2012
‘Jeez, can you crank it down a notch? I don’t need the neighbours calling the Guards over your sudden love for Katy Perry at five thousand decibels.’
Alexandra Moran frowned. Neighbours? What neighbours? They were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing, and there wasn’t another soul for at least a mile, unless Erin was implying that the local wildlife somehow had the ability to summon the Irish police force.
‘I’m certain the County Kerry cops have better things to do than break up the world’s tamest party,’ Alex said, passing Erin the bottle of bubbly. ‘We’re all still respectably tipsy. It’s hardly a rammy. I mean, Beth hasn’t even fallen over yet.’
‘Give it time,’ Beth interjected, pointing towards her wedge trainers. ‘I’m pretty sure there’s some fresh air somewhere that needs tripping over. The night is still young.’
Erin grinned. In the midst of their Irish squawking, Beth’s pretty Welsh accent was like a musical interlude. Alex was right, however; Beth’s clumsiness was legendary as was the impressive bruising it often left behind.
‘Fine,’ Erin replied, flipping her light brown hair over her shoulder. ‘It might not be the wildest shindig we’ve ever thrown, but I’m still turning it down a smidge for the sake of my own eardrums.’
Tara, currently hunting for her cigarettes, snickered. ‘Christ. I hope someone does call the cops and they arrest you for saying “shindig”. I mean, in the name of the wee man, Erin, are you twenty-two or eighty-two? I swear if you turn that music down, they’ll never find your body.’
This was not the party they had planned for their last weekend together after graduation. A girls’ weekend in London had been the frontrunner, somewhere with a fancy spa, a rooftop bar perhaps. Their current location, Loughview House, while hardly a run-down shack, barely had Wi-Fi.
As a child, Erin had stayed there regularly. It was designed by her late grandfather Colm, an architect whose wife, Clodagh, had passed from kidney failure when Erin was three years old. Erin loved Loughview House, often spending summers there while her parents navigated a very rocky relationship. It was a large white brick building with five bedrooms, a beautiful kitchen, a huge living room, three bathrooms and a beach practically at the end of the garden. However, this was her first night staying here as the new owner. Eight months ago, Colm died and four weeks later, his last will and testament was read. Everything went to Erin.
Her dad, Terry, Colm’s only son, had contested this of course, even taking his only daughter to court, but Colm’s last will and testament had made his wishes perfectly clear. The only stable home Erin had ever had growing up was now hers. She hadn’t spoken to either of her parents in months, choosing to put herself first, something that they’d never done. Last she heard, they were on a cruise somewhere, bickering most likely. It’s what they did best.
Alex wondered whether inheriting a house automatically came with an irrational fear of noise complaints from invisible neighbours, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Instead, she watched her friend Erin, champagne in hand, manoeuvre her way towards the stereo, sidestepping Beth and Rebecca who were currently dancing as badly as they sang.
‘And it’s hardly asudden love,’ she heard Tara yell from outside, through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘Beth plays her music all the time and I’m pretty sure “I Kissed a Girl” was Becky’s coming-out anthem. She loves a bit of Perry, right, Becks?’
Alex knew that if Becky had been a touch more sober, she might have retorted that not only were the lyrics to the song actually rather problematic but also that she came out as bisexual in 2007, a whole year before Katy Perry developed a taste for cherry ChapStick. But instead, Becky just clinked her champagne flute with Beth, who announced that Katy Perry was a goddess before yelping as the contents sploshed over the side of her glass and onto her bare feet.
‘And this is why the good Lord invented shoes,’ Tara informed her, shimmying in from the patio in her leather pencil skirt, but unsurprisingly Becky didn’t care. She liked to go barefoot whenever possible, even if that meant having wet, slightly sticky feet. She called it ‘grounding herself’ and it was just one of the manyesoteric, new-age,feckin’ witchy-woo-woo(Tara’s words) beliefs that she held dearly, like waving smouldering sage around to promote positive energy flow or (Alexandra’s personal favourite) freezing the images of her enemies and detractors in their small fridge-freezer. Not long after they’d all moved in together at university, Beth said she had found a photo of Reese Witherspoon, frozen in a clear, plastic sandwich bag, sitting next to the fish fingers. This was never questioned.
‘Does anyone know what any of this does?’ Erin bellowed, her hands gesturing wildly at the various buttons and knobs on the stereo in front of her. ‘There are spaceships with less confusing interfaces. Alex? Any ideas?’
She watched Alex fix her hair in the mirror, pawing at some dark brown curls which appeared to be going rogue.
‘Not a scooby,’ Alex replied, trying to flatten one particularly springy coil. ‘For feck’s sake, I look like Medusa. My Greek roots betray me, no pun intended.’
Alex was the funniest, warmest girl Erin had ever known, and had absolutely no idea just how lovely she really was.
‘Beth’ll know how it works,’ Becky interjected. ‘She’s been in charge of the music so far.’
Beth took charge of most things to be fair. With a sleek brown, perfectly styled bob, she was like the head girl of their little friendship group – reliable, rational and often hilariously bossy when things weren’t going her way.
‘It’s pretty simple,’ Beth said, ‘It’s a bit like the sound system my Paul has in his bedroom, although his is—’
‘Cool story, bro, but can you just turn it down… and put something else on? Please not Kanye West, I still haven’t forgiven him for Taylor Swift. Oh God, don’t givemethe remote, I've had far too much wine to navigatethat!’ Erin waved her free hand dismissively.
‘Y’know, if you’re going to live here, you’re going to have to know how things work,’ Beth huffed, secretly annoyed at Erin’s brutal dismissal of Kanye.
Erin smirked. ‘God, you’re such a bossy cow! You sound just like my grandpa. It’s uncanny! In fact, you’re even starting to get the same moustache he had …’
Alex snorted with laughter watching Beth swat Erin’s hand away as it now reached for her top lip. ‘At least your eighty-year-old grandpa could work this,’ she retorted, taking back the remote control. ‘It was full of his CDs.’
‘Glen Campbell?’ Erin asked, as Beth turned down the music. ‘Oh, and let me guess… Frank bloody Sinatra. He loved them.’
‘Yep, and someone called Dustin Springfield. Never heard of him.’
‘Dusty,’ Erin corrected.‘Shewas an icon. Well, they all were. They were influential and—’
Erin’s insights were quickly drowned out as Tara barged past, restoring the music to the previous volume.
