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‘Did she tell you why we moved here? From Millspring?’
Dagmara gave a small nod.
‘Twenty-nine years ago,’ replied Shay, ‘and it’s all as fresh in my mind as the day it happened. I try to pretend it’s not there in my life, but it never goes away.’ She reached behind her and tore off a square from the kitchen roll. ‘I don’t think Mum knew how deeply I felt for Jonah. She thought it was just young, first-love stuff, innocent, forgettable. And that one day I’d get over what happened to Denny, make my peace with it. She admitted to me this week that she thought I might have done what I’d been accused of, twisted the truth to make myself come out of it better, but I didn’t.’
Dagmara studied this woman in front of her, felt her pain. She’d heard her friend’s version of the story years ago but it had never been mentioned again, until the past few weeks. Something about it all had sat unquiet in Roberta too.
‘So tell me, Shay. Let me hear what happened from your own lips.’
Oh, where to begin.
‘I can’t remember a time before Denny Smith was in my life. He was the sweetest friend anyone could have. I thinkeven when I was small, his vulnerability called to me. There was something, I don’t know… pure, ingenuous about Denny, as if he was too good for this world. Jonah said the same once. He had an awful home life. He lived with his pig of a grandfather Bradley, his mum and older sister Rachel on a smallholding. There were rumours that their grandfather was actually their father as well. Rachel had learning difficulties, his mother Ella was odd, his grandfather was vile but Den… Denny was lovely. He was picked on a bit at school because he was soft, not really the football type if you know what I mean. He liked nature, he liked collecting leaves and sticking them in books. I stood up for him a lot.’
Shay laughed then, because it came to her – right then, and it never had before – where Courtney might have inherited some of her traits from.
‘Then one day, not long after my fourteenth birthday, we’d gone to the cinema and were walking home and there was a group of three older boys coming towards us. One was a real nasty piece of work called Glynn Duffy. He had this really flat nose, like an unlucky boxer. They blocked our way. Glynn started pecking at Denny, asking him if he was that kid whose grandad was a pervert. Denny just tried to shrug it off but Glynn was relentless until I couldn’t stand it any longer. So I said, “Get lost, nose” which was a really stupid thing to say because you just didn’t mention Glynn Duffy’s nose. I waited for him to hit me. And then from round the corner came Jonah Wells.’
Shay’s face lit up with a smile, remembering it all so clearly. She couldn’t have felt more relief if the A Team had turned up. ‘… I’d been in love with him since I first saw him. He was one of the cool kids, lanky limbs, bright hazel eyes, dark hair that fell where it wanted and a smile thatcould melt butter at fifty paces. He’d just come from rugby practice and he was with six other players.’
Shay closed her eyes, she could not only see them but feel that glow inside her again as if someone had switched on a light in her heart.
‘Jonah looked at us, then at them and said, “Evening, ladies, is there a problem here?” Glynn backed off. And Denny and I went home. I think I floated home if I’m honest. Then a few days later, Jonah came up to me at school when I was at my locker and asked me if I was okay and’ – Shay put her hands to her cheeks – ‘I can feel myself blushing now because this “It” boy was talking to me. In fact, everywhere I seemed to go, he was there as well, as if we were gravitating to each other. And not just me because he’d say “all right” to Denny and Den got some street cred for that, because if Jonah Wells had time for him, it was the best endorsement. And I have no idea how it happened, but the three of us starting hanging around together. Obviously we weren’t Jonah’s only mates because he had his rugby lot and everyone wanted to be in his orbit, but he liked us and we’d go for walks and sometimes we’d pitch tents in the wood and have a barbecue, stay out there all night.’
‘It sounds lovely,’ said Dagmara. Roberta hadn’t gone into a lot of detail with her version of events, until recently, when she was desperate to remember everything but couldn’t.
‘It was. But then things began to change. We were getting older, hormones kicked in. Denny always used to tease me about me fancying Jonah but it was much more than that, I was falling in love with him, and I felt bad about that because I knew how much Denny felt for me. Then one night Denny couldn’t get out to go camping with us and it was just us two. I don’t think Mum or Dad wouldhave let me stay out if they’d thought it was just going to be Jonah and me, because having Denny there added… an innocence to us, if you know what I mean. So… needless to say, I didn’t tell them.’ Shay swallowed hard. ‘How can I remember this so clearly after all these years?’
Dagmara gave a small chuckle. ‘I too remember everything, when we had to leave Latvia: the sounds, the fear that can still make my heart race, and how my lungs burned when we ran. I remember it all.’
‘You can guess what happened when we were alone, under the stars. We were sixteen, we weren’t too young, we were ready and it was wonderful. I thought I was going to burst I was so happy. I loved Jonah and I know he loved me and it was real, proper love. The only worry was telling Denny. We didn’t want him to feel squeezed out.’
‘That was kind of you,’ said Dagmara.
‘We were a three and we didn’t want it to alter our friendship. He seemed fine about it when I told him, I was so relieved when he said he was happy for us. Then suddenly he wasn’t any more; he just cut us off. He didn’t call at my house, he didn’t ring for a chat. We should have been going camping together, the last time before our summer jobs started and I went up to the farm for him, but he was really odd. What I didn’t know then was that his grandfather had run off and I’ve often wondered if that had a part to play. But then again, he could only have felt relief because the man was a beast.’
‘A big responsibility for a young boy if he had to take care of his mother and sister,’ said Dagmara.
‘Denny would have though, he was that kind of person. I know it wasn’t that. He said he wasn’t coming camping with us. He said that I had Jonah now and not to worry about himand I told him not to be such a dick because we were a three and we always would be. He didn’t want to talk to me and Denny talked to me about everything so I knew something was really wrong. I said I wasn’t leaving without him and he screamed at me to go away, swore at me, he even pushed me. That wasn’t him. He’d never been like that with me before, but I knew he was upset so I took it on the chin, I didn’t give him a single reason to fight with me. I said I’d be back tomorrow. But I never got to speak to him again.’
Shay let out a juddering breath; the heat of a real, physical pain flared up inside her.
‘Denny went missing the day after I’d last seen him. When we heard, we went searching with everyone. I don’t know what made me think of it but I had a horrible feeling where he might be and I was right. It was Jonah and I who found him in Millspring woods. He’d hanged himself from our tree, where we used to camp. And the only possible explanation for that at the time was that he’d done it in that particular place because he was so upset about Jonah and me and he wanted to spoil it for us ever meeting there again. That’s what people said and it made perfect sense, but then again it didn’t because Denny would never have been so bitter.’
‘I’m so sorry, you poor girl.’
‘The police interviewed me; they said they’d been told that I’d gone up to the farm the day before and shouted at him, told him that I didn’t want to see him any more because I had Jonah. They said that’s what his mother had overheard, but I swear on my life, Dagmara, that’s not what happened. But who were people more likely to believe, who would they want to believe, a sixteen-year-old girl protesting her innocence or a grieving mother who said I’d broken her son’s heart?’
Shay’s head fell into her hands. If only she could lay physical hands on the part of her brain where all this had stayed, festered, she would have cut it out with a knife.
‘It was in the newspaper with some lurid, sensationalist headline; they didn’t name me of course but everyone knew who I was, this callous cow who’d driven her friend to take his own life. The gossip machine cranked up and a few people really had a field day, adding bits on, spicing things up. They’d have burnt me as a witch if they could. I was blamed entirely; cancelled, before it even became a thing.’ Large teardrops tickled down her cheeks; she dashed them away, only for them to be replaced by more. ‘I didn’t want to see Jonah any more, I couldn’t think about him without thinking about what we must have done to Denny. Not that he tried to contact me anyway, which said everything.
‘I was a mess, I was terrified to leave the house, I daren’t even go outside into the garden, I felt as if the top layer of my skin had been peeled off and everything hurt. I just wanted to die. That was when Mum decided we had to leave. It all seemed to happen so quickly. I dropped a year of my life. Then I picked it up again. Went to a sixth form where no one knew me or my history, met new friends, rejoined the world. But I’ve never felt as if I was on the track I should have been on and I never got the chance to try and get back on it. Does this make any sense?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dagmara. ‘I know. My life also. A different life but mine has been very happy…’ She reached out to Shay, smeared away a fresh tear from under her eye, ‘… you have a lot of open wounds.’
‘And they won’t heal, Dagmara, because there’s so much inside me that’s unresolved. I’ve never been back to Millspring, yet sometimes… I think I should, because I feelas if I was pulled out of it, like a bee from a sting, and I left too much of myself behind.’
‘So you never heard again from the boy you loved?’ asked Dagmara.
