“It got built.”
I find it strange that a bridge could make someone leave their hometown. Before the bridge was built, you had to drive all the way to the bottom of the peninsula and then back along the estuary to get to Inverness. The bridge has always been there for me, so I don’t know any different. It’s not even like we go across it much anymore, but knowing that we could makes this place seem less forgotten.
“Wasn’t the bridge a good thing?”
“Granny didn’t think so. For her, the bridge meant more people. Tourists, city locals. Strangers. She didn’t like it at all. She’d moved to the Black Isle to get away from all the people. She liked the isolation.”
“Didn’t you feel cut off?”
Mum takes another sip of gin and looks up at the ceiling.
“We used to play on the mud banks. That was what we did at weekends. I’d look across at the mainland, and I used to feel proud of being on this side. Like I was something special. My mum stayed a year or two after it was built, but she couldn’t cope. She wanted a quiet life.”
I can’t imagine a quieter life than living here. And these days I’m glad about the tourists. I can hide among them. They don’t know who I am.
“Mum, why didn’t you and Granny speak anymore?”
I sip my drink and wait for the answer.
“I screwed up, Elsie. I made a terrible mistake and I have to live with that.”
“What mistake?” I whisper, leaning in close.
She moves away from me and sits back in her chair.
“Let me tell you something. Don’t ever let anyone in your life die without them being able to forgive you. And, Elsie, don’t make my mistakes.”
“What mistakes?” I ask again, but she changes the subject.
She tells me again the story of how my father was on the other side of the world when she was giving birth to Dillon.
“I kept calling the ship. That’s men for you, always last-minute,” she slurs. “And here I am, eighteen years on, still wondering if he’s coming home.”
“Is he going to leave us?”
She looks at me. “Me, yes. But he’d never leave you.”
She starts laughing then, and when I try to take the gin away, she clamps her hands around the bottle and tells me that she is a bad person and everyone thinks so. I’m scared of her when she’s like this—when she starts to sway and I wonder whether she’ll topple right over and crack her head. But she’s like one of those wobbly clowns with the ball inside: just when I think she’s going down, she springs back up with those fixed eyes and that cherry-red grin.
“I miss Eddie,” I say, hoping that she’ll want to talk about him.
“Shhh,” she replies. “Eddie’s asleep.”
Eddie is not asleep. He is sitting in the kitchen sink, staring out the window at the stars. “There’s the bear,” he says to himself. Then he turns to me and whispers, “Ellie, we never see shooting stars anymore. How are we supposed to make wishes?”
It’s gone midnight when my father comes in. Mum is asleep with her head on the table and her arms dangling by her sides. I try to look at my father, but the kitchen tips back and forth. When I try to stand up, I slide straight to the floor and bile rides up my throat. His polished shoes catch the moonlight just before I vomit all over them.
2
THE JACKDAWS CACKLE AND SCREECH OUTSIDE, AND IN THE distance the church bells chime for Sunday mass. My head hurts too much for me to get out of bed, and the smell of cooking bacon downstairs makes me feel queasy. I wonder if Mum realized how much I drank. Perhaps she thought it was water in my glass. I reach for the notepad by my bed and make a new list.
NEW THINGS I REMEMBER ABOUT THAT DAY:
Dillon wasn’t swimming back to look for Eddie. He was looking for someone else. Find out who.
My father definitely wasn’t on the beach when Eddie disappeared. Find out where he went.
My father was holding something blue when he ran to me after I collapsed. Find out what.
I haven’t got much to go on, but I know two things for sure: Dillon and my father are hiding something, and I’m capable of remembering more—I just have to be under the water for it to happen.
My father knocks on the door, and I shove the notebook under the covers.
“Breakfast is ready,” he says, barely looking at me.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Neither is your mother,” he replies. “At least you got most of it out of your system.”
He looks at his shoes. He doesn’t tell me off, and I wonder why. Perhaps the bacon is the punishment. For me and Mum.
He wanders over to the window next to my bed.
“There’s a cold draft in here,” he murmurs. He tries to pull the window closer to the frame, and cement dust falls on his hand. “This place is falling apart.”
I slide back under the covers. As he leaves he says, “By the way, you’re grounded for a week.”