Certain details in this story, including names, places and dates, have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.
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First published by HarperElement 2016
FIRST EDITION
© Julie Shaw and Lynne Barrett-Lee 2016
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Source ISBN: 9780008142919
Ebook Edition © February 2016 ISBN: 9780008142896
Version: 2015-12-04
Contents
Although it was still only mid-September, there was a definite autumnal nip in the early morning air. Kathleen put out the stub of her cigarette against the brick wall, and hurled it across the back yard and into the bushes. Then she glanced at her watch. It was only twenty to seven, and the sky was a stunning orangey-pink. The sort of sky that promised a beautiful day. Well, outside. Inside, it would be anything but.
Kathleen had been getting up earlier and earlier since Darren’s death. With Irene having lost all normal patterns of sleep and waking, time to herself had become a precious commodity. Even more precious than it ever had been, too, because, as far as Irene was concerned, Kathleen’s main crime – far more heinous than having been born to her husband – was that she hadn’t been the one to die.
‘There’s no logic to it, love,’ her father had explained, when Irene had railed against her the previous evening. She was half-mad with grief and she railed all the time. Always at her stepdaughter, for having the temerity to still exist. ‘No logic and no reason – it’s just pain, terrible pain. Don’t rise to it. She doesn’t mean it. I mean, I know she can be short with you at the best of times, I know that. But this is different – she’s just lashing out. I’m getting it too. And she’s got it in for Monica as well, love. Why d’you think she’s been making herself so scarce, eh?’
Kathleen had tried to accept this. To be reasonable – not least because she so worried about her father. He was taking everything on his shoulders, and Irene could barely function, and to throw her own toys out of the pram wouldn’t help him one bit. And he was right about Monica absenting herself currently – for all that she looked after her mam in those first few nightmare days, now she was hardly ever home, working ridiculously long hours, then coming home only to check on her mother, before buggering off round her mate’s house, as quick as she could.
But her dad wasn’t right in saying Irene had it in for everyone. She didn’t. Oh, she’d rant and wail and cry and give nobody any quarter. But when they were alone, which was often now, Kathleen understood perfectly. Irene could hardly look at her, such was the depth of her loathing – and when she did, it was with a new level of fury in her eyes. The term ‘if looks could kill’ could not have been more apt. And it wasn’t just because Kathleen was still alive, though that was much of it. It was because she’d also been the last person to see Darren alive, and Irene had convinced herself she must have played a part.
‘You were up there with him!’ she’d yelled at her the previous afternoon, while her dad had been out buying spirits and crisps. This was her thing now; when awake she would follow Kathleen around, drifting from bar to bar, from room to room, behind her, drawing on cigarette after cigarette, aimless, unseeing, unkempt. ‘What did you say to him? What were you talking about? You must know something! Must have said something! Something must have triggered it! There must have been a reason! What did you say to him, you little bitch? What are you covering up?!’
‘I have told you ten times!’ she’d shouted back at her. ‘The story’s never going to change! He was asleep! We didn’t exchange a single bloody word! Not one! He was asleep when I went in there and he was still asleep when I went down!’
But this wasn’t the answer Irene wanted, and she wouldn’t let it go.
‘I’m