Erin Kaye
The Promise of Happiness

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS. Copyright © Erin Kaye 2011. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

Patricia Gibb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9781847562012

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007340415

Version: 2018-06-26

To Mary Clare, my eldest sister

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

‘Nearly there, Oli!’ said Louise McNeill brightly to her three-year-old…

Chapter Two

With Joanne’s help it didn’t take Louise long to organise…

Chapter Three

Sian stood on the step at the back of Joanne’s…

Chapter Four

A week later and Louise surveyed the table in front…

Chapter Five

It was early, but the day was already hot and…

Chapter Six

Louise was looking forward to the night out with Joanne,…

Chapter Seven

Sian, who had been awake since dawn, stood looking out…

Chapter Eight

‘Bye, Oli. Mummy’s going to work now,’ said Louise, standing…

Chapter Nine

‘If you don’t hurry up, Holly, I’m going to be…

Chapter Ten

‘So how are things with you, Gemma?’ said Joanne. She…

Chapter Eleven

Andy lay sprawled lifelessly on the sofa, in a T-shirt…

Chapter Twelve

‘She says she doesn’t want to go out,’ said Sian’s…

Chapter Thirteen

Sian stood in the doorway to Louise’s small kitchen wearing…

Chapter Fourteen

On Sunday morning Joanne struggled into the kitchen with the…

Chapter Fifteen

The taxi dropped the girls off and Joanne ran out…

Chapter Sixteen

Sian stared out the shop window decorated with paper snowflakes…

Chapter Seventeen

‘The nurse tells me you’ll get out tomorrow,’ said Andy…

Chapter Eighteen

Sian stood barefoot on the beach at Ballygally, the cool…

Read on for an exclusive reading guide to Promise of Happiness

Reading Group Questions

Read on for an interview with Erin Kaye

In Conversation with Erin Kaye

About the Author

Other Books by Erin Kaye

About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘Nearly there, Oli!’ said Louise McNeill brightly to her three-year-old son, Oliver James.

Somewhere in the bowels of the ferry the engine growled and a shudder ran through the ship. Louise put her hand on her belly and her stomach lurched – though not with nausea. She’d spent her youth sailing on these waters – in the sheltered safety of Ballyfergus Lough or, sometimes, venturing out into the choppy waters of the Irish Sea – and not once had she been seasick. And she wasn’t pregnant. No, her nausea was caused by nerves. Louise took a deep breath, glanced at Oli and wondered – panicked suddenly – if she was doing the right thing by coming home.

Oli, restless, banged the fleshy pads of his palms against the sloping window, leaving smudges on it. ‘Now, now,’ said Louise, fretting that he might pick up germs from the glass. Instinctively, she reached out and caught one of his hands in her own. Oli’s olive skin tone came from his father’s side – it certainly hadn’t been inherited from the pale, Celtic-skinned and fair-haired McNeills. She touched a dimple on the back of his hand with her thumb – he was losing his baby fat rapidly, moving on to another stage of development.

Oli was a constant source of fascination to Louise – every new word was an achievement, every task accomplished a source of wonder. Each step along the long, slow road to independence seemed like a miracle. And it was a miracle – rather he was a miracle. Her baby. Hers alone. The child she had thought she would never have. Love and pride swelled in equal measure, threatening to choke her.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ said Oli, in the high-pitched monotone common among children of his age. Louise found listening to other people’s children grating, but never Oli. He let out a long sigh, having long ago lost interest in the view of the calm, glittering sea, pale blue sky and swooping gulls. Louise put her arm around his waist where he stood on the blue leatherette bench beside her. She pressed her face into the small of his back and inhaled, knowing that if they were ever separated she could recognise him by smell alone.

The boat swung slowly round on its axis and hot July sunshine flooded through the glass. She squinted as the land mass of East Antrim, and the town of Ballyfergus, came slowly into view.

The town was just as Louise had remembered it. The shoreline was dominated by the big working port with its hulking cranes and drab, pre-fabricated buildings. A docked P&O ferry discharged its cargo, an endless stream of lollipop-coloured container lorries, onto the shimmering black asphalt of the quay. Further inland, arcs of slate-roofed white houses, none more than two storeys high, inched up the hills like cake mixture on the side of a bowl. And beyond that the gentle rounded green hills.

‘Look,’ she said and pointed through the window. ‘That’s Ballyfergus. Where Nana and Papa live. That’s where we’re going to live too.’ The idea of this, of bringing Oli home to his grandparents, to be amongst his own, filled her with pleasure. And the feeling of doing something right by her child momentarily displaced the gnawing doubt that she had failed him.

‘Where? Where are we going to live?’ persisted the child. His dark brows came together in a frown and he glared mistrustfully at the lush green hills overlooking Ballyfergus Lough, oblivious, it seemed, to the breathtaking beauty surrounding them.

‘There,’ said Louise pointing at the town, which had served as a port and gateway to the rest of the province for over one thousand years. She remembered that Oli had last visited when he was two and would not recall the trip. ‘See those houses there. Not up on the hill. Down there.’ She pointed at the sprawling cluster of grey and brown buildings on the flat plain. ‘They look really tiny, don’t they?’

Oli nodded.

‘That’s because we’re so far away. We’re going to live in a house down there.’ She pointed roughly in the direction of the indoor swimming pool, a grey block of a building, which sat only metres from the shore.

‘With Nana and Papa?’

‘No, Oli,’ said Louise and he plopped down suddenly onto his bottom. ‘Just you and me. Like always,’ she added, careful to deliver this news in a neutral tone and eradicate any hint of disappointment or anxiety from her voice. She brushed his straight brown fringe, so different from her fine fair hair, off his forehead. He swatted her hand away absent-mindedly.

‘Why?’ said Oli.

‘Oh,’ said Louise, not expecting this question, not here, not now. ‘Well,’ she said carefully and took a deep breath. ‘Because your daddy doesn’t live with us, does he? He lives in Scotland. But of course it might not always be just the two of us. One day Mummy might meet a nice man and …’

Suddenly, Oli slid onto the floor and disappeared under the table. Mischievous brown eyes, the same colour as his father’s, stared up at her. ‘But why can’t we live with Nana and Papa?’

Louise put a hand over her heart and let out a silent sigh of relief. In her zeal to ensure Oli understood, she had yet again answered the question she thought Oli had asked, rather than the one he actually had. It was a fundamental pitfall she’d read about more than once in the library of parenting books that now lay in storage, boxed up in some Edinburgh warehouse.

‘Come on out of there, Oli,’ she said, pulling him gently out from under the table. ‘You don’t know what’s on that floor.’

Louise extracted a bottle of antibacterial gel from her bag. ‘We can’t live with Nana and Papa because they haven’t got enough room for us. Their house is very small.’

But Oli was now more interested in the gel than pursuing this topic of conversation. Louise held his hand by the wrist and squeezed a translucent green blob onto the centre of his palm. ‘This’ll kill all the nasty germs. Now, rub your hands together like this,’ she said, squirting some of the gel onto her own palm and rubbing her hands briskly together.

Oli held his hand inches from his face, stared at the gel and said, ‘It’s got bubbles in it, Mummy.’

‘Yes, I know, darling.’

‘Why?’

‘It just has.’

He extended his hand towards her face, his chubby fingers spread like the fat arms of the starfish that Cameron, her former husband, had once fished out of Tayvallich Bay on the west coast of Scotland. Together they’d knelt on the pebbly beach and wondered at its pale lilac beauty, heads bent together like children. Oli smeared a blob of gel, wet and surprisingly cold, on Louise’s nose. She blinked, surprised, and he let out a squeal of delight.

She laughed then, coming back to the moment, to her perfect boy, and he said, ‘I love you, Mummy.’

She swallowed, fought back the tears of joy. ‘I love you too, my sweet angel.’ She beamed at him and added, ‘Now, hurry up. It goes runny if you don’t do it quickly.’

‘Okay, Mummy.’ Oli slapped his hands together, sending splatters across the Formica table. He let out a cry and looked up at her, slightly shocked-looking, for reassurance.

Louise smiled. ‘That’s it. Now rub them together,’ she said and Oli complied.

She loved the unquestioning trust her son placed in her. She was the epicentre of his world, his everything. And he was hers – she craved his neediness and the fulfilment it gave her as a mother. And for the last three years – no, from the moment of his conception – he had been her obsession.

Her decision to relocate from Edinburgh to Ballyfergus had been taken entirely with Oli’s welfare at the forefront of her mind. Though it was also true that, after many years in Edinburgh, she now primarily associated the city with disappointment and heartache. She had been glad to leave. Her only regret was leaving her best friend, Cindy, behind. But this, she told herself bravely, was a new chapter for her and Oli, though coming back to the town of her birth induced an odd feeling. It was a fresh start but it also felt like she was returning to an old, familiar life. A life she had carelessly left behind as an eighteen-year-old without so much as a backwards glance.

A voice over the tannoy told them to return to their car and Louise gathered up their possessions – colouring books and crayons, books, snacks, a copy of Marie Claire magazine (an optimistic purchase from the shop on the ferry) and her mobile phone. She stuffed them into the stylish, capacious patent leather bag that had become her constant companion since Oli’s birth. Not that she cared much for fashion – not any more. She liked to look her best, of course, and she had not, like some other mums she knew, let herself ‘go’.

Louise descended the first lethal flight down to the car deck, gripping Oli’s hand like a vice. Twice he slipped on the steep metal steps and she hauled him back to his feet. Her left shoulder ached with the weight of the bag and her heartbeat accelerated, her brow beaded with sweat. Her stomach flipped with nerves and excitement. She squeezed Oli’s hand even tighter. He glanced up at her.

‘Watch where you’re going, pet!’ she said, as his foot slipped again and he almost landed on his bottom on the ribbed metal floor at the foot of the stairs. Doors led off from this landing to the top level car deck.

A portly middle-aged man, a member of the ship’s crew, stood on the landing dressed in a short-sleeved pale blue shirt and navy polyester trousers with a perma-press crease down the front of each leg. ‘Do you want a hand, love?’ he said, in the hard-edged, down-to-earth accent of North-East Antrim, and stepped forward with one hand outstretched. ‘If you carry the wee man, I’ll help with your bag.’

‘No, thanks. I’m fine,’ bristled Louise automatically. She missed no opportunity to demonstrate to the world in general that she could cope alone. ‘I can manage.’

The pleasant smile fell from the man’s face. He said nothing more, stepped back and adopted his guard-like stance once again, hands behind his back, and nodded in a tight-lipped manner to the person behind Louise. Realising how rude she had sounded, Louise ducked her head and proceeded quickly to the top of the next flight of stairs, her face flaming with embarrassment.

She told herself she was tired and emotional. The drive across Scotland to the port of Cairnryan had taken the best part of four hours, including a stop for lunch. And she’d not slept well the night before, her sleep disturbed by dreams of Cameron. In the dream she was following him in a storm along a narrow cliff pathway on the southern side of the Firth of Forth – a path they had once walked together in happier times. He wore a bright red jacket, his dark hair plastered to his scalp by the driving rain, his face dripping with water. It was high tide and she could hear the ferocious crash of waves on the treacherous rocks below. She stopped and called out to him that it was too dangerous, that they should turn back. And then, right at that moment, without any warning at all, the coastal path crumbled and Cameron plunged over the edge of the cliff, lost to her forever.

They had been divorced for three years – she had not seen him in as long. Why was she still haunted by dreams of him? Perhaps it was understandable – after living with someone for fifteen years you couldn’t expunge all the memories of your life together from your consciousness. And she didn’t want to. For some of the happiest times of her life had been spent with Cameron. She had given up so much in leaving him. It had taken such courage. And such bravery to build the independent life she now enjoyed.

Why was she thinking of him now, on this day? Annoyed with herself, she tossed her head, shaking off thoughts of him like raindrops, and brought her analysis to bear on the present.

‘There you go again,’ she mumbled under her breath as she and Oli picked their way carefully down the next flight of narrow metal steps into the gloomy bowels of the great ship, ‘pushing people away to prove your independence.’ She hadn’t always been like this – only since Oli. She wanted to run back up the steps and apologise to the man but it was too late. Instead she resolved to stop interpreting kindly offers of help as assaults on her independence.

‘Not long now, honey!’ she said, doing up Oli’s seatbelt. She jumped into the driver’s seat, clapped her hands together and rolled her shoulders in an attempt to ease some of the tension that had built up between her shoulder blades. She imagined her parents, and her older sister Joanne and her three children, all squeezed into the modest home on Churchill Road watching and waiting eagerly for their arrival. It was going to be all right, she told herself.

Once she’d negotiated the tricky ferry ramp, she set off along Coastguard Road, the old route into Ballyfergus, avoiding the harbour bypass. She passed landmarks as familiar as the back of her hands.

‘Look,’ she cried, slowing the car down to a crawl, and staring out the passenger window at a nineteen-sixties concrete block fronted by a big, unimaginative rectangle of dusty tarmac. ‘That’s where I went to school, Oli. That’s where you’ll go to school too when you’re a big boy.’ In the rear-view mirror she saw Oli straining for a better view, his eyes wide with curiosity.

A car behind tooted. She waved good-naturedly and accelerated away. ‘And look, there’s the fish and chip shop,’ she said, as they passed a cluster of small businesses on Upper Cross Street. But on closer inspection she saw that the fish and chip shop was gone, replaced by a plumbing suppliers. ‘Oh, it’s not there any more. But look, there’s the library. I used to go there every week with my mum, and we will too, Oli. Would you like that?’ She kept up this bright trail of chatter, seeking out familiar, reassuring places and noticing changes too, changes that reminded her how Ballyfergus had moved on.

Then, at last, she turned into Churchill Road, where children played in the blazing sun just as she had done as a child. Her hands began to tremble and the perspiration on the palms of her hands made it difficult to grasp the steering wheel. She pulled up outside her parents’ semi-detached house and took a deep breath to calm herself. She smiled to reassure Oli, who was looking at her with his thumb stuck in his mouth, then cut the engine. She stepped out of the car into the sunshine and a warm westerly breeze rolling off the Sallagh Braes, a ring of dramatic rounded cliffs overlooking Ballyfergus. Today the hills were framed by a cloudless cobalt sky, the brilliant shades of green softened by a heat haze rising from the black tarmac.

Louise tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and remembered the first time she’d brought Cameron home and they’d parked in the very same spot. He’d been driving then – he always did. He’d looked at the modest house and said, ‘Is this it then?’ and she’d felt herself blush, embarrassed for the first time by her humble origins.

Cameron had been to Watson’s, a private school in Edinburgh and studied English Literature at Edinburgh University. Although only a few years older than Louise he had lived in Paris for a year and spoke fluent French. He seemed so sophisticated and experienced. His worldliness contrasted with her sheltered, mundane upbringing. She realised she had so much to learn about everything and she was his willing pupil. The tone of their relationship was set from the outset. He was the leader, the decision maker – she was the follower, happily compliant. She allowed him to educate her, coach her, mould her. She had told him once that she would follow him to the ends of the earth and she’d meant it.

And here she was all these years later, back it seemed, to where she had started.

Joanne ran out of the house and Louise took a few steps towards her. They briefly embraced and cried, ‘Look at you!’ in unison.

Joanne gave an impression of girlishness despite her forty-five years with her tight-waisted, delicate frame and long wavy blonde locks. The illusion was further reinforced by a knee-length floral printed dress, flat ballerina pumps and a cropped cerise cotton cardigan.

Joanne’s olive-green eyes gleamed with emotion. ‘Welcome home!’ she cried and they hugged again. Louise put her hand on Joanne’s back and was surprised to feel a hard and bony frame under the thin layers of clothing. She realised now how much weight her sister had lost.

‘It’s good to be back,’ she choked, her eyes filling up.

And then the neat, small figure of their mother appeared at the doorway to the house, her hand raised feebly in greeting. And behind her was their dad, with his hand on their mother’s right shoulder. Quite unexpectedly, and uncharacteristically, Louise couldn’t control her tears.

Later, after they’d eaten a lasagne made by Joanne, and Oli was happily watching TV in the little room at the back of the house with his cousins, the women – Louise, Joanne and their mother – sat in the lounge, around the coffee table, chatting. Louise’s dad was in the kitchen with Frankie Cahoon, a neighbour from two doors down, drinking whiskey and talking about their days in the GEC factory. Louise looked down at the dainty china cup and saucer balanced precariously on her knee. It was her mother’s best china – a wedding present from her parents – adorned with delicate red roses and rimmed in gold leaf. If only her cosmopolitan friends could see her now, thought Louise, with a deliciously wry sense of humour.

‘What are you smiling at?’ said Christine McNeill, pale blue eyes, the colour of washed denim, staring at her daughter from behind steel-rimmed glasses. At seventy-three, she had lost none of her perceptiveness. Her gnarled hands rested on the arms of an upright Parker Knoll chair.

‘Oh, I was just thinking how the house hasn’t changed at all,’ said Louise, casting her gaze around the cluttered room. The big flowery paper pressed in on every side, so loud it almost screamed, and the nineteen-fifties walnut cabinet was stuffed to bursting with all manner of trinkets and old-fashioned ornaments.

Her mother followed her gaze and said, a little defensively, ‘Well, I like it. I don’t like all this modern design. Bare walls and hardly any furniture. I like a place to feel homely.’ Her nod was like a full stop at the end of a sentence. ‘Now, would you like some tea?’ Without waiting for an answer she leant forward and gripped the handle of the china teapot with her right hand.

‘Why don’t you let me—’ began Joanne.

‘Ouch!’ cried her mother and she let go of the pot immediately. It wobbled uncertainly for a few moments. A little spurt of brown liquid slopped onto the pristine tray cloth and spread like a bloodstain.

‘Did you burn yourself?’ cried Louise, already out of her seat and by her mother’s side.

‘It’s her arthritis,’ said Joanne flatly.

‘It’s all right,’ said Christine, and she held her hand protectively to her chest. ‘It’ll pass in a minute.’

Joanne sighed loudly. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that. You know you can’t lift heavy things.’

Louise sat down again and Joanne poured the tea.

‘A teapot isn’t heavy,’ said Christine, glaring at the pot, her lips pressed together in a thin line.

‘It’s too heavy for you. You know that.’ Joanne sounded cross and harsh. She passed round the milk.

‘Joanne,’ said Louise warningly and glared at her sister.

‘What?’ Joanne’s eyes flashed defiantly. She set the milk jug down on the tray, avoiding eye contact.

‘Don’t …’ Louise lowered her voice. ‘Don’t talk to Mum like that.’

‘She’s only got herself to blame.’

‘What? For her arthritis?’

‘No, of course not. But she’s always doing things the doctor’s told her she mustn’t.’

Their mother blinked and said, as though she’d not heard this last exchange, ‘It’s so frustrating not being able to do all the things I used to take for granted.’ She looked at her hand, the thumb joint red and swollen, and suddenly Louise was struck by how much her mother had aged since she’d last seen her. Now that she looked more closely she noticed how grey her mother’s hair had become and how lined her face was. Sitting perched on the chair she seemed shrunken somehow, as though she was slowly disappearing.

‘I know, Mum,’ said Joanne, her voice softening. ‘But it’s best not to try. You only end up hurting yourself.’

Louise swallowed the shock like a dry, hard crust. Up until now she had clung to an image of her mother as she had always been – capable, reserved, self-effacing. The constant, steady backdrop to a happy childhood. Louise remembered sleeves rolled up on wash day revealing taut arms stronger than they appeared; slender pink hands, slimy with sudsy water, hauling clothes out of the twin tub, the water grey from previous washes. She remembered a slim, resolute woman who moved through her narrow life with purpose and busyness, ever watchful for extravagant waste and moral laxness.

She recalled the relentless, tight-fisted management of household finances so that there was always just enough money for Christmas and a week-long summer holiday in a grotty boarding house in Ballycastle. And the going without on her mother’s part that this rigorous budgeting required.

Her mother shifted in her seat, and winced. She flexed the fingers on her right hand and looked at the deformed knuckles with a scowl on her face. ‘The doctor’s put me on a new drug but he says it’ll take weeks, months even, before I notice any difference. Maybe I need another one of those injections …’

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ said Louise, feeling a sudden rush of compassion for her mother – and a creeping sense of guilt. Balancing the cup and saucer on her knee, she reached over and patted her mother’s knee. ‘I’ll be able to help out more now.’ Why hadn’t Joanne, or Sian, warned her that her mother’s health had deteriorated so?

Thinking of their younger sister, Louise said, ‘Where’s Sian and Andy tonight?’

Joanne replied, ‘Oh, she and Andy had to go to some meeting about that eco-development at Loughanlea.’ Joanne fiddled with the tiny shell buttons on her cardigan, her small feet neatly tucked together under her knees. She seemed restless, on edge and she radiated what Louise could only describe as ill-will. ‘As Chair of Friends of Ballyfergus Lough, Sian said it was really important that she was there for tonight’s meeting,’ she went on, and then added rather formally, ‘She sends her apologies.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll see her tomorrow.’ Louise held her breath while her mother shakily lifted the cup to her lips, its dainty handle sandwiched awkwardly between her forefinger and swollen thumb. She managed to take a sip and return the cup to its place on the saucer without a spillage. Louise relaxed while Joanne, still on edge, let out air like steam.

‘She ought to have been here to welcome you. But you know Sian. Saving the world comes before her own family.’

‘Oh, Joanne,’ said Louise, scolding gently, ‘I’m sure she would’ve been here if she could. And I don’t mind. It’s better for Oli this way. Meeting too many people all at once would just overwhelm him.’

Joanne raised her eyebrows and looked out the window, unconvinced. Louise, wanting to avoid further discord, ploughed on with a change of subject, ‘Anyway, how’s the redevelopment of the old quarry at Loughanlea coming on? It must be nearly finished.’ The disused cement works, located just a few miles outside Ballyfergus on the western shore of the Lough, had blighted the landscape for over two hundred years. Four years ago ambitious plans for its regeneration had finally received the green light from the authorities.

‘According to Sian,’ said Joanne, ‘most of the major construction work’s completed. As well as the mountain bike centre, they’re building a scuba diving centre, a bird watching centre, a heritage railway centre and God knows what all else. And when it’s finished, the eco-village will have over four hundred homes. It’ll cover the northern part of the peninsula.’ She was referring to a wing-shaped spit of land formed from basalt excavated from the quarry and dumped into the Lough.

‘And when’s Sian and Andy’s house going to be ready?’

‘September, I think. Theirs is going to be one of the first to be completed.’

Louise nodded thoughtfully. She’d been so wrapped up in her own plans she’d almost forgotten that Sian was about to move home too, albeit not halfway across the UK.

Her mother tutted loudly, shook her head and set the cup and saucer down noisily on the table. ‘I don’t know what Sian’s thinking about, buying a house with a man she’s not even married to. Don’t get me wrong, your father and I are very fond of Andy.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘But we don’t approve of this living together business.’

Louise rolled her eyes at Joanne who said, ‘Everyone lives together before getting married nowadays, Mum.’

‘You didn’t,’ she snapped.

Joanne thought for a moment. ‘Well, maybe I should have. You can’t really know someone until you live with them.’

‘And a fat lot of good it did me,’ said Louise, looking into her cup. She sighed, took a sip of tea and added, ‘Mind you, I imagine an eco-village, whatever that is, will be right up Sian and Andy’s street.’

‘Oh, you should hear the two of them banging on about it,’ said Joanne, diving back into the conversation with sudden energy. ‘They’re like religious zealots. What they don’t know about sustainable living isn’t worth knowing.’

‘They’re always on at your dad and I to grow our own food,’ interjected her mother, nodding, ‘and make compost out of our used tea bags.’ She snorted. ‘I think they forget that your father and I are in our seventies.’

Her mother’s uncharacteristic ridicule took Louise slightly by surprise. ‘Well, the whole project sounds very exciting,’ she said feebly, feeling a little guilty at her participation in the mean-spirited mockery, albeit gentle, of Sian and her fiancé. ‘And it’s good that Sian and Andy are involved. You need passionate people to get something like that off the ground.’

Joanne pulled the edges of her cardigan together. ‘Hmm … I’m just glad she found someone like Andy who shares her views, that’s all.’ But she said it like she was affronted, rather than pleased.

‘Andy’s lovely,’ said Louise. ‘He really is.’

Her mother nodded. ‘Yes, he is a decent fella.’ A pause. ‘In spite of his … ideas.’

‘Well,’ said Louise, ‘there’s nothing wrong with being concerned about the environment.’

Joanne snorted dismissively like Louise didn’t know what she was talking about. She folded her legs and said, snippily, ‘It’s not what they do that bothers me. It’s going round telling the rest of us how to live that grates. It drives Phil nuts.’

Joanne had been married to handsome Phil Montgomery for fifteen years. A little flash of envy pricked Louise. She wished she had a husband and everything that went with it – the sharing of worry and responsibility, the freedom to have as many kids as they pleased, the security of two incomes, the social inclusion. But envy was a destructive emotion – she tried to put these thoughts out of her mind.

‘Wait till Sian starts on you,’ said Joanne, raising her eyebrows and running the flat of her palm down a smooth tanned leg. ‘You’ll know all about it then.’ She stood up suddenly, while Louise was still formulating a reply and slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better take my lot home and give you a chance to get Oli to bed. Oh, how could I forget? The keys to your flat!’ She pulled a yellow plastic key fob from the bag and passed it to Louise. ‘It was the best one I could find. Furnished flats are a bit thin on the ground in Ballyfergus.’

‘Thanks.’ Louise nodded, staring at the two shiny Yale keys, the passport to her new life, and rubbed one of them between her finger and thumb. ‘You know it’s really weird moving in somewhere I haven’t seen, even if it is only rented. The pictures on the internet looked nice.’

‘I think you’ll like it,’ said Joanne and frowned. ‘Though it’s not as big as you’re used to.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be just fine. Thanks for sorting it out for me.’

‘Now’s the time to buy, you know,’ said Joanne, dusting something imaginary off the front of her cardigan.

‘And I will,’ said Louise, ‘just as soon as I get my place in Edinburgh sold.’

‘Are you moving in straight away?’ said Mum.

‘Tomorrow. The removal van’s due at eight-thirty but most of my stuff’s staying in storage until I buy a place.’

‘I’ll meet you there at nine to give you a hand,’ said Joanne. ‘Phil can look after the girls for a change!’ She laughed humourlessly, then marched purposefully out of the room. Moments later howls of protest echoed up the hall.

Her father’s voice bellowed from the kitchen, not sounding nearly as scary as he intended. ‘Will you wee ’ans keep the noise down in there? We’re trying to talk.’

‘I’d better go and see what your dad’s up to,’ said her mother, hauling herself to a standing position and hobbling painfully out of the room.

Louise went and stood at the door to the TV room which seemed so much smaller than she remembered it. She slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and leant against the door frame. The two younger children – seven-year-old Abbey and Oli – were seated cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV. Abbey wore a grubby candy pink T-shirt and mismatched fuchsia-coloured shorts. She insisted on choosing her outfits herself – and it showed. Ten-year-old Holly, thin-faced, with long brown hair and pale blue eyes, was draped over the sofa.

Maddy, womanly at fourteen, was perched on the arm of the sofa, texting furiously with the thumbs of both hands. She possessed a full chest, brown eyes and shoulder-length, dark brown hair streaked with blonde. She wore a short denim skirt over bare orange-brown legs and, even though it was summer and warm outside, a pair of fake Ugg boots. A fringed black and white Palestine scarf was draped around her neck – a fashion, rather than a political, statement.

‘I said it’s time to go,’ said Joanne, authoritatively. She picked up the remote, switched the TV off and threw the control on the sofa with some force. Instantly the air was thick with tension. Holly glanced at Maddy. Louise bit her lip, sensing a confrontation, afraid to watch, afraid to look away. Abbey leapt instantly to her feet, placed her hands on the place where she would one day have hips and stared at her mother, her face hard with anger.

‘Put it back on! I hadn’t finished watching,’ she demanded. Blonde hair, tied up in two pigtails, stuck out either side of her head. Her freckled cheeks were pink with indignation and her entire body shook with rage. Oli’s cherubic mouth fell open in amazement.

The muscles on Joanne’s jaw flexed. ‘I said it was time to go, Abbey.’

‘But you don’t understand. It’s not finished yet, Mum!’ wailed the child, arms held out to convey her frustration at her mother’s ignorance.

Oli stood up, a toy car dangling from his right hand, his mouth still gaping open, utterly transfixed by his cousin.

‘Mum, there’s only a few minutes left to go,’ ventured Maddy, looking up momentarily from her texting. ‘Why don’t you—’

‘That’s enough,’ snapped Joanne, pushing her hair back. ‘I don’t know why you lot can’t just do what you’re asked. Just once.’ Her voice rose to a shriek. ‘Would that be too much to ask? I work my fingers to the bone for this family and I ask you to do one thing. One thing! And you can’t do it.’

Maddy sighed loudly and turned away, her features hidden by a curtain of hair. Joanne put her hands over her face, stood like that for a few moments and then removed them. ‘You can finish watching the programme another day, Abbey,’ she said, her calm voice barely disguising hysteria. She gave Holly a poke in the leg with her finger. ‘Now come on all of you. It’s time to go. Oli needs to go to bed.’

‘It’s not even dark yet,’ said Holly huffily from her slouched position on the sofa, arms folded across her chest. Her skinny legs stretched out Bambi-like from beneath a flowered skirt.

Maddy looked up and said, ‘Holly, can we just, like, go please?’

But Abbey would not give up. ‘It’s not a DVD, Mum!’ she screeched. ‘Don’t you understand? It’s on TV. I’ll never, ever get to see it again. You’re … you’re …’ She bubbled with rage. ‘… so stupid.’

‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that young lady!’ snapped Joanne, and she reached forward and swiped ineffectually at Abbey’s legs – the child, too quick for her mother, sidestepped nimbly out of harm’s way.

Louise bit her lip and winced. Oli ran over to her and peered out from behind her legs, no doubt keen to see, as Louise was, how this fracas would play itself out.

Maddy groaned quietly, rolled her eyes at Louise and returned to her texting. Common wisdom dictated that an only child was harder work than a bigger family, the idea being that an only child, with no sibling to play with, always looked to the parents, or in Louise’s case parent, for entertainment. Louise wasn’t so sure that the theory held. She’d never attempted to hit her child like Joanne had just done. Louise wondered what was going on with her sister. She seemed to be on the verge of losing it.

Abbey looked about feverishly, spied the remote and dived for it, just as Holly scooped it off the couch and clutched it to her chest. ‘Mum said the TV was to stay OFF, Abbey,’ she said sternly, and gave her sister a devilish smirk.

It had the desired effect. Abbey pounced on her sister screaming and both rolled on the couch wrestling with the device.

‘Mum, get her off me!’ yelled Holly. ‘She pulled my hair.’

‘Give me that,’ hollered Abbey, throwing her head back to reveal a face red with exertion and two missing front teeth. ‘Give me that now!’

‘That’s enough both of you!’ screamed Joanne, her eyes bulging with rage, her face puce.

Immediately the children went silent – even Maddy paused in her texting – and stared at their mother. Joanne closed her eyes and sliced the air horizontally with a slow cutting motion, like a conductor silencing the orchestra. She lowered her voice until it was full of menace and barely audible. ‘I have had enough,’ she said, pronouncing each word like an elocution teacher.

Frankie Cahoon shouted a goodbye from the other end of the hall and the front door slammed.

‘What’s going on in here?’ came her father’s genial voice over Louise’s shoulder. He smelled of whiskey and aftershave. What remained of his hair was grey and short and his bald patch, browned by the sun, shone like a polished bowling ball. His jaw was slack with age but his brown eyes twinkled with the same good temper Louise remembered from his youth.

‘World War Three,’ said Louise without humour and she cast a worried glance over her shoulder. Her father chuckled, his whiskery cheeks crumpling into a smile. He rocked a little in his slippers, his hands deep in the pockets of his navy slacks.

‘Let me guess – Abbey?’ he said.

‘Yep.’

‘Grandpa,’ cried Holly, as soon as she saw him. ‘Abbey pulled my—’

‘She wouldn’t let me have the—’ interrupted Abbey.

‘Enough,’ commanded Joanne in a loud, forceful voice and Abbey, now seated on the floor, started to cry.

When it came to tears, their father was a pushover. ‘There, there now, pet,’ he said, shuffling past Louise into the room. He sat on the sofa, pulled the crying child onto his knees and stroked her hair. Abbey’s sobs, instead of abating, intensified.

‘She started it,’ said Joanne, clearly not impressed by this intervention. She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Abbey.

‘Now that’s not very nice, is it, Abbey?’ asked her father and Abbey, glancing furtively at Joanne, sniffed and shook her head.

‘But she wouldn’t give me the remote,’ protested Abbey.

Holly retaliated quickly. ‘She wanted to turn the TV on and Mum said—’

‘I want you both to say sorry to each other,’ said their grandfather, cutting Holly short. After a brief exchange of petulant glares, amazingly, both girls complied. Under their grandfather’s direction, they even embraced and in moments all was forgotten.

Then suddenly Joanne grabbed Abbey by the arm and pulled her off her grandfather’s lap. ‘We’re going now. Come on. Bye, Dad.’ She marched Abbey out of the room brushing past Louise, Maddy and Holly trailing in her wake. ‘You three go on out to the car. I’ll be out in a minute,’ she instructed, giving Abbey a rather forceful shove out the door.

Joanne said a brief goodbye to her parents and Louise followed her out to the car. As soon as the front door closed behind them, Louise said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course I’m okay. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘It’s just that … well, don’t you think you went a bit over the top in there with the girls?’

‘No,’ said Joanne irritably.

Had Joanne lost all sense of perspective? In Louise’s book, physical punishment was the last resort of out-of-control parents. ‘You tried to hit Abbey, Joanne. And if she hadn’t jumped out of your way, you would have.’

Joanne stopped and turned to face Louise. ‘She deserved it. They all did. They didn’t do what they were asked.’

‘Show me a kid who does?’ said Louise with a laugh, trying to inject some humour into the situation. But her sister remained stony-faced. ‘She’s only seven, Joanne,’ said Louise softly. ‘You have to remember that.’

‘Seven,’ said Joanne, unmoved, ‘is the age of reason. Abbey is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.’

There was a long pause and, sensing that it would be fruitless to pursue this subject any further, Louise said, ‘Mum and Dad have aged terribly, haven’t they? Mum especially.’

‘Yes, they have,’ sighed Joanne and she rubbed the back of her neck. ‘At least you’ll be able to help out a bit now. It’s been quite a strain on me – what with work and the girls as well. Sian’s only interested in the common good – not helping her own family.’

‘Of course I’ll help out. As for Sian, well, she is working full-time,’ said Louise in her younger sister’s defence.

‘And you think I have more spare time than she does?’ Joanne shook her head. ‘I might work part-time at the pharmacy, Louise, but believe me, running a home and looking after a family as well is more than equivalent to a full-time job. Sian has no idea.’ With that, Joanne got in the car, waved goodbye tersely and drove away.

Later, when Oli had finally fallen asleep, Louise crept up to the bedroom and knelt on the floor and watched him. His chest moved with the gentle rhythm of his breath, his eyelids fluttered in his sleep. Damp curls clung to his sweaty face, and he stirred, throwing a chubby arm up over his head. Louise sat back on her heels and thought about the day’s events. She had done the right thing in coming back, hadn’t she? Oli should know his grandparents and his family. This was the right place for him – and her. And it looked like she had come back at just the right time. For Joanne, it seemed, was barely holding it together.

Chapter Two

With Joanne’s help it didn’t take Louise long to organise the small, two-bedroom flat on Tower Road. Joanne had chosen well. On the first floor in a modern two-storey building, it was bright and functional with pale cream carpet and walls, a brand new blonde wood kitchen and a pristine white bathroom. The bay window in the small, narrow lounge overlooked a pleasant residential street and the flat was only a few minutes’ walk from the seafront. Once Joanne had helped her unpack Oli’s toys, and her own familiar belongings, it started to feel like home.

In Oli’s bedroom, after Joanne had gone, Louise wrestled with a Thomas the Tank duvet cover while Oli played happily with his rediscovered Brio train set.

‘It’s nice here, isn’t it? Do you like it?’ said Louise happily, shaking the cover like a sail in the wind. If everything else went as well as today, their new life would work out just fine.

He shrugged without looking up. ‘It’s okay. Look. Choo-choo. The train’s coming into the station.’ He pushed a red engine along a wooden track. ‘When can we go home?’

The smile fell from her lips. She sank down dejectedly on the tangle of bedcovers and sighed. ‘This is home, Oli. For the time being anyway.’

‘But I want my old room. And I want to see Elliott,’ he said, referring to his best friend at nursery. He stuck out his bottom lip.

‘Oh, darling,’ said Louise, momentarily stuck for the reassuring platitudes that usually sprung so readily to her lips.

He got up then and ran to her and buried his face in her lap. She smoothed the fine soft hairs at the nape of his neck, closed her eyes, and prayed to God that he would settle down.

A few days later, she visited her parents and found her mother in the kitchen drying dishes from the evening meal with a red and white checked tea towel. Mindful of the signs of stress she’d detected in Joanne, Louise was trying to do her bit to support her parents.

She heaved a canvas shopping bag onto the kitchen table. ‘I made a big stew last night,’ she said lifting three foil containers out of the bag and setting them on the table. ‘I thought some would be handy for you and Dad. It’ll do for when you don’t have time to cook.’

Of course this wasn’t true. Her mother had all the time in the world – she was just no longer capable of running a house and putting a square meal on the table every night.

‘Well, thanks, love,’ said her mother, graciously. ‘That is very kind of you.’

‘It’s no bother. I get Oli to help me. It passes the time.’

‘How’s he settling in?’

Louise sighed. ‘He’s been having bad dreams. He’s had me up nearly every night this week.’ She yawned. ‘It’s like having a baby again.’

‘It must be terribly unsettling for him.’

Louise nodded. ‘I’ve tried my best to explain what it means to move house, but I’m not sure how much he understands. He keeps asking me when he can see his friends. I feel awful.’

‘Never mind, love,’ said her mother, with an encouraging smile. ‘He’ll soon make new friends.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Louise hopefully.

Her mother examined the packages on the table and shook her head. ‘I don’t know where you get the time.’

Louise smiled in acknowledgement. ‘Well, I’m not working and I only have Oli to look after. Not like Joanne.’

She watched her mother dry the bottom of a china dinner plate, then the top. She was so painfully slow. Louise resisted the urge to intervene, placing the portions of stew in the freezer instead. ‘Do you think Joanne’s all right?’ she said casually, closing the freezer door.

‘What do you mean? Like not well?’ Her mother set the plate on the counter and picked up another one.

‘No, she just seems a bit stressed to me.’

Her mother rubbed the tea towel on the surface of the wet plate in a languid circular motion. ‘She probably is. Those girls can be a bit of a handful. And Phil’s not around much to help.’

Louise paused, considering the wisdom of sharing any more of her concerns with her mother. She looked at her gnarled hands, decided against it and said instead, ‘I suppose it’s hard when there’s three of them.’

‘What?’ asked her mother distractedly, stacking the plates.

‘It’s so much easier with just one child.’

‘Easier, maybe,’ her mother replied and left the sentence unfinished – like an old plaster partially hanging off a wound.

‘Go on.’

Her mother sighed, shuffled over to a chair, sat down and regarded Louise thoughtfully. ‘It might be easier for you. But it might not be best for Oli. It’s not healthy him being with just you all the time.’

‘He’s not with me all the time,’ said Louise evenly. ‘He sees other people – adults and kids – regularly. And that’s one of the reasons I moved back, isn’t it? So he could be closer to his family and cousins and grow up knowing them.’

Her mother shrugged her shoulders and Louise found herself compelled to pursue this topic, realising as she spoke that it was essential to her that her mother endorse her lifestyle.

‘Oli has a very happy life, Mum. He wants for nothing.’

‘Except a father.’

Louise bit her lip, anger bubbling up like boiling fudge in a pan. ‘There’s nothing like stating the obvious, is there?’ she said. ‘Why do you have to focus on the one thing he doesn’t have instead of all the things he does? Like a mother who adores him and gave up her job to look after him?’

‘I know just how much you love him, Louise,’ her mother acknowledged, her voice softening. ‘It’s just, well … you know.’

The unsaid words hung between them, fuelling Louise’s anger. A father was the one thing she could not give her son. The only thing. The single, glaring flaw in the almost-perfect life she had so carefully carved out of the wreckage of her marriage. And she tried not to be bitter about the past. She ought to be applauded for what she had done, not derided.

Louise’s chest was so tight, she could hardly breathe. She fought against it for a few moments and managed to say, ‘It’s not how I would have wanted it either, Mum. Not in an ideal world. You know that. But do you have to go rubbing salt into the wound? What I need is support – not people, not my own mother, criticising me.’

Her mother let out a long weary sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘You didn’t mean to upset me?’ cried Louise. ‘That’s a good one.’

Her mother glared at her then, her eyes flinty and full of rare anger. ‘You can’t expect your father and I to approve of something that goes against our values. And people won’t understand.’

‘So that’s what this is about, is it? What other people think? Do you care more about that than your own daughter’s happiness?’

‘No,’ said her mother with a steely gaze. ‘You might not care what people think, Louise. But you ought to. For Oli’s sake. If I was you I wouldn’t go round blabbing your story to people. I’m not sure Ballyfergus is ready to hear it. You don’t want Oli singled out for being different.’

‘He’s no different than any other child from a single-parent family.’

‘Most people don’t set out to be a single parent, Louise.’

Louise took several deep breaths and fought to retain her composure. ‘I know you don’t approve but get over it,’ she hissed. ‘Oli’s here now. Why can’t you just get on with the business of grandmothering him and stop finding fault with us both?’

‘I’d never find fault with Oli,’ said her mother quickly. ‘He’s perfect.’

So the fault lay with Louise, did it? Louise blinked, tried to ignore the tightness in her throat and hold the tears at bay. Why did her mother have to be so judgemental? Why couldn’t she give Louise the unqualified, wholehearted support that she so desperately craved?

Her father padded into the kitchen just then, breaking the tension. He rubbed his hands together briskly. Whiskey had lent his eyes a rheumy quality. ‘Anyone for a wee drink?’

Louise shook her head. ‘Not for me.’ Since she’d had Oli she rarely drank alcohol – and she’d no stomach for it today, not after that horrible, hurtful exchange with her mother.

‘You’ve had quite enough already, Billy,’ said her mother sharply. ‘Why don’t you make us all a cup of tea instead?’ She folded the tea towel and draped it over the radiator to dry.

Her father gave Louise a mournful look and she forced the corners of her mouth up in a smile. He filled the kettle noisily.

Louise glanced at the clock on the wall and said, ‘It’s time I took Oli home. He needs an early night.’

Her father switched the kettle on. ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea. A few more minutes of TV won’t do him any harm.’

Louise whipped her head around and said sharply, ‘What’s he watching at this time of night?’

‘Oh relax, Louise,’ said her father, taking mugs out of the cupboard. ‘It’s one of those children’s channels. It’ll not do him a bit of harm.’

‘I don’t like him watching TV this late. Not just before bedtime. It over-stimulates his brain.’

Her father rolled his eyes. ‘You fuss too much, Louise. Let the child be.’

‘I think I know what’s best for my own son,’ said Louise, tears pricking the back of her eyes. ‘I am his mother after all.’ And with that, she huffed into the TV room, grabbed Oli and stormed out of the house.

‘That smells fantastic. What is it?’ Gemma Mooney lifted the lid on a pot bubbling away on the stove in Joanne’s kitchen on Walnut Grove. She bent her long elegant neck over the pot and peered inside, her chunky metal bracelet clanging against the lid.

‘Black Bean Chilli,’ said Joanne, smiling with satisfaction. She was no match in the looks department for Gemma – with her long legs, angular athletic frame and those bright cat-green eyes – but at least Joanne could cook. While she often joked about Gemma’s domestic incompetency, it made Joanne feel secretly superior to her friend.

‘Hey, Gemma,’ she grinned. ‘What’s in your fridge?’

Gemma shook her head of thick black curls. Not many women could wear their hair as short as she did and get away with it. ‘Oh you know me. A lemon, a few mouldy spuds, some ice and a bottle of wine.’

Joanne laughed and wiped her hands on the front of her apron, acutely aware of her insubstantial, scrawny frame. She loved Gemma to bits but she always felt a little in adequate, a little child-like, in her presence. Still, today she’d made the best of what she had with high heels for extra height, a full skirt to fill out the hips she didn’t possess, and a knitted cardigan to create the illusion of a chest.

‘What about the kids? What do you feed them?’

‘Oh, they’re used to fending for themselves. Roz can rustle up a pretty mean pasta and tomato sauce.’ Gemma replaced the lid on the pot. ‘This’ll be delicious,’ she said and gave Joanne a brief squeeze across the shoulders. ‘Everything you make is. You’re such a good cook. Not like me – I’m hopeless.’

‘You could cook, if you tried,’ said Joanne but she couldn’t resist a satisfied sigh as she looked around the kitchen. The table was laid with plates and dishes of food covered in cling film and cutlery rolled up in napkins. Heidi, the family’s black, two-year-old Flat Coated Retriever, lay on her bed in the corner, watching them with soulful dark amber eyes, her ears flattened against her smooth bullet-shaped head.

Everything, from the home-made vol-au-vents to the fresh strawberry tart, looked good. So why did Joanne still have a niggling sense of dissatisfaction at the back of her mind? Heidi lifted her head and let out a long low heartfelt whine, a protest at being surrounded by food yet not allowed to touch any of it. Roughly, she grabbed the dog’s collar.

‘Here, you’d better go in the utility room or you’ll eat everything like you did last Friday. Did I tell you about that, Gemma? She ate an entire cream cake I’d bought for the kids as a special treat.’

‘Yeah, you told me.’

The dog’s claws scraped the floor as she was dragged away and she whined pathetically as the utility room door shut on her. Turning, Joanne caught a flicker of something in her best friend’s eyes. She felt ashamed for taking out her feelings on the dog. What was wrong with her?

‘Oh, we’ll save the leftovers for her,’ she said brightly.

‘Of course,’ said Gemma smoothly.

Joanne peered wistfully out the patio doors at a dull grey sky. ‘Do you think it’s going to rain? At least the garden’s looking good.’

She’d made the most of the tight space, and the borders, still wet from the last shower, were brimming with summer flowers – pink and white foxgloves, frothy white gypsophila and pale purple lavender.

‘Great in the kitchen – green fingers too. Your husband’s spoiled,’ Gemma said lightly and Joanne’s chest swelled with pride.

She blushed and said, ‘Have I invited too many people? I’d kind of banked on good weather and now, if it rains, everyone’ll have to squeeze inside.’

The house was detached and had four bedrooms but everything about it was compact, a fact that constantly irked, like an itchy label on the back of a sweater. Considering she and Phil both had professional jobs, they really ought to be living in a bigger, better house. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon – not with Phil squandering every spare penny … no, she mustn’t go there, not today, not at Louise’s homecoming party.

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Gemma airily, ‘And I’m sure Louise’ll appreciate it.’ She leant against the counter, her skinny black jeans and black boat-necked jersey top emphasising her sexy contours. Joanne, in her pretty, flared skirt and delicate high heels felt suddenly in danger of appearing frumpy in comparison. And once again, she found herself wondering why Gemma was still alone. Surely there must be a man out there for her?

‘Do you think I’ve put on weight?’ said Gemma suddenly, sucking her already flat belly in so that it was concave.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Joanne loyally. ‘You look fantastic. Like you always do.’

Roz, Gemma’s daughter, popped her head through the kitchen door. ‘Can me and Maddy go down the shop for some magazines?’ It was Roz and Maddy who’d brought Gemma and Joanne together. They’d met at a mother and baby coffee morning when the girls were little.

Gemma looked at Joanne and shrugged her smooth right shoulder indifferently.

‘Why not?’ said Joanne as Maddy followed Roz into the room.

Gemma reached for her purse, found a fiver and handed it to her daughter. Joanne did the same with Maddy adding, as she handed over the money, ‘Just don’t be too long. Everyone’ll be arriving soon.’

The girls, over-made-up and dressed like twins in leggings, ankle boots and baggy tops with a slightly disconcerting eighties look about them, had only just left the room when Abbey came running in, dressed in clothes of her own choosing – red leggings which bagged at the knees and clashed with her orange T-shirt. Her straight, fine hair was carelessly pinned to one side with a diamante barrette with half the stones missing.

‘I want to go to the shop too,’ announced Abbey breathlessly.

Joanne smiled patiently. ‘You can’t, darling. You’re too young.’

‘I’m not too young to go with Maddy and Roz! They can take me, can’t they, Mum? Can’t they, Auntie Gemma?’ she pleaded, the hope in her voice slipping into desperation as the two women exchanged glances. ‘Make them take me, Mum!’

‘No, Abbey. I’m sorry, the answer’s no.’ Joanne paused and then added brightly, ‘Anyway, I need a big girl to help me.’

Abbey folded her arms across her chest defiantly and Joanne pressed on, ‘See all these crisps and nibbles. Can you put them in these bowls for me, please? The rest of our guests will be arriving soon.’

‘That’s not fair. I have to do all the work and they get to go to the shop.’ Abbey glowered. ‘I bet you a million pounds they’re buying sweets.’

‘They are not buying sweets, I can assure you,’ said Joanne, losing patience. She moved towards Abbey, wafting a tea towel at her like a Spanish bullfighter. ‘If you’re not going to help, you can get out of my kitchen. Go on, out!’

‘I’m not helping you ever again,’ shouted Abbey and she ran out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

Both women burst out laughing.

‘Why is Abbey so much work? If only I had a boy, like you, instead of all girls,’ said Joanne. In addition to Roz, Gemma had a twelve-year-old son, Jack.

Gemma raised her eyebrows. ‘Jack has his moments too, you know. But any problems and I just call his dad.’ She sighed. ‘Having said that, Abbey’s the feistiest little girl I’ve ever met. Do you remember that year on holiday in Spain when she was only four and we lost her at the pool?’

‘I’ll never forget it,’ said Joanne, recalling the feeling of heart-stopping panic.

‘And we found her a full twenty minutes later, sitting at the bar drinking orange juice, chatting away to the barman with her handbag on the seat beside her!’

Joanne shook her head, laughing at the memory of her fearless daughter though, at the time, it hadn’t been at all funny.

‘Oh my goodness. Would you look at the time? Gemma, love, you wouldn’t do me a favour would you and put out the nibbles? And I wonder what’s keeping Phil?’ Joanne added. ‘He knows everyone’s due at five.’ She slid on a pair of oven gloves, opened the oven door and waved away a bellow of steam.

Gemma sauntered slowly over to the island unit, ripped open a packet of crisps and ate one.

Peering inside the oven, Joanne said, ‘The chicken’s just about done. I’d better turn it off.’

‘Wasn’t he playing golf today?’ said Gemma, tipping crisps into a ceramic bowl.

Joanne turned the gas off under the chilli. ‘Yes, but he promised me he’d come straight home to give me a hand.’ She stood up and made a sweeping gesture with her left hand around the kitchen. ‘And of course everything’s done and there’s no sign of him. Typical.’

‘He must’ve got held up,’ said Gemma reassuringly. ‘Have you tried calling him on his mobile?’

‘I did. It just tripped to voicemail.’ Joanne took off the oven gloves and placed them on top of the cooker. She shook her head. ‘Sometimes I wonder, Gemma,’ she said and paused.

‘Wonder what?’

‘If life wouldn’t be easier on my own.’

Gemma looked at her sharply. ‘Do you mean that?’

Joanne reddened, her bluff called. ‘No, of course not. That was a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it?’

Gemma said sadly, ‘There’s nothing easy about raising a family on your own.’

‘Oh, of course, I’m sorry, Gemma,’ said Joanne. ‘That was thoughtless of me.’

‘I tell you, what I longed for most after Jimmy left was another adult just being there so that I wasn’t responsible for absolutely everything. I couldn’t even go out for an evening walk around the block without getting a babysitter.’ Gemma paused and looked out the window, then added quite brightly, tipping salt and vinegar crisps into a bowl, ‘Those days are behind me now, of course. They’re both pretty independent and Roz is old enough to mind Jack for a few hours.’

‘And they stay with their dad every Tuesday night and every other weekend,’ Joanne reminded her friend. ‘You know sometimes I envy you those times – when you’ve no children or husband to worry about. When you can do things that you want to do and you don’t have to be accountable to anybody else.’

Gemma gave Joanne a puzzled look and scrunched an empty crisp bag up in her hand. ‘It can be lonely too though, Joanne. And it’s not through choice. I’d love to be happily married like you.’

‘And you will be,’ said Joanne positively. The idea that Gemma envied her sent a little thrill of pleasure through her. She lifted a ripe avocado out of the fruit bowl and pierced the rough, mottled skin with a sharp knife. ‘You just haven’t met the right man yet.’ She didn’t add that, even surrounded by her family, she sometimes felt lonely too. Phil usually played squash on Friday night and then went to the pub with his pals. He regularly disappeared off golfing at lunchtime on a Saturday and sometimes didn’t come home till midnight. She thought she’d married a home-loving man like her father – how wrong she had been …

Just then the mobile phone rang. Joanne wiped her hands quickly on a tea towel and answered it. It was Phil and he sounded drunk. The call was brief and contained no surprises. When it was over, Joanne set the phone down carefully on the counter, the feeling of disappointment as familiar as the simmering rage.

‘Well?’ said Gemma.

‘You know what?’ said Joanne, by way of reply. She did not wait for a response from Gemma. ‘I seem to spend my life being let down by Phil. He’s always promising the earth and never delivers.’

Gemma threw a clutch of crisp bags in the bin and licked the tips of her fingers. ‘Where is he?’

Joanne let out a puff of air and shook her head. ‘Right now he’s in the bar at the golf club. They’ve just ordered food even though he knows there’s food here. He says he’ll be home after that.’

‘Oh,’ said Gemma. She rubbed at an old paint spot on the limestone floor with the tip of her open-toed sandal.

Joanne cut around the middle of the avocado and twisted it to separate the two halves. She prised out the stone, which skittered across the counter. ‘Last week he promised Abbey he’d take her swimming on Sunday morning and he was too hung-over. He forgot about Maddy’s parents’ night at the school in spite of me reminding him three times and sending him a text.’ She paused, held the knife in the air and went on, ‘Two weeks ago we were supposed to be going round to the Dohertys’ for dinner and he came home pissed from the golf club at eight o’clock. You remember that? We had to call it off in the end. I had to pretend I had a migraine. And I really wanted to go.’

‘I know. You got that new dress out of Menary’s specially.’

Joanne viciously diced the avocado flesh and tossed it in a bowl. She lifted a lime from the fruit bowl and held it in the air between her index finger and thumb. ‘And the week before that I opened a red credit card bill he’d not bothered to pay. Do you want me to go on?’

Gemma bit her lip. ‘I get the picture.’

Joanne hacked a lime in two. ‘There’s always something. He’s just so … so irresponsible, Gemma. It’s like having a fourth child these days. No, it’s worse because I’ve absolutely no control over what he does. I never relax. I never know what disaster’s coming next.’

‘Well, you know what I think,’ said Gemma and she raised her eyebrows and gave Joanne a hard stare. She knew all about Phil’s gambling, his drinking, his extravagant spending, his unreliability.

Joanne set the knife down on the chopping board and sighed, her anger spent. ‘I know, I know. I should stop complaining and do something about it.’

‘It’s just that, honestly, Joanne, you should hear yourself,’ said Gemma, sounding a little exasperated. ‘I can’t remember the last time I heard you say a good word about Phil.’

‘That’s because there isn’t a good word to say.’ She held half a lime over the bowl and rammed a wooden reamer into the flesh. Juice squirted out, stinging a nick on the back of her hand.

‘You sound so cynical,’ said Gemma sadly.

Joanne threw the squeezed lime in the bin and rinsed her hands. ‘That’s because I am.’

‘Leave him then.’

Joanne looked out the window and sighed. ‘You know I wouldn’t do that to the children.’ She dried her hands and fixed her friend with a steady stare. Didn’t Gemma realise that she just wanted to let off steam, not be told what to do?

‘Well,’ said Gemma, looking away and speaking slowly, as if choosing her words very carefully. ‘There’s a lot worse things can happen to children than divorce. Living in an unhappy home can be just as damaging.’

‘You didn’t say that when Jimmy left. And I remember it, Gemma. I remember how awful it was for the kids. And for you.’

Gemma folded her arms. She tipped her chin upwards and said, ‘They got over it. We all did. And Jimmy and I get on okay now. I mean we’re civil to each other and we both put the children first.’

Aware she had touched a raw spot, Joanne rushed to bolster Gemma’s confidence. ‘I think you’ve done just great since the divorce, Gemma. I really admire you for how you’ve managed everything. The kids are happy and well-balanced. And I know how hard it was for you when he moved in with Sarah.’

Gemma suddenly smiled brightly. ‘No, it’s all right, really. It was a long time ago.’ She paused and then added, ‘Look, I was just playing devil’s advocate there. You don’t really want to leave Phil – or have him leave you – do you?’

Joanne stared at her open-mouthed. ‘Phil wouldn’t leave me. I—’ She felt her heart begin to race.

‘Oh, Joanne, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to panic you. It was just a “for instance” – I was just thinking of me and Jimmy.’

‘I – no, Phil won’t leave me. I keep the house nice, the food …’ She gestured helplessly. ‘I really don’t know what I’d do without him.’ Recovering her composure, she added, ‘Look, I’m sorry to bang on about Phil all the time, especially when I don’t take your advice.’

‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Joanne,’ said Gemma looking directly into her eyes. ‘It’s just that I care for you and I want you to be happy.’

Joanne smiled. ‘I know that, love. And I guess I just want someone to listen.’

‘That’s what friends are for.’

Joanne went over and gave Gemma a hug and said, simply, ‘Thanks.’ It fell far short of conveying the gratitude she felt towards Gemma for her friendship and support over the years.

Then the doorbell went and the two women separated.

Joanne straightened her skirt and clapped her hands together. ‘Right, party time!’

Chapter Three

Sian stood on the step at the back of Joanne’s house, holding a glass of wine and looking out at the garden, relieved at being forgiven for being so late. Thankfully Joanne understood that they had to bike all the way from the other side of town – though she and Andy owned an old second-hand car, they rarely used it.

It had been nearly twenty years since she’d visited North Africa in her second year of a Geography degree course at uni and seen first-hand the effects of over-population on a fragile ecosystem – dried-up riverbeds caused by over-farming, starving livestock, ruined crops. She’d seen with her own horrified eyes what poverty looked like – children maimed at birth so they could ‘earn’ a living as beggars, others labouring like ants in a leather tanning factory from dawn till dusk, and stinking, reeking, overcrowded living conditions. She’d come home humbled – and thankful that she’d been born in a first world country where a full belly and medical care were taken for granted. And long before the phrase carbon footprint was coined, she’d devoted her life to minimising her impact on the earth. She fervently believed that, by example, she might persuade others to do the same.

She sipped the wine and looked up at the sky heavy with clouds – so far the rain had held off. The patio doors that led into the lounge were open and behind her an assortment of aunts and uncles and cousins were sitting about chatting and eating. Younger members of the family ran in and out of the room until someone hollered at them to ‘cut it out’. She eyed Joanne’s flowers – one day she’d persuade her to put in veggies too. Everyone had to do their bit. She and Andy were in total agreement on that.

She looked over at Andy, tall and slim and fit, standing on the small square of grass in the centre of the garden. A worn grey T-shirt hung on his well-defined frame and he wore an old pair of shorts over shapely legs, browned from the sun. His short sun-streaked blond hair stood up in messy tufts. She remembered the day she’d first set eyes on him. She’d attended her very first meeting of Friends of Ballyfergus Lough nearly five years ago. And there he was in shorts and a torn T-shirt looking much the same as he did today. She’d fallen in love with him immediately and they’d moved in together within six weeks.

Sian sighed and ran a hand through her tightly cropped fair hair. Not only was he the sexiest man she had ever seen, she loved the languid fluidity of his movements, his relaxed smile, his easygoing nature. In these respects he was the very opposite of her – and maybe that was why their relationship worked. He shared her passion for saving the earth but didn’t take himself, or the cause, quite as seriously as she did. He helped her to maintain perspective and, in the face of near apathy from ninety-nine per cent of the population, retain her sense of humour.

She could still hardly believe this gorgeous sexy man and she were getting married next year. Sometimes she couldn’t believe her good fortune – both her sisters’ marriages confirmed what she suspected. Not everyone found their soulmate. She and Andy were the lucky ones. And together they were invincible. Nothing could come between them, not now, not ever. They shared the same values – they both wanted the same things out of life.

Oli stood just a few metres away from Andy. The child wore clothes that looked like they’d never seen a spot of mud in their life – even his trainers were sparkling white. Sian was filled with dismay. Children should be grubby and messy and muddy, not clean and pristine like they’d just come out of a washing machine. But that was Louise all over. Joanne had proudly shown her the expensive wine and chocolates Louise had brought – whereas she and Andy had contributed organic vegetables from their allotment.

Andy smiled at the boy and the corners of his dark eyes crinkled up, his skin leathery from all the time spent outdoors. His smile was wide and genuine, and his gaze was focused on Oli as though he was the only thing of importance at that moment. Sian understood only too well why clients of the outdoor centre in Cushendall where he worked, loved him. Kids, especially, adored him.

Very gently, Andy tapped a football with the side of his trainer and it came to rest just in front of Oli.

The expression on the toddler’s face as he squared up to kick the ball was fierce – his brows knit together, his tongue protruding slightly from the left side of his mouth. Sian smiled. She had seen that expression of quiet determination before – on her sister Louise’s face. She’d always been single-minded and competitive. He took aim, swung his leg – and missed the ball.

The swinging action made him lose his balance, his foot gave way beneath him on the wet grass and he landed suddenly on his bottom. Unperturbed, he immediately rolled onto his knees and stood up, using his hands to lever himself onto his feet. Sian noted with satisfaction the grass stains on his knees and on the seat of his jeans. Oli wiped his muddy hands down the front of his shirt and Sian smiled.

The little boy stared at the ball wide-eyed and disbelieving as if some sinister trick was at work.

‘You missed the ball,’ called out Andy. ‘It’s okay. Have another go, big man.’

Oli screwed his face up in concentration, took another short run at the ball, swung his leg and this time made contact. The ball skidded across the grass and rolled slowly between Andy’s legs. He made no attempt to stop it.

‘Goal! Goal!’ shouted Oli, punching the air with fisted hands.

Andy cheered and the boy ran to him and Andy scooped him up and swung him around in the air. Then he put him under his right arm, like a package, ruffled his hair with his left and deposited the boy back on the ground.

‘Again! Again!’ he squealed, jumping up and down. Just then Abbey and Holly came hurtling across the garden and threw themselves at Andy. He fell backwards onto the grass and the girls jumped on top of him, screaming with delight. Sian threw her head back and laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Joanne, coming to stand beside her. She held a half-full bottle of white wine by the neck in her right hand, a wine glass in her left.

‘Oh, it’s Andy and the kids,’ Sian smiled. ‘They’re having a great time. Look at them.’

‘Poor Andy,’ said Joanne with a wry smile as Oli threw himself on top of the heap of legs and arms, squealing with delight.

‘Sure Andy loves it,’ said Sian.

‘He must do,’ said Joanne watching as Andy scrambled to his feet, laughing, the back of his T-shirt soiled with stains. Within seconds he’d organised a two-a-side football game. ‘You know he’s absolutely great with kids. Look at little Oli. He just adores Andy.’

Sian beamed with pride. The children made no secret of the fact that their (almost) Uncle Andy was their favourite male relative.

‘I suppose that’s what Oli’s crying out for,’ Joanne went on. ‘A bit of male rough and tumble.’

‘I guess so,’ said Sian and this innocuous comment seemed to open the floodgates for Joanne.

‘I feel awful saying this,’ she confided, ‘but I think Louise should’ve given more thought to what it would be like for Oli without a dad.’ She leant forward conspiratorially and whispered darkly, ‘I think it’s already affected him, you know.’

‘Surely not!’ said Sian, glancing over at the happy, smiling child. ‘He’s little more than a baby.’

‘Louise spoils him. Did you see his trainers? Dolce and Gabbana. I think she spoils him to make up for the fact that he doesn’t have a father, but money can’t make up for that, can it?’ Joanne tutted her disapproval, which sounded more like jealousy to Sian, and went on, ‘And he’s far too clingy. He sleeps in Louise’s bed every night, you know.’ She nodded her head firmly as if she had just divulged a shocking secret, filled her glass to the brim, topped up Sian’s, and set the empty bottle on the step.

‘What’s so wrong with that? Lots of parents let their kids sleep with them, don’t they?’

Joanne laughed cynically. ‘Only those that don’t have a life.’

‘Well, how she raises Oli is Louise’s business,’ said Sian. ‘What I object to is the fact that she had him in the first place.’

‘Because she’s a single mum?’ said Joanne incredulously. ‘I wouldn’t have put you down for a traditionalist.’

Sian shook her head. ‘I couldn’t care less whether she’s married or not. What I care about is the fact that she had him at all. There are enough kids in the world without adding to the problem.’

Joanne rolled her eyes. ‘Here we go again.’

Anger flared up inside Sian. As a child Joanne had never taken her seriously and she still treated Sian like the younger sister she was, putting her down, dismissing her at every opportunity. But this was a subject about which Sian knew far more than her sister. She would make her listen. ‘The biggest problem facing mankind is over-population. There are too many people competing for scarce resources – land, water, food. And competition ultimately leads to war. Over-population is the primary cause of most of the world’s ills. And it’s forced us to embrace dangerous technologies like nuclear power. No, there are simply too many of us – way too many.’

‘Not in the UK there aren’t,’ argued Joanne. ‘Our problem is a falling birth rate. In a few years’ time there won’t be enough young people to support our ageing population. It’s the people in the third world having ten, twelve babies that are the problem. Not us in the West.’

Sian sighed and said patiently, ‘I’m talking on a global scale, Joanne. We all have to take some responsibility for the problem. People in the West don’t realise that their luxurious lifestyles are effectively subsidised by the rest of the world. The earth simply doesn’t possess the resources to enable everyone to live the way we do.’

Joanne folded her arms, her glass balanced in one hand, and narrowed her eyes. ‘So are you saying that I shouldn’t have had three children?’

Sian broke eye contact. ‘I just wish more people were prepared to take action on a personal level,’ she said, evasively. ‘Procreating isn’t the be all and end all. Louise’s mistake was in believing that motherhood was the only route to personal fulfilment. But there are many ways to happiness.’

And Sian knew what she was talking about. She ran Earth Matters, the Fairtrade shop in Ballyfergus. She sold jewellery from co-operatives in Africa, toys made from recycled tin cans and bags fashioned from recycled rice sacks. She stocked organic clothing, Ecover home care products, washable nappies and Fairtrade rice, sugar and coffee from the third world. She worked hard in the business and nothing gave her more pleasure than the knowledge that, small as it was, she was making a difference.

Joanne stared at her and said, ‘Well, I think it’s a subject we should agree to disagree on, Sian. Anyway, now’s not really the time, or the place, to discuss it.’

‘Whatever,’ said Sian pleased that she had rattled Joanne’s cage.

Joanne cleared her throat and said, ‘Thanks for the potatoes and carrots by the way. They look lovely.’

‘Andy picked them this morning. First of the season,’ said Sian. ‘And all organic of course.’

‘I’d be disappointed if they weren’t,’ said Joanne, poking a little of what she no doubt thought was good-natured fun at her sister.

Sian decided to let it pass. ‘You know, our allotment is a fraction of the size of this garden and look at the amount of food we produce – more than the two of us can eat at the height of the season. Have you ever thought of growing your own food?’

The corners of Joanne’s mouth turned downwards, a bemused expression on her face. ‘Where would I find the time to do that, Sian? I do all the work in the garden as it is.’

‘Oh, it’s not too bad once you get it established. I would help you.’

‘But the garden isn’t big enough to have a vegetable plot, Sian.’

‘Sure it is. You’ve loads of room. Just do away with that border for a start,’ said Sian, pointing to a peony rose in full, pale pink flower. ‘It’s not doing anything.’

‘For your information it’s providing colour and interest,’ said Joanne. ‘And I like having cut flowers for the house.’

‘You’d still have a good-sized lawn and border on the other side,’ went on Sian, ignoring this observation and the sarcasm. ‘And the girls would absolutely love it. Look how excited they get when they come down to help me on the allotment. Well, Holly and Abbey anyway,’ she added, remembering that the last time Maddy had come she’d spent the whole time sitting on an upturned crate texting her mates. ‘Just think how thrilled they’d be about growing food for the table in their own backyard! And it makes sound economic sense too, not to mention it’d all be organic and so much better for you than the stuff you buy in the supermarket.’

Sian paused for breath and Joanne said, rather sharply, ‘Tell you what. The day that Phil starts helping in the garden, that’ll be the day I plant a vegetable plot.’

Sian frowned and looked over her shoulder into the lounge. Everyone had finished eating and a bottle of Baileys had appeared. Even their mother had a glass. Phil was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where is he anyway? I haven’t seen him since we got here.’

‘That’s because he isn’t here, Sian. He’s at the golf club. Phoned me just before people were due to arrive to say that he was in the clubhouse with his mates and they’d all ordered food.’

‘But what about all the food here?’ blurted out Sian. ‘You’ve enough to feed half of Africa.’

‘Don’t get me started,’ warned Joanne, waving the glass in her hand so violently that a little wine spilled out onto the concrete step, narrowly missing the toe of her jewelled, high-heeled sandal. Sian looked down at her Merrill hiking sandals and smiled – Joanne’s heels would be no use riding a bicycle. ‘I swear to God,’ went on Joanne, her voice shrill and taut, ‘if I start, I’ll never stop.’

Louise appeared suddenly beside them, face flushed, holding a glass of wine in her hand. ‘Oh, is Andy playing football with Oli?’ she smiled. ‘Oh, he is. Oh, look!’ she cried and she placed a hand on her throat and swallowed.

Just then Oli spied his mother and came barrelling across the grass. He threw his arms around her legs and cried, ‘I scored a goal, Mummy!’

Louise scooped him into her arms and kissed him on the nose. ‘That’s fantastic, Oli. What a clever boy,’ she grinned and Oli leant over and pressed his soft, rose-red lips to his mother’s. Sian felt a stab of sudden sadness. She would never know such intimacy with a child of her own. She swallowed the lump in her throat and looked away.

‘Mummy?’ said Oli, all of a sudden. ‘Can Andy be my daddy?’

Louise’s face fell momentarily and Joanne, standing behind her, inhaled sharply. But Louise recovered quickly and smiled, ‘No, darling. Andy can’t be your daddy because he lives with Auntie Sian. But we’ll see him all the time and you can play with him lots.’

Oli nodded, content with this reply, and wriggled free of his mother’s embrace. He ran over to Andy, who was now being attacked by all the children, leaving Louise with a smear of mud on her white T-shirt.

Joanne tutted and shook her head. ‘The poor child.’

‘He’s not a poor child,’ snapped Louise. ‘As far as he’s concerned a daddy is just someone you play football with and rough and tumble. And if he has someone to do that with – like Andy – he’s happy.’

‘I don’t know about that. I think he’s old enough to know what he’s missing out on.’

‘Did you get the box I sent over?’ said Sian, desperate to change the subject and avoid an argument between her sisters.

Louise scowled at Joanne and then, turning to Sian said, ‘Yeah, thanks a million. The goodies will come in really handy.’

‘One of my customers lives round the corner from you,’ explained Sian. ‘He was going that way anyway so I just asked him to drop it off. One car journey instead of two.’

‘Resourceful,’ said Louise and Sian smiled, pleased with herself. There were so many ways to avoid unnecessary car journeys. You just had to be imaginative.

‘Goodies?’ said Joanne.

‘Ecover products,’ explained Sian. ‘Biodegradable laundry liquid, fabric conditioner, cleaning products, washing-up liquid.’

‘Oh,’ said Joanne, her eyes glazing over with indifference.

‘You can get refills for everything from the shop,’ she added, hopeful that where she had failed with Joanne she would succeed with Louise.

‘Oh, really. What a brilliant idea.’ Louise’s response was enthusiastic and genuine. Unlike Joanne, she treated Sian like an equal.

Sian laughed. ‘I have to confess to an ulterior motive. I’m hoping to make you into a long-term customer.’

‘I’d be that anyway with or without the gift. But thank you so very much.’ Louise gave her a hug. ‘And thanks for finding the flat, Joanne. It’s great,’ she added, by way of reconciliation.

Joanne beamed, pleased, and the atmosphere returned to normal.

‘Joanne rejected my offers of help, you know,’ said Sian and ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth.

Joanne blushed. ‘It was a simple enough task. There was no need for both of us to get involved.’

‘Oh, it’s all right,’ ribbed Sian gently. ‘I’m only teasing. You can tell the truth. You just like being in control and doing things your way. You always have done.’

Joanne shrugged and made no attempt to deny it. ‘Is that so awful?’

Louise laughed. ‘No, not at all. You’ve been the boss in our family for as long as I can remember. Do you remember the rotas you used to write out for all the household chores? And you were only eight or nine.’

‘I think it’s because I’m the eldest.’

‘Mmm,’ said Sian, ‘I’m not so sure about that. I think you’d be just as bossy even if you’d been the youngest.’

‘Cheeky cow!’ Joanne gave her a playful thump on the arm and they all laughed. There was a short pause while they watched Andy run around the garden, the children in hot pursuit.

‘Andy’ll make a great dad,’ observed Joanne.

The assumption behind the question needled Sian. With her wedding pencilled in for next year she thought it best to put Joanne straight. ‘Andy doesn’t want to be a dad.’

Joanne tucked her chin in and frowned. ‘Has he said that?’

‘Yes. We’ve talked about it at length.’

‘But you’re getting married.’ Joanne brought her perplexed gaze to bear on Sian.

‘So?’ Sian returned a hard stare.

‘But … but the whole point of getting married is to have a family, or at least try for one. Isn’t it, Louise?’

A twisted smile passed fleetingly across Louise’s lips. ‘You’re asking the wrong person, Joanne,’ she said, grimly.

‘Well, you know what I mean,’ said Joanne, with a dismissive wave of her hand and a faint blush on her cheek. She quickly brought her gaze back to Sian and ploughed on as though she had not touched a raw nerve with Louise. ‘That’s one of the reasons most people get married anyway.’

Sian smiled patiently. ‘We’re not like most people, Joanne. You know that.’

‘But what about you, Sian? Don’t you want children?’ said Louise with a look of curiosity on her face.

As though she was the one who was utterly mad, thought Sian, and not the rest of the world. She took a drink of wine and collected her thoughts, remembering the way Oli had looked so lovingly at his mother.

‘I don’t need children to make me happy. Not my own anyway. I have my nieces and nephew, don’t I?’

Joanne shot Louise an appalled look and Sian went on, ‘Don’t act so surprised. Sure you both know I’ve never wanted children.’

‘But that was before you met Andy.’ Joanne’s voice was full of dismay.

They all looked out across the garden at Andy who was crouched down, talking to Oli.

‘And,’ said Louise, who had been quiet for some moments, ‘you used to want children. When you were a little girl you played with your dolls all the time.’

Sian sighed. ‘That was before I knew what … what I know now.’

Joanne shot Louise a cautious glance. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘There are simply too many people on the planet. And I for one would rather reduce the human population with voluntary birth control than war and famine.’

Joanne rolled her eyes at Louise, then buried her expression in a big glassful of wine.

Sian sighed, feeling belittled by her older sister yet again. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, doing her best to ignore Joanne. ‘I couldn’t possibly run the shop and look after a baby at the same time. Plus The Friends of Ballyfergus Lough takes up almost all my spare time. And I don’t see the point of having a child if you pay other people to look after it all day. Do you?’

‘Some people don’t have any choice,’ said Louise.

Sian’s reply was swift. ‘But they do, you see. They have the choice not to have the child in the first place.’

Louise shrugged, indicating that she wasn’t going to take the discussion any further. She knitted her brows together, pulled her thin beige cardigan tightly around her body and asked, ‘But don’t you have any … any maternal feelings?’

‘Nope.’ Sian shook her head.

Louise persisted. ‘No desire, no urge, to give birth to your own child?’

Sian shivered involuntarily – the very idea making her break out in a cold sweat. ‘No.’ She had meant what she said about the need to curb the growth of the human population, but that wasn’t the only reason why she would never have a child of her own.

‘I imagine seeing Abbey born put you right off,’ said Joanne flippantly.

Sian tried to laugh in response but it came out off key. ‘It was very special being there,’ she said blandly, not wanting to hurt Joanne’s feelings, and added, ‘Though I have to admit it was a bit scary.’

‘Well, I think you might be making a mistake,’ said Louise, staring at her son. ‘Having Oli is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’

‘Is that why you had him? For you to feel happy?’ The words, judgemental and accusing, slipped out before Sian could stop them.

Louise looked at her younger sister with steely blue eyes and her voice in response, though defensive, had a well-practised air about it. ‘Yes, one of the reasons I had Oli was because I felt something was lacking in my life.’ A pause to let this sink in. ‘I’ve thought harder about this than most people, Sian, and you’re right, choosing to have a child is an entirely selfish act. But I’m no different from anyone else in that respect, married or single.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ snorted Joanne. ‘I’m never done doing things for my three. I can’t remember when I last put myself first.’

‘I’m not disputing that,’ said Sian. ‘As a mother you do selfless things every day but the decision to have a child in the first place is self-centred. That child doesn’t exist unless you create it. It’s not asking to be born. It doesn’t need to be born. You have it to enhance your life and make you feel fulfilled in many different ways.’

Joanne shrugged and pulled a face. ‘People usually say the opposite – those that choose not to have children are the selfish ones.’ She flashed a quick glance at Sian who opened her mouth to respond but before she could do so, Joanne turned her attention back to Louise. ‘But it’s an interesting point. I guess I haven’t ever really considered my motivation for having children.’

‘You haven’t had to. No one’s ever accused you of being selfish just because you’re a mother, Joanne,’ said Louise, effectively bringing to an end this particular thread of the conversation.

She turned her gaze, softened now, to Sian. ‘All I’m saying is don’t make any hasty decisions, Sian, and don’t leave it too late either. You might regret it.’

Sian sighed and tried to smile. The decision was far from a hasty one. In fact she was quite sure that she’d put more thought into the implications of not having a child than Joanne ever put into having hers – and at least as much as Louise. She’d come to terms with the idea that she would never be a mother and she was certain that her decision was the right one for her – and Andy. It frustrated her no end that her sisters treated her like she didn’t know her own mind. In fact, while paying lip-service to the idea of sustainable living, they treated everything she felt passionate about as though it was all some big joke. Just like they’d always done. Perhaps it was time to prove to them that she was serious.

She had tried to get her doctor to sterilise her when she was in her early twenties and again when she was thirty, but he had refused. But she was older now and about to be married to a man who felt the same as she did about having children. No doctor would refuse her now, surely?

‘Right! Time out!’ called Andy and he formed his hands, like a basketball coach, into the internationally recognised ‘t’ signal. He loped across the grass towards the women in a few athletic strides, his face beaming. He came to a halt in front of Sian and ran his hand through his hair. ‘That lot are absolutely crazy,’ he said rubbing his right elbow, and then the small of his back. There were smears of mud and grass down the front of his T-shirt. Sian put out a hand and touched his arm, muscled and brown where it appeared beneath his short sleeve. ‘I feel like I’ve just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson,’ he went on.

Joanne laughed heartily. ‘You look like you have too! But I bet ten rounds with Tyson would be a walk in the park compared to wrestling three hyper kids!’ Everyone laughed and she added, ‘You look like you could use a beer.’

‘Please,’ he gasped, resting his hands on his thighs.

‘I’ll get it. Here, give me your glass too, Sian, and I’ll top it up when I’m in the kitchen.’ Joanne picked up the empty wine bottle and tucked it under her arm.

Sian finished what was left in the bottom of the glass and handed it over. ‘Thanks.’

Just then Heidi, a flash of black, streaked across the grass and ran three times around the garden barking manically, her tail wagging.

‘For heaven’s sake! Somebody’s let her out of the utility room!’ cried Joanne and she marched off into the house mumbling to herself. A moment later she appeared on the kitchen doorstep, waving a piece of beef jerky, Heidi’s favourite snack, in her hand. She called Heidi’s name and the dog raced over, gulped down the treat and disappeared inside the house. The door slammed shut behind her.

‘I wonder if Joanne has any idea what her family’s carbon footprint is,’ observed Sian.

‘What?’ said Louise.

‘I was thinking about the dog. Recent research estimates that the ecological impact of a large one like Heidi is the same as driving a 4.6-litre four-wheel-drive vehicle twelve-thousand miles a year.’

Louise filled her cheeks with air and blew out noisily. ‘I’m sure Joanne’s not given it much thought, Sian. She seems to have other things on her mind lately.’

‘It’s up to Joanne how she lives her life, Sian,’ interjected Andy with a gentle smile. He grinned at Louise and said, ‘Who knows, if we set a good enough example, some of it might rub off on others.’

Louise smiled and looked out across the grass at Oli, who was now happily playing chase with Abbey, their shrieks of laughter filling the air like sirens. ‘Oli seems to be enjoying himself.’

‘He’s a natural with the ball,’ said Andy and gave Sian a wink. She grinned back, marvelling at the fact that she had found him, that he was hers. ‘He’ll be keeping you in your old age, Louise.’

Louise, straight-faced, glanced across at Oli once more and said anxiously, ‘I saw a poster at the library for a class called Enjoy-a-Ball. They teach basic ball handling skills to young children. Do you think I should sign him up for that?’ She frowned and shook her head, clearly annoyed with herself. ‘Why didn’t I think of that before?’

Andy threw his head back and laughed, his Adam’s apple like a knot in a rope. ‘There’s plenty of time for that sort of thing when he’s older, Louise. He’s still a baby. Anyway, kids come to things when they’re ready. You can’t force it.’

Louise smiled tightly. ‘I guess you’re, right. I just want to do what’s right, you know. What’s best for Oli.’

‘Well by the looks of it you’re doing a grand job, Louise,’ said Andy kindly and Louise visibly relaxed.

‘Do you think so?’

‘You’re giving him the best start in life,’ said Sian, seeing suddenly how much her sister needed reassurance. ‘Not many people have the luxury of being a full-time mum, especially single ones.’ Sian’s gaze was drawn momentarily to Gemma who was standing on the far side of the garden with a plate in one hand and a fork in the other, talking to her eldest child. She’d gone back to work as a legal secretary soon after her marriage broke up and her son was only four – a tough decision, Joanne had told her at the time, motivated by necessity rather than choice.

Louise cleared her throat, drawing Sian’s attention, and let out a long heartfelt sigh. ‘That might have to change,’ she said flatly, toying with a lock of fair hair by her left ear, the way she used to as a child when she was bothered by something.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I’m going to have to return to work sooner than I’d planned.’

‘But I thought you said you wouldn’t go back to work until Oli went to school.’

Louise looked at the ground and bit her lip. ‘That was the plan, but I’m not sure I can afford to now. I put cash away for the first three years and the plan after that was to cash in shares. But they’ve fallen so much, I’m not sure that’s a sensible thing to do right now. I’d be better off waiting until they recover some of their value, otherwise I’ll be eating into Oli’s university fund. I still have to sell the Edinburgh flat and buy a place here and that’ll involve legal fees and stamp duty.’ She shook her head resignedly. ‘I can’t see any way round it. I think I’m going to have to go out to work and full-time at that.’

Sian, surprised by this news, was momentarily at a loss for words. Louise had prepared so carefully for Oli’s birth and childhood, both practically and financially. Being at home for him, in his early years at least, had been one of the cornerstones of her dream. It was disconcerting to hear that these plans had gone awry. Sian glanced across the garden at Oli, now sitting on the grass making daisy chains under the guidance of Abbey. He would have to go into full-time childcare of some sort – a very different proposition from the one morning a week he’d done in Edinburgh and the very last thing Louise had wanted for her son.

‘Would you be looking for something in your old line of work?’ said Andy, breaking the silence.

Louise’s last job – before she’d resigned six weeks before Oli was born – had been as Tourism Marketing Director for Historic Scotland with responsibility for Edinburgh Castle, the city’s most visited tourist attraction.

Louise scratched her head. ‘Ideally, but realistically, I might have to cast my net a bit wider. There aren’t many senior jobs in tourism marketing in Northern Ireland and with this recession I doubt if there’ll be much recruiting in the field at the moment.’

Sian, suddenly inspired, said sharply, ‘Aren’t they looking for a Tourism Marketing Manager out at Loughanlea, Andy?’

‘Yeah,’ said Andy vaguely, rubbing his chin, ‘it was mentioned at the meeting last week. I got the impression they wanted the vacancy filled by the autumn. It’s going to be a world class venue, so I imagine they’ll be looking for someone with your level of experience, Louise.’

Louise put a hand to her breast. ‘It sounds too good to be true – a marketing job like that right on my doorstep.’

Sian nodded. ‘It sounds as though it might be perfect for you, Louise. You should give it some serious thought.’

Louise nodded. ‘I’ll do that.’

‘I wonder where Joanne’s got to with that beer,’ said Andy, craning his neck to peer into the lounge. ‘She’s been gone ages and I’m gasping.’

‘I’ll go and look,’ said Sian.

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Louise and they started off in the direction of the kitchen door. Just as they got there the sound of raised voices, a man’s and a woman’s, drifted into the garden through the open kitchen window. Sian held her breath and stared at Louise.

‘Does that,’ she said, pulling a face, ‘mean that Phil’s home?’

The two sisters stepped quietly into the kitchen and closed the back door. Joanne, standing behind the breakfast bar, barely glanced at them. It was strewn with dirty plates, scrunched-up napkins and used cutlery. Her chest, under folded arms, felt tight and her breath was shallow. Her cheeks burned hot. She stared at Phil, sprawled in a chair in front of the crumbled remains of the chocolate welcome home cake she’d baked, and she blinked to hold back the tears of frustration.

‘Okay, so you couldn’t be arsed coming home in time to help me. Nothing new in that. You’d think I would be used to that by now, wouldn’t you? But to turn up now – when the party’s almost over. And drunk.’ Her voice rose against her will to a high-pitched shriek. ‘That’s … that’s … unforgivable,’ she hissed, finishing the sentence. ‘You always put yourself before everyone else. You don’t give a shit about anyone but Phil Montgomery, do you?’

Phil closed his eyes and raised his face to the ceiling, an infuriating smirk fixed in place. He was incredibly handsome – dark-haired, brown eyes framed by long black lashes, a strong square jaw and tanned muscular frame under his golfing polo shirt and pale pink sleeveless sweater. Usually his physical presence was enough to mollify her, but today Joanne barely registered these physical details. She forgave him so often because her physical attraction to him was still, at times, overwhelming.

But today, something had changed. She felt sudden, cold clammy fear. She recognised something underneath his looks and what she saw, she did not like. She shivered suddenly and rubbed her upper arms roughly. Phil brought his cold gaze to bear on her, his eyes red-rimmed with drink, his stare arrogant.

‘Do you?’ shrieked Joanne.

‘Shush,’ said Louise, putting a finger to her lips. ‘People will hear. Can’t you … discuss this another time?’

‘I don’t care who hears,’ said Joanne, defiantly, not really meaning it. She covered up for Phil all the time. It was what she did.

Heidi, confined once more to the utility room, started scratching at the door and whimpering.

Sian said, ‘Mum and Dad’ll hear you if you don’t stop shouting. You don’t want to upset them, do you? You know how Mum’s been looking forward to this afternoon.’

Joanne let out a long slow breath. ‘No, of course not,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘But will you look at the state of him!’ she hissed pointing at her husband, the corners of her mouth turned down in disgust. She grabbed a used napkin and threw it at him – with no weight behind it, it fell pathetic ally short. Phil did not even notice.

‘Bla … de … bla … de … bla,’ he said, his face raised to the ceiling. He brought his head down suddenly and glared at Joanne. ‘It’s your frigging family, Joanne. Not mine. I told you I was playing golf today weeks ago and you still persisted in having people over. And then you go about like a martyr accusing me of being in the wrong.’

‘You didn’t have to stay for a meal at the clubhouse. You could’ve come home after the game.’ And then – because there was a grain of truth in what Phil said which frustrated her even more – Joanne burst into tears. Immediately her sisters ran over and stood on either side. Each placed a hand on her shoulder.

‘Phil,’ pleaded Sian, ‘can’t you just leave it?’

‘I can. She won’t,’ he growled.

‘Please, Phil,’ said Louise. ‘She’s upset.’

Joanne wiped away the tears, black with mascara, with the back of her hand. ‘I’m okay,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m used to this.’

‘Pah,’ spat out Phil. ‘Look at you. The three bloody degrees. Telling me what to do in my own home.’

‘But Phil—’ began Louise’s reasonable voice.

Joanne cut across her. ‘Don’t you talk to my sisters like that,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you dare.’

‘I pay for this house, slave all hours to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I’ll do whatever I bloody well like in my own home.’

‘That,’ said Joanne with a dramatic pause, ‘is exactly your problem.’

The back door burst open all of a sudden and Andy came in, his T-shirt spotted with dark splats of rain.

‘Not now, Andy,’ snapped Sian but he was pushed further into the room by a horde of giggling children, trailing muddy slicks across the clean kitchen floor.

‘Sorry,’ said Andy with a quick glance at the glum faces in the room and a shrug of his shoulders. ‘The rain’s really chucking it down, man. Hi, Phil.’

Phil nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Andy.’

‘Dad,’ cried Holly, running over to her father and throwing her arms around his neck. Maddy gave him a wary look and shot a searching glance at her mother. Abbey ran over to the table, grabbed a chocolate muffin and stuffed as much of it as she could into her mouth, moist crumbs falling to the floor. Oli followed suit. Nobody chided them.

Heidi, on hearing the commotion, started howling and Abbey cried, ‘Heidi’s locked in the utility room!’ She paused momentarily to put her hands on her hips. ‘Mum,’ she scolded, ‘did you lock Heidi in the utility room, again? She doesn’t like it, Mum. She gets scared.’

When Joanne did not reply Abbey ran over to the utility room door, opened it and the dog bounded into the room. She made straight for the table, put her front paws up on it and wolfed down a muffin, paper case and all. Then, before anyone could stop her, she grabbed another one in her long snout. ‘No, Heidi. Bad girl!’ cried the children in unison and the dog, duly chastised, shot out the back door like a black bullet with her tail between her legs and the muffin lodged firmly in her mouth.

‘Wow!’ said Oli and the children and Andy laughed.

‘That, Abbey,’ said Louise wryly, ‘is why I think your mum keeps Heidi in the utility room when there’s food about.’

Abbey shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly and said, ‘Heidi likes chocolate muffins.’

‘But they’re not very good for her, are they?’ said Louise.

‘Well, looks to me like this party’s well and truly over,’ said Phil, disentangling himself from Holly. He stood up, his tall, athletic frame wavering slightly as if in a breeze, and left the room.

Joanne turned her back to everyone and cleaned up her face as best she could by wiping under her eyes with a napkin. Then she busied herself at the cooker, scraping the remains of the chilli into a bowl. She did not want the girls to see she had been crying – she did not want them to know she and Phil had been fighting yet again. But who was she kidding? In a house with walls as thin as paper, of course the girls overheard every argument, every bitter word between them. What was all this fighting doing to them, her precious daughters? How could she get it to stop?

‘Right you lot,’ said Sian with spirit. ‘Out of the kitchen now. Or you’ll get a job to do. Who wants to help with the washing up?’

She held out a tea towel, eliciting a shriek of horror from the children and they ran, en masse, out of the room.

‘Okay,’ said Sian when the children were gone, their peals of laughter echoing down the hall, ‘I’ll stack the dishwasher.’

‘I’ll clear the table,’ said Louise quietly.

Andy got himself a beer from the fridge and, sensing the strained atmosphere, quietly disappeared.

When the door shut behind him, Joanne said, ‘I’m sorry about that. For what he said about you.’

‘It was nothing,’ said Sian. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it,’ said Louise.

Their readiness to dismiss Phil’s rudeness touched Joanne deeply. They did it, of course, not for him but for her.

The women worked without talking then, the silence broken only by the clank of dishes, the scraping of plates and the rattle of cutlery, while Joanne gradually pulled herself together.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said when she was composed once more. ‘I just wanted today to be perfect for you, Louise.’

‘You don’t need to apologise,’ said Louise, as she stretched a piece of cling film over the remains of the cake. ‘It was Phil’s fault. Getting pissed and talking to you like that.’

‘Maybe I provoked him,’ she said quietly.

‘What?’ cried Sian. She paused by the door of the dishwasher with a clutch of dirty cutlery in her fist. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Joanne. And stop apologising for him. You’re always doing that.’

Louise glanced sharply at Sian. How long had things between Joanne and Phil been this bad? What had been going on in her absence?

‘No, you don’t understand,’ said Joanne, who looked completely wrung out. ‘I was just as much at fault as he was. He’s right. He did say weeks ago that the date clashed with his tournament but I went ahead and organised the party anyway. I guess I wanted him to put me first for a change.’ She let out a hollow, sour laugh. ‘But that backfired, didn’t it?’

Tears came again and she put her hand over her face.

Louise, filled with sudden compassion, went over and put her arms around her sister. ‘I remember having fights like that with Cameron,’ she said and painful memories came flooding back. The fights had started when she, who had given so much in their marriage, asked for something back. ‘About different things, of course. But I know how awful it feels. I was so angry with him.’

Joanne looked up, her face tear-stained and said, ‘Bet Cameron never spoke to you like that.’

‘Oh, he did, believe me,’ said Louise, letting go of Joanne. ‘Towards the end when our marriage was on the rocks.’

She remembered his exact words and they cut her to the core still.

‘If you think having a baby is more important than our marriage, then just go, Louise. I’m sick to death listening to you banging on about it.’ He’d thrown a book across the room in frustration. ‘Is that the only bloody thing you care about, for God’s sake?’

But she’d said awful things too, things she shouldn’t have – they’d both been angry.

And now she felt awful that her welcome party had led to this row, yet Sian’s comment seemed to indicate that things had not been right between Joanne and Phil for some time.

‘Time I was off, Joanne,’ said a cheery female voice and they all looked up to find a grey head poking around the kitchen door. It was Aunt Philomena, their mother’s sister, whom Louise had not seen since before Oli was born. ‘Youse are awful busy in here,’ she observed. ‘Men left you to it, have they?’

‘Funny that,’ said Joanne, with forced jocularity. ‘When there’s work to be done in the kitchen, men disappear like snow off a dyke!’

‘Some things never change,’ said Aunt Philomena with a hearty chuckle. ‘Thanks for a lovely afternoon, Joanne. It was smashing. Louise,’ she said, ‘I never got to speak to you all afternoon. Come on, love. Walk me to the door.’

In the hall, her tipsy aunt, smelling of Baileys and Imperial Leather soap, pulled Louise to her ample breast – an embrace that required some contortion on Louise’s part given that Aunt Philomena, even in heels, was only five foot three. Oli came tottering up the hall, his face smeared with chocolate frosting, and Auntie P’s eye fell on him. She leant conspiratorially towards Louise and said, ‘Oh, love, I know you did the right thing not getting rid of the adorable wee thing. Your mum told me all about how the father let you down. But that’s men for you, isn’t it?’

And then she staggered out the front door leaving Louise utterly dumbfounded. She turned to find Joanne and Sian standing in the kitchen doorway. One look at their faces told her all she needed to know.

‘Wait. Wait just a minute.’ Louise unfolded her arms as realisation hit home. She raised her index finger in the air in a Eureka moment. ‘You two knew, didn’t you? You knew about this already?’

Sian straightened up. ‘What Aunt Philomena said … that’s pretty much what Mum and Dad told everyone. They said you’d been seeing this guy for a while, got pregnant and then he left you.’

‘We only found out afterwards,’ added Joanne quickly, looking at Sian.

‘And you didn’t think to correct these … these lies?’ demanded Louise. How could her sisters let her down like that? How could they not defend her and Oli?

Joanne shrugged. ‘At the time we didn’t think it mattered. You were in Edinburgh. Correcting the story would’ve embarrassed Mum and Dad—’

‘Embarrassed Mum and Dad!’ repeated Louise. ‘What about embarrassing me?’

Joanne wiped her brow with the back of her hand. With much of her make-up rubbed off, she looked pale and tired. ‘Look Louise, they didn’t mean any harm. And to be honest I kind of agree with them. A lot of people wouldn’t understand why you chose to be a single mum – or approve of the way you went about it. A lot of people would think it just plain wrong.’

Louise took a deep breath. ‘Let me get this straight. You think it’s better that people think Oli was an accident rather than a much-wanted, planned-for child? Not to mention the fact that this ludicrous story paints me as a naïve idiot who got herself knocked up and then dumped.’

Joanne blushed and looked at Sian who said quietly, ‘I guess Mum and Dad thought they were acting in Oli’s best interests, Louise. And yours. And anyway, what does it matter how he got here?’

‘The truth always matters,’ said Louise, choked with anger. Her disappointment in her sisters cut deep. Since she’d had Oli, Louise tended to categorise people into one of two camps – either they were on her side or they weren’t. She had always thought she could count on her sisters. Now she wasn’t so sure. ‘You don’t know how I agonised about telling Oli who he is and where he came from. How I worried about explaining it to him in ways he could understand. I made the decision from the outset to tell him the truth, no matter how difficult it was. And now I find out that you lot have been spreading all these lies. Lies I’m going to have to undo.’

‘We didn’t tell any lies,’ said Sian boldly.

‘You acquiesced. It amounts to the same thing.’

Her sisters glanced at each other again – but this time sheepishly. Louise waited for an apology but none was forthcoming.

‘You’ve let me down,’ she said, her bottom lip starting to tremble. ‘Both of you.’ She felt the tears prick her eyes and bit her lip, the pain a momentary distraction from her distress. It helped her to focus her mind – and retain her dignity.

‘I’m going to take Oli home now,’ she said, walking over to the table and unhooking her bag from the back of a chair where she’d hung it earlier. The strap got tangled and caught between the bars on the back. Viciously, she yanked it free.

When she turned to leave, Sian blocked her way but Joanne stopped her.

‘I think we all need to cool off – let her go.’

Louise found Oli in the playroom with Abbey and Holly, all three quietly watching a DVD of The Incredibles. He was lying on a beanbag, his eyelids fluttering like moth’s wings, with his thumb wedged in his mouth. Overcome with a sudden fierce love for her child, Louise knelt on the floor beside the beanbag and planted a gentle kiss on his smooth brow and on his round, red cheek, so soft and hot. He was as pure and innocent as an angel – her angel, her gift from God, sent from heaven. Oblivious to just how much he had been wanted and how much she loved him.

She thought of the conversation with her aunt and anger coursed through her veins once more at the thought of how her parents had denied his origins. And in their denial they had made Oli’s story a shameful one, something to be hushed up, avoided, condemned and criticised. Louise looked into the face of her child and determined not to let him be affected by such prejudice. Not her darling boy.

Chapter Four

A week later and Louise surveyed the table in front of her, littered with bank statements and an opened laptop displaying a spreadsheet. She ran her hand through hair she should’ve washed that morning and sighed. No matter which way she looked at the figures in front of her, it seemed she had no choice.

She glanced at Oli sitting too close to the TV on the cream carpet watching cartoons. Her gut tightened. She hated the fact that the decision to return to work was, for financial reasons, being forced on her. She began to prowl through the small neat flat, straightening the cushions on the sofa, picking Oli’s toys off the floor. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Looking after a pre-schooler single-handedly was hard enough without the pressure of having to earn a living. Before Oli, when she’d worked full-time she had only herself to take care of – and Cameron. But he looked after her too.

She sat down on the sofa, hugged the cushion to her chest and remembered how Cameron used to meet her after work and take her to dinner. Once, for no particular reason, he’d turned up with a bunch of forty red roses in his arms. He had been romantic and fun – they’d had great times together. She smiled and imagined him turning up on her doorstep now with flowers in his hands, like he did that day, grinning from ear to ear. She glanced at Oli and thought that if only Cameron could see him, he would love him as much as she did … But that was a fantasy, of course. And the life she’d lived before felt as though it had belonged to someone else entirely…

Oli had changed everything. Her circle of friends had changed. More and more she found herself socialising with other mothers, women she doubted she would have bothered with if it hadn’t been for the fact that they had children the same age. Amongst the people she regarded as her true friends, like Cindy and Max, whom she had known for the longest time, she had begun to feel boring, out-of-touch, uptight and out of date. They didn’t want to listen to stories of Oli’s latest accomplishment or how long he’d slept the night before. And she hated it when she caught herself indulging in obsessive mum-speak or spent the end of an evening glancing at her watch, worrying about getting home in time for the babysitter.

They listened politely, of course, too kind to tell her to shut up, but she could see the way their eyes glazed over while their minds drifted off. At the end of the day, she had realised, nobody was as interested in Oli as she was. Not even Max, despite his promises and good intentions. Because in the end he’d let her and Oli down, and she really wasn’t sure if she could ever forgive him.

But, Louise had told herself, the sacrifices would all be worth it in the end. She had prided herself on the fact that her child would never be shoved into a crèche or raised by strangers – bar the few hours a week in Edinburgh that she had felt essential for her sanity. And now, because of events beyond her control, that was precisely what she would have to do. Anxiety tightened around her neck like a noose.

She took a deep breath and told herself to keep things in perspective. Most mothers worked, single or not, and their children grew up into perfectly well-rounded, happy, successful adults. Look at Joanne’s family – the girls hadn’t suffered from their mother going out to work, albeit it was part-time and she was always there for them when they got home from school … A very different proposition, thought Louise with an anxious glance at Oli, from going out to work full-time. But, Louise reminded herself, being at home with Oli had been a luxury, an indulgence, a privilege. She had lived an inward-looking, self-contained life for the last three years – it was time to join the real world once again.

She googled Loughanlea and spent half an hour bringing herself up to date with the extraordinary project. The scale and scope of it was impressive, and the objective, visionary – it had taken over ten years of dreaming and planning to reach the stage it was at today. The old abandoned cement works – a fifteen-acre site of the most unprepossessing land imaginable on the fringes of Ballyfergus Lough – was in the process of being transformed into a major, ultra-green, recreational and leisure centre. The development would create four hundred permanent jobs – and hundreds more in the construction phase – and bring millions pouring into the local economy. Northern Ireland had never seen anything quite like it. Something in the pioneering spirit behind the project, the idea that someone had dreamt this and then made it a reality, moved Louise. And made her want to be part of it.

Louise looked at the number scribbled on the piece of paper that Sian had pressed into her hand at Joanne’s party. It belonged to one of Andy’s close friends who, as well as being a site architect for Loughanlea, was also a member of the board. With one last glance at Oli, she steeled herself, picked up the phone and dialled. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Louise McNeill, Sian’s sister. She gave me your number …’

The voice that replied was as rich and velvety as that of the Jamaican continuity announcer Neil Nunes on Radio 4 – though the accent was all Ballyfergus. ‘Hi. I’m Kevin Quinn.’

‘I was wondering if you could spare a few moments to talk about Loughanlea?’ said Louise.

‘So you’re Sian’s sister,’ said the voice like melted chocolate. ‘She said you might call. It’s great to hear from you. How are you settling in? Sian tells me you’ve just moved into a new flat on Tower Road.’

The personal nature of these questions threw Louise for a moment. ‘Why, yes, that’s right. I moved in a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Good. Good,’ he said, his bass voice like an instrument. ‘And how are you finding Ballyfergus?’

Louise felt herself go weak at the knees and then caught herself. She cleared her throat. ‘Not much changed to be honest, Kevin,’ she smiled into the phone.

He chuckled. ‘Well, that just about sums up Ballyfergus, Louise. You’re not in the big smoke now. Things move more slowly here, though Loughanlea might be the exception. I think it might just put Ballyfergus on the map.’

She could’ve listened to his voice all day but, realising this was her cue to get the conversation on track, she said, ‘Yes, tell me about the marketing job. It sounds interesting.’

‘Well, from what I understand, Louise, they’re looking for someone with the experience and drive to market a world-class venue. Do you think you’re up to the job?’

She gave him a brief résumé of her skills and qualifications and he gave a long low whistle through his teeth.

‘That sounds pretty impressive to me, especially what you did at Edinburgh Castle, not that I’m an expert. The Belfast office of the Hays Recruitment Agency will be handling the recruitment process on behalf of Loughanlea and your timing couldn’t be better.’

Louise’s heart started to race. ‘How’s that?’

‘An advert’s going to run in the quality papers next week. If I was you, Louise, I’d get an application in pretty sharp.’

‘Well, thanks, Kevin. Thanks so much – for your time and for the advice.’

‘Anytime. I hope we meet one day very soon.’

‘Me too.’

‘Good luck, Louise,’ he added and the phone went dead.

Louise put down the mobile and wiped her sweaty palms on the fabric of her trousers. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get involved in something really exciting right from the outset. The only way to make Loughanlea into a world-class attraction was through professional, modern marketing techniques – the post of Tourism Marketing Manager was pivotal to its success. Louise suddenly realised, guiltily, how much she wanted the job.

‘That sounded very promising, Oli. And what I need to do next,’ she said, opening a file on the computer, ‘is to brush up this CV of mine.’

There was no response. She glanced at Oli. He was sitting on his bottom, his legs sticking out in front of him and his eyes glued to the screen. She loved him to bits, but sometimes, just sometimes, it would be nice to have another adult to talk to. She liked the sound of Kevin Quinn’s voice on the phone – warm and friendly. And she found herself wondering idly if he had a wife – or partner. Almost certainly yes. All the good men, it seemed, were taken.

Oh, what was she thinking! Maybe she had never given up hope of meeting someone, not like some other single mums who more or less resigned themselves to celibacy. But she had to sort herself out first. She needed a job and a permanent home.

Louise turned her attention back to the computer. She only had a week – there was a lot to be done. Things were moving faster than she liked, but when would another opportunity like this present itself? If she didn’t go for it, she could end up unemployed for months. And that was completely out of the question.

The doorbell rang and Louise glanced at her watch. She couldn’t believe that three-quarters of an hour had passed or that Oli had managed to leave her alone undisturbed for that length of time. She glanced up – he was playing on the floor with his Planet Protectors from the Early Learning Centre – Max had bought him the entire collection for Christmas. An expensive gift to salve his guilty conscience.

Louise walked to the end of the hall, opened the door and frowned. It was her father, dressed in pressed slacks and an unzipped khaki blouson jacket with a crisp white shirt underneath. He had sunglasses on and sweat beaded his brow. The top of his balding head was sunburnt – it looked painful. He smiled widely, exuding a roguish, even boyish, charm with which he thought he could inveigle himself anywhere. ‘Can I come in?’

Louise said, unsmiling, ‘If you like.’ He hesitated just a moment at this frosty reception, then, when she turned and walked inside, followed her. He called for Oli and he came and stood at his bedroom door. Her father pulled a big family bag of Maltesers out of his pocket and Louise gasped. ‘You’re not giving him all those are you?’

Her father chuckled. ‘Sure I am. If his Papa can’t spoil him, who can?’

‘There’s more sugar in there than he normally gets in a month,’ said Louise sullenly.

Ignoring Louise, her father held the bag out to Oli. ‘There you go, son.’

Oli, who had never before received such a quantity of sweets all at once, opened his eyes wide in astonishment, then grabbed the bag out of his grandfather’s hands and held it protectively to his chest.

‘Here, let me open it for you,’ said her father. Oli handed it over.

‘Not so fast,’ said Louise. She snatched the bag and went into the kitchen followed by a whining Oli.

‘They’re my sweets. Give them back!’

‘Just a minute, Oli. I’m just going to—’

He stamped his foot on the floor and pouted his full, delicious lips. ‘Give them back!’ he screamed.

Something inside Louise snapped. ‘How dare you be so rude, Oli! Demanding sweets like that. Stop that at once! Do you hear me?’ She glared at Oli who lowered his head like a bull about to charge, folded his arms across his chest and glowered at her.

‘Don’t be so hard on him, Louise. He’s only a baby.’

‘Babies can’t talk and walk and demand sweets. He’s a toddler, Dad, and he has to learn what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not.’ She took a deep breath, pulled a small green plastic bowl out of the cupboard and, addressing Oli, said, ‘I was going to say that I’m going to put some of the sweets in a bowl for you. And I’ll put away the rest for later. Okay?’ This was a lie – the rest would be binned. All that sugar and fat wasn’t good for anyone, let alone a tiny three-year-old. By tomorrow Oli would’ve forgotten all about them.

Oli nodded reluctantly.

Her parents had no sense – they always plied her son with excessive quantities of sweets. It hadn’t been a problem when they only saw him a couple of times a year. But if this was going to be a regular occurrence, she really would have to lay down a few ground rules. She held the bowl out to Oli, he grasped it and a short tug-of-war ensued until Louise commanded, ‘Say thank you.’

Oli complied and Louise released the bowl. He ran off into the bedroom clutching it in both hands.

‘What’s eating you?’ asked her father, who’d followed her into the kitchen.

‘Nothing,’ said Louise and she slipped past him into the lounge and went over to the table. She turned the papers she’d been working on face down and folded her arms defensively.

‘You and Oli shouldn’t be stuck inside on a glorious day like this,’ said her father, with a glance out at the cobalt blue sky. He acted as though he had not noticed her non-verbal signals, which only a blind man could’ve failed to see. ‘Why don’t we take a walk down to the front?’

Louise looked out the window, noticing properly for the first time what a beautiful day it was. On the other side of the street the grey-harled terraced houses, much older than the nearly new block she lived in, shimmered in the heat of the afternoon sun. Down on the street two small girls in vest tops and leggings played hopscotch on the pavement, their shrill voices rising like hot air. It was nearly two and she and Oli hadn’t set a foot out the door all day. It wasn’t, she realised, fair on the boy. ‘Okay. I’ll get him ready.’

Louise marched at a brisk pace down Tower Road. As they approached the promenade a light breeze, laden with the smell of seaweed and salt, played with her hair and clothes as she thrust the buggy forward like a weapon. Her father walked at her side, struggling to keep up. ‘Hey, what’s the hurry?’ he said, with irritation in his voice. ‘It’s supposed to be a walk, Louise, not a frog march.’

She sighed loudly and slowed down and they were both silent until they came to the promenade at the end of the road. Behind them lay the hulking grey building that had started life in the seventies as Ballyfergus Swimming Pool. With the more recent addition of a gym and two sports halls, it had been renamed Ballyfergus Leisure Centre. And straight ahead lay the Irish Sea, calm and inky blue, the surface of the water like ruffled lace in the breeze. On the other side of this sea, beyond her vision, lay Scotland – and Cameron. She wondered momentarily what he was doing now.

To their right lay the mouth of the harbour where a small sailing craft was making its way slowly into Ballyfergus Lough. And almost directly ahead was a long, straight path which led to a memorial tower erected some hundred metres offshore in memory of some long-dead merchant from Ballyfergus’s past.

The tide was out, revealing a shoreline of black, wet rocks rounded into orbs and strewn with flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the sea – uprooted seaweed, segments of brightly coloured plastic, a tangle of blue nylon rope, a smashed-up lobster pot, a brown leather safety boot. The stench of decaying seaweed was almost overpowering. It had always characterised this part of the town, Louise remembered. But the smell whilst unpleasant was also reassuring, timeless – a reminder that some things never change. Like her parents’ attitudes.

Her father leant on the blue railing, crusty with layers of flaking paint, a futile attempt to keep the rust at bay. The vertical posts were streaked with ochre red, like dried blood. He removed his sunglasses, narrowed his eyes and stared out to sea. ‘That’ll be the Cairnryan ferry,’ he said and she followed his eyes to the misty, hulking shape of a vessel some miles out to sea. Uninterested, she looked away.

‘You haven’t returned any of our messages. We haven’t heard a peep from you since the party. Your mother was worried.’

No answer.

‘Did you get the messages?’ he persisted.

‘Oh, I got them all right.’

He turned his head towards her, one foot on the lower rung of the railing, the stance of a much younger man. ‘Are you upset about something, Louise?’

Louise secured a stray lock of hair, blown about in the wind, behind her ear. ‘Why did you tell Auntie P that I’d got pregnant by some bloke who subsequently left me?’ she asked, locking eyes with him.

‘Ah, that,’ he said softly and looked away.

Louise crouched down in front of the buggy and unbuckled Oli. ‘Come on out, darling. Time for a little walk.’ Oli tumbled out of the buggy, picked up a stick and started whacking the metal railing with it. It made a tinny sound that was evidently satisfying to his ear. He whacked it again and again. To her father she said, ‘Yes, that.’

‘We didn’t tell her anything much. She came to her own conclusions.’

‘Delusions more like. And knowing Auntie P she’ll have gone about telling half of Ballyfergus. Why didn’t you tell her the truth?’

Dad sighed again and rubbed his forehead with his right hand. ‘We didn’t think it was anybody’s business to know how Oli came into this world. People think what they want to think.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Louise and her father baulked slightly. ‘People think what you let them think, what you lead them to think. And you were quite happy for her to assume that about me, weren’t you? You’d actually rather she thought that than knew the truth.’

Her father turned to face her then and regarded her thoughtfully as though deciding on something. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘We did think it was for the best.’

Louise’s head filled with fury. ‘You’re ashamed of me and Oli, aren’t you? Admit it,’ she demanded, her voice high like the wind.

‘Calm down, Louise,’ he said, not refuting her accusation. ‘Surely you acknowledge that what you did is … is unconventional to say the least.’

‘So was marrying a Catholic fifty years ago, Billy,’ she snapped and glared at him.

He shot her a warning look. A woman passed by with a Golden Labrador on a lead. It looked harmless enough but frothed at the mouth, its breathing laboured. Oli, cautious, scampered back to his mother’s side. She placed a hand on his head.

‘This isn’t about your mother and me, Louise.’

‘Well I see quite a few parallels myself,’ said Louise, who had given the subject considerable thought. ‘Mixed marriages are two a penny these days but back then you broke a taboo. In your own way, you were trailblazers.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Louise. There were other mixed marriages.’

‘Not among any of the kids I went to school with, there weren’t.’

Dad sighed. ‘I don’t see what that has got to do with this discussion.’

Oli ran along the promenade, hitting the railing rhythmic ally with the stick like a drum. They started after him, but slowly. The road was a long way away and he was in no immediate danger. ‘Well, I would’ve thought that you of all people would be open minded, having experienced prejudice yourself. In a few years’ time what I did won’t be so exceptional. Lots of single women will have babies the way I did and raise them alone.’

‘I sincerely hope not,’ said her father glumly.

‘Pahhh,’ cried Louise in exasperation. ‘You will insist on seeing this in a negative light. And I absolutely refuse to. Look, it’s not how I wanted my life to turn out either. I wanted to have children with Cameron. But he didn’t and I’ve had to deal with that,’ she went on, her voice breaking. She paused to regain control and continued. ‘But having Oli is the most positive, the most empowering thing I’ve ever done. And I won’t let you take that away from me.’

‘No one’s trying to take anything away from you, Louise. But you can’t ignore the fact that the God-fearing people of Ballyfergus might find it unusual … hard to understand. We didn’t want people judging you, talking about you behind your back. We didn’t want Oli to be thought of as … different.’

‘He’s no different than any other child from a single-parent home with no contact with his father.’

‘Well I beg to differ, Louise. He is different. His story makes him unique – in Ballyfergus anyway.’

‘And that’s a bad thing?’ she said, almost choking on the words.

Her father fixed his gaze out to sea once more in the direction of the three small rocky islands called The Maidens. He squinted and sighed loudly. ‘There’s something … something unnatural about the way he was conceived. Children should be born out of love between a man and a woman.’

Louise gasped and the back of her throat swelled up until she could hardly breathe. Tears pricked her eyes but she would not let them fall. Her anger held them in check. She swallowed. ‘Oli was born out of love. No one could love him more than I do.’

There was a long pause and when he spoke again her father’s voice was quiet and sad. ‘I know you love him, Louise,’ he said, looking at his hands, ‘but a child needs two parents. No matter how much you love Oli you can never make up for that. There it is. I’ve said it. And I’m sorry if it hurts you.’

The words stung her like hard rain in a storm. She had wrestled with this belief herself over many months and eventually put it to rest – or so she thought. Now, it was being thrown in her face, like a bucket of icy water. Maybe it was true – maybe her attempt to raise Oli single-handedly, no matter how dedicated, no matter how well-intentioned, could never compensate for this fundamental handicap. It was her greatest fear. But even as these doubts crossed her mind she said stoutly, ‘You’re wrong. I don’t agree with you.’

He made a little tut-tutting sound and shook his head.

‘I’ve made a terrible mistake,’ she said, staring at the back of Oli’s head. She gripped the handles of the buggy so hard it hurt. ‘I never should’ve come back. I thought I could count on your support and Mum’s and everybody else’s. But you’re all judging me, even Sian and Joanne.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can rely on us, Louise. And on your sisters. We’d do anything to help you. We all love you. And Oli. And by the way, what Auntie P and everyone else thinks has nothing to do with your sisters. It was our doing – your mother’s and mine. We thought we were doing the right thing. And we didn’t think it really mattered – you’d been away for so long we didn’t expect you to ever come home. Look,’ he said and paused. ‘If we’ve upset you, then I’m truly sorry.’

Louise hardly registered the apology. ‘I’ve never been ashamed of what I did and I won’t let you make me ashamed now.’ She turned her back to her father and pulled a hankie from her pocket. She dabbed at her eyes – tears had fallen in spite of her resolve – and tried to compose herself. Her father continued.

‘Look, I can’t lie to you about how your mother and I feel about what you did. You knew what we thought from the outset. You can’t make us approve, Louise. But we can accept. And we do. Look, perhaps it’s best if we just move on from here. Put all this behind us and concentrate on doing the best for Oli from now on.’

But that wasn’t enough, not for Louise. By sheer force of willpower and reasoned argument she had thought she could blast her way through every objection, every taboo and force her family to come round to her way of thinking. Now she realised that what she craved most was the one thing she would never get – her parents’ wholehearted approval.

‘Try to put yourself in my shoes, Dad,’ she said quietly. ‘What would you have done if your husband didn’t want children and time was running out? What if you knew you’d never meet another guy in time to have his kids? What would you have done if you’d been me?’

But there was no answer. She felt a hand on her shoulder, a gesture of reconciliation. But she did not want it, not without the approval that she so desperately sought. She dipped her shoulder – and the hand slipped away.

That night she dreamt of Cameron once more and in this dream he was on a small fishing boat with Oli out on the Firth of Forth, teaching him to fish for mackerel. The two of them wore matching yellow oilskins, Oli a mini-me version of Cameron. She was on the boat watching and yet she wasn’t – for they could neither see her nor hear her. She smiled at the tenderness with which Cameron positioned Oli’s hands and the patience with which he listened to the child’s disjointed chatter. And when she woke up – before she remembered that it had only been a dream – she was happy.

Chapter Five

It was early, but the day was already hot and sticky. In the kitchen, Joanne, in a thin silk dressing gown, wiped perspiration from her brow. She collected together the things for making sandwiches – bread, butter, ham, cheese and shop-bought egg mayonnaise. Heidi settled on the floor at her feet, nostrils flaring in the vain hope that a morsel of food might fall into her jaws. Two weeks had passed since the party and Joanne still couldn’t look back on the events of the day without flinching in embarrassment. She hoped no one outside the kitchen had heard her argument with Phil.

She laid six slices of wholegrain bread on the chopping board and buttered them haphazardly. She was still furious with her husband for coming home late and drunk that day and she was just as mad with herself for rising to the bait. She should’ve simply ignored him when he came in – she ought to have challenged him after everyone had gone. Not that the outcome would’ve been any different, she thought bitterly. He never took responsibility for his own behaviour. She put ham in the sandwiches, stacked them and cut them with a knife. Heidi made a pathetic whimpering sound and rested her head on her paws, her dark eyes staring up at Joanne like oiled chestnuts.

She sighed. Why couldn’t she and Phil get on these days? Why was it such mixed messages with him? He loved her food, wanted her home and yet, and yet … he didn’t see her as a person. Was that the problem between them? Because there was a problem, that much she had acknowledged to herself. The question was – was she at fault in some way? Was she bossy and controlling, like Louise and Sian said she was? Did that make her hard to live with? And, more importantly, what could be done to put things right between them?

It hadn’t always been like this. Once they’d worked together as a team, curled up together on the sofa at night with a glass of wine each, talking about their day, making plans together. She’d been warm and loving towards him, he’d been gentle and kind. But somewhere, in the hubbub of family life, that easy intimacy had been lost. If only he would spend more time at home, if they both made the effort, maybe they could find a way to reconnect.

Heidi licked the top of her foot making Joanne laugh – with no one about to observe the breaking of house rules, she tossed the dog a slice of ham. Heidi gobbled it up and slobbered over Joanne’s foot some more by way of thanks.

Holly shuffled sleepily into the room just then with her pink dressing gown hanging open and huge furry slippers in the shape of bunny rabbits on her feet. ‘What’re you doing, Mum?’

‘Making sandwiches for our picnic.’

‘Picnic?’ said Holly sleepily.

‘Yeah. Don’t you remember? We’re going to the beach today with Auntie Louise and Oli.’

‘Oh yeah. I forgot!’ said Holly, her eyes lighting up and a big smile spreading across the broad face she had inherited from her father. ‘Can I help?’

Joanne smiled. Holly was such a good-natured child – in marked contrast to her resentful little sister who walked around as though a black cloud hung over her. ‘I’m okay here. But I’ll tell you what you could do for me.’

‘What?’

‘Go and get dressed and tell Abbey to get dressed too. And while you’re upstairs tell Maddy it’s time to get up. In fact, go in and open her curtains. That should do the trick.’

Holly dashed out of the room. ‘Abbey,’ she shouted, ‘we’re going to the beach!’

Minutes later Abbey was in the room, her face contorted with rage. ‘I can’t go to the beach,’ she said. ‘Me and Katie-May are going to make a shop today.’

Joanne rolled her eyes, put a round of sandwiches in a sandwich bag and sealed it shut. ‘Look,’ she said, taking a bunch of grapes out of the fridge and rinsing them under the cold tap. ‘You can play shops with Katie-May any day of the week. We’ve never been to the beach before with Auntie Louise and Oli. Won’t it be fun? You can show Oli where the crabs hide.’

‘I don’t want to.’

Joanne turned off the tap, set the grapes on the draining board and turned to face Abbey. If her youngest daughter thought there was any mileage in putting up a fight, Joanne was determined to deal that misconception a fast and decisive blow. ‘You are going to the beach,’ she said with dark menace, enunciating each word like a child in the early stages of learning to read. ‘You are going to enjoy it,’ she said, her pace picking up to a canter, ‘and you will not spoil today for me or Auntie Louise. Now go upstairs, get dressed and pack your things.’

She turned back to the sink and, when she looked a minute later, the child was gone. She hoped Abbey wasn’t going to be this difficult all summer long. Joanne enjoyed fantastic school holiday arrangements from her job at the pharmacy – her employers were exceptionally generous in permitting her to take eight weeks off and she was grateful. But, still, she missed the work and her colleagues. She would be ready to go back when the holidays were over. But not yet – the prospect of a day at the beach filled her with excitement.

Louise had taken some persuading – she was apparently still annoyed with Joanne for not correcting the stories their mother and father had circulated about her. But the fact that she had agreed to come in the end was a sign that she was prepared to forgive – albeit probably for Oli’s sake.

An hour and a half later, dressed in a knee-length denim skirt, lace-up red plimsolls and a blue and white striped T-shirt, Joanne herded everyone, including Heidi, into her silver Volkswagen Touran. Naturally an argument ensued between Holly and Abbey about who would get to sit in the third-row seat. This was a coveted position because the fold-down seats in the boot were rarely used and therefore somewhat of a novelty. Abbey, the loser, after the argument was settled with the toss of a coin, sat fuming in the middle seat of the second row, her arms folded across her chest and a look on her face that said she would happily throttle anyone who came within a foot of her. She ignored Oli, strapped in beside her, who seemed to be the only one as excited as Joanne. Poor Heidi was curled up uncomfortably on the floor of the middle row along with an assortment of beach bags, buckets and spades.

Louise sat beside Joanne in the passenger seat dressed in khaki knee-length shorts and a bright multi-coloured stripy T-shirt with large red buttons on the shoulder. Joanne knew it was from Boden – she’d seen it in the catalogue. She couldn’t afford to buy from there – her top came from George at Asda. Joanne gave her head a little shake, resolving to banish such destructive, jealous thoughts from her mind.

She reversed the car out of the drive singing the first few lines of ‘Summer Holiday’. She glanced in the rear-view mirror – Maddy grimaced and put her head in her hands. Joanne smiled and carried on singing even louder than before and after a while, her reserve cracking, so did Louise. No one, Joanne decided, was going to put a dampener on this day.

There were beaches close to Ballyfergus – the rather un attractively named Drains Bay and Ballygally to the north and, to the south, Brown’s Bay on Islandmagee. These were well-known to Joanne and Louise but today they were going farther afield – to Whitepark Bay, which lay between picturesque Ballintoy harbour and the tiny fishing village of Portbraddon on the north-east coast of Antrim. The drive took an hour and a half and it was almost lunchtime when they finally pulled into the car park. Outside the Youth Hostel, two female cyclists wearing full-face helmets fiddled with luggage on the back of their bikes. A couple of backpackers ate sandwiches at a picnic bench, huge rucksacks leaning against the end of the table.

Everyone tumbled out of the car, stretched and looked down at the swathe of golden sand below, great waves breaking white and frothy on the beach. Heidi barked at the sea then belted off down the long path towards the beach. Joanne perched her sunglasses on top of her head and squinted down at the breathtaking view, equalled perhaps, but not surpassed in the whole of Ireland.

‘Heidi! Heidi!’ called Louise frantically.

Joanne put her hands on her hips and smiled at the now-distant streak of black as the dog disappeared into the sand dunes. The sun was high in the sky, hot and fierce – the light north-easterly breeze a welcome, cool caress.

‘It’s okay, leave her be. She’ll not go far.’ Heidi was a terrible scavenger – all she seemed to think about was food – but not, thank goodness, a wanderer.

Even Abbey who had resolutely maintained a stubborn silence throughout most of the car journey, suddenly came to life, energised by the sight of the ocean.

‘I’m going swimming,’ she cried, her mood entirely shifted.

‘I forgot how beautiful it was,’ said Joanne. ‘And how empty.’ The wide sands, lapped by wave after wave of frothing sea, were virtually deserted. A few surfers in wetsuits, black and leggy like spiders, rode the waves. On the beach, a flock of grey-white sheep wandered from the dunes onto the sand.

‘Mum would love this,’ said Louise, conjuring up memories of happy days spent on this beach as a child.

‘I know, she used to love coming here,’ said Joanne, a little sadly. She pointed at the long flight of steep steps that led down to the strand. ‘But she couldn’t have managed those steps or stayed very long. We’ll take her to Portstewart next week. She’ll be able to manage the promenade there much better.’

‘Yes, that’d be nice,’ agreed Louise and then added doubtfully, ‘You know, I forgot how long the walk was from the car park.’ She cast a worried glance at Oli who was examining the small stones on the ground by the car.

Joanne laughed, took the sunglasses off her head and put them on her face. ‘He’ll be fine, Louise. A bit of a walk won’t hurt him. Didn’t we do it when we were his age?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Well, then,’ said Joanne, unwilling to let anything get in the way of her good mood. ‘Let’s go. If everyone takes a bag each, we should manage it all.’ She paused, aware that, despite congenial conversation in the car on the way up, things weren’t quite right between her and Louise. She lowered her voice so that Maddy, hovering only a few feet away, would not hear. ‘But before we do that, I wanted to say that I’m sorry about not speaking up about you and Oli. For not telling everyone the truth. I’m so glad you returned my call and agreed to come today.’

Louise shrugged. ‘It’s okay. Though I’m still cross with Mum and Dad.’

Joanne smiled gently. ‘Try not to be, Louise. Annoying though it is, they did do it out of love, for all the right reasons.’

Louise nodded and said tightly, ‘I know. They’ll never approve of what I did but I guess I just have to accept that.’

Joanne nodded thoughtfully and then she cocked her head to one side and gave Louise a broad smile. ‘Are we friends again?’

Louise’s face broke into a grin. ‘Of course we are, you daft brush,’ she said and gave Joanne a brief hug. She let her go and hauled the picnic hamper out of the boot. ‘We’d better get a move on before I die of hunger and one of these kids,’ she said, with a nod over her shoulder in the direction of Oli, Abbey and Holly, who were playing tig, ‘gets run over by a car!’

They made camp in a sheltered spot close to the dunes, the fine gold sand dotted with black sheep droppings. Largely untouched for thousands of years, and now protected by the National Trust, the bay teemed with wildlife. A blue butterfly skittered briefly around Joanne’s head and disappeared. The cry of Fulmars and other birds Joanne didn’t recognise filled the sky as they swooped and glided overhead. Small Ringed Plovers, with their distinctive black-and-white head markings, and the larger Oystercatchers with their bright orange-red bills, patrolled the shoreline. Oli shrieked with delight, clapped his hands at the birds and sent them skywards like a cloud of dust.

After their picnic, the children in wetsuits (Maddy excepted) played in the surf with Heidi, the birds scattering like confetti. Joanne hovered by the water’s edge warning them not to go in below waist level – the waters here could be treacherous. Oli wore an old wetsuit Abbey had outgrown, itself a hand-me-down from her older sisters, flashes of bright pink neoprene on the arms and legs. Later they built a dam to divert the course of one of the many trickling streams that traversed the dunes and journeyed to the sea and finally, with the afternoon sun casting long shadows on the beach and everyone happily tired, they climbed back up to the car park, Oli clinging to Louise’s back like a monkey.

On the way home they took the scenic road that cut across Ballypatrick Forest, dropped dramatically into Cushendall and hugged the coast all the way down to Ballyfergus. Oli and Heidi, both done in, fell asleep as soon as the car pulled out of the car park. Oli woke in time for fish and chips in Carnlough and they ate them and traditional dulse – dried, salty seaweed – on the limestone harbour wall. By the time they got back to Ballyfergus it was seven-thirty and everyone’s cheeks were flushed with the happy afterglow of a day spent in the sun.

Joanne dropped Louise and Oli off first and then drove the short distance home to Walnut Grove. She had disliked the street name from the start – why were new developments given such daft names? What had walnuts got to do with Ballyfergus? It sounded like a street from a soap on the telly. As soon as the car pulled into the driveway, Holly and Abbey ran off to play with the other girls in the street. Abbey really ought to be getting ready for bed but how could the child be expected to sleep when it was broad daylight outside? Heidi hopped out of the back of the car and sniffed happily in the borders, squatting by the pampas grass to relieve herself, before trotting round to the back of the house. Maddy got out of the car, earphones still plugged in, and stretched. In her right hand she clutched her mobile like a talisman.

‘Mum, can I go round to Charlotte’s just now? She texted to say she’s been shopping in Belfast and has some really fab new clothes to show me.’

‘Sure you can,’ said Joanne indulgently. ‘Just don’t be any later than ten-thirty, okay?’

The back door was locked and there was no sign of Phil. She resolved to put the past behind her and make an effort tonight – she would get tidied up quickly and perhaps they could open a bottle of wine and sit down and chat properly like they used to. Tired but happy, she staggered into the kitchen laden with bags, in the process almost tripping over Heidi who, despite a small fortune spent on dog-training classes, had never learnt to wait at a door until called in. Joanne dumped the bags in the kitchen and, in the hall, found the wooden floor littered with mail.

Joanne sighed, picked it up and was just about to throw the bundle on the hall table when something caught her eye. ‘LAST REMINDER’ screamed the block capitals in red on the front of a white, windowed business envelope. Her heart began to pound. She picked up the envelope, turned it over and examined the address on the back – it was from Phil’s credit card company, or rather one of them.

All the energy drained out of her at once, the warm, happy glow of the day put out like a fire in a downpour. She sank down on the bottom stair, feeling like a puppet whose master has just let go of the strings. She set the envelope on her knees and wiped the sweaty palms of her hands on her thighs.

The envelope was addressed to Phil. She had no right to open it. But hell, who was she kidding? She had been opening his mail for years. And she did so for very good reason. She saw this not as an invasion of his privacy but as a means of protection for herself, the kids and, ultimately, Phil himself. This was not the first such letter she had seen over the years – nor, she supposed, would it be the last. Overdue bills, parking tickets, even a court summons once for dangerous driving – she had seen them all.

But she knew that when a last reminder was issued, things were very far down the line indeed. Many warnings would’ve preceded this one. Phil had managed, somehow, to hide them from her. No wait, that wasn’t true. There had been a similar envelope a month or so back with something written on it in red, along the lines of ‘Urgent! This requires your immediate attention. This is not a circular!’

That day, Phil had been at home and snatched it out of her hand at the breakfast table. ‘That’s for me,’ he’d said, without glancing at the envelope, and stuffed it into his jacket pocket.

‘Phil, that’d better not be a red bill.’

Silence.

‘Is that a red bill?’

‘Just leave it, Joanne,’ he’d warned.

‘It’s not a parking ticket, is it? Not again.’

‘I said, will you leave it alone?’ And with that he grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and left the room.

She’d got up from the table and followed him up the hall. ‘Whatever that is, Phil, you’d better sort it out. Do you hear me?’

He shrugged his jacket on and opened the front door. ‘For the last time, Joanne.’ He paused, exasperated. ‘It’s my business. Not yours. I’ll take care of it.’

And really, she could say no more for it was true – it was his business. They had always kept separate credit cards and bank accounts. During the short period in her marriage when she was working full-time and before Maddy came along, the idea of keeping their money separate had appealed to her fledgling feminist instincts. Everything was paid for on a fifty-fifty split – furniture, the mortgage, insurance, holidays, food bills. At the time, it had given her a sense of independence. She had liked the idea that she contributed exactly the same as Phil and what was left over at the end of the month was hers. It had worked well enough while they were both earning roughly the same salary.

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