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‘Shay… just… fuck off, will you.’
Her jaw falling. Even Denny looked shocked by the sound of the F-word coming out of him. She’d never heard him use it before.
‘That what you really want – for me to go?’
‘Yes, for God’s sake. YES.’
She picked up her tent bag. ‘Okay. But I’ll be calling round tomorrow to see how you are because something’s up and if you can’t tell me what, then something’s really up.’
‘Don’t.’
‘I said I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’ll keep coming until you talk to me proper. And if you change your mind about spoiling our night then you know where we’ll be.’
She remembered Denny standing there stiff, his fists still curled, his head down as if studying a patch on the ground. She remembered thinking that she’d be alone with Jonah – an unexpected bonus. But it wouldn’t be, because they’d talk about Denny and they’d worry enough for it to dominate and sour what they didn’t know would be their last evening together. And a short time after them packing up and going the next morning, Denny would arrive and put up his tent, with his sleeping bag inside, take the barbecue from the hiding spot and set it up. Then he would throw a rope over the thickest branch of their tree and end his young life.
Shay opened her eyes, just in time to see the net curtain in one of the bottom windows nudge. They were the same nets, she was sure, grey and old with a tattered, scalloped edge. She was in there, the woman who had changed the course of her life, sitting pretty without a care in the world. Without thinking, she took the three steps needed to reach the front door. She knocked hard on it. No response. She slammed her flattened palm on the wood.
‘I know you’re in there and you know who I am.’
Still nothing, but she didn’t want to see them today. She just wanted them to see her. She wanted to be the worm in their brain that they had been in hers for too many years.
She heard a key turn slowly in the lock. They’d heard her then.
‘I’ll come back here every day until you talk to me, however long it takes,’ Shay said, giving the door one final thump. She’d said similar to Denny and she hadn’t got her answers, but she wouldn’t fail with his mother and sister.
When she got back to Milk Lane, Jonah’s black Jag was parked outside. He got out on seeing her.
‘I was just about to drive off,’ he said, beaming, as if the sight of her had caused that effect. ‘I was passing and—’
‘Liar,’ she said and smiled. Milk Lane was a no-through road.
‘I don’t want to make a pest of myself. Tell me if I am.’
‘You’re not. Are you coming in?’
‘I won’t outstay my welcome.’
She opened the door of Candlemas and he followed her inside.
‘It’s odd having you here again, Shay. I feel a bit like a moth being drawn to a flame,’ said Jonah, taking two mugs out of the cupboard while she filled up the kettle.
‘I might burn your wings,’ she said.
‘I can think of no one who I’d rather be burnt by.’
She left it until they were sitting at the table with a coffee each before she told him where she’d been.
‘They didn’t open the door, obviously, but that’s fine. I want to give them time to think about me. I want to bore into their heads.’ She screwed her finger into her temple and realised how ugly and bitter she must look and felt a little ashamed. But Jonah only said, ‘I don’t blame you.’
‘It was odd how much I remembered, being back there in the yard.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like what a bitch I was knocking on the door for Denny when he told me to wait for him at the end.’
Jonah’s head tilted and he gave her a hard look.
‘Do you ever stop beating yourself up?’
