He left them to their slightly strained smiles and made a beeline for the toilets. There was no-one else there, and he stood in the quiet. The mirrors above the sinks were streaked and in the harsh bathroom lights his reflection looked a little older than his thirty years. He was always tired these days. The lack of sleep since Audrey had arrived had been brutal. He washed his hands slowly, debating whether he and Mia could decently leave before Sean arrived. Probably. He and Sean went back far enough that he could get away with it. But at the same time, it went against the grain a little.
Mia didn’t really get it.
‘Male friendships are so weird, you guys barely keep in touch,’ she’d said to him as they were packing to come here.
‘Yeah, we do. I see them every time I visit.’
‘In between, though. I mean, you never even speak.’
That was true. Kieran had heard about Ash and Olivia getting together through Mia, who had heard it from Olivia in one of their thrice-yearly catch-up emails.
‘I suppose,’ he’d said. ‘Works out, though.’
And it did. Kieran was never worried about that. Partly because when the three of them did see each other they really were able to pick up where they’d left off. But mostly because if they had been going to fall apart, it would have happened twelve years ago. Kieran turned off the tap and looked away from his reflection. If they’d managed to survive that – those really dark days of blame and reckoning – they could certainly survive a couple of years of sporadic text messages.
Kieran dried his hands, checked his phone and, unable to string things out any longer, finally pulled the door open. He’d barely stepped out into the tight vestibule separating the toilets from the dining area when he heard the familiar voice floating from the kitchen. The words were muffled by the whine of the industrial fan, but were clear enough to make him stop short. Kieran stood very still, knowing with an instinct that he’d fine-tuned over the years that the conversation was about him.
‘If it was up to me, he wouldn’t even be allowed in here.’ Liam sounded very pissed off.
A girl’s polite laugh. ‘Well, last I checked, nothing around here was up to us.’ It was Bronte speaking; Kieran recognised her voice now. ‘Anyway, he seems all right.’
‘And how would you know that?’
Bronte seemed taken aback. ‘I don’t, really –’
‘You don’t know anything about him.’
‘No. I suppose not. I just –’
‘What?’
‘I don’t get why you’re giving him a hard time, that’s all.’
‘No?’
Kieran realised he was holding his breath. He let it out. There would be no surprises in what was coming next.
‘Well, whatever.’ Liam’s voice was hard. ‘But the way I see it – you kill someone, you deserve all the shit that’s coming your way.’
Chapter 3
It was lucky – or perhaps unlucky – that Sean was sitting at the table when Kieran re-emerged into the bright lights of the dining area, because otherwise he would have grabbed Mia’s hand, said a swift farewell to Ash and left. He was still strongly considering this course of action when Sean stood to greet him, a broad lazy smile spreading across his face.
‘Good to see you, mate. Sorry I’m late, you know what it gets like with the season change.’ Sean pulled his chair around next to Kieran’s and after a moment, Kieran sat down too. ‘I’m glad you’re still here. I thought new parents would be crashed out by this time of night.’
‘Yeah.’ Kieran could feel Mia watching him closely and cleared his throat. Tried to remember what his normal voice sounded like. ‘Well, usually we are, but –’
‘Let me guess. But Ash bullied you into coming out anyway.’ Sean gave a knowing nod and held up a palm. ‘Say no more.’
Kieran’s smile was genuine this time. ‘But we wanted to say hello, mate.’
He meant it. Kieran couldn’t remember a time when he and Sean hadn’t been friends. Sean had always been there. There were photos of them as infants at each other’s first birthday parties, and Kieran’s earliest memory was of the two of them on the beach, their parents chatting while the boys dug holes in the sand and kicked water at each other.
Sean had grown from a quiet, skinny, hippie kid into a thoughtful, rangy, eco-conscious man who was at his happiest out on the water, watching the horizon rock gently from the deck of a boat. His hair was still short enough to dry with a single swipe of his hand, and he always gave the vague impression that he’d emerged moments earlier fresh from the sea and thrown on whatever clothes were to hand.
He wasn’t quite the same person he’d been in the time Kieran now simply thought of as before, but none of them were. Mia, Ash, Olivia, Olivia’s mother, Kieran’s own parents. Liam. Kieran himself, obviously. No-one had come through the storm unscathed.
Kieran glanced now at the kitchen hatch. At least he couldn’t see Liam anymore. He sat back in his chair and tried to relax.
‘Hey, hey, no-one’s been bullied into anything,’ Ash was saying. ‘I’m insulted by that on Kieran’s behalf. He and Mia are here of their own free will.’
As Ash spoke, he made eye contact with Bronte near the bar and circled his hand in a more drinks motion at the table. She gave him a thumbs up and he winked. Her gaze snagged on Kieran and he tried to gauge her reaction to her conversation with Liam in the kitchen. Curiosity? Contempt? She looked away before he could tell.
‘Look, I’m not claiming any different.’ Sean was still smiling as he pointed at Ash. ‘But it’s funny how often people’s free will turns out to coincide with exactly what you want, mate.’ He grinned at Kieran, who had to force himself to focus. ‘Happens all the time at home.’
Kieran couldn’t
