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Kier

Devon, July 2018

‘Guess what I had a dream about the other night?’

‘Woody’s superior swimming skills?’ Penn grins as he watches Woody frantically doggy-paddling in the shallows.

‘No.’ I wriggle out of my shorts, discard them above the waterline. ‘About the balloon game.’

‘I haven’t thought about that in years.’ Wading into the sea, his outline is absorbed into the gleaming column of sunlight spilling across the water. ‘Remember how competitive it got? Seventh birthday, you knocked me over trying to get in there first.’

Following him in, I smile. ‘I was thinking, you know, about how much Mum enjoyed all that stuff. Probably more than us.’

‘Like this place.’ Penn turns, gestures around him, fingers trailing through the water. ‘I knew, when you said you wanted to go to the beach to talk about the wedding, it’d be this one.’ His voice wobbles. ‘Mum loved it here, didn’t she?’

‘Yeah.’ I slowly lower myself up to my chest, enjoying the cool shock as my body is submerged. ‘This was our place. ’

This cove was on my very first map, where Mum taught us both to swim, with infinite patience. I can picture her now, in her green costume, hair wet and slicked back from her face, cheeks flushed with excitement as Penn managed a proper stroke.

Back then, I painted the cove in joyful colours – bold blues and greens, an exaggerated golden curve for the sand, as if it were holding us in an embrace. At the time, it felt like it was – the cove not just a backdrop, a bit part, but a major player itself, willing us on, just like she had.

Plunging in headfirst, Penn comes up whooping, shaking water off his head.

‘God, I’ve missed this. You brought Zeph down here?’

‘Not yet.’ I dip my toes down to find the rocks lurking beneath the surface. ‘But I will.’ Planting my feet on the largest boulder, I toss Woody’s ball back to shore, watch him swim after it. ‘So, how’s it all going?’

He pulls a face. ‘It’s going.’

‘That bad?’

‘Yeah. Mila’s put me in charge of catering, and I think we’re both now regretting it. She’s started micromanaging.’

‘Full Bridezilla?’

Penn nods. ‘Keeps waking me up in the night, panicking. Barely got out of bed before she starts writing a new list of stuff I’m meant to be doing. I’ve told her that the caterer’s on top of everything, but apparently I’m meant to be’ – he makes quote marks with his fingers – ‘ managing the process’. His brow furrows and I get the feeling I’m only hearing the tip of the iceberg.

I haven’t seen him like this in a while, I think, watching him. Not just stressed, but anxious.

‘You need help?’

‘Not with that, but maybe some of the best man stuff. The ring … logistics.’ Penn shakes his head. ‘He’s about as organised as I am.’

‘Want me to check in with him?’

He flashes me a grateful smile. ‘Please.’

‘And there’s nothing else you want to talk about? ’

‘I know what you’re doing.’ Penn tips onto his back, looks at me. ‘You don’t have to fill in for them. Not with something like this. I want you to enjoy the wedding, too, without the weight of that on you.’

‘But I want to.’ My voice catches. ‘I don’t want you to have missed out on anything.’

‘I haven’t.’ Putting his fist up, he bumps his knuckles with mine. ‘We got this.’

‘You’re not nervous about how things might change?’ I swim forwards, flexing my legs. ‘I am.’

‘What do you mean?’

I half turn so he can’t see my face, the heat creeping up my cheeks. ‘I keep wondering if when you get married, we won’t be the same.’

Penn grabs my hand under the water, squeezes hard. ‘I’ve told you before, we’ll never change, K. What we have, it’s beyond anything else.’

I turn back, meet his gaze. I know he means it, but the fear is still there. The irrational voice in my head that says: He’s all I have left and now I’m losing him.

‘You’ve got to trust sometimes, Kier.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘I get it.’ He lets go of my hand. ‘We’ve both struggled with it, haven’t we? The whole trust thing.’

I know it’s not pointed, a generalisation, but it stings to be reminded of it. What I’ve done in the past. Crossed boundaries where none should be crossed.

I watch Woody paddling back to us, neck held impossibly high. ‘I think I’m struggling with it now, with Zeph. Questioning him, us. Yesterday he said that he thought I’d changed, being back here. That I was pulling away.’ I’m not sure where the words have come from. Whether it’s being back here in the cove, a safe space, or whether I just need to unburden.

‘And have you?’ Penn’s gaze shifts past me, to the shore.

‘Maybe.’ I pedal my feet beneath the water. ‘I was going over what you said at dinner the other night, about feeling tainted by what Mum did. I think you’re right. After it happened, I did feel marked, I suppose. Desperate to be this … perfect person so people wouldn’t think I was like her.’

He looks at me sideways. ‘And how does your relationship with Zeph fit into that?’

‘Too many flaws, maybe. We argue.’

‘That’s normal.’

‘I know.’ I bite my lip. ‘Sometimes I think I’ve got Dad in me too. That ability to pick people to pieces, like a vulture.’ He’d hone in on the smallest thing, amplify it. Unbrushed hair. Overloud voices. A collar not straight. We were never enough.

‘I don’t think that’s to do with Dad,’ Penn says carefully. ‘I think it’s because of Mum. You trusted her, and by doing what she did, despite all the reasons why, she destroyed that trust. Made you think everyone’s got something to hide. But no one’s perfect, K. You pull at enough threads, eventually one will make the whole thing unravel.’

I don’t reply. What he doesn’t understand is that it’s not just about Mum. When I’m looking for other people’s flaws, I can silence the voice inside my own head.

The monster’s daughter.

‘You know, maybe part of the trust issue is also to do with what Mum did in prison.’ His voice is all thick, like he’s underwater. ‘Taking her own life. Maybe as kids, we blamed her for that.’

Penn’s words are physical somehow, grenades, tossed into the water. All at once, I feel it coming – the rage. A strange, icy numbness.

He lightly touches my shoulder. ‘We’ve got to talk about it one day, Kier.’

No , I want to say. If we talk about it, it makes it real.

Another reason I don’t come back here. Penn pins me down, a butterfly in a cabinet. I can’t dance around them. The unmapped. The pictures in my head.

I change the subject. ‘I wanted to ask you about the hen and stag. Times, that kind of thing.’

He watches me carefully. ‘Seven,’ he says finally. ‘We’re meeting at seven. Bar first, then the club.’