‘I want to pick something up for Lily,’ Noah finally explained. ‘She’ll be sorry to have missed going to the beach and playing with Freddie and Arthur.’ He began searching. Liv leant against the door frame. She hoped he would be quick.
Surprisingly they weren’t the only customers. A young family was also shopping or, more accurately, mooching around the shelves, bickering. A couple, poorly dressed for the weather in thin jackets and sneakers, with three cold offspring in tow. Liv felt sympathy – a day-trip in the rain, with young children, on a budget, was nobody’s idea of fun. From her vantage point, she worked out that there was some type of altercation brewing between the eldest and the middle child about the price of each other’s chosen gift. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, enjoying the blasts of hot air from the overhead heater hitting the top of her head. It made her feel pleasantly swimmy.
The next thing she knew, there were raised voices. Both male. One of them Noah’s. ‘There’s no need for that. He didn’t do it deliberately.’
The father and Noah were facing off. The floor of the shop was littered with hundreds of fluorescent bouncy balls, some of them still bouncing. The young girl behind the till looked like a startled rabbit. ‘And what the fuck has it got to do with you?’ The man jutted his chin forward.
Noah didn’t back down an inch. In fact, to Liv’s dismay, he took a step closer. ‘I’m just saying you should calm down, pal.’ It was the ‘pal’ that did it.
‘Oh, I should, should I? And I think you should keep your nose out of other people’s business.’
The kids had fallen silent. They watched, open-mouthed, as the ruck developed.
Simultaneously the young mum and Liv spoke. ‘Leave it, Danny!’… ‘Noah, what the hell?’
Both women were ignored. The tension ramped up.
‘Is this how you get rid of all the frustration in your life? By smacking people half your size?’ What, in Christ’s name, was Noah playing at? He was asking to be punched and, by the look of it, the man was about to oblige.
Liv took matters into her own hands. She navigated her way down the narrow aisle, avoiding the Day-Glo rubber balls as best she could, grabbed Noah’s arm and pulled him out of the shop. The bell above the door tinkled merrily on their way out. Noah resisted, but not enough to stop her bundling him back onto the pavement.
Outside, they faced each other. Noah was breathing heavily, still wrestling with his anger.
‘Come away, Noah. You don’t want to give him time to decide he really would quite like to smack you in your smug, interfering face.’
Noah glanced back into the shop one more time, obviously tempted, but, thankfully, followed Liv as she walked away.
They went into the café-bar a few doors along the promenade. Liv checked that the coast was clear before pulling the door shut behind them. ‘What do you want?’ What she wanted was to sit down.
Noah’s expression had morphed from furious to sulky. ‘A pint.’
Needing to keep control of the situation, she told him to go and find somewhere to sit while she ordered their drinks. He chose a table at the rear of the bar and sat with his back to the room, effectively putting himself in the naughty corner. As Liv waited for their order she watched him, wondering what the hell had got into her brother. Even from across the room she could see the tension in his posture.
When she placed the tray on the table in front of him, he looked at the drinks, then at her, and huffed. Liv had ordered a pot of tea. Beer was the last thing he needed. ‘Noah, please. For the next half-hour can we just be civil with each other? I really can’t be doing with any more aggro.’
He looked at her, still holding on to his grievances, whatever they were, then suddenly his gaze cleared and he grinned. It was like spending time with a storm: bright sunshine one minute, dark clouds the next. ‘Oh, please, Liv. Let’s argue. It’s one of the few things about this weekend I’m enjoying!’ That broke the tension.
Liv rewarded him with a thump on the arm. She shrugged off her coat, set out their cups, added milk, waited for a count of ten, then poured. The tea streamed out, hot and strong. They obviously didn’t skimp on teabags in the Farrer’s Bar. Despite her drink being way too hot, Liv added half a sachet of sugar and took a sip. The rattled feeling subsided. They drank their tea, Noah out-slurping her in an attempt to make her laugh – like a naughty child playing to an audience to erase past misdemeanours. It worked. It was good to be warm and calm. Equilibrium restored.
Liv gave it a good five minutes before tackling the elephant in the café. ‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’
Noah put down his cup. ‘He was bang out of order.’
‘Very possibly. But it had nothing to do with you. What on earth possessed you to go wading in?’
‘He walloped his kid for knocking over a box of bouncy balls. The kid was terrified. What sort of prick lamps his kid for an accident?’
‘Still, nothing to do with you.’
‘It just got to me, all right?’
Small things taking on way too much significance – because the big things were too hard to deal with? Liv understood. Grief fucked things up, especially if they were fucked up already. The lull between them was comfortable, for a change. It was Liv who eventually attempted to resuscitate their conversation. ‘It’s weird being back home, isn’t it? I mean all of us, together, in the house.’ She
