she used to say. Said it like it was easy. It wasn’t.
Still isn’t.
I try. Most days, I fail.
‘Besides,’ I add, nodding towards Jude, ‘can’t leave you unsupervised either.’
He raises his glass in mock salute. ‘To family traditions. Warm beer and tragic chips.’
The pub’s filling now. Frankie and Bill are at it by the dartboard – arguing about whether squid ink has a place in a risotto.
Dot from the post office is perched like a hawk over her gin, flanked by Mrs Anders, who runs the RNLI fundraisers, while Cal’s mum is diving into a glass of red big enough to float a lifeboat in.
Friday night is their night out. Ayo and his wife Tilly just have to be careful it doesn’t unravel into sea shanties and a lock-in.
Dad slides onto the stool on my other side like he’s always been there.
It’s the three Hardings at the bar. Every Friday.
‘Boat sorted?’ He signals Ayo for his usual pint of Cornish ale.
I glance at him; he’s looking thinner, his hair now white like his own dad’s went, the back of his hands a collage of sun spots and scars.
‘Hydraulics should hold. For now. Maisie all good after school?’
‘You should’ve used stainless, and you know you don’t have to ask, she’s always an angel for me.’ His gaze briefly drops on his granddaughter’s studious expression. ‘Although I’m out of paper and apparently my pencils are for babies – she needs watercolours.’
‘Stainless is twice the price and out of stock,’ I reply. I make a mental note about watercolours, but to be fair, I’m not entirely sure what she means.
He grunts. Which in Dad-speak means I’m right about the boat but he’s too stubborn to say it.
Harding and Sons’ Fishing and Repairs. Except the sons are still watching the old sea dog go out of a morning because he’s a stubborn bastard of a man who won’t quit for a quiet life.
As much as Jude and I do the bulk, Dad insists it’s him.
We lapse into companionable silence. Until Jude ruins it.
‘So,’ he starts, ‘seen her yet?’
I don’t answer, just tighten my grip on my glass, but when he won’t stop staring with that stupid expression on his face I sag into my pint. ‘Who?’ I ask, like I don’t already know. Like our little encounter hasn’t sent me insane. Utterly insane.
Like I haven’t thought about her drenched through, blinking at me with those huge sea-moss eyes, a little thinner, a little blonder, angular and smooth skinned; all very Isla Quinn.
‘Heard she was back,’ Dad cuts in, tone sharp enough to split rope. ‘Maggie’s girl.’
He lifts his pint, a frown inches deep across his forehead. ‘Bit late for some things, isn’t it? Couldn’t be arsed to show up for her gran. Maggie doted on that girl, and she couldn’t even bother to bury her.’
Dad drains his pint like punctuation. Jude nudges his own across the bar for a refill, for once saying nothing. That silence is worse than the words. It means he agrees.
I down the rest of mine. It’s warm and flat and tastes like nothing.
‘We’ve all seen the headlines’—I have to pause because bile swims up my throat—‘and I haven’t got a clue why she’s obviously decided to come here and not go to some place with friends, but it’s none of my business.
’ I nod like it cements the facts, but then add, ‘Surely she’s got people to help her, right? ’
Jude is sipping like Dot’s errant cat from a saucer of cream.
‘Well, she doesn’t have friends here. So she can sod off,’ Dad states.
To be fair, I don’t think Dad ever understood that Isla Quinn and I were once more than just summertime mates sharing ice lollies and tide pools.
In his black-and-white world, we were the decent family that took her in when her parents couldn’t be arsed.
So, in his view, she owed us something. Should’ve come back when it mattered.
But life doesn’t work like that. And I’m tired of pretending it does.
I take a long, deliberate pull of my fresh ale, hoping if I ignore the direction of the conversation hard enough, they’ll drop it.
Of course, Maisie picks that exact moment to reappear like a pint-sized tabloid reporter who’s just sniffed out a scandal.
‘Dad saw her,’ Maisie says. And my peaceful Friday drink is officially dead in the water. ‘We bumped into her when we were walking back from the boat. She was running.’
Two heads swivel towards me like I’ve just confessed to murder.
Perfect.
‘Didn’t mention that,’ Jude says, eyebrows hitting orbit.
‘Nothing to mention.’ I shrug, aiming for breezy and hitting somewhere around guilty teenager. ‘We literally bumped into each other. Said hello. Kept moving.’
‘Dad was really rude,’ Maisie throws in, helpful as always, sliding onto the stool beside my father like she’s delivering a formal report to the committee. ‘She wanted to take a picture with me and he said no. He was so embarrassing, I swear.’
Dad’s jaw tightens. His hand lands on Maisie’s head, ruffling gently. ‘Your dad was right,’ he says, aiming his words squarely at me. ‘Some people are best remembered from a distance.’
I shoot him a look – not in front of her – but he just raises his glass like he’s made a toast.
‘Thanks for that,’ I mutter into my pint.
Though who I’m thanking exactly is up for grabs.
All of them. None of them. Maybe the beer, for keeping me from saying what I actually want to say, which is, what the hell happened to Isla Quinn?
Are the headlines true? Is that why, out on a run when she smacked into me by accident, she looked like she was being chased by ghosts?
Why do I care so much about someone I haven’t seen in so long?
Maisie sighs like she’s eighty-five and worn down by the stubbornness of men. ‘I’m just saying you could’ve been nicer.’ She fixes me with that look – the one that says she’s disappointed in me, which, frankly, cuts deeper than anything Jude or Dad could ever throw. ‘She’s my favourite actress.’
‘Since when?’ I ask, genuinely baffled. ‘Last week your favourite was the woman with the laser eyes and questionable fashion choices. You know, the one in the school for superhero kids.’
Jude snorts into his beer. Bastard.
‘That was ages ago, Dad. Like, a whole month.’ Maisie rolls her eyes, fully channelling preteen exasperation. ‘I’ve seen loads of Isla Quinn films now.’
My eyes flick to Jude, who suddenly becomes deeply invested in the bar nuts.
Thursdays. He has her Thursdays. I knew they weren’t watching cartoons.
‘I thought you two were watching SpongeBob or something?’ I grind my words out at him.
‘We did. After.’ Jude mumbles into his pint.
Maisie’s off again, a whirlwind of trivia and admiration. ‘Did you know she won an Oscar? For playing that lady who climbed a mountain with one arm. It was so cool. She was all muddy and angry and brave. Not pretty at all – just really real.’
‘Fascinating,’ I say, the word dry enough to dehydrate seaweed.
‘And in her new movie, she learned sword fighting. Not fake stuff. Like real fencing. She trained for six months. That’s dedication, Dad.’
Her eyes are glowing, wide and full of that kind of pure, uncomplicated admiration only kids can feel before the world ruins everything.
‘And in interviews? She’s hilarious. Not trying to be. Just funny. Lily’s mum says she’s a great role model because she speaks out about important things.’
I grit my teeth. The morning I saw the Daily Mail outside the post office, the headline had hit me, a sucker punch straight to my sternum.
Isla Quinn and Marcus Vale.
I remembered shaking his hand. He’d said he was going to make her a star.
And he did.
But at what cost?
‘Kit,’ Jude murmurs, nudging me with his elbow and zoning me back in to Maisie’s nattering. He flickers a frown at my expression, then grins back into his pint, tipping liquid into his mouth.
Luckily Maisie’s on a roll now. Nothing short of a blackout’s going to stop her.
‘Lily says she’s dating that man from the movie, you know the one, Dad, the one with—’