Chapter 20
Present
Kip knew he shouldn’t have just left the kitchen like that.
He should have stayed, stood up to Blythe, told her exactly how he felt.
But there were so many reasons not to, chief among them the fact that the Sweeneys had always had such keen hearing.
He’d occasionally wondered over the years (oh, yes, they were regular visitors) if they permanently stood with their ears pinned to an overturned glass against the wall.
This was the one thing he’d always hated about the guest house.
For all the grandeur surrounding them, the ultimate price was that sometimes, their house didn’t feel like it was actually their home.
They couldn’t have a good old air-clearing, blazing row because there always seemed to be someone else to think of in a nearby room.
The guest house was opened fifty weeks of the year, what were they supposed to do?
Keep track of every argument until the last week in December and then have it out, all the way through until January?
Families didn’t work like that, well, healthy families didn’t work like that in his opinion.
Instead of telling Blythe exactly what he thought, that she couldn’t be more wrong about the Vals – he had gotten up from the table in silence, walked out the door and followed Siggy down the driveway to put things right with her before she went to school.
Siggy and Danial.
Oh, boy, but Blythe would blow a gasket if she realised that those two were crazy about each other already.
It was a shame, because a first love is such a big thing.
Siggy and Blythe should have been chatting about it.
Blythe could be enjoying her daughter’s happiness and yes, waiting to pick up the pieces after the inevitable first fight or break-up.
In Kip’s opinion, those were the moments that were far more important than learning how to make brown bread scones.
He so badly wanted to be the person in Siggy’s confidence, but the problem was, that putting him between mother and daughter created a wedge between himself and Blythe that was unthinkable as far as he was concerned.
For all her faults, he still adored the ground she walked on. Didn’t he?
It was as he was driving away from Siggy that day, when she’d come over a little funny – time of the month, probably, that something started to niggle him. He’d watched her, in the rear view mirror and he couldn’t get it out of his head.
It was wrong.
This overprotective relationship that Blythe had created around their daughter.
And more than that, suddenly, watching her walking along, so miserable-looking, when she should be on top of the world, well, it did something to Kip, it felt as if it unlocked something in him.
It wasn’t just that Blythe was wrong, they were both wrong.
He was every bit as at fault as she was, he needed to go back and have it out with her.
Not now, he couldn’t go now, because he’d promised old Charlie Coggins that he’d take him to the barbers.
Actually, they both knew, Charlie really only wanted to get into the bookies, but what harm.
When Kip was a kid, Charlie had owned a travelling butcher shop.
Kip knew only too well that if it wasn’t for Charlie’s big heart, there would have been a lot less meat on their plates most weeks.
He owed Charlie, even if the old man didn’t know it, Kip knew it, and that was enough.
*
‘Blythe.’ He called out when he arrived back in the house a few hours later. There was no sign of her at first, which was a pity, because the Sweeneys were obviously out and it was the perfect opportunity to get things out in the open.
‘What are you doing back?’ She made him jump when she came through the front door behind him.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Oh?’ she said, but there was no missing the fact that she knew it was something serious. He waited until she hung her jacket on the coat stand and then followed her into the kitchen. ‘Lunch?’
‘No,’ he said, because he knew that making lunch and eating it, would push aside what he needed to get into the open.
‘Okay,’ she said warily.
‘It’s Siggy.’
‘Siggy? What’s wrong with her, has something happened?’ Suddenly, she was panicked.
‘No, she’s fine, nothing like that, it’s just this thing, the way you are with her, I can’t take it anymore…’
‘What do you mean, the way I am with her?’
‘You know very well what I mean…’ he said, because surely she wasn’t completely blind to it.
‘Is this about that bloody trek up the mountain?’ She sighed. ‘For heaven’s sake, Kip, it was just a walk and they got soaked anyway, they’ll all be lucky if they don’t catch pneumonia out of it.’
‘It’s not about the trek.’
‘Well then… what?’ she held up her hands, rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t have time for this, honestly, I have to straighten out those rooms before the Sweeneys get back and…’
‘It’s the Vals, it’s the fact that you hardly let her breathe, Blythe.
You can’t keep her at home wrapped up in cotton wool for the rest of her days.
She’s seventeen years old, can you not see that this…
’ He stopped, because he wasn’t sure he had the words for it, or at least, words that would not inflame things further.
‘She needs more freedom, to choose her friends and to…’
‘Hang on one second, what’s this about those Vals?’
‘It’s about…’
‘You can NOT be serious?’ She jumped up from the kitchen chair. ‘Dear Lord, tell me that you’re not suggesting that the likes of those blow-ins are good enough for our daughter…’
‘There’s nothing wrong with them, Blythe, they are as good as anyone else on this island, maybe better than some.’
‘So, we’re arguing about two people that we hardly know and…
’ She pivoted on the spot, then bent down so she was eye level with him where he sat at the table.
‘Listen to me, Kip Carney, she’s my daughter, and no matter what kind of silly notions other people might have, I’m keeping her safe.
I’ve worked my whole life to make sure she has the best chances possible and I’m not going to stand by and watch her throw them away on some…
some outsider that could up and leave here in the morning, with our daughter in tow – can’t you see that? ’
‘Blythe, she’s going to end up wherever she wants to, the question is, will she ever want to come back?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She was white now, livid with rage.
‘It means that sometimes you have to let people go, so they’ll want to come home again.’
‘That’s such a lot of nonsense – you know that, don’t you?
The last thing our daughter needs is notions about leaving the island – she’s much better off here, where it’s safe and there’s a good roof over her head and a business she’ll inherit one day.
Tell me, is there anyone else on the island with that sort of future ahead of them? ’
‘You just don’t want to listen, do you?’
‘It seems to me that you’re the one not listening here.’ She folded her arms in that way she always did when she’d already made up her mind.
‘It’s no good, is it? We’ll never be on the same page with this, it makes me wonder…’ He shook his head sadly.
‘We’re on the same page if you begin to open your eyes and see sense about it.’ Her voice was thick with sarcasm.
‘That’s right Blythe, because you always know everything, things have to be your way or no way.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘That’s exactly true and Blythe, it’s no way to have a marriage,’ he said sadly, and with that, he got up from the table with a heavy heart and headed out to his van.
It was as he was driving in the road, his head filled with counter arguments, that it dawned on him – Blythe’s attitude towards Danial was no different to Pappy Scott’s attitude towards him all those years ago.
It was never put into words, but they all knew, the old man never thought he was good enough for Blythe – and now history was repeating itself it seemed.
‘Bugger.’ He banged the steering wheel. ‘Damn it all anyway.’