‘What do you want to do?’ He chucked her under her chin. ‘Live in the forest?’

‘Take me to the Sahara with you?’

‘We’ve been through this already, Karin,’ he replied. ‘You know that’s not possible.’

‘But you promised I could go with you when I was fifteen.’

‘I made no such promise. You’re still way too young for such an arduous trip.’

She faced him, eyes blazing, fists clenched by her sides. ‘Liar! You did… you did.’ Her mood change was sudden but I had become used to those unexpected outbursts.

I picked up apple and orange peelings, cheese wrappings, butter melting gold into the grass. Eighteen was the age she planned to leave with him. She spoke about it often enough.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Max asked. ‘We’ve had a perfect day and you’re spoiling it by making a scene.’

‘I’m going with you,’ she shrieked. ‘You can’t leave me alone again with her.’

‘Don’t refer to your mother as “her.”’ I thought he would lose his temper, as my own father would have done, but he never raised his voice. ‘She loves you and has always taken care of you. Why are you pretending otherwise?’

‘But you don’t love me. If you did, you’d take me away. You never keep your word. It’s all your fault that she’s an alco – ’

‘Stop it at once.’ This time I heard his anger and Karin paused, her mouth open on that ugly word.

I emptied out the dregs of tea and screwed the top back on the flask. The ripples the kingfisher had made were still visible in the flow of the river.

‘Tell him, Nadine.’ She dropped to her knees before me. ‘You heard him promise. He said fifteen.’

I bent my head, afraid to look at her, and fastened the straps on my backpack. She leaned forward until I was forced to meet her eyes.

‘Tell him to his face that he’s a liar,’ she said. ‘I want you to say it.’

‘You’re the liar.’ I straightened my shoulders, stared her down. ‘He never said any such thing.’

She pushed me backwards with such force that I lost my balance. I think she would have pummelled me if Max had not pulled her away.

‘Have you finished?’ he demanded when she stopped struggling. ‘If you’re still determined to behave like a sulky puss then go into the forest and shout at the trees. We’re going back to Cowrie Cottage. Whether or not you come with us is no concern of mine.’

He lifted his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. The leather was scuffed and covered in stickers from places he’d visited. Karin walked on ahead, almost running in her effort to get away from us. The breeze blew my hair before my eyes and the feather was tossed lightly on a current of air before settling on the water. I watched it flow downstream and out of sight. We returned in silence to Cowrie Cottage, each of us wrapped in our own private thoughts.

The remaining days slid together in a blur of sunshine and games on the beach. I played volleyball and swan until I was exhausted. The sun played over my body when I lay face down on the rug to recover my breath, an intoxicating drug that pressed my thighs hard against the yielding sand and filled me with unfamiliar stirrings. I was in thrall to the wonder, terror, bliss, achiness, illusions and splendidness of first love. At night I wrote love letters, secrets outpourings for my eyes only. I cut a slit in the lining of my anorak and hid them deep inside it. Soon it would be time to go home. We would be returning to Gracehills on the day after Shard’s much publicised gig in Barney’s pub. Like Karin, I was in the grip of mood swings, wanting the holiday to end, longing for it to last forever.

Chapter 11

On the morning of the gig we met Reedy and Daryl in the small village supermarket. They were stocking up on beer for a party after the gig and the trolley was filled with six-packs, crisps and frozen pizzas.

Karin had begged her parents to let us go to the party. Joan refused to even consider it. We could go to Barneys to hear the band but we were returning with her and Max to Cowrie Cottage afterwards. He agreed with her. Subject closed. We were too young… always too young for everything, Karin raged. Joan was an ‘alco–’ she almost spat the word at me, and had no moral authority to refuse permission. The abbreviated word sounded harsh. I imagined Joan ending her life as a bag lady, sitting in doorways, a bottle hidden in a brown paper bag. We seethed together, united in our sense of injustice but things had changed between us that morning. Karin hadn’t spoken to me at breakfast, nor did she speak to me as we walked through the supermarket where the locals were pretending not to stare at Daryl’s dreadlocks or Reedy’s jeans with the slits across the backside. Joan was pale but sober, her lipstick a red gash against her pale skin, her long, black hair matted. Her dress was torn under one arm, not deliberately, like Reedy’s jeans, but uncaringly, as if how she looked no longer mattered. She reminded me of a Goth, not glamorous or exotic, just defeated.

Karin grabbed Daryl’s dreadlocks and shrieked laughing when he lifted her and pretended to throw her into the shopping trolley. But once she left the supermarket she became quiet again and went immediately to her room.

The hot spell of weather had broken. Sullen clouds covered the sky and the tide rode on a grey swell. I spent the afternoon in Monsheelagh Bay, sheltered from the wind by the rocks. I’d knocked on Karin’s door and asked if she wanted to come with me but she’d shouted at me to go away. I’d packed my clothes. We had an early start in the morning. I tried to concentrate on the book I’d brought with me but I was unable to think of anything except the reality of leaving Monsheelagh. How would I cope? What had been a magical time would end as soon as we drove from the cottage. Small children ran naked into the wind and fathers struggled determinedly into the water. I watched out for Jake but no one from Shard appeared. I figured they were probably rehearsing for tonight.

By evening the rain had started to fall. The smell of roast chicken wafted from the kitchen. Joan was peeling potatoes at the sink. She peered at me through her tangled fringe and I knew immediately she’d been drinking. Max was on the phone in the little parlour. I could hear his voice but not what he was saying. Lynette, his editor, rang every day to talk about the nomad book.

‘Where’s Karin?’ I asked Joan.

‘Sulking in her room, she said. ‘She’s still annoyed about the party. Do you understand why I won’t let you go?’

‘You’re afraid we’ll get drunk.’ Like you, I almost added then felt ashamed as I hurried from her into the privacy of my bedroom.

She called us for dinner. Max put a record on the old-fashioned record player. Dubussy, he said. ‘Clair de lune’. French for ‘moonlight’. He looked towards the window. ‘No stars tonight.’

We helped with the washing up then went to our rooms to get ready for Shard. I heard a sudden crash, as if something fragile had been shattered against a wall. I moved quietly past Karin’s room and along the corridor to the parlour. Max and Joan were arguing. Their voices slid under the door and brought me to a standstill. Joan’s high-pitched voice was hardly recognisable. She didn’t believe Max was going to the desert. He’d make it up like he always did, she said. Spin a yarn from a few encounters. Oh, he had a way with words all right. And his way with women. I ran back to my room and locked the door. I wanted to hide somewhere deep and safe. I opened my journal and tore out a page. The words I wrote made no sense. Unable to concentrate I pulled my anorak from the hook on the door and shoved the crumpled sheet of paper into the lining. My fingers probed deeper into the torn slit. All I felt was an empty space. I tore at the lining, the material ripping as I turned it inside out. My letters were missing. I broke out in goosebumps and pressed my face into the anorak in case I screamed out loud. Only one person could have taken them. Karin must have searched my room while I was on the beach in the afternoon. How could I ever face her again? The lash of shame, I’ve never forgotten it. As if someone had taken a blade and sliced into my heart, exposing its secret for all to see.