ERIN KAYE
Second Time Around

To Janet Marie, my elder sister

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Erin Kaye’s thoughts on writing Second Time Around

Reading Group Questions

Read an extract from Always You

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Jennifer walked through the door of The Lemon Tree on busy Donegall Square in Belfast city and noticed him straight away. Conversation competed with piped pop music, somewhere a phone rang, and fleet-footed staff clattered noisily up and down the open metal staircase. Yet, there he stood, behind the brightly-lit bar, dark head bent, arms folded across his chest, listening intently to a black-shirted waiter. Athletic shoulders strained against the yoke of his pink shirt and the rolled-up sleeves revealed pale-skinned forearms, thick with dark hair. His lower half, clad in jet black jeans, was slim, almost thin. And he had to be ten years younger than her. Jennifer, trailing behind her friends, and surprised by the sudden yearning he stirred in her, blushed and looked away.

A waitress wearing slim-fitting trousers showed them to their table, a wooden tray clasped against her chest like a breast-plate. Jennifer slid onto a bentwood chair and the waitress, businesslike, thrust a menu into her hand. She opened it and tried to concentrate on the words swimming before her eyes. What was she doing, eyeing up a guy so much younger than her, a man who wouldn’t give her a second look? And even if he did, she’d run a mile. She’d forgotten how to flirt. And the rest of it. It had been three years since she’d been with a man.

‘I know it’s Friday lunchtime but I think you need a birthday cocktail!’ suggested Donna, a full-figured bottle blonde.

Jennifer smiled her assent, determined both to enjoy the company of her best friend – and to give her the courtesy of her full attention. They did this – went out somewhere nice for lunch – twice a year, on each of their birthdays. And, because they lived in Ballyfergus, a town some twenty-five miles away, it felt like a very special treat.

‘The food’s supposed to be fantastic,’ said Donna who, despite being over forty, retained an enviably youthful complexion. ‘Donegal oysters are just coming back into season now September’s started, aren’t they?’ She went on without waiting for an answer, ‘I wonder if they’re on the menu yet …’

The drinks came, they ordered food and Jennifer took a sip of the cranberry-coloured cocktail. She smiled as Donna related a funny story about one of the receptionists at the clinic where she worked who came in so hungover she threw up in a plant pot. But, in spite of her best efforts, she could not ignore the man behind the bar. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on Donna but she was aware of his every move and gesture, her attention drawn to him against her will. For the first time in her life she wished she was younger, that she could start all over again. That she could make a man like that desire her.

‘Are you okay, Jennifer?’ said Donna. ‘You seem a little distracted.’

Jennifer’s face reddened. ‘Sorry.’ She ducked her head of dark, straight hair and blurted out, without thinking, ‘It’s just that I feel old this birthday. For the first time ever.’ She looked around the restaurant, suddenly aware that the two of them looked out of place, dressed up in heels and smart clothes while the tables all around them were taken by younger people in casual, summery chic. Even their choice of sophisticated drinks marked them out as from a different generation. She looked down at her slim black pencil skirt, tight across the hips, and her black satin-trimmed jersey shirt, and felt foolishly, inappropriately, over-dressed.

‘You’re only as old as the man you feel,’ said Donna suggestively and, when this elicited a feeble smile from Jennifer added, more soberly, ‘Your fortieth birthday’s supposed to be the depressing one, you know, not your forty-fourth. By our mid-forties we’re meant to have it all sorted, aren’t we?’ She waved an arm in the air, the collection of bangles on her wrist rattling like chains. ‘We’re meant to have a family, a fabulous career, great self-image, oodles of confidence, a raging libido – oh, and a hunky man on our arm to satisfy it.’ Donna chortled and paused for dramatic effect. She wasn’t the female lead in the town panto every year for no reason. ‘And I’d say you have it all, apart from the hunky man.’

‘It’s not easy meeting someone at our age.’ Jennifer touched the back of her neck, momentarily shocked by the short, sharp line of hair at the nape. She was still unaccustomed to the new haircut, a sleek graduated bob that she’d only had done that morning. In a moment of madness quite unlike her she’d given the hairdresser free rein to restyle her tired, mid-length hair. It had been a good move. The style was modern and edgy, yet still long enough at the front to feel feminine. While she was pleased with it, the new hairstyle had failed to lift her mood. ‘I sometimes think I never will.’

‘Of course you’ll meet someone,’ countered Donna.

Jennifer lifted the glass, threw her head back and downed the cocktail in one, wondering fleetingly if the guy at the bar had noticed her unladylike quaffing. ‘Well the way things are going, it looks like I’m going to be rattling round that house on my own for the rest of my days. Matt’s applied all over for commis chef jobs and, when he gets one, he says he’s moving out. I don’t want him to go.’

It was grossly unfair of her to expect companionship from children who were old enough to make lives of their own but she couldn’t help it. Her only company for so many years, she had come to rely on them. ‘I’m dreading it. It was bad enough when Lucy left for uni. And it’s unlikely Matt’ll get a job locally, not in this economy,’ she added glumly. ‘He’s even applied to Dublin.’

‘Well, if it cheers you any, he’s not likely to get a job down there,’ said Donna, ‘Not with the state of the Irish economy. I hear emigration’s on the up again. Apparently kids are leaving in their droves for the US.’

Jennifer looked at Donna in alarm. Far from cheering her, this news filled her with dread. What if Matt too had to emigrate to find work? To the young and dispossessed the idea of emigration was enticing, romantic even, and the well-trodden path, polished smooth by the feet of those who had gone before, was an easy one to follow.

‘You know, sweetheart, he can’t stay at home forever,’ said Donna, a warm smile spreading across her honest, broad face. ‘He has to make his own way in the world. They all do.’

Jennifer shrugged. ‘I know that. And I want that for him, of course.’ She paused, trying to find the words to articulate the depth of her melancholy. ‘But the prospect of living completely alone for the first time in decades …’ She shook her head.

‘Lucy will still come home for the weekends, won’t she?’ said Donna.

‘That’s true,’ Jennifer was forced to acknowledge. But it wasn’t the same as having children living at home full time.

‘And you’ll still have Muffin,’ said Donna cheerfully and Jennifer flashed her a grin. Donna was a glass-half-full person, the most positive, upbeat woman Jennifer had ever met. And she loved her for it. She rearranged her features into a withering look. ‘He’s a dog, Donna.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’

Jennifer laughed and went on, the smile fading from her lips, ‘It’s made me turn a spotlight on my own life and I just think “Is this it?”’

Donna nodded gravely and said, ‘Jennifer, my dear, I think we’re looking at a case of ENS.’

‘What?’

‘Empty Nest Syndrome.’

The waitress appeared with the food and Donna ordered two glasses of white wine. Jennifer stared with no interest at the beautifully presented chicken Caesar salad she had ordered, her appetite suddenly gone.

‘It makes perfect sense, when you think about it,’ said Donna, who, sadly, had never been blessed with children of her own. But she was a trained psychologist and she knew what she was talking about. She picked up her knife and fork. ‘Come on. Tuck in.’ She popped a piece of salmon in her mouth and added, chewing, ‘You’re just in a bit of a rut, Jennifer. You’ve lost your mojo, girl, and you need to get it back. You need to get out there and meet new people.’

‘You’re right,’ said Jennifer bravely, though beneath the table her knees would not stay still while her underarms prickled with sweat. She glanced involuntarily at the bar. The stranger was nowhere to be seen.

She thought back to the girl she had once been, a girl who’d dreamed of adventure and romance – and believed that life would deliver it. Somewhere along the way – round about the time she’d married David – she’d lost her sense of discovery.

It wasn’t his fault. They’d had a baby on the way and not much money back then and dreams suddenly seemed like expensive, unattainable luxuries. David had been reliable, trustworthy, dependable – everything she thought one needed in a husband and a father. Combined with her emotional neediness and artistic temperament, it had not been a recipe for a happy marriage. Turned out what she wanted was excitement and laughter and unpredictability after all.

And now twelve years after the divorce, her life, while happy and satisfying in many ways, had become just as predictable and boring as her marriage ever was.

But if her life was a disappointment she realised, with painful clarity, she had only herself to blame. She’d been too busy ensuring that Lucy and Matt made the most of all the opportunities available to them.

Instead of swimming herself, she’d collected subs at the door on Swim Club night. Instead of going for a run on a Saturday morning, she’d stood on the sidelines in the rain watching Matt play rugby. She’d ferried them to Guides and Scouts, music, dance and art classes, panto rehearsals, hockey and football training. Not that she’d do it any differently if she had to do it over again. She’d given of her best to her family and she’d no regrets about that.

As if she could read Jennifer’s thoughts, Donna leaned forward, patted her friend on the back of the hand and said, ‘This is your time, Jennifer. After all the years of doing for your kids and prioritising their needs, it’s time to put yourself first.’

Jennifer smiled. ‘I hear what you’re saying but it’s a difficult idea to take on board. I don’t know about you, but I feel guilty and self-indulgent pleasing myself.’ She looked at her hands. ‘And if truth be told, when I do have time to myself, I sometimes don’t know what to do with it.’

‘The curse of motherhood,’ said Donna wryly. ‘It’ll wear off eventually.’

Jennifer frowned, placed her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. ‘I do need to meet new people. But I don’t know where to start.’

‘Well I do,’ said Donna decisively. ‘Let’s get you signed up with an online dating agency.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. It, well, it seems like such an unnatural way to meet people.’

‘Oh, rubbish,’ said Donna. ‘It’s how I met Ken.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Jennifer and she put a hand over her mouth. Donna and Ken, a big, burly policeman with a heart of gold, had been together for four years. She blushed furiously and said, ‘I didn’t mean to … it’s just that –’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Donna, waving away Jennifer’s feeble attempt to backpedal like a bothersome bug. ‘You just have to look at it a different way. It’s the modern equivalent of meeting a guy in a pub. You like the look of somebody, share some information and, if you think you might get on, you arrange to meet. Simple.’

Jennifer squirmed in her seat and then a premonition came to mind – a vision of eating a lonely supper at her kitchen table, staring at the empty chairs where Lucy and Matt had sat for the last twelve years since they’d moved into the house in Oakwood Grove. No, the status quo had to change – and she mustn’t be afraid of it.

And yet, she still believed in the romance of a chance encounter, the spark of chemistry when a handsome man’s eyes met yours across a crowded room …

Something made her look up and there he was, the man in the pink shirt, only a few short strides from her. Standing in the middle of the restaurant with a tray of drinks in his hands. And he was staring at her without a flicker of a smile. No, not at her. He was staring into her eyes, his black pupils so dilated that the hazel-brown irises surrounding them were all but eclipsed. His gaze was penetrating, knowing; it touched her very soul. And she held it, startled, uncomfortable in the intensity of his gaze, but riveted nonetheless.

‘Drastic times call for drastic measures,’ persisted Donna, her voice breaking the spell. Jennifer, her heart pounding, broke eye contact, and the man moved away.

‘The man of your dreams isn’t going to land on your lap sitting at home in Ballyfergus,’ lectured Donna. ‘You have to go out there and get in the game. And it’ll be fun. Trust me. I met some great guys,’ she added, omitting to mention the many creeps she’d also encountered in her quest. ‘I’ll help you set up your profile.’

Jennifer, slightly breathless, struggled to regain her poise. It had been a long time since any man had looked at her that way. And none so gorgeous as him. She closed her eyes and saw him still, his clean-shaven image burned into the backs of her eyelids. His dark, softly curling locks skimming the collar of his shirt. And yet it seemed so improbable. He was so handsome. He could have any woman he wanted. Why would he want her? Perhaps she had imagined the stare. She opened her eyes. She must have. He could’ve been staring at someone else, or staring into thin air.

‘Jennifer?’ frowned Donna. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. Just a little woozy. You know, after the cocktail and the wine.’

After the waitress had brought over a glass of water, Donna said with a satisfied smile, ‘You won’t regret this. When Matt finally walks out that door you’ll be so busy having fun, you’ll hardly notice him gone. Speaking of which,’ she added, craning her neck to see past the diners at the next table, ‘isn’t that Matt over there?’

‘It couldn’t –’ began Jennifer but she turned to look and the words died on her lips. It was Matt. And he was smiling and talking to the man in the pink shirt. They spoke briefly and then disappeared through a dark wood-panelled door at the back of the restaurant.

Jennifer said, as much to herself as Donna, ‘What’s Matt doing here?’ And what business did he have with that man?

‘Job interview?’ offered Donna.

‘Of course.’ Jennifer pulled a face to signify irritation with her own dimwittedness as much as her surprise. Casually dressed in jeans and a hoodie, he certainly didn’t look like he was about to have an interview. And he hadn’t said anything to her. But why would he? He’d had lots of interviews lately and he hadn’t known that she was coming here. It had been Donna’s surprise. A ‘happening place’ she’d called it. ‘Yes, he must’ve come for an interview,’ she said, scrutinising with freshly invested interest the busy, noisy restaurant. ‘And if today’s anything to go by, he wouldn’t be short of work. This place is heaving.’

‘It always is,’ said Donna authoritatively. ‘It’s one of the best restaurants in town. They get all their fish from Ewing’s on the Shankill Road.’ In response to Jennifer’s blank face, she added, ‘They’re the finest fishmongers in the city. They supply all the Crawfords’ Belfast hotels too.’

‘The Crawfords?’ asked Jennifer, trying not to show too much interest. Everyone but the man behind the bar was dressed entirely in black. It occurred to her that he must be the manager.

‘You know,’ said Donna. ‘They own The Marine Hotel in Ballyfergus.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Jennifer, the name ringing a bell now. The Crawfords were one of the province’s most wealthy, prominent families.

‘It seems they’ve been busy buying up restaurants too,’ went on Donna. ‘They took this place over a year ago and completely transformed it. It was a right dump before.’

Jennifer said casually, ‘Who’s that guy Matt was talking to just now?’ Her eyes were drawn involuntarily to the door through which they’d disappeared.

‘The one in the pink shirt? That’s Ben Crawford. Heir to the Crawford empire.’

Ben. The name suited him, she decided. She liked it.

‘Ulster Tatler voted him Northern Ireland’s Most Eligible Bachelor last year,’ went on Donna.

Jennifer swallowed. He really was out of her league, but still she could not help herself asking, ‘And is he … is he nice?’

‘I’ve never met him but I met the father, Alan, at a charity dinner once. Godawful man. Loud. Pompous. Full of himself.’

Jennifer bit her lip. Like father, like son? And he had looked so nice.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Donna, placing a reassuring hand on Jennifer’s. ‘Apparently the son’s nothing like the father. So if Matt ends up working for him, I’m sure it’ll be absolutely fine.’

Chapter 2

Ben sat behind the desk in the cramped, windowless office at the back of the restaurant. He smiled at the good-looking young man sitting opposite him as he riffled through papers on the desk – and tried to put the image of the raven-haired woman out of his mind. He’d noticed her, sashaying across the floor in those black patent heels and that tight skirt, straight away. He could not believe that he’d had the audacity to stare at her like that, slap bang in the middle of a crowded restaurant. What had possessed him?

Perhaps it had something to do with making the decision about Rebecca. He’d still to act on it, of course, and he wasn’t looking forward to it. He glanced anxiously at the mobile lying on the table. He’d texted her earlier to ask if she would meet him tonight for a drink. He’d tell her then.

It wasn’t that he had a wandering eye. Far from it, he thought, pulling a résumé from the pile. He’d always been faithful to girlfriends and he wasn’t in the habit of staring at attractive women. But this one, for some reason, had caught his eye and he couldn’t stop himself. And she had stared back, making his heart race and his mouth go dry.

Pushing these thoughts to one side, he cleared his throat. ‘I’m really sorry, Matt. The Head Chef, Jason McCluskey, should be here for the interview but he’s been called away urgently.’ His three-year-old daughter, Emily, who had a rare blood disorder, had just been rushed into hospital with an asthma attack. ‘So, although this is really unusual, I’ll be doing the interview today.’

‘Okay.’ Matt smiled for the first time. He had an open, pleasing face, the sort that inspired trust in men and admiration in women. If his cooking was as good as his looks, he’d go far.

Ben picked up a blank A4 pad and tried to concentrate on Matt. Initially impressions were not good – his hair was too long and he’d not made much of an effort in his Abercrombie hoodie and skinny jeans. Ben disliked recruiting – he felt uncomfortable with the responsibility; he did not like the fact that he held the power to determine, even to a small extent, other people’s destinies. He worried that he might get it wrong. And if hiring was stressful, firing was even worse.

Only last week he’d sacked one of the waitresses, a single mum to toddler twins, for persistent, poor time-keeping. Three times she’d not turned up for work without so much as a phone call. He’d given her dozens of warnings and more chances than she deserved but in the end, for the sake of morale amongst the other staff, he’d had to let her go. And it had torn him apart. Steeling himself, he resolved to do what he always did – his best – though always mindful that he could never fill the shoes that went before him, so different in every way from his own.

Matt Irwin, he wrote across the top of the page, and settled into the brown leather swivel chair. Aiming to put the candidate at ease, he rested his right foot casually on his left knee. ‘I’ve read your CV, Matt, so I can see you’re qualified for the job. But tell me more about your practical work experience.’

‘I’ve worked in the kitchen of The Marine Hotel in Ballyfergus since I was sixteen. It’s one of the Crawford Group Hotels,’ he needlessly pointed out, keen to show he’d done his homework, to impress.

‘That’s right.’ The Marine, then rundown and in need of refurbishment, was the first hotel his father had bought thirty years ago. Now the Crawford Group had a board of directors and owned a string of top-class hotels across the province – and Alan, having done all he could feasibly do in that arena, had decided to diversify into the restaurant market. Now that The Lemon Tree was successfully established, Alan felt the time was right to establish another restaurant in the nearby thriving port of Ballyfergus. Past success, no matter how great, did not motivate Ben’s father – he was incapable of resting on his laurels. He sought out new challenges – endlessly, exhaustingly. And it had only gotten worse after Ricky. ‘You got a very good reference from the head chef at the Marine. Though you weren’t working as a commis chef, of course.’

‘That’s right. I was a kitchen porter,’ said Matt and added quickly, ‘And there were the college placements too. At The Potted Herring. That was brilliant. They were going to give me a permanent job, you know.’

‘And then they went bust,’ said Ben sadly, with a shake of his head. Restaurant closures in the city had hit an all-time high the year before, and this year hadn’t been much better. ‘That was bad luck.’

It struck him then just how remarkable the success of The Lemon Tree was, given the depressed state of the economy. And how much of that success was down to his father’s vision and business acumen. Very few other restaurateurs were in a position to expand.

‘Yeah,’ said Matt, ‘it sucks. But I’m not the only one. No one on my course has got a proper job.’ He rubbed the thighs of his jeans with the palms of his hands. ‘Look, I know I don’t have as much experience as you might like. As you’re looking for.’ He leaned forward with his large hands dangling between his spread-out legs. Ben noticed that they were shaking. ‘But I’m very good. Better than good. Honest. Ask my tutors.’

Ben, doodling a series of light zig-zagged lines across the top of the page, remembered what his father said about employing staff with relevant experience. ‘You don’t want any greenhorns,’ he’d said. ‘Let them cut their teeth on someone else’s time.’ Ben’s hand stilled and he looked at Matt. Alan Crawford would never employ this young man. And even open-minded Jason, who was all for encouraging raw talent, might have reservations. But if no one was prepared to give a lad like him a chance, how would he ever get started?

Aware that Matt had been silent for some moments and was now staring at him, Ben said, ‘So tell me why I should give you the commis chef job?’

Matt took a deep breath, held it, then let it all out in an audible rush. He stared straight at Ben and said, ‘Because I’m different. Because I don’t just follow recipes and do things by rote. I create.’ He raised his hands upwards as if tossing something into the air and his voice, quiet to start with, grew louder, the passion in it swelling like a pot coming to the boil. ‘I use my imagination. I’m not afraid to experiment and try new things. And I care. Everything I do has to be perfect.’

Ben put down his pen and stared at Matt, mesmerised by the lad’s self-belief.

Matt looked at the palms of his hands and a muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘My hands were made to cook. This is what I was born to do. I’ve been fascinated by food and how to cook it ever since I was a child. Ask my Mum.’ He looked directly at Ben then. ‘There’s nothing in the world I would rather do. And one day I’m going to have a chain of restaurants and they’ll be the best in all of Ireland. My food’ll be better than anything Paul Rankin or Rachel Allen or any Irish chef has ever done. You wait and see.’ Then he threw himself back in the chair and blinked back tears.

Ben, slightly stunned, said nothing. He’d never before met a more self-assured nineteen-year-old nor one who seemed so certain of his path in life, his destiny. And he was filled with a rush of bitter regret. If he’d had the confidence, the passion, to fight for what he’d wanted seven years ago, he wouldn’t be sitting here today at the age of twenty-eight, trapped in a job and a lifestyle he hated so much. At the time he thought he’d done the right thing, the only thing. But he’d not been true to himself. He’d sacrificed his lifetime’s ambition to rescue his father, to give him a reason to go on. But with every day that passed, while Alan’s dreams came to fruition, Ben’s became a little more distant, a little harder to recall.

‘I shouldn’t have said that, should I?’ said Matt abruptly and he stood up, his tall frame towering over Ben. ‘Maybe I’m not the guy for this job. I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.’

He turned then and started to walk to the door on the balls of his feet, hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans.

‘Wait,’ shouted Ben and Matt turned round.

Ben held out his hands as if presenting this truth in them. ‘I can see you’re passionate and ambitious – and that’s fantastic – but you have to start somewhere. You can’t wade in at the age of nineteen, fresh out of college, and start running a kitchen.’

Matt nodded and said, deflated, ‘I know. And that’s why I’m here. I really need this job.’

Ben imagined what his father would say. But Alan wasn’t here. ‘I’ve read your references, Matt. I believe you’re as good as you say you are. And there’s no doubting your commitment. But there’s a big difference between catering college and hacking it, day in and day out, in a commercial kitchen.’

‘I know that,’ said Matt.

Ben, eyeballing him, went on, ‘You have to be prepared to work harder than you’ve ever done.’

‘I am.’

‘And you have to respect the hierarchy. You have to be able to take orders. If you can’t do that, there’s no place for you in this kitchen, in any commercial kitchen.’

Matt nodded and said hopefully, ‘I haven’t blown it then?’

Ben shook his head and decided there and then, in that moment, that he was going to take a chance on this lad no matter what his father, or Jason, might say. This project was, after all, meant to be his. ‘Not as far as I’m concerned,’ he smiled. ‘You will have to convince Jason as well though.’

Matt’s thick black eyebrows moved up a fraction in surprise. Then he grinned and punched the air and cried, ‘Yes!’

‘I’ll put in a good word for you with him.’ He’d have to do more than that – he’d have to persuade Jason to take on a boy who, on paper, was less well qualified than some other applicants. But none had impressed him like Matt. And none of the others had sparked in him the desire to help them.

Matt came over, grasped Ben’s hand in both of his and shook it vigorously. ‘I won’t let you down, Ben. I promise.’

‘Don’t forget that Jason’s the boss. So maybe keep your plans for a culinary take-over of Ireland to yourself for the time being, eh?’

Matt laughed. ‘Okay. I understand.’

Ben got them both a coffee and said, ‘Let me tell you a bit more about our plans. It’ll help when you meet with Jason.’ They talked about the restaurant’s image, the number of covers, the clientele they aimed to attract, the type and quality of food they would serve based on the province’s abundant supply of high-quality produce.

‘That’s definitely the way to go,’ offered Matt. ‘Quality over price. People don’t want to eat cheap rubbish any more. They want to know where the food on their plate comes from.’

Ben smiled and thought of how Matt’s ethos contrasted so markedly with his father’s. Alan had latched on to the ‘finest local produce’ mantra only because he was astute enough to realise it was what people wanted to hear – and that put bums on seats. He knew good food, but his primary interest was in the business side – menu pricing, cost control, cash flow and profit margins. But that focus, thought Ben with a grudging respect, was why he was such a good businessman.

His people skills however, while good, weren’t quite as well honed. Though Ben had never spoken about it, Alan realised that he was unhappy in his job. But, unable to identify with any personality type other than his own competitive and work-obsessed one, Alan assumed Ben was bored. He thought Ben needed a new and exciting challenge and told him so. It did not occur to Alan to ask Ben what he wanted and Ben, in turn, knowing how the truth would wound his father, kept silent.

Hence the new restaurant in Ballyfergus, a start-up venture with no guarantee of success. Ben worried that he would fail, that he simply wouldn’t be able to summon the necessary energy and drive to deliver what his father expected.

So, far from looking forward to it, Ben was dreading it. And not just the long hours. He’d no desire to live in a small-town rural backwater like Ballyfergus. He didn’t want to leave Belfast and his flat full of books that he loved so much. Living near the university had helped him keep his dream of a teaching career alive. The only advantage he could see in moving to Ballyfergus was that it would mean getting away from Rebecca.

A short while later, as Matt and Ben strolled companionably across the pale ash floor of the restaurant towards the exit, they passed close by the dark-haired woman and her friend.

‘Matt!’

Abruptly they both stopped and looked over at the table and Matt’s face broke into a grin. ‘What are you doing here?’ he cried and, peeling away from Ben, went straight over to the table and embraced the sexy woman in black who was now standing with a white napkin dangling from her hand. How did Matt know her, he wondered. When they separated, she said, laughing, ‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘I came to see Ben here,’ he replied, ‘about a commis chef job.’

‘Oh,’ she said and blushed a little.

Ben came forward, not daring to look directly at the woman’s face in case he betrayed his uneasiness. He could smell her sweet, citrusy perfume now and see the gentle rise and fall of her chest, and lower still, the curve of her shapely calves.

‘Ben, this here’s Donna.’

Ben smiled and shook her hand.

‘… and this is my Mum.’

Mum! Startled, he looked straight at her then. This gorgeous creature was Matt’s mother? It was impossible. But then he saw the likeness in the oval shape of her face; the strong jaw line; the wide, pleasing mouth. And he saw, now that he was closer, that she was a little older than he’d assumed. Her skin creased at the corners of her eyes and she had deep laughter lines on both sides of her mouth when she smiled. She was no less beautiful than he’d first thought but disappointment tempered his admiration. She must’ve been very young when she’d had Matt. She looked directly at him, with eyes the same colour as Matt’s, every pretty feature illuminated and enhanced by the warm smile her son had inherited from her. ‘I’m Jennifer. Lovely to meet you, Ben.’

He managed to mumble something in reply and Jennifer said, ‘Well, how did the interview go?’

‘Great,’ said Ben.

‘I’ve still got to pass an interview with the Head Chef,’ added Matt.

‘More a formality than anything,’ said Ben boldly, without taking his eyes off Jennifer, realising as he said it, that it was a lie. Yet he was desperate for some reason to impress this woman – and please her.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful, Matt,’ she said and turned her attention to him, leaving Ben feeling as if a shadow had just passed overhead, blocking out the rays of the sun. She placed the flat of her palm on Matt’s cheek momentarily, causing him to redden with embarrassment, and added, ‘I’m so pleased for you. This looks like a great place to work.’ She dropped her hand and scanned the restaurant. ‘And Belfast isn’t so far away, is it?’ she said, as if trying to convince herself of something. ‘You’ll have to move up here, of course. Get your own place.’

‘The job isn’t in Belfast, Mum. It’s in Ballyfergus.’

‘Oh! Where?’ she said, her question directed not at Matt but at Ben.

‘Near the town centre,’ explained Ben, hiding his anxiety behind a smile. If Jason refused to employ Matt, he’d have to tell him that he couldn’t have the job. ‘On the site of an old fish and chip café. Peggy’s Kitchen, I think it was called.’

‘Oh, I know exactly where you mean,’ said Jennifer, her face lighting up. ‘It used to be a mecca for bikers from all round East Antrim. It closed down years ago. I’d heard it’d been sold.’ And turning to Matt she added, her face radiant with joy, ‘Imagine getting a job in Ballyfergus! Isn’t that just wonderful?’

Ben looked at Jennifer’s left hand. There was no band on her ring finger, but that didn’t mean anything. She certainly wouldn’t look at a guy like him. She’d want someone mature, a man who was secure in himself and his place in the world, someone confident and successful.

But even though he knew he had no chance with her, he wanted to know everything about her. Matt had mentioned that he lived with his mother and his résumé listed an address in Ballyfergus. He had not been looking forward to it but, all of a sudden, Ballyfergus seemed like an attractive proposition …

As if he could read Ben’s mind, Matt said, ‘Mum has her own interior design business in Ballyfergus. Just in case you’re looking for someone to design the restaurant.’

So she was both beautiful and smart. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, addressing Jennifer. ‘A company’s already contracted to do the interior. Calico Design. We’ve used them before.’

She waved away his apology with a hand gesture and simply laughed. ‘Good choice. Matt, stop being forward.’

‘Well someone has to be,’ he said good-naturedly and turned to Ben and added, ‘Mum’s not very good at self-promotion.’ Jennifer blushed and Matt went on, ‘I have to help her out now and again.’

‘Oh, don’t listen to him,’ she said, her eyes sparkling with merriment.

Matt pulled his mobile out of his pocket and looked at the screen. ‘I gotta go, everyone.’ He said his goodbyes and held out his hand to Ben. ‘Thanks mate.’

Then he left and Donna went to the ladies’, leaving Ben and Jennifer standing alone together.

‘Well, wasn’t that a coincidence?’ she mused. ‘Us coming here for lunch at the same time Matt turns up for an interview with you.’

‘Serendipity,’ said Ben, unable to stop himself from staring at her. She returned his gaze without so much as a blink and they stood like that for a few frozen seconds.

A loud entrance broke the eye contact. It was Rebecca, bare legged and short skirted. Ben’s heart sank. What was she doing here? She strode across the room, her high heels clipping loudly, her long fake-tanned legs the same colour as the varnished wood floor. She glanced from side to side, making sure everyone in the room was looking at her. And they were. Rebecca was a stunning model, signed with his mother’s modelling agency, Diane Crawford Models.

Rebecca flicked her head and long hair cascaded down like a curtain of spun gold. She wore as much make-up as a geisha – and a smile like a sticky plaster.

‘Ben,’ cried Rebecca, throwing elongated, thin arms around his neck and, to his absolute horror, planting a kiss on his lips. He detached her arms, tentacle-like, and wiped pink, gloopy lipstick from his mouth with the back of his hand. He managed a nervous laugh and she glowered at him from under eyelashes as thick and black as spider’s legs.

‘Rebecca! What are you doing here?’

‘Aren’t you pleased to see your girlfriend?’ she pouted childishly.

‘Well … yes … of course,’ he stumbled.

‘I had a modelling job in the area – a promotional thing in Castlecourt – and was just passing,’ she said airily. That explained the inappropriate make-up. She placed a proprietorial hand on his arm and lowered her voice. ‘I got your text. Thought I’d pop in rather than wait till tonight.’

She flashed a fixed, professional smile at Jennifer and he said, taking her cue, ‘Well, it’s been very nice meeting you, Jennifer. And I hope to see you and Donna in Ballyfergus when we open.’

‘You can count on it,’ said Donna, who appeared from nowhere.

Rebecca hooked her arm in his and led him away to the bar. ‘Who was that granny you were talking to?’ she giggled, with a cool, cruel glance over her shoulder.

‘Don’t be so rude. And keep your voice down, for heaven’s sake. She’ll hear you.’ He turned his back, like a shield, towards Jennifer’s table, filled with an urge to protect her from Rebecca’s spiteful comments.

What had he ever seen in her? Apart from a pretty face. Of course, when they’d first met six months ago – courtesy of his mother who was always trying to pair Ben off – Rebecca had been perfectly charming. Fun even. It was only fairly recently, when the chemistry between them had worn off and she began to relax around him, that her true personality had emerged.

Rebecca gave him an icy look, planted her bag on the bar and climbed onto a bar stool, her tight skirt barely covering her crotch. She looked at him calmly with almond-shaped, blue eyes. Each dark brown eyebrow was a perfect, thin arch. ‘So who is she?’

‘I just interviewed her son, Matt, for a chef’s job,’ he said, finding it difficult to make eye contact. ‘She happened to be in here with her friend at the same time.’ Ben glanced at the exit just in time to see Jennifer and her friend walking out.

‘So she is old enough to be my mother,’ said Rebecca. When this elicited no reaction from Ben bar a cold look, she smiled, transforming her face to photo-perfection. ‘So what did you want to talk about? Oh, did you get the tickets for the X Factor Live show at the Odyssey?’

‘I don’t want to go, Rebecca. I’ve told you that a hundred times.’

Her face fell, like this was the first time he’d imparted the news. ‘Look, this isn’t the time or the place to talk,’ he said, looking around self-consciously. ‘I’m working.’

He should have finished with Rebecca a long time ago. Lately he’d begun to wonder if her ardour had more to do with what he was – a Crawford – than who he was as a person. Last week she’d given him a price list of everything she wanted, nay expected, for her birthday, a gesture so mercenary it had shocked him. And today, those cruel, unnecessary remarks about Jennifer – well, they only confirmed that he was doing the right thing.

‘No you’re not, you’re talking to me. Anyway,’ she said, casting a careless glance over her shoulder, ‘they can manage without you for a few minutes, can’t they? You’re the boss after all. No one can tell you what to do.’ And she actually snapped her fingers to attract the attention of Chris behind the bar.

Ben’s face reddened with embarrassment. ‘It’s all right, Chris,’ he said, jumping up, as the stony-faced barman approached. ‘I’ll get it.’

He served her drink. She made no offer of payment, not that he’d have taken it. ‘I have to get back to work, Rebecca. Can you meet me later?’

‘You’re going to finish with me, aren’t you?’ she said flatly.

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Let’s talk tonight, Rebecca.’

‘You are, aren’t you?’ she said fiercely, her eyes glinting with angry tears.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you here. Like this.’

She glared at him and drummed her painted nails like weapons on the granite surface of the bar. ‘Why?’

‘We’re just not suited, Rebecca. You’re a great girl but we’re not very compatible, are we?’

‘Tell me about it,’ she said viciously. ‘You and your stupid books and old black and white movies. And wanting to sit in on a Saturday night like an old fart reading bloody poetry when everyone else is out partying. Jesus, I don’t know how I put up with it.’

Ben felt his face colour. He thought she liked their nights in. Was this how she’d felt all along?

She grabbed her bag and wriggled off the stool, pulling the hem of her skirt down with her right hand. ‘Well, you can go screw yourself, Ben Crawford,’ she shouted, as a hushed silence descended in the room and all the diners strained to hear. ‘I never want to see you again.’

Chapter 3

Lucy was the last to leave the three-storey terrace house on Wellington Park Avenue that she shared with five other second-year girls. She locked the front door and lugged the bag of dirty laundry down to the bus stop. There was a washing machine in the house but it was coin operated and she’d neither the money for that, nor to buy the washing powder. It cost nothing to do laundry at home.

She did not have to wait long for a bus into Belfast city centre. Settling into a seat by the window she jammed her knees into the back of the seat in front, nursed the bag on her lap and looked out on the overcast, calm afternoon. Already the leaves on the trees that lined the many avenues around Queen’s University were starting to turn and soon the grey pavements would be littered with their crisp, bronzed beauty. The nights would start to close in, forcing her indoors to her room, making it harder to resist what she knew she must.

At the next stop a group of students, boys and girls, laden down with bags, got on the bus and she listened with lonely envy as they chatted about their plans for the weekend. The other girls in the house often invited each other home for the weekend, but Lucy was never on the receiving end of one of those invitations. And she had no desire to bring any of them home. They weren’t her friends. They were housemates, nothing more. Because try as she might she simply couldn’t get on their wavelength – a mindset that seemed to revolve around dyed blonde hair and too much make-up, short-skirted fashion and boyfriends. Their conversation was so shallow and she didn’t understand much of it anyway, peppered as it was with references to TV shows she didn’t watch and music she didn’t listen to. To Lucy’s mind they spent far too much time partying, while she sat alone in her room most nights poring over books – not because she wanted to but because she was afraid of what might happen if she didn’t.

And so Lucy was both amazed and annoyed, in equal measure, that not only had these girls managed to make it into second year, most of them had done it with better exam results than her. She attributed this to the fact that her Applied Mathematics and Physics course was more demanding, the assessment process more challenging, the examinations more rigorous – it must be so. She tried not to dwell on the fact that one girl was reading Biochemistry and another Physics – subjects that could hardly be dismissed as lacking in intellectual rigour. For the idea that these girls might be pretty, popular and clever was too much to bear. She would never be pretty, her singular character precluded her ever being popular and she could barely scrape a pass in exams.

Once off the bus, the strap of her heavy bag digging uncomfortably into her bony shoulder, she popped into a newsagents and, after a long deliberation, settled on a card and box of chocolates for her mother’s birthday. The card, one of those jokey ones with penguins on it, wasn’t exactly suitable but the selection was poor. And, at one pound sixty-nine pence, it was all she could afford. In her closed fist she clutched her last five pound note, wilted and damp from her tight, sweaty grip. Reluctantly, she handed it to the shop-owner with a weak smile. The change, when she counted it, wasn’t enough to buy a sheet of wrapping paper. Outside the shop she crouched down on the pavement and stuffed the purchases into her bag with a terrible sense of guilt. Even though they didn’t always see eye to eye, her mother deserved better.

She walked briskly to East Bridge Street then, her shoulders hunched against the cold, head down against the roar of the endless, screaming traffic, her shoulder-length hair, the colour of dirty straw, hanging lank round her face. She crossed her arms, feeling the wind through her thin grey jacket, and thought over the events of the past week. It wasn’t that she had forgotten her mother’s birthday on Wednesday, not at all. It was just that she’d forgotten to put aside some cash for a decent present – and she’d run out of money on her mobile so she couldn’t even call. She was on a pay-as-you-go contract, not that her parents knew this. The phone company had cancelled her monthly contract after she’d failed to pay her bills.

She could kick herself now. She should’ve bought a card and present – maybe a handbag from TK Maxx – earlier in the month, before she was skint. But, to be honest, her mother’s birthday was the least of her worries. She’d had to go and see the bank manager this morning, an extremely distressing experience that had her truly, deeply worried for the first time. Up until now she’d managed to keep him off her back with hints of family wealth. Her father had guaranteed her overdraft – a safety net, he’d said, for dire emergencies only.

But today, the bank manager wasn’t having any of it. He’d let her have twenty pounds along with a stern warning that enough was enough. If she couldn’t manage her money, then he would have to warn the guarantor, her father, that the debt could be called in. She hooked a hank of hair behind her right ear and bit the inside of her cheek. If her father started digging around in her finances, he would unearth the root cause of the debt. She could not allow that to happen.

How had she got herself into such a mess? And how was she ever going to get out of it?

On the train, two suited businessmen sat down opposite her and opened the sports pages of the Belfast Tele. She sniffed back the tears with determination and fingered the gold watch on her wrist, an eighteenth birthday present from her father. She could sell the watch. Better still, she could pretend she’d lost it and claim the insurance money. And then, appalled by the idea of such deception, she yanked the sleeve of her jacket over the watch and turned her back on temptation.

The train creaked into motion and rolled out of the station. She would have to seek the answer to her problem – the immediate one of money, at least – in Ballyfergus, in the form of her parents and their deep pockets. And then, she resolved firmly, though not for the first time, she would take herself in hand. She would conquer this thing. This time she meant it. She closed her eyes, inhaling slowly, allowing this resolve to fill her up. And, when she opened her eyes, she found her spirits brighter, her outlook less gloomy.

The train picked up more passengers at Yorkgate, then on to Whiteabbey, Jordanstown, Greenisland, names that, as a child, had signified the world beyond Ballyfergus. A world she had been curious, keen even, to explore until discovering that the place she loved best was her hometown.

She pulled a book on calculus out of her bag and tried to focus. But the graphs and figures danced around the page, meaningless, incomprehensible. She put down the book and twirled a shaft of thin, brittle hair around her nail-bitten fingers and allowed herself to imagine what it would feel like to do something she actually enjoyed …

The train reached the garrison town of Carrickfergus, dominated by the great, grey fortress of the same name, which many considered to be the finest and best-preserved Norman fortress in Ireland. After Mum and Dad split up, Dad used to bring her and Matt here, more often than she cared to remember, as if he didn’t know what else to do with them. It was marginally better than sitting around his new flat with none of her favourite things around her. It got better after Dad married Maggie and they moved into the big house. At least that felt like a home, albeit someone else’s.

The train pulled into the station and one of the businessmen got off. After leaving Carrickfergus, the train hugged the coastline, the beautiful waters of Belfast Lough stretching out to the east, calm and steel-coloured on this dull day.

The rocking of the carriage had a calming effect on Lucy; the heat made her drowsy. The man across from her turned the page of his paper, the rustling sound reassuring somehow, and her mind turned to the pleasant things that awaited her at home. Her heart swelled with happiness at the thought of her brother, Matt, who would be waiting for her at the station. And her beloved dog, Muffin. She was looking forward to seeing her two little step-sisters, whom she had loved from the day they were born. Her parents too. And by Sunday night, she would be back on the train with a pocketful of cash and all would be well. For a time anyway …

The train rumbled along the coast through Downshire before cutting inland again through the town of Whitehead. Then on through leafy Ballycarry station before emerging, finally, on the shores of Ballyfergus Lough.

The familiar beauty of the Lough brought a sense of peace to Lucy and she smiled at last as she caught her first glimpse of Ballyfergus in the distance. The town’s origins lay in the busy ferry port, around which the town had grown and expanded. And now, with a population of over eighteen thousand, the town sprawled up the hillside, engulfing the surrounding rural townlands. A town small enough to know like the back of your hand, big enough to pass through unnoticed, and the only place where Lucy felt at home.

An hour after leaving Belfast city centre, Lucy stepped onto the platform and into a quickening westerly wind. She took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh, clean air, then hurried to the car park. She spotted her mother’s red car straight away, the sound of music blasting across the tarmac even though all the windows were shut. When he saw her coming, Matt got out of the car, took her bag and threw it in the boot. Then he gave her a bear hug, nearly lifting her off her feet, and she smiled for the second time that day.

‘How are you, big sis?’ he said, releasing her.

‘Glad to be home.’

At six foot three, Matt had, like her, inherited their father’s height and slim build. He’d also inherited their mother’s good looks that had so cruelly passed Lucy by – thick, dark hair, an oval-shaped face, high cheekbones, large dark brown eyes, and a smile that was impossible to resist. Lucy, with her washed-out colouring, too-skinny figure and plain face felt as though she’d been handed the leftovers. And while Matt’s height was a blessing, hers was a curse. At five foot eleven, she towered over most guys, making her feel ridiculous and conspicuous. It was so unfair – why had Matt got all the trump cards?

Matt frowned. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Your hair needs a cut.’

Matt pulled the cap off, ran his hands through his thatch of thick hair. He grinned, put the cap back on and said, ‘I’m growing it. Lots of chefs have ponytails these days.’

Lucy gave him a sceptical look and they both got in the car. ‘Would you turn that down?’ she shouted above the din – of a male rapper she thought, but couldn’t be sure.

‘Don’t you like Dizzee Rascal?’

‘Not my favourite,’ she grinned and rolled her eyes like she knew what she was talking about. Was Dizzee an artist? Or a band?

Matt turned down the music and Lucy breathed a sigh of relief.

She didn’t care for music – of any kind. It was a language she could not understand, a code she could not crack. Background music, whether in the communal kitchen of her digs or drifting down the hall from Matt’s room at home, was an unwelcome distraction, demanding her attention, interfering with her ability to think clearly. She preferred silence or the soothing sounds of the spoken word. For this reason, she listened to Radio Four – though she’d quickly learnt to turn it off when her flatmates were about.

Matt drove off, tyres screeching on the tarmac. Mum would have a fit if she saw the way he drove the Micra when she wasn’t around. But Lucy would never tell, not on Matt. She stared out the window as they drove the familiar route home. Away from the town centre the streets were all but deserted, save for the odd dog walker or kids wandering home late from school. Nothing much happened in Ballyfergus and that was part of its appeal. She found the continuity of life here reassuring.

‘I’ve got some news for you,’ said Matt, interrupting her thoughts. ‘I had an interview at The Lemon Tree today. I did text you.’

‘Oh, problems with my phone,’ said Lucy dismissively. ‘But what about the job? Did you get it?’ She clasped her hands against her chest praying that he’d been successful. Since he’d finished college three months ago he’d found only sporadic work at the local chippy. And it was getting him down. He’d started talking about leaving Ballyfergus for Dublin or London. So the prospect of a job that kept him so close to home was wonderful news.

He grinned, said nothing for what seemed like forever, and then blurted out, ‘Yes!’

‘Oh, Matt,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. She touched him lightly on the arm. ‘That’s just the best news. Now you won’t have to move away from Northern Ireland.’

‘I won’t have to move anywhere,’ he announced happily, the optimism in his voice making her blink back the tears. ‘The job’s in Ballyfergus.’

‘Where?’ she said and sent up a silent prayer of thanks. If Matt had moved away, what would she have done? He was the one person who understood her best and loved her in spite of the way she was. Mum and Dad were always trying to change her, to mould her into the popular, cool daughter they so clearly desired.

Matt told her about the interview with someone called Ben, the new restaurant opening up where Peggy’s Kitchen used to be, when he hoped to start work. And Lucy listened to his animated chatter filled with joy. This was what she’d hoped for as they moved into adulthood – both of them living in, or close to, Ballyfergus.

Unlike her flatmate Fran, who came from Ballyclare, and Bernie, who hailed from Limavady, Lucy had never yearned to leave her small town roots behind. Fran and Bernie loathed the places they came from and vowed to never go back. Lucy, who listened with astonishment as they derided their hometowns, had no desire to live anywhere else.

She was not jealous of Matt. She loved him too much to envy him. But she could not help but contrast the direction his life was taking with her own. He had always known what he wanted to do while she, full of uncertainty and doubt, still had no idea.

‘Mum and Donna were having lunch there,’ went on Matt. ‘It was a bit embarrassing. Mum went all soppy when she found out I got the job. I thought she was going to kiss me at one point but, thank God, she only patted me on the cheek.’

They both laughed heartily at this and Lucy managed to say, ‘But you’d be disappointed if she did any less.’

‘I guess so. Though I’m still going to move out.’

‘But why?’ she said surprised. ‘You and Mum get on really well.’ If Matt moved into a place of his own, or worse, a shared flat or house, she’d not see so much of him. ‘And, it’s cheaper living at home,’ she argued, trying to think up reasons to deter him. ‘You’ll have more money to spend, and save, if you don’t waste it on rent. That way you could save up a deposit on a flat of your own.’

He cocked his head to one side, considering this. ‘That’s true but I really need my own place. I love Mum but it can be difficult sometimes, living at home.’

‘In what way?’ said Lucy, astounded. She knew that it would be difficult for her to live at home full time. Mum was always picking on her, moaning about how she managed her money, needling her about her social life, expecting her to do things around the house she didn’t ask of Matt. And though she would’ve died for her brother, there was no doubt in Lucy’s mind that Matt was the favourite.

‘Well, you know what she’s like about smoking in the house,’ he said, reluctantly, as if uncomfortable talking about their mother like this behind her back. ‘And she’s right, I guess. It’s her house, after all,’ he added hastily, and waited for Lucy’s nod of agreement before going on. ‘Well, Rory had a smoke in the TV room the other night and she was none too pleased. It wasn’t a big deal but it’s hard living under parent’s rules when you’re an adult.’

‘Still, I wouldn’t do anything too hasty, if I was you,’ she said quickly, looking out the passenger door window to hide the colour in her cheeks, brought forth by the notion of her, of all people, dishing out financial advice. If only Matt knew …

She yawned then, the heat of the car making her sleepy. She’d hardly slept the night before worrying about that bank manager and his threats.

‘Hard week?’ said Matt, leaning over to change radio channels.

‘Oh, just the usual,’ said Lucy nonchalantly and she thought back on the last, typical week at uni. She’d spent four of the last five nights in her pokey single room in the subdivided house. On Tuesday night she’d gone to the cinema with Amy, one of her few friends, to see a horror film.

‘All that partying’s catching up on you,’ he said and winked conspiratorially.

Lucy forced a grin and looked out the window again. She longed to tell Matt the reality of university life – how much she hated her course; how lonely it was; how she didn’t seem to fit in anywhere; how much she missed Muffin. Matt knew her better than anyone else, yet she still could not be herself entirely, even with him.

‘That’s the one thing I regret about not going to uni,’ went on Matt, wistfully. ‘The craic must be great.’ He shook his head regretfully and Lucy opened her mouth to reassure him that he wasn’t missing anything, but Matt, who was never down for long, brightened. ‘But you know me. I’d much rather be doing something than poring over dusty books. That was never my style, was it? You were always the clever one,’ he said without malice.

How could he not see the truth? She wasn’t clever, not clever enough anyway. She’d failed to get the grades for vet school. And she’d never forget the look on her father’s face the night she’d told him she wouldn’t be following in his footsteps.

Matt’s mobile, lying on his lap, flashed and he picked it up and quickly scanned the incoming text, keeping one eye on the road ahead. He chuckled.

‘What is it?’ said Lucy.

‘It’s Paul. He wants to know if I’m coming out for a pint tomorrow night.’

‘Will you go then?’

‘Aye, probably,’ he said and she bit her lip on her disappointment. He tossed the phone on his lap and Lucy glared at it jealously. She had hoped they might spend some time together. Matt was so popular, and had a talent for making new friends. Within weeks of starting his catering course he’d been pals with everyone. And if he wasn’t actually out socialising, he was never done texting and tweeting and posting things on Facebook.

‘Here we are. Home, sweet home.’ Matt pulled up in front of a modest detached house in a small leafy development of ten houses just off The Roddens. It had been quite a shock after the big house they’d lived in before their parents split up twelve years ago. Jennifer had tried to sell this new home in Oakwood Grove to Lucy on the basis that it was better located, but she wasn’t fooled. Nothing good had come out of her parents’ divorce. In fact, it had marked the start of everything going wrong for Lucy.

As soon as she opened the front door Muffin came bumbling slowly up the hall. His bony tail, the only part of him that moved with any exuberance these days, thwacked against the wall. He was a black and white collie, breathless from lack of exercise because he could not walk very far on his arthritic paws. And he was almost deaf. But his chin lifted when he realised it was his Lucy come home. He let out a little whine of delight and raised his snout in the air.

Lucy dropped to her knees, her eyes filled with tears at the sight of him, and he came over to her and sat down. He rested his head on her shoulder and let out a long contented sigh. Lucy buried her face in his coarse, dry fur, the lustrous glossiness of his youth long gone. And then he yelped and jumped back – Lucy, shuffling on the carpet, had leant her weight on his front paw.

‘I’m sorry, Muffin!’ she cried. She would rather hurt herself than her best friend. Like Matt, Muffin’s love was unconditional. He didn’t care that she was unattractive and had no friends. He simply loved her. And she him.

‘Hey, what’s up, old boy?’ said Matt, stepping around them both. He touched the dog on the head. Muffin licked Matt’s hand and sat down again.

‘I accidentally knelt on his paw. Oh, look Matt. He’s holding it up. Do you think it’ll be all right?’ She hugged the dog again and whispered, ‘I’m so sorry, Muffin. It was an accident. I never meant to hurt you.’ Sensing her distress the dog, still seated, licked her face and his tail swept across the carpet like a broom.

‘He’ll be all right in a minute,’ said Matt. ‘He’s always hurting himself. Walking into things. Happens all the time.’

Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. She struggled to her feet and Muffin ambled slowly back up the hall to the kitchen where he spent most of his time now curled up in his bed. He flopped down with a weary sigh and Lucy said, ‘Oh, don’t say that, Matt.’

Matt came over and patted her briefly on the shoulder. ‘He’s fourteen, Lucy. That’s old for a collie.’

Lucy’s bottom lip quivered. ‘I don’t want him to die, Matt.’

Matt squeezed her shoulders. ‘I know. I don’t either. But he’s not in great shape. And you wouldn’t want him to suffer, would you?’

Lucy blinked back the tears. ‘No, of course not.’

‘And when the time comes, we won’t let him, okay?’

‘Okay,’ she said bravely. She remembered with sudden clarity the summer she’d got Muffin. She remembered a soft bundle of black and white fur tearing madly round the garden after the water spurting out of the sprinkler. She’d been only six then and his liveliness had astounded, almost frightened, her at times. She had loved it best when he, finally exhausted, fell asleep in her arms, his black nose like a wet pebble, his warm damp breath like a kiss on her cheek. Everything was perfect then; her parents still loved each other, and she had the best dog in the world.

After they’d had something to eat together, Matt went out. She was disappointed, but having the house all to herself was the next best thing.

Now was the perfect opportunity to raid the cupboards for food – she squirrelled two tins of tuna, a tinned steak pie and a can of corned beef in her bag, along with shampoo and soap from a supply she found under the stairs. She’d take more food on Sunday night before she left. Mum’d never notice – she stockpiled food like there was a war on. She tipped her laundry on the floor of the narrow utility room and rummaged in the under-sink cupboard for washing powder but the box, when she found it, was empty. She gave the pile of laundry a desultory kick and decided to deal with it later.

Upstairs Lucy unpacked her few belongings and put on flannel pyjamas and stood for a moment staring at her long reflection in the mirror on her bedroom wall. Pale grey eyes, as dull and lifeless as a winter sky, stared back at her. Her thin, mousey hair did nothing to enhance her long face – nor disguise her sallow skin and the red-raw spots clustered like barnacles around the corners of her mouth. She turned away – no wonder people disliked her. She was grotesque. She would never have a boyfriend. She would never marry or have children. She would be alone all her life.

A little sob escaped her and Lucy straightened up and pulled herself together. Marriage and family life wasn’t for everyone, she told herself sternly. She would just have to find something useful to do with her life. She had few natural talents, but an empathy with animals was one of them. How she wished that, like Matt, she’d been brave enough to follow her heart, instead of trying to please. Because a degree in Applied Mathematics and Physics, assuming she managed to graduate, was hardly going to lead her to her ideal job, was it? And yet, she could not give it up. Not now, not when the expectation of so many weighed so heavily on her shoulders – Mum, Dad, Grandad, Maggie, even Matt.

She tugged on a fleece dressing gown and slipped her feet into an old pair of slippers. Her life was a mess but tonight she would not think about it. Tonight she would try and relax. And she would not even turn on the computer because last night she’d lost seventy quid on Celebration Bingo. Her heartbeat quickened and her stomach made a little nauseous somersault at the thought. She mustn’t get carried away like that again. Only she so loved the tacky, garish websites; the guaranteed million-pound jackpots; the nervous anticipation; and the adrenaline rush when she won. Oh, there was nothing like it. And she knew, she just knew, that if she could find the money to keep on playing, then one day – not tomorrow or the day after maybe, but one day soon – she would win millions and her life would be utterly transformed.

She took a deep breath and calmed herself. Now and again she needed to prove to herself that she was the one in control.

Downstairs, she sat on the sofa in front of the TV, ruffled the fur between Muffin’s ears, and told herself it wasn’t all bad. At the end of the month her allowance would arrive in her bank account, and she would be able to breathe again. Meantime, she would be strict with herself – absolutely no online gambling.

Chapter 4

Jennifer sat in the passenger seat in the car on the way home feeling decidedly downbeat. And she’d no reason to; she’d had a great day out with her best friend and Matt had a proper job at last.

‘What did you think of Ben Crawford?’ said Donna, suddenly. ‘Wasn’t he cute?’

‘Was he? I hadn’t noticed.’

‘He was a bit young, though,’ mused Donna, as if Jennifer hadn’t spoken.

Jennifer blushed and stared out the window. She hadn’t thought him that much younger than her. Maybe ten years. Was that too much of an age difference? But what did it matter? Nothing was going to happen between them. He wasn’t the least bit interested in her and he had a beautiful girlfriend.

The car came off a roundabout and started the gentle downhill approach to Ballyfergus. In the failing light, the countryside was a patchwork of dark shades of green, interspersed with the lights of the many farmsteads that dotted the rolling hills.

And yet in spite of the calming beauty all around, her heart was not at peace. She was troubled with recollections of the way Rebecca had kissed Ben – so boldly and right in the middle of the busy restaurant. He had looked a little embarrassed, certainly, but what man could say no to a girl like that? He couldn’t wait to drag her off to the bar so they could spend time together, alone.

What was this unfamiliar emotion that troubled her so, that felt like anger but wasn’t? She placed a hand on her neck, recognising it at last for jealousy. She was jealous of Rebecca. It was a ludicrous notion – that she should be jealous of a girl she didn’t even know because of a man she’d only just met. But it was there nonetheless, nestled in her chest, hard and mean like a stone.

He was the first man in a long time to arouse her interest. She recalled with pleasure the way her heartbeat had quickened under his gaze. She’d thought she’d sensed some sort of primitive attraction between them, but now she wasn’t so certain. Had she imagined it all? And even if there was some sort of connection between them, it clearly wasn’t enough to compete with gorgeous young women half her age. And what hurt most was the knowledge that, though she was in good shape, she was past her prime. If she wanted a partner in life, it was no good looking at younger men. She had to set her sights a little lower and the age limit a little higher. And though she hated the idea of a computer dating site, perhaps Donna was right. At her age, she thought despondently, she had to be realistic.

It was almost dark by the time Donna dropped her home. She walked wearily down the side of the house and entered by the utility room, not bothering to switch on the light. She closed the door, took a step forwards in the dim light and the toe of her foot connected with something soft on the floor. She stumbled, caught her ankle on the corner of a cupboard door and almost fell.

‘Ouch!’ she cried out in pain, dropped her bags on the floor and grabbed on to the worksurface. Tutting crossly, she flicked on the light. A pile of laundry, Lucy’s things, lay in an untidy heap on the floor and the cupboard door hung open. She could see now that she had ripped her tights and grazed her skin.

‘Is that you, Mum?’ called Lucy, as she came and stood in the doorway. She was wearing a pair of pyjamas and a horrible, old, grey dressing gown that used to belong to David. ‘Are you all right?’

Unable to stop herself, Jennifer said irritably, ‘No, I’m not. I nearly took my foot off on that door. Did you leave it open? And what’s this dirty laundry doing all over the floor?’

‘I couldn’t find any washing powder,’ said Lucy defensively. Muffin, who took an age to get anywhere these days, appeared loyally by Lucy’s feet, his head cocked to one side.

Jennifer let out a loud sigh. It wasn’t fair of her to take her bad temper out on Lucy. She gathered up her handbag and shopping bags. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. It’s lovely to see you. Did you have a good week?’

‘Yeah. Great.’

‘Well, come here and let me give you a hug,’ smiled Jennifer, picking her way over the laundry to Lucy. Even in three-inch heels, Jennifer was still some inches shorter than her daughter. She put her arms around her and immediately felt her stiffen. She released her and swallowed the hurt, remembering a time, once, when Lucy could not get enough of her mother’s hugs. Where had that loving child gone? And what was wrong with her face? ‘Those spots around your mouth look sore, pet.’

Lucy put a protective hand to her chin and turned away. Jennifer, remembering what it was like to have bad skin, felt sorry for her. Perhaps she was finding her university course hard going – stress could cause an outbreak of spots. But Lucy was no longer in her teens – she shouldn’t have to live with skin like that. ‘It might be acne,’ she suggested, walking over to the table and setting her bags down on the worn seat of a pine chair. ‘Maybe the doctor could give you something for them.’

‘It’s not acne.’

Jennifer kicked her shoes off, leaving them where they fell on the worn lino. ‘No, you’re right. It doesn’t really look like acne. More like a skin infection.’

Lucy removed her hand from her face and said, angrily, ‘Mum, it’s not a skin infection! It’s just spots. Ugly, yes. Disgusting, yes. But just spots! They’ll go away soon enough.’

Jennifer took a deep breath and counted to five. ‘I’m only trying to help,’ she said quietly. Lucy said nothing in reply and then another thought occurred to Jennifer. ‘Are you eating properly? Because sometimes when you don’t eat enough fruit and –’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ cried Lucy, this time raising her voice. She gripped the back of a chair with both hands until her knuckles went white. ‘Don’t you know when to leave it, Mum?’

Jennifer, genuinely perplexed and hurt by what she perceived as her daughter’s over-reaction, said, ‘Well, I’m sorry. I thought … never mind.’ She glanced through the utility room door at the pile of laundry. ‘Don’t tell me the washing machine at your digs is still broken.’

‘Yep.’

Lucy paid out an absolute fortune for a room you couldn’t swing a cat in. ‘It hasn’t worked since you moved in. I feel like ringing the landlord up and giving him a piece of my mind.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ snapped Lucy. ‘I’m the one paying the rent. Do you want to make me look ridiculous?’

Jennifer, with no desire to see the argument escalate any further, bit her tongue. She pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. Why was Lucy still acting like a rebellious teenager? She and Lucy ought to have gotten past this stage and moved on to a more harmonious relationship, like the one she shared with Matt. ‘Come and sit down,’ she smiled, patting the seat of the chair beside her. ‘And tell me all about your week.’

Lucy complied, folding herself into the chair with her shoulders hunched, like she wanted to disappear. She’d had an issue with her height since primary school when she’d been the tallest girl in her class. Jennifer wished she could make her believe that her height was something to be proud of. She would look so much better if she stood up straight and tall, and a cheery smile would help too – but there was no telling Lucy.

‘I went out for a drink with the girls in the house a couple of times,’ said Lucy, brushing crumbs off the table with the sleeve of her dressing gown. Jennifer watched them fall to the floor and decided to let the behaviour go unremarked. ‘But everywhere’s so expensive these days. It’s nearly four quid for a glass of wine in some places. Apart from the Union,’ she went on, ‘but you wouldn’t want to go there every night.’

Jennifer clasped her hands together and rested them on the table, trying not to look alarmed. Lucy didn’t talk much about her university life, academic or social, and Jennifer sometimes wondered if she was keeping something from her. But then all students kept secrets from their parents, didn’t they? She told herself not to worry so much – it was all part of growing up. But still, she couldn’t help herself from commenting, ‘I hope you’re not drinking too much.’

‘Of course not,’ said Lucy evenly, ‘But you can hardly go out without having a couple of glasses of wine, can you? And taxis home are expensive too. You wouldn’t want me to be walking home from the city centre late at night, would you?’

‘Well, no. But aren’t there late night buses?’

‘Not always.’ And for some reason Lucy blushed. Jennifer suspected she was not being entirely truthful, but, pleased to hear that Lucy had friends to go out with, she decided to let it go. ‘It’s great that you’re going out with your friends and having a good time. That’s what university’s all about. So long as your studies don’t suffer.’

‘They don’t.’

Jennifer yawned and glanced at the clock and said without moving, ‘I guess I’d better go upstairs and get out of these glad rags. I’ll show you what I bought tomorrow, shall I? I don’t think I have the energy for it tonight.’

Lucy toyed with the frayed belt of her dressing gown. ‘So, as I was saying,’ she said with a note of urgency in her voice, ‘things are expensive. Even food.’

‘Tell me about it,’ laughed Jennifer good-humouredly, and she stood up. ‘Your brother just about eats me out of house and home.’ She collected her bags and coat, and added, rather sadly, ‘Though not for much longer.’

‘So I was wondering,’ said Lucy, interrupting Jennifer’s thoughts, ‘if I could have a hundred quid. Just to see me through till the end of the month.’

‘What?’ said Jennifer, doubting what she’d just heard.

‘I’m a bit short, Mum. I was wondering if you could give me a hundred pounds.’ She paused and looked searchingly into Jennifer’s stunned face and added, ‘Just this once.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ said Jennifer, setting her bags and coat down again on the adjacent chair. ‘I gave you an extra fifty only a week ago.’

‘But that was for text books.’

Jennifer, confused, sat down again. ‘But how can you be short of money? Your monthly allowance is more than enough to live on. And I thought you said you would budget?’ Last year, her first year at uni, she’d tapped Jennifer constantly for money. At the end of the summer they’d had a long chat about finances and Lucy had promised that she’d manage her money. And here they were, less than a fortnight into the new term, and she was asking for more. ‘This can’t go on, Lucy.’

Although the business was doing okay and she could meet her monthly commitments, Jennifer wasn’t exactly awash with money. David paid the bulk of Lucy’s living costs and education, but Jennifer contributed a hefty sum too. She rested her elbow on the table and rubbed her brow with her thumb and forefinger. ‘I’m sorry, pet,’ she said, feeling both guilty and resolved, ‘but I don’t think I can help you out. You’ll have to go overdrawn for a bit and pay it back at the end of the month.’

Lucy’s face reddened and she pulled the folds of the dressing gown defensively round her thin frame. ‘It’s only a hundred quid, Mum,’ she said grumpily.

‘Only a hundred quid!’ repeated Jennifer in astonishment.

‘And Dad said the overdraft was only for emergencies.’

‘Do you think I’m made of money?’ said Jennifer, losing it a bit. ‘The car needs to be taxed and MOTed, I need to get the leak in the shower fixed and the outside of the house desperately needs painting. Not to mention replacing this kitchen.’ She looked at the pale blue paint peeling off the cupboards she had painted herself when they’d moved in, the dripping tap, the cracked wall tiles and shook her head in exasperation. ‘Anyway, what do you need it for?’

‘I told you,’ said Lucy irritably, avoiding eye contact, as she had done for most of this conversation. ‘Things are expensive. Everyone at uni’s in debt.’

‘Well, you don’t need to be. Not with the money you have coming in. I thought you knew how to budget, Lucy. Haven’t I been over it with you time and again?’ Jennifer sighed heavily, got up, opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a pen and a notebook.

‘What are you doing?’ said Lucy.

Jennifer sat down again and opened the notebook. ‘Let’s go through this one more time. It’s not rocket science. I’ll help you draw up a monthly budget and, if you stick to it, you’ll see. It’ll be so much easier to manage your money.’

Lucy put the flat of her hands on the table. ‘No,’ she said forcefully and then softened her tone. ‘It’s late, Mum. You must be tired. Let’s go to bed.’

‘But I can see this is troubling you,’ said Jennifer with a weary smile. Perhaps Lucy was embarrassed to ask for help. ‘We can have this sorted out in no time.’

Lucy’s face reddened. ‘No really. It’s okay. I got you a present.’ She got up abruptly, the legs of the chair squeaking on the lino. ‘I’ll go and get it,’ she added and dashed out of the room.

When Lucy came back into the room a few minutes later, she sheepishly handed Jennifer a small present and a card. ‘Happy Birthday, Mum. I’m sorry it’s a bit late.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter one little bit, Lucy,’ smiled Jennifer. ‘I’m just so pleased that you remembered. Thank you.’

Lucy went and stood by the cooker, gnawing on the nail of her right thumb. Jennifer set the present on her lap – and tried not to let her disappointment show. It was sloppily wrapped in her own paper, a distinctive roll of metallic wrap with coloured butterflies on it that she kept under her bed. And it had been hastily done – perhaps just this very moment. For as she looked down at the parcel, a piece of sellotape came away and the end of the parcel popped open.

‘It’s not much,’ said Lucy, hastily. ‘Just a token really.’

Jennifer looked up. ‘I don’t expect you to buy me expensive things. What have I always told you? It’s the thought that counts.’

Jennifer opened the card, an odd, humorous one that she didn’t at first understand. When she got the joke, at last, she smiled and said, ‘That’s nice,’ and set the card on the table. Then she ripped the paper off the present to reveal a small box of budget dark chocolates. The sort of thing Jennifer might put into a raffle at the senior citizens club her father attended. She set them on the table and scrunched the paper into a tight ball in her fist. ‘Thank you,’ she said, hoping to God that Lucy couldn’t read what she was really thinking.

Lucy smiled back weakly and cleared her throat. ‘I know it’s not much, Mum. But as I said, I haven’t got a lot of spare cash at the moment.’

‘That’s okay, darling. You’re a student, for heaven’s sake,’ said Jennifer in a cheerful voice, blinking. ‘The real treat for me is spending time with you. I’m looking forward to our shopping trip on Sunday.’

‘I guess Matt’s in the same boat,’ said Lucy. ‘I mean he hasn’t got a lot of money either.’

‘No, you’re right. He hasn’t,’ said Jennifer, grasping at the opportunity to move the conversation on from this hurtful, thoughtless gift. It was a standing joke within the family that Jennifer hated dark chocolate with a passion. How could Lucy have forgotten?

‘Matt didn’t buy me anything. Not even a card,’ she laughed, trying to sound light-hearted. ‘He made one.’ She got up and threw the ball of paper in the bin, lifted Matt’s card off the top of the microwave and handed it to Lucy. It was made from a sheet of stiff white card folded in half with a funny caricature of her in black ink on the front. He’d drawn her at her office, in boots and one of the wrap dresses she sometimes wore for work, surrounded by rolls of wallpaper and carpet samples. Matt was a good cartoonist. Inside it read, ‘To the best Mum in the world. Love from Matt.’

‘Isn’t it fabulous?’ said Jennifer, pressing home the fact that a gift could cost nothing – and yet mean the world to the recipient.

When Lucy had examined the card, Jennifer placed it carefully on the shelf again and said, ‘Well, it’s time I went to bed.’

‘Mum?’ said Lucy in a small voice. ‘What about the hundred pounds, then?’

Jennifer’s heart sank and she looked away. Didn’t Lucy listen to a word she’d said? Did she have to make this any harder than it already was?

She felt the emotion well up in her chest and her throat narrowed. And her voice, when she spoke, came out hard and uncompromising and not conflicted like the way she felt inside. ‘No, Lucy. I bailed you out all summer, even when you had a job at the Day Centre. You never saved a penny. I just don’t understand what you do with your money. I don’t think you know how to do without. When I was at –’

‘Yes, yes, I know all about when you were at university,’ interrupted Lucy, rage bubbling up in the face of her mother’s intransigence. ‘You cleaned toilets in a pub and walked there in the rain with plastic bags wrapped round your legs because you didn’t have a proper coat. And your student house had no heating.’

‘Well, it’s true! You wouldn’t put up with the deprivations I did. Your generation doesn’t know how to do without.’ Jennifer ran a hand down the side of her face and sighed. ‘You have to learn how to budget and budgeting requires self-discipline, forward planning, and sometimes a bit of discomfort and self-denial. How are you ever going to manage in a home of your own without those skills? And me giving you constant handouts isn’t going to teach you them.’

Lucy scowled. ‘Is that the lecture over then?’

‘Oh, Lucy,’ cried Jennifer in exasperation. ‘I’m not trying to lecture you, I’m trying to help you.’

‘If you want to help me, give me a hundred pounds.’

Jennifer looked her daughter straight in the eye, her heart pounding. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. I simply can’t do that.’

‘You can but you won’t. There’s a difference, Mum,’ said Lucy coldly. ‘I can’t believe you’re so heartless.’ And then she let out a little sob and ran out of the room, leaving Jennifer feeling like the worst mother in the world.

Lucy was still in bed when Jennifer left the house the next morning for the supermarket and, when she came home, she found David sitting on the chocolate brown leather sofa in her small lounge with his long, athletic legs crossed. He wore dark blue jeans and a casual, ocean blue shirt under a tailored jacket and looked quite at home drinking a cup of coffee. She remembered that he’d come to drive Lucy over to his house for lunch with her two step-sisters – Rachel, six, and four-year-old Imogen – and Maggie, his wife of eight years.

Jennifer had been friends with Maggie for fifteen years. They’d met at an evening pottery class in the community centre, when Jennifer was trying to find an outlet for her creativity and keep her marriage together. Their friendship had blossomed through shared interests – Maggie was a talented amateur jewellery designer. Jennifer had been surprised when David and Maggie quietly started dating nearly two years after the divorce – she could not reproach her old friend on that score – but the marriage had effectively meant the end of a beautiful friendship. Jennifer wished her old friend well, but she couldn’t help but be a tiny little bit envious of David. He’d gone on to start a new life and a new family and she was exactly where she’d started twelve years ago.

He set the cup on the coffee table, uncrossed his legs and said, a little embarrassed, ‘I hope you don’t mind me helping myself.’

‘Not at all,’ she said graciously, wondering how he would feel if she came into his home uninvited and made free and easy with the facilities. But she pushed this rather mean thought away. She did not want them to be enemies.

‘Lucy wasn’t ready when I arrived,’ he explained, his pale limpid blue eyes magnified by the stylish, silver-rimmed glasses he now wore constantly. ‘She said she’d slept in.’

Jennifer raised her eyes guiltily to the ceiling. She’d hardly slept herself last night, torn between the desire to give in to Lucy on the one hand, and withstand her demands on the other. But she’d woken in the morning with a new resolve.

Upstairs someone walked across the room and then the shower came on. Jennifer dropped her bag on the floor and, without bothering to take off her suede jacket, sat down on the other leather sofa.

‘Matt told me all about the new job,’ said David.

‘It’s wonderful news, isn’t it?’

‘I think it might be,’ he said, expressing his reserved approval. David was economical with his emotions, measured, thoughtful. Qualities she had once admired and now found incredibly boring.

There was a silence as David looked around the room. She’d recently introduced a neutral colour scheme whilst retaining the costly furniture; replaced the dated curtains with plantation shutters; and hung a keenly-priced, oversized mirror from Laura Ashley over the fireplace. Proof that you didn’t have to spend a fortune to make a room stylish. ‘You’ve made some changes in here. It looks good.’

‘Look, David,’ she said quickly, with a glance at the ceiling, ‘there’s something you and I need to talk about. It concerns Lucy. She asked me for another hundred quid, last night.’

‘So?’ he said and gave her one of his smug, ironic half-smiles she knew so well. David was supremely self-assured, a quality that irritated her now, yet it had been one of the things that attracted her to him in the first place. Theirs had never been an equal partnership. He always knew best. And she didn’t realise how much he undermined her. It was only after the divorce that she’d had the confidence to start the business.

‘I didn’t give it to her,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s time she took responsibility for her own finances. She can’t seem to live within her monthly allowance. Not the odd time, but consistently week after week, month after month. What did she do with all that money she earned over the summer? I never took any off her for bed and board.’

There was a considered pause before David said, slowly, ‘Do you expect her to live like a nun? All students overspend.’

It was exactly what she expected him to say. Not just because he disagreed with her in principle but also, she suspected, because money wasn’t an issue for him. He owned the only, very successful, vet practice in Ballyfergus. And when it came to his children, he was too indulgent.

Thankfully Muffin padded into the room just then, breaking the tension.

‘Hey, boy,’ said David, reaching out his hand to the collie.

The dog licked it, flopped down at his feet, silvery trails of saliva dripping onto David’s scuffed desert boots. David ruffled the rangy fur between his ears. ‘That’s a good boy,’ he said softly, reminding Jennifer how his kindness to animals had won her heart. Muffin put his head on his paws and sighed contentedly. David ran his long fingers down the animal’s back, gently probing.

‘He’s a bit thin,’ he observed. ‘How’s his appetite?’

‘Much the same as always. He doesn’t want to go out much though.’

‘Mmm.’ He rested his hands on his thighs and, staring at the animal, nodded slowly to himself. ‘Well, let me know as soon as you think he’s in any discomfort.’

Jennifer swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘Of course,’ she said, understanding perfectly his meaning. He would be the one to put Muffin down when the time came.

‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t know a thing.’

David looked at his watch and Jennifer, who could not let the matter of Lucy and money go unresolved said, ‘She’ll ask you for money, David. Promise me you won’t give it to her.’ And then she remembered that David never liked being told what to do.

He arranged a pained, affronted expression on his face. ‘Are you telling me that I can’t give my own daughter money?’

‘Of course not,’ said Jennifer, retracting hastily. She rubbed suddenly sweaty palms on the thighs of her blue jeans. ‘All I’m asking,’ she said carefully, ‘is to please consider whether it’s in Lucy’s best interests to do so.’

He stood up, his well-built frame towering over her. Muffin never stirred. ‘I think I’m capable of making that judgement call.’

Jennifer tilted her chin up and met his eye, refusing to be intimidated by his height and the size eleven feet planted firmly on her carpet. ‘She’s not going to learn anything about money management if we keep bailing her out every time she gets into trouble.’

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looked down at her scathingly. ‘Would you really see her short, Jennifer? Leave her without money for food and bus fares?’

‘Of course I don’t want to see that,’ said Jennifer, choking up with emotion. ‘But I also know that if we don’t stop these handouts she’s never going to learn to stand on her own two feet.’

David, who never listened to criticism of his children, said, ‘Well, I for one am not going to send my daughter back to uni without a penny in her pocket. And I have to say, I’m quite astounded by your attitude, Jennifer. How can you be so mean to your own daughter?’

‘I’m not being mean,’ she responded robustly. ‘I’m trying to be a responsible parent. And you’re doing what you always do, David. Spoiling her.’

He reacted angrily. ‘That is not true,’ he said loudly. ‘My children aren’t spoiled. They appreciate the value of things, they don’t take what they have for granted and they know what’s right and wrong.’

Jennifer considered this, recalling Lucy’s somewhat dubious moral code. Only last week she’d been undercharged in Boots but instead of pointing it out to the assistant at the time, she’d come home crowing about it. ‘I’m not so sure about Lucy. And she’s thoughtless. She gave me dark chocolates for my birthday.’

‘Well, give them to someone else if you don’t like them.’

A deathly silence followed during which they glared at each other. And then Muffin, sensing the charged, negative atmosphere in the room, hauled himself to his feet and padded towards the door. Jennifer turned to watch him go – and let out a little gasp.

Lucy stood in the doorway dressed for outside, wet hair plastering her head and a huge bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes glinted with angry tears, as yet unshed, and the expression on her long, thin face was furious.

‘Lucy, I … I didn’t see you there,’ said Jennifer feebly, desperately trying to recall exactly what, in her rage, she had said. How much had Lucy heard?

‘I’m ready to go,’ said Lucy coolly, ignoring Jennifer.

David gave Jennifer a sort of triumphant look, pulled his car keys out of his front pocket and said cheerfully, ‘Me too, pet.’

‘Do you mind if I stay the night?’ said Lucy, addressing her father. ‘I don’t want to stay here.’

‘Sure.’

So Lucy was up to her old tricks again – playing one parent off against the other, acting like a petulant teenager. Mind you, her tactics only worked because David played right into her hands.

Jennifer felt that she ought to try to resolve things between them. And so she said, damp patches of perspiration forming under her arms, ‘Lucy, please. Don’t be like this. I thought we could go out for something to eat tonight. And go shopping tomorrow.’

Lucy furrowed her brow and feigned confusion. ‘Why would you want to go out with a, what was it, Dad? A “spoilt brat”? And I can’t go shopping. I don’t have any money. You know that.’

Jennifer sighed. ‘I didn’t say you were a spoilt brat, Lucy. I said you acted like one sometimes. That’s not the same thing.’

Ignoring her, Lucy went on, theatrically, ‘What else was it you said? That I don’t know the difference between right and wrong? That I’m thoughtless?’

‘Lucy, I’m sorry I said those things. I was trying to make a point to your father, that’s all.’ Jennifer looked to David for support but he, finding sudden fascination in a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt, blanked her.

‘I heard what you were trying to do, Mum. You were trying to stop Dad from helping me when I … I …’ Her voice started to crack up and she paused momentarily, sniffed and went on, ‘I don’t even know where my next meal’s coming from. If anyone’s thoughtless, it’s you.’ And with that, partly covering her face with her hand, she burst into tears.

Jennifer bit her lip, her chest tight with anxiety, hard pressed to tell if Lucy’s distress was entirely genuine – or partly a calculated tactic. In any event, it had the desired effect. David went over to her immediately, put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug.

‘There, there, now. Don’t cry, darling,’ he cooed, talking to her like she was a toddler who’d just fallen over and scratched her knee, or some such calamity. He kissed the top of her wet head. ‘Maggie’s made lasagne for lunch, your favourite.’

Jennifer, watching them, was incensed. Couldn’t David see that he was simply fuelling Lucy’s inappropriate behaviour? And yet it broke her heart to see her only daughter standing there in tears, estranged from her. They always seemed to be clashing. Would they never be friends?

‘Come on, Lucy,’ said David, tightening his grip around her shoulders. ‘Let’s take you home.’ And as they turned away, united against her, Lucy threw the briefest of glances over her shoulder. And Jennifer could almost swear her daughter smiled.

Chapter 5

Lunch service was over and Ben was just about to go home for a few hours before coming back for the evening shift when the phone in the office rang. It was Vincent Maguire, an accountant who’d worked for his father for years.

He got straight to the point. ‘Ben, I’ve just heard that Calico Design’s gone into administration.’

Ben sat down. ‘When?’

‘Two days ago.’

If it had been anyone but Vince on the end of the phone, Ben would’ve doubted his word. Ben had talked to Bronagh Kearney, the designer, only last week and everything had been rosy. ‘Voluntary?’

‘No. Creditors forced it. Shame really. They had a big contract for that new chain of nursing homes – McClure and Esler. When they went bust Calico were left high and dry. As soon as the creditors heard, they were onto them like a pack of wolves demanding payment. And of course, they couldn’t cough up. You haven’t paid any money over to them, have you?’

Ben shook his head, then remembered that Vincent could not see him. ‘No, not a penny. Invoice on completion.’

‘That’s a relief.’ Vince lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘The insolvency practitioner’s a good pal of mine – we go way back – and he thinks they’ll go into liquidation. If I was you I’d be looking pronto for someone else to do up that restaurant of yours.’

After he’d put the phone down, Ben sat quietly for a few minutes considering his options. It was bad news, for sure, but they’d been lucky too. At least they wouldn’t lose any money. Not like Calico’s creditors, poor buggers, some of whom themselves would go bust because of Calico’s demise.

It did, however, leave him with the pressing problem of finding another interior designer to replace Calico at short notice. And he knew just the person: Jennifer.

He sat up straight, feet planted firmly on the ground, amazed that fate had landed this chance in his lap. Not only would he see her again, he’d get to spend time with her, get to know her. He tapped his fingers on the table, thinking how he would sell this to his father. Because he would not like Ben using someone he didn’t know. Alan’s intricate network of business contacts, immense and complex, like neural pathways to the brain, connected him to all corners of the province and beyond. Alan would see Jennifer as a risk. He would not like it; but on this, Ben decided, he would prevail, just as he had done with Matt and the commis chef job. Jason had been cross with him for offering the lad the job and he’d only agreed to the appointment as a personal favour for Ben.

This was the silver lining his mother, Diane, used to talk about when they were little and a toy broke or he fell over and skinned an elbow. Of course, he’d since learnt that sometimes bad things happened that were so awful, so wrong, no good could ever come of them. After Ricky, his mother didn’t talk about silver linings any more.

Ben closed his eyes briefly and let out a loud sigh. He mustn’t go there, he mustn’t let his thoughts dwell on Ricky, because it only led to one thing – black depression. He shook his head and picked up the big rectangular board sitting upended in the corner. Calico Design had put it together – a story board, Bronagh had called it. Swatches of fabric and wallpaper were glued haphazardly to it. Paint colour charts, the size and shape of bookmarks, fanned out like playing cards. Photographs torn from brochures and magazines were artfully displayed at angles, so completing the collage. Ben and Alan had agreed on exactly how they wanted the restaurant to look, for once working in rare harmony, and Bronagh had delivered it – in concept at least.

He set the board behind the chair once more and, one quick Google search later, Jennifer’s phone number was at his fingertips.

Jennifer pulled nervously into the car park beside Peggy’s Kitchen, fifteen minutes early. She parked between two cars, facing the front of the old café, and switched off the engine. She slid down in the seat, thankful for the light rain pattering softly on the windscreen, blurring her view and providing her with welcome camouflage. She’d wait a bit. Best not to look too keen – on both a business, and a personal, front.

She’d received the call from Ben a few days ago and her stomach had immediately gone into a spasm, churning like a washing machine. And even now, while she tried to talk sense to herself, she was like a love-struck teenager. Butterflies played tag in her stomach and her heart raced like a train.

‘Catch yourself on, Jennifer,’ she said out loud. ‘Ben Crawford has a girlfriend, remember?’

Her mobile phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. She pulled the phone out and read the text message. It was from Lucy, saying that she would be getting the train home the following night. She finished with ‘Luv L xo’. Was this text an olive branch? She hadn’t seen or spoken to Lucy since last Friday when she’d stormed out of the house with her father – Lucy hadn’t answered her calls or returned her messages. But clearly they were back on texting terms and she was coming home, which had to be a good sign.

But, in spite of this apparent truce, Jennifer was troubled by her daughter – or, more accurately, by her conflicting emotions towards her. A mother was supposed to love, wholly, fully, unconditionally. And Jennifer did love her daughter. But Lucy had a knack of arousing a whole raft of other, not so benign, emotions. Feelings Jennifer could hardly bring herself to acknowledge – irritation, intolerance, dislike, anger even. She blushed, ashamed to own them in herself. She reminded herself sternly that it was Lucy’s behaviour that sometimes induced these sentiments – not Lucy herself. She’d been telling herself this ever since Lucy, aged seven, had a temper tantrum on Christmas morning because she didn’t get a particular, expensive doll that she coveted. But Lucy was twenty now – an adult capable, in theory anyway, of marriage, motherhood, emigration, relocation, complete independence. Jennifer fretted that the behaviours she observed were, like the foundation stones of a building, an integral part of Lucy’s character now.

And there was something else too – a vague uneasiness that, when it came to Lucy, everything wasn’t quite as it ought to be. It was more intuition than a concrete thought, for when she tried to pin it down, it bobbed away like a Halloween apple in a barrel of water.

But she had no wish to spend another weekend locking horns with Lucy. She would put last Friday night out of her mind and try and make a fresh start. She keyed a short, warm reply to Lucy and slipped the phone back in her pocket.

Then she played with the zip on her brown leather jacket, wondering briefly if her choice of casual chic – dark jeans, a crisp white shirt, and cowboy boots – was flattering. Then she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care what Ben thought of her, except in a professional capacity.

Switching to designer mode, she flicked on the windscreen wipers and stared at the unprepossessing building opposite. It was single storey, of indeterminate age, with a steeply pitched slate roof. It might have been a workshop once. The harled, pebbly exterior was grey and streaked with water stains from a leak in the guttering and a yellow skip rested on the tarmaced forecourt. One of the front windows was boarded up and a huge, plastic-shiny sign announcing ‘Peggy’s Kitchen’ in yellow and red hung right across the width of the shopfront. But there were plus points too – the façade was symmetrical and nicely proportioned. And the ugly glass door with metal bars on it was unusually tall and wide, and centrally positioned.

It would be relatively easy to transform the outside with a lick of paint, a tasteful sign, the right lighting, new windows and a handsome new door framed by a pair of potted trees. A sprinkling of her magic really could, like fairy dust, transform an ugly duckling into a swan. She glanced at her watch one more time and panicked. Time to go. Quickly, she flipped the visor down and looked at her reflection in the small vanity mirror. She adjusted her hair in an attempt to hide the lines round her eyes, rummaged in her bag for some gloss and touched up her lips. At last, satisfied, she collected her bag and clipboard, and got out of the car.

Ben stood at a wallpaper table in the middle of the room, wearing fashionable black-rimmed rectangular glasses. He was peering at blueprints, his palms flat on the surface of the table. When she entered he looked up and smiled broadly, revealing the little gap between his two creamy-white front teeth, a flaw that ought to have made him less attractive. But the tiny imperfection only softened his appeal, making him more approachable, almost vulnerable. And, like Jeff Goldblum, he looked sexier with the glasses than without. Too busy staring at him, Jennifer only just remembered to return his smile. And then she looked around.

The large open space was dimly lit by two forlorn, bare light bulbs hanging from the rafters. The interior was more or less a bare shell, the walls holed and marked where fittings had been removed along with the flooring, revealing a cold concrete floor covered in carpet adhesive. In one corner lay a stack of steel appliances – sinks and metal cabinets, she thought – wrapped up in layers of clear plastic.

Ben came over and shook her hand. Then he peeled off the glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose where the nose pads had left small, brown indentations on his pale skin. ‘Sorry about the state of the place.’ In spite of the damp chill that permeated Jennifer’s bones, he was casually dressed in a frayed lumberjack-style shirt over an old t-shirt, and loose-fitting jeans. It wasn’t what she’d expected from the rather suave way he’d been dressed in the restaurant, but then that had been a uniform of sorts. She liked him better this way. And she liked the fact that he wasn’t precious about his appearance. He sported a day’s dark stubble and his hair was messed up and dusty too. ‘And sorry about asking you to meet me here so late in the day. I thought it’d be best if the contractors were out of the way.’

She smiled, trying not to shiver in the cold, wishing that she’d worn a warmer coat. She followed him over to the table situated under one of the light bulbs, a temporary focal point in the room, and wrapped the edges of her jacket across her chest. ‘I see they’ve been busy. I remember the booths and red leatherette benches that used to line the walls. Peggy’s had a sort of retro fifties feel to it. Along with a smoke haze you could cut with a knife. This was in the days before the smoking ban of course.’

He rubbed his chin with his hand and smiled. ‘You frequented it then?’ he said, the corners of his eyes crinkled up in a smile. ‘You don’t look like the sort of woman to don biking leathers and smoke thirty a day.’

Laughing, she relaxed. ‘I’m not. I was only in it a couple of times to pick up Matt – he had a brief fascination with bikes when he was fifteen and used to hang out here. I used to worry about him rubbing shoulders with those hard men. Luckily he discovered girls shortly after that.’ She laughed and then paused, annoyed with herself for raising the subject of Matt. It would only serve to remind Ben how old she was.

She set her things on the table and said, looking skywards at the old exposed rafters and the nicotine-stained ceiling, ‘I always thought the vaulted ceiling was the best thing about this place.’

‘Me too. According to the architect, there used to be a second floor.’

‘Interesting.’ She glanced at the blueprint Ben had been studying when she came in, and said, ‘Can I have a closer look?’

‘Of course.’

She went and stood next to him, liking the way he was taller than her but not so tall, like David and Matt, that she felt like some sort of midget. She leaned in, their heads only a hand’s width apart, aware of the heat of his body and the faint odour of a woody, masculine scent.

‘These are the architect’s plans,’ he said and he moved his elegant hand, long-fingered like a musician’s and ropey with veins, across the page. ‘The main thing we’re doing internally is putting in a wall between the kitchen here,’ said Ben, pointing to a line on the plan, ‘and the dining area here. That’s what the joiner’s working on just now. And we’re extending the kitchen into these old storerooms in the back. The toilets are in the right place – they just need to be completely refurbished of course.’ The nail on his index finger was short and gently rounded, the moon a pale, pinkish-white like the inside of a shell. ‘And I’m thinking of a reception desk and a small waiting area where people can have a drink and look at the menus.’

She nodded slowly, trying to take all this in, noticing that was the first time he’d used the pronoun ‘I’ when talking about the project. He looked at her and some uncertainty crept into his voice. ‘I’ve something to show you. Two things actually. And I hope you don’t take this the wrong way.’

‘Okay,’ she said cautiously, slipping both hands into the back pockets of her jeans, her fingers stiffening in the cold.

He lifted up a large rectangular board that had been lying against the legs of the table and turned it around. It was a professional mood board for a lavish interior in gold, green and deep purple. There were photographs of crystal chandeliers, close-ups of gilded chairs and silver candlesticks, distressed gilt mirrors, swatches of velvet and brocade, and expensive flocked wallpapers and deep-pile carpet. He rested the board on the table, supporting it with his left hand. ‘Bronagh at Calico did this and it’s pretty much spot on in terms of the brief. We wanted a luxurious, tactile design that’s timeless and opulent, but warm and welcoming as well.’

Jennifer folded her arms and considered it all for some moments. ‘It’s going to have the wow factor, that’s for sure,’ she said at last.

‘And this,’ he said, pulling a sheet out from under the plans on the table, ‘is her floor plan.’ He paused to give her a few moments to look at it. ‘Well,’ he said, at last, pressing the knuckle of his left hand to his mouth. ‘What do you think?’

She nodded. ‘It really does look good. All of it.’ And then, realising what his hesitation was all about, she volunteered, ‘Look, I’ve not done this before, Ben. I mean, been called in to finish off someone else’s project, but there’s no sense in throwing the baby out with the bath water, is there? And let’s face it, we’re up against it in terms of time.’

‘I’m so relieved to hear you say that,’ he said, laying the board down on the table, and smiling with relief. ‘I was worried you’d want to start from scratch.’

She hid her disappointment that she would not have the opportunity to come up with an original design, the most creative part of the job. But what was the point of insisting on it when Ben clearly liked the Calico design and she did too? She would enjoy the challenge of taking the basic concept through to completion on time, and, best of all, she would get to spend a little time with Ben. ‘You understand that I won’t be able to replicate this exactly. I may have to use different materials depending on what my suppliers have in stock and on delivery times. I might not be able to source chairs exactly the same as those, for example.’ She pointed at a photograph. ‘But overall, I’m confident I can deliver the high-end look you’re after, on schedule and within budget.’

‘I think we have a deal then,’ he beamed and she smiled back, the cogs in her brain already working out whether her regular sewers and tradesmen were all available. ‘I have some ideas for the exterior too,’ she added and went on to outline her thoughts.

‘Jennifer, that sounds fantastic,’ he enthused, when she’d finished. ‘What’s the next stage then?’

Thinking of all that had to be done in little over two months, she said, ‘Well, are you in a rush to get home?’

‘No,’ he said and there was a pause. The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly and his full lips, crimson-red against his pale skin, remained sealed. His right eyebrow, thick and black, rose just a millimetre. ‘Are you?’

She blushed, embarrassed that he was flirting with her, horrified that he thought she’d been doing the same with him. ‘It’s just that I could do with taking some measurements of my own,’ she added hastily, searching in her pockets for a tape-measure. ‘In addition to the Calico plans.’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ he said, a little crestfallen, and looked at the drawings on the table.

Why hadn’t she given him a little encouragement instead of the cold shoulder? Foremost, because of Rebecca. But also, she was so out of practice, she’d forgotten how to respond to a bit of innocent flirtation. She got out a measuring tape and a hard-backed Moleskine notebook and looked at the row of windows facing out onto the car park. The views would never form part of this room’s charm – her job was to disguise them, to draw the eye to other, more appealing, features. And, like a plain girl made beautiful with artifice, the ambience of the restaurant, vaulted ceiling excepted, would be entirely manufactured.

She lifted up the clipboard and pen and took a step forward and the notebook slid to the floor.

‘Let me get it,’ said Ben and he picked up the notebook and pressed it into her hand. Their fingers touched – and a bolt of electricity shot through Jennifer.

‘Your hand’s cold,’ he said, his voice low and husky.

She trembled, opened her mouth to speak and the door suddenly burst open.

Chapter 6

When Ben saw Alan Crawford in the doorway, gilt buttons on his overcoat glinting like ceremonial medals, his heart sank. Abruptly, he let go of the notebook and took a step away from Jennifer.

Outside the rain continued to fall, harder now, framing his father with a curtain of silver grey, like the scales on the underside of the mackerel Ben and Ricky used to catch off Bangor pier. He wasn’t a big man, only five eleven in his socks, yet his presence filled the room like the overpowering smell of forced spring hyacinths. And when he spoke it was as if he used up all the air, leaving none for Ben.

‘Bloody awful night out there,’ he boomed, running a hand over his bald head, glazed with rain. He glanced at Jennifer and flashed his showman’s white denture smile, his cheeks pulled tight on either side like the string of a bow. As a boy on the family’s dirt-poor hill farm near Cullybackey, he’d had only a rag and chimney soot with which to brush his teeth. This early neglect resulted in the loss of his teeth to gum disease at the age of forty-one, exactly twenty years ago. Determined his young sons wouldn’t suffer the same fate, he’d stood over them with a stopwatch every night while they brushed for the requisite two minutes.

But the smile, in spite of its dazzling brilliance, did not reach Alan’s grey eyes. They flicked over Jennifer like a duster, sizing her up as if she were an enemy. Ben felt his hackles rise. What the hell was he doing here? ‘Well, who’s this then?’ he asked, striding over to Ben. The scent of the expensive aftershave he ordered specially from London wafted before him, an arresting combination of citrusy vanilla and balsamic vinegar. He came to a halt, rolled back on the heels of his handmade English leather shoes and stared pointedly at Jennifer.

Ben made the introductions. Alan, hands clasped behind his back, said with a slightly menacing air, ‘Jennifer Murray Interior Design. A one-woman band, then?’

Jennifer looked uncertainly at Ben and then back to his father. Ben cringed with embarrassment. ‘Not exactly. I don’t have any permanent employees but I have forged very close relationships with local craftspeople who work for me on a contract basis. Curtain-makers, decorators and so on,’ she said without hesitation, unnerved, but not cowed it seemed, by Alan’s intimidating presence.

‘And have you done a restaurant before?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly, without breaking eye contact. ‘Several. I can show you my portfolio.’ Ben loved her self-confidence. He wished some of it would rub off on him.

Alan looked at her doubtfully. ‘And you understand –’ he paused and looked around, ‘what we – what Ben wants? Because it is his project, after all.’

‘Perfectly. And I believe I can deliver.’

‘Hmm,’ said Alan rudely and, shifting his gaze slowly to Ben, he effectively dismissed her. ‘Let’s have a look at these plans then,’ he said, unbuttoning the coat to reveal a black silk shirt pulled tight across his barrel chest.

‘It sounds as if you two need to talk,’ said Jennifer helpfully. ‘Shall I come back and take these measurements another time?’

‘No,’ said Ben.

‘Yes,’ said Alan at exactly the same time and locked eyes with his son.

Ben, startled to find boldness in his heart, repeated what he’d said. Alan’s face remained immobile but his pupils contracted, betraying his anger. Softening his tone, Ben looked at Jennifer. ‘Please. The sooner you get the measuring done the sooner you can get on with the job. Isn’t that right?’

Jennifer smiled tightly without looking at Alan, went over to a window and noisily unfurled a retractable metal tape-measure. And to his father, Ben said quietly, ‘Jennifer’s doing us a favour picking up the pieces after Calico, Dad.’

He scowled grumpily. ‘Well, the proof’ll be in the pudding, won’t it?’

The tape-measure retracted with a loud snap and both men looked over at Jennifer. Ignoring them, she took a pencil out of her mouth and scribbled furiously on the clipboard in her left hand. She was insulted and rightly so. Giving offence was one of Alan’s many talents.

Ben took a deep breath and tried to make the peace. ‘So, Dad, what brings you here?’

Alan rubbed his hands together, the way people do when they’re itching to get started on something. ‘I happened to be passing,’ he said and Ben smiled at the lie. Alan had been in Portrush and Portstewart earlier that day and Ballyfergus wasn’t on the way home – not unless you took the scenic Antrim coast road and more or less doubled the length of your journey time. ‘I wanted to hear what you thought of the place. And see how the plans were shaping up.’

So much for Alan letting go of the reins. Without waiting for an invitation he strode over to the wallpaper table and rested his knuckles on the flat surface, like a sprinter at the starting blocks. ‘So,’ he said, narrowing his eyes to focus more clearly – he was too proudly virile to don glasses in the presence of a stranger – ‘do you agree this place is a dump?’

Ben frowned. Alan had bought the place – snapped it up, he’d said – without consulting Ben. ‘It is now but it won’t be by the time we’re finished with it. Haven’t you always said –’

Without taking his eyes off the plans, Alan cut him short mid-sentence. ‘I’ve learned you something then.’ This peculiar verb misuse, widespread across the province, marked Alan out as an uneducated man. And, whilst he knew this, and was certainly clever enough to eliminate this verbal idiosyncrasy from his speech if he chose to, he never did.

Ben, angry, folded his arms across his chest. Why was nothing ever straightforward with his father? The question had been another one of his stupid tests.

‘Location,’ went on Alan, raising his eyes now, and one instructive finger, ‘is the most important thing, absolutely, always. Everything else can be changed. You have to look beyond the muck and filth and see what others can’t.’ Ben, who had heard it all before, made a swirling pattern in the dust with the toe of his old trainers. Jennifer, he noticed, glancing up, had disappeared into one of the loos.

‘Tell me,’ went on Alan, walking over to a window and squinting up at the sky like he was on the lookout for an aeroplane. ‘What do you see when you look out this window?’

‘An ugly car park?’ replied Ben, stubbornly looking the other way, refusing to play the game.

Alan roared with humourless laughter. ‘Depends how you look at it. That’s what you see,’ he said, and paused to let Ben know he didn’t think much of his vision. ‘Whereas I see an asset.’

He stopped, waiting, Ben presumed, for him to offer up what that asset might be. But he said nothing.

Irritation crept into Alan’s voice. ‘I see convenient parking for customers. An asset that will deliver customers right to this front door of ours.’

‘Right,’ said Ben insolently.

Alan, who must’ve forgotten about Jennifer, slapped a closed fist into the palm of the other hand. ‘You have to have vision, son!’ he cried, his tanned face suddenly taking on a reddish hue, though it was hard to tell if he was angry or excited, both emotions producing in Alan similar physical manifestations. ‘You can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’

Suddenly, apparently oblivious to Ben’s ill temper, he chuckled heartily at his cleverness. Then he opened his arms wide and turned in a small slow circle like a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, the soles of his shoes tap-tapping lightly on the floor. With his eyes closed, he might have been in a trance. ‘I can see it now. Carnegie’s! That’s what we’ll call it and it’ll be the talk of the town.

‘People will come from far and wide. Ballymena, Ballymoney, Whitehead and Carrickfergus,’ went on Alan, reciting the local names like a prayer, the vowels hard, tight fists, so that ‘Bally’ became ‘Balla’ and ‘head’ came out as ‘heed’. ‘And from all the towns and villages up the coast as well. It’ll be great, Ricky.’ And he stopped spinning right in front of Ben and, smiling, opened his eyes.

Ben stared at him in horror. Every once in a while this happened. Ricky’s name would slip unawares from his father’s lips – the name of the child he wished was standing in front of him, not the one who was. Ben swallowed and tried to arrange some other expression on his face, something that would cloak the searing shock like a stage curtain. He pressed the palm of his right hand on his heart and felt its fierce, too-fast beat.

‘What’s wrong with you, boy?’ said Alan crossly, the smile fading to be replaced with a frown. ‘Can’t you visualise it?’

‘I … I can. But why “Carnegie’s”?’ said Ben, throwing the question to Alan like a bone to a dog, anything to deflect his beady-eyed scrutiny.

Alan exhaled loudly, his enthusiasm waning, it seemed, in the face of Ben’s lack of it. ‘Didn’t you notice the old Carnegie library across the street?’ he said irritably.

‘Ah yes. “Let there be light”,’ said Ben, quoting the motto at the entrance to the first library Andrew Carnegie ever built – in his hometown of Dunfermline, Scotland, in 1883.

‘Huh?’ said Alan. The quote was most likely meaningless to him, yet Alan, who’d left school at fifteen, would not seek clarification. Whilst he made a big show of being true to his humble ‘school of life’ roots, he did not like his ignorance exposed. ‘Yes, well,’ he went on, ‘as I was saying, it’s not a library now – some sort of Arts centre or museum. Remind me on Monday to look into giving them a donation. Anyway, Carnegie’s has just the right overtones for our restaurant. Classy, elegant. It has an old-school ring to it.’

Ben couldn’t disagree with any of this and yet the fact that his father had proposed the name irked. ‘But don’t you think I should have some say in naming the restaurant? Especially if I’m supposed to be running the business.’

‘You are, Ben, you are,’ said Alan and he came over and placed a heavy arm across Ben’s shoulders. ‘Now, I know you’re nervous but don’t worry. I know you won’t let me down,’ he said, his words striking fear in Ben’s heart. He removed his arm. ‘Now, if you’ve got a better name for the restaurant, I’d like to hear it.’

Ben ventured, ‘Crawfords.’

Alan’s mouth puckered up like he’d just, unsuspectingly, bitten into a lemon. ‘God no, not our own name. It lacks class. And you’re forgetting the chain of bakery shops in East Belfast that go by the same name. Have you got any other ideas?’

Ben deliberated for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Carnegie’s is a good choice,’ he conceded, wishing he’d thought of it.

‘Good.’ Satisfied, Alan darted over to the table once more and pointed at the plan. ‘Now tell me about this. What’s that hatched area at the front of the restaurant?’

Ben stood beside his father and saw immediately what he meant. ‘That’s the waiting area.’

‘Waiting area?’ said Alan, wrinkling up his nose the way he did when he smelled something gone off.

Jennifer slipped back into the room from the kitchen and, ignoring them both, proceeded to measure the boarded-up front window. Ben said quickly, ‘Well, more of a bar area. Not that there’d be a bar as such, but a relaxing area where people could come in and order a drink while they look at the menu and wait for their table.’

Alan squinted before speaking, as if he was trying very hard to see merit where there was none. ‘It’d look pretty, son. But you do know what’s wrong with it, don’t you?’

Ben shook his head. If he knew, would it be on the bloody plan?

‘You don’t have room for it in a restaurant this size. You’d lose too many covers giving up this much footage. There’s room for another two tables at least here,’ he said, sketching out his vision with the tip of his finger. ‘And if people want a pre-dinner drink they can have it here, at their table.’ He tapped the paper hard three times with the tip of his index finger as if he was giving it and not Ben a good talking to. Ben, acutely aware of Jennifer’s silent presence as she went about her business, felt the colour rise to his cheeks.

His father was right of course, as he was in every damn thing. When was he going to give up this charade? Acting like he knew what he was doing when he didn’t; pretending that he loved this job that he loathed.

‘Now, you’ll be needing somewhere to live down here,’ went on Alan, who always talked as though he was ticking items off an agenda.

‘Yes, I was thinking about that,’ began Ben.

Alan, impatient as always, interrupted. ‘Well, you don’t need to. It’s all taken care of. I picked up a flat last time I was down here,’ he said, the way someone might comment that they’d picked up a loaf of bread on the way home. Looking very pleased with himself he added, ‘You’ll need to get it furnished but I’m assuming you can organise that yourself.’

When he saw the look on Ben’s face he added, ‘You’ve enough on your plate just now with splitting your time between The Lemon Tree and this place. I knew you wouldn’t have time to go house-hunting. This way, it’s one less thing for you to worry about.’

‘You rented a flat without consulting me?’ said Ben, infuriated but not taken by surprise. Was there anything his father trusted him to do?

‘Of course it’s not rented,’ he snorted. ‘Rent is a waste of money. When you’re done with it, we’ll lease it out. Ballyfergus has a strong rental market.’

‘I’ll just be off then,’ said Jennifer’s voice and Ben swung round to find her standing by the door with her things in her arms. ‘Can I take the mood board?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Ben went to get it and Jennifer said evenly, and without moving from her position at the door, ‘Goodbye, Mr Crawford. It was interesting meeting you.’

‘Yes, goodbye, Mrs Murray. It is missus, isn’t it?’

‘Actually no. It’s Ms. Murray’s my maiden name. I’m divorced.’

Ben, reaching down to grasp the mood board, felt his heart leap. He had to remind himself that, divorced or not, she might yet have a partner.

By contrast, Alan received this news impassively with a vacant nod, his face utterly still. When it mattered, he knew how to keep his thoughts to himself.

Jennifer walked out the door Ben held open for her, the mood board wedged under his left arm. Outside, the rain had stopped, leaving great puddles on the tarmac. Wordlessly they walked past Alan’s bright red Porsche, carelessly abandoned across two parking spaces, to her car. She opened the boot and he flung the board in on top of a jumble of wallpaper books, fabric samples and a pair of muddy green wellies.

‘Any chance I could get copies of those Calico plans?’ she said.

‘Sure. I’ll send them over.’

‘Oh. I haven’t given you my card. You’ll need the address.’ She put a hand inside her jacket, pulled out a small sheaf of business cards and handed one to him.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry about my father.’

She paused for some long moments as if wrestling with something inside and then said, diplomatically, ‘You don’t have to apologise for your father. Ever.’ Clever, because it could mean two different things, if you thought about it. Then she opened the driver’s door, and regarded him thoughtfully, her eyes the colour of the chocolate velvet on the mood board. ‘I’ll be in touch early next week,’ she said brightly. ‘Have a good weekend, Ben.’

He went back inside where Alan, never one to quit until he knew he’d well and truly won, picked up the conversation where they’d left off. ‘The estate agent happened to mention the flat to me when I was down looking at this place,’ he explained. ‘It’s a high-quality new build and a good location within walking distance of here – and I got a good price. Nobody can resist a cash buyer in this climate.’ He grinned, delighted with himself.

Ben folded his arms. ‘It’s one thing overruling me on the bar area in the restaurant. I accept that you’re right about that. But the flat will be my home, not yours. I am capable of finding somewhere to live by myself.’

Alan shrugged, utterly indifferent to Ben’s objections.

‘Don’t you see my point, Dad? I’m a grown man and you bought my home without consulting me.’

‘Ach, stop moaning, Ben. I don’t see what I’ve done wrong. I didn’t buy it, the business did. And it’s not your permanent home – just somewhere to kip for a year or so,’ shrugged Alan. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about the flat if I was you, son. You’re hardly going to see the inside of the place. If you’re going to make a success of this restaurant, you’ll be working day and night down here.’ He paused, picked something off the sleeve of his jacket and fixed his eyes on Ben. ‘You’ll not have time for much else.’

Ben swallowed and said nothing, his heart filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. He looked around the dilapidated room and tried to dredge up some enthusiasm. But the prospect of running this place left his heart cold. He could not spend the rest of his life working for his father. But how could he tell that to him? He’d given him hope, a reason to go on, after all their hopes were lost that night.

Something bleeped in Alan’s coat pocket and he pulled out his mobile. ‘Ach, shite, that’ll be Cassie,’ he said referring to his new wife who, at forty-one, was twenty years his junior. He read the text message, and diamond cufflinks sparkled as he consulted the flashy Rolex on his wrist. ‘Bloody woman doesn’t give me a moment’s peace.’ Ben smiled and Alan said, grimly, ‘Wait till you’re married. You’ll know all about it.’

‘That’s not likely to happen any day soon,’ said Ben cheerfully, who’d come to see his break-up with Rebecca as a lucky escape.

‘Pity,’ said Alan.

Ben laughed outright at this. From what he could see, matrimonial bliss had eluded Alan. He was on to his third beautiful wife and, from where he was standing, none of his marriages had delivered up their promise of happiness.

‘What’re you laughing at?’ growled Alan.

‘Dad, come on. You’re hardly one to be dishing out advice about marriage.’

Alan speared him with his gaze, his eyes like lasers. ‘Maybe not. But you don’t want to leave it too late. Your mother tells me that you and Rebecca have split up.’

‘That’s right.’

He shook his head, sadly. ‘You need your head examined, Ben. You’ll not find a better looking girl anywhere. And what was wrong with the one before that? Emma, wasn’t it? She was a stunner too.’

Ben looked at his father in astonishment. If appearance was his criterion for a happy marriage, no wonder he’d gone so far wrong in its pursuit. ‘We weren’t suited, Dad.’

‘Well, they both seemed like very nice girls to me,’ he insisted obstinately. ‘By the time I was your age, you know, I was married. And by the time I was thirty, I had a kid on the way.’ At this, they both looked at the dust on the floor. The kid, safe then in his mother’s womb, was Ricky. The child that had broken all their hearts.

‘Steady on, Dad,’ said Ben, forcing a hollow laugh. He held up the palm of his hand to his father. ‘Marriage. Babies. What’s brought all this on?’

Hell bent on his own agenda, it seemed Alan didn’t even hear the question. ‘You’ve got to find the girl and get married before you even think about having children. You don’t want one of these high-flying career women. And don’t be getting some wee girl up the spout.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Ben.

‘No, listen, son,’ said Alan, and there was no mistaking the earnestness in his voice now, as he finally honed in on the crux of the matter. ‘You should be thinking about your future. Your children will be heirs to the entire Crawford fortune. And you want them to be legitimate.’

Ben took a step back, reeling from this burst of insight as if it were a physical blow or a mighty explosion in his face. It had never occurred to him until this moment that, as Alan’s only surviving child, his children would be absolutely crucial to Alan’s dreams. He wasn’t running a business – he was building a dynasty. Without grandchildren, there was no future.

‘What if I don’t want kids?’ Ben blurted out.

‘Don’t be stupid. When you get to a certain age, everyone wants kids,’ he said in a voice that brooked no opposition. ‘And everyone wants grandchildren.’

I don’t, he wanted to scream. But he simply stared, struck momentarily mute by this awful understanding.

‘So, this Jennifer Murray,’ said Alan lightly, and he glanced slyly at Ben with those beady eyes that missed nothing. ‘What made you hire her?’

‘Jennifer?’ said Ben stupidly. What had Jennifer got to do with a discussion about grandchildren and heirs? ‘Because I think she can do a good job.’ Unintentionally, his inflexion rose at the end of the sentence, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

‘I see. So how did you find out about her?’

‘I hired her son, Matt, first and he introduced us. When I heard Calico were going under, I asked her if she was interested.’

‘Sounds like you did them both a big favour, Ben,’ he observed quietly, talking in the measured way he reserved for occasions when he was particularly irked by something. ‘I hope I’m wrong. I hope that your motives were purely professional.’

He opened his mouth to tell his father otherwise but Alan, with words as precise as the swift, ruthless cut of a chef’s knife, silenced him.

‘She’s a pretty woman, Ben, I’ll grant you that. And I can see the attraction,’ he said, as if piling Jennifer’s positive attributes, like recipe ingredients, on one side of a pair of old-fashioned scales. ‘But she has grown-up children, son.’ He fixed Ben with a hard stare, lowered his voice. And then he tipped the scales against Jennifer, in his mind anyway, with the heavy weight of the truth.

‘Her child-bearing years are over.’

Chapter 7

David drove Lucy back to Belfast on Sunday night despite her protestations that a bit of rain wouldn’t hurt. It was mid-September now and the weather had taken a sudden autumnal turn. The temperature had plummeted and the rain battered the car in wind-buffeted sheets.

‘So how did things go between you and your mother this weekend?’ asked Dad, both hands coiled lightly around the steering wheel as if taking his driving test for the first time.

‘Good,’ said Lucy, thinking guiltily of the bag in the boot full of laundered clothes (a peace offering from her mother) and further supplies of canned goods. The weekend had passed off peaceably, but it had left Lucy with a sour taste in her mouth. While she had succeeded in extracting money from her father, the victory had come at a price. Things between her and Mum were quietly strained, even more so than usual. Neither had mentioned the quarrel of the previous week, but Mum didn’t need to say a word for Lucy to know exactly what she thought. Her thin lips and toneless civility conveyed more disappointment than any words could. Once, when watching TV, she’d caught her mother staring at her so sadly, she had to get up and leave the room.

‘No more arguments over money then?’ said Dad, as he pulled into the outside lane, feeding the steering wheel through his hands like a rigid, circular rope. He glanced over and smiled conspiratorially. Lucy returned the complicit smile he expected, but she felt bad. She knew in her heart that winning didn’t make it right. At first, she’d been filled with rage by her mother’s refusal to give her more money. But later she’d thought, with grudging respect, that her mother had been right.

‘No, money wasn’t mentioned,’ she said, hiding her shame by staring out the window at the watery view of floodlit, low-rise industrial buildings backing onto the motorway. Some were clothed in bright graffiti, the talented handiwork of kids who should’ve gone to art college but never got the chance.

After the fallout with Mum the week before, Dad had been like putty in her hands. Through tears, with nothing left to lose, she’d confessed how much money she needed. And to her surprise, he’d pressed a big wad of crisp twenty pound notes into her palm. He did not ask a single question, so pleased was he to gain the upper moral hand, as he saw it, on Mum. As she’d closed her fingers over the money, the feeling of relief was so intense, she’d thrown her arms around his neck and sobbed once more.

‘Now you just let me know any time you’re short, love,’ said Dad, bringing her back to the present. ‘University should be the best time of your life. I don’t want you to be worrying about money. Or missing out.’

‘Thanks.’ Dad had always been greatly concerned that Lucy didn’t ‘miss out’. What he actually meant was ‘I will give you whatever it takes for you to fit in.’ He’d pushed her to do ballet and drama classes because that’s what the other, pretty girls in her class did. As a teenager, he made sure she had the trendiest fashions and the latest gadgets (You want to be cool, don’t you?). He’d nagged Mum into taking her to the best hairdressers in Belfast, in the failed hope that they could do something presentable with her thin, greasy hair. And he quizzed her about her social life, wanting to know where ‘all the kids hung out’ and who ‘her mates’ were. To please him, she’d talked about the popular girls at school as if they were her friends. Sometimes she was tolerated on the fringes of this ‘in crowd’; more often than not, told to get lost, or worse. It must’ve been clear to her father from a very early age that she was different. But, terrier-like, he persisted in his mission to transform her from ugly duckling into swan. He was a conformist.

The car accelerated away from the lights at York Street, joining the two-lane Westlink that skirted the city centre and connected eventually with the M1 on the south side of the city. ‘So how’s the studying going?’ said Dad.

‘Great,’ she lied.

‘You’re a bright girl, Lucy,’ Dad said confidently. He had never so much as brushed shoulders with self-doubt. ‘If you put in the work, you’ll be fine.’

Lucy gnawed the nail, already bitten down to the quick, on her right thumb. She’d lied about her first-year results. Mum and Dad were under the impression that she was on track for a two-one, maybe even a first. But the way things were going, she’d be lucky to graduate with a third, or worse. And there was always the awful possibility that she’d flunk altogether.

In choosing Applied Mathematics and Physics, she’d thought she was making a logical choice. In a world where popularity was decided on something as capricious as appearance (and a whole shed-load of other, shifting criteria, too subtle for Lucy to comprehend) maths was a solid bedrock of evolving logic and reasoning. She buried herself in numbers that appeared to deliver unequivocal answers.

But her judgement had proved flawed. Now in second year, she struggled to keep up, and the more she studied maths the more she came to realise that it didn’t have all the answers. It was no less fickle than the friendship of her peers. No amount of calculus or geometry could answer the questions that preoccupied her mind, nor ease the iron grip of isolation.

Driving south, they crossed the junctions at Divis Street, where the road widened out to three lanes. Not long now. Lucy felt the muscles in her stomach tighten. Dad rested his elbow awkwardly on the narrow sill and asked, ‘So, any boyfriends in the picture, Lucy?’

Lucy jolted and looked at him in astonishment. Did he know her at all? Was he blind? No man – or boy – had ever so much as looked at her. ‘No.’

‘Oh, come on, there must be someone,’ he teased.

‘Honestly Dad, there’s not,’ she said firmly and folded her arms across her chest.

He glanced over and said chirpily, as if her single status was something she actually had control over, ‘No, you’re quite right. You don’t want to be tying yourself down just yet. Plenty of time for settling down later. Meanwhile just enjoy being young, free and single.’ He grinned happily, content in the knowledge that Lucy was having the time of her life at uni. She couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in his face if she owned up to being what she was – a social outcast, a freak.

At the Broadway roundabout they turned onto Glenmachan Street, eventually joining the Lisburn Road heading north, back towards the city centre. They were almost there. Lucy put a hand on her stomach, hard as a nut, and took a deep breath to quell the nausea.

On Eglantine Avenue she racked her brains for a way to get into the house without him coming too. Too soon, they turned into Wellington Park Avenue, lined on both sides with gardenless Victorian terraced houses. Dad pulled up outside a red-brick house with bay windows on the ground and first floor – and peeling white paint on the windowsills. Lights blazed in every window. Her heart sank – everyone must be back already.

‘Here we are then.’ Dad turned off the engine and took the key out of the ignition.

Lucy quickly unclipped her seat belt and cracked open the car door. ‘Oh, don’t bother getting out, Dad. There’s no need for both of us to get wet, is there?’

He gave her an indulgent smile and, completely ignoring her, put his hand on the door handle. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy. Your bag weighs a tonne. I’ll carry it in for you.’

He got out of the car to open the boot and Lucy had no choice but to follow him. While he’d seen the house, she’d so far managed to avoid him meeting her housemates.

When he ran up the path with the bag she grasped its handle and tried to wrench it out of his hand. ‘I can take it from here, Dad,’ she said firmly but he simply pushed past her with, ‘Don’t be silly, Lucy. Let’s get out of this awful rain.’

She stumbled into the hall and watched in horror as he dumped her bag on the sticky floor – she was the only one who ever cleaned anything in the house – and headed straight for the lounge from which pounding music, and the sound of female voices, issued forth.

‘No!’ she cried out, desperately. ‘Don’t leave my bag there. It’s in the way. Let’s take it upstairs.’

But though he must’ve heard her, he paid no heed. He disappeared into the lounge. She crept to the door, moving silently like a cat, and peered into the room. Four of them were there, in the process of preparing to go out, competing sounds blaring from someone’s iPod docking station and the TV. Fran was putting make-up on in front of a magnifying mirror balanced on top of the slate mantelpiece, the only original feature left in the house after its butchery of a conversion. Vicky, swaying her hips to the music, held a pair of hair straighteners in her hand. Bernie knelt in front of the coffee table, measuring Tesco Value vodka into a pint glass. A rag bag assortment of glasses, made cloudy by too many cycles in the dishwasher without dishwashing tablets, salt or rinse aid, littered the dusty coffee table, along with a carton of cranberry juice. The girls never went out without getting pole-axed first.

They all stared when Dad, looking like a lecturer in fine brown cords and an open-necked checked flannel shirt, appeared in their midst. His hands were shoved into his trouser pockets, his arms holding back the tails of the suit jacket he wore over everything.

‘Hi,’ he said, raising his big hand in a friendly greeting. Then, realising they could not hear him over the din, he shouted. ‘I’m David. Lucy’s Dad.’

Someone turned the music off and Bernie, blonde hair tied up haphazardly on top of her head like an untidy nest, got off her knees and said, all friendly like, ‘Hi ya. What about ye?’ No one touched the TV control so the rest of the conversation took place against the sound of Dancing on Ice.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said, surveying the state of the room – clothes strewn on the floor; an overflowing ashtray on the hearth; a tube of hair product lying on the floor, greasy contents oozing out onto the cheap laminate; the stale smell of a room never aired. The girls looked uncertainly at one another.

He looked at the bottle of cheap vodka and for one awful moment Lucy thought he was going to say something about their drinking. But his face broke into a beaming smile. ‘Getting ready to go out, then?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Vicky, putting the straighteners down on a pink towel she’d draped over the arm of the burgundy sofa. Underneath was a horrible black scar where she’d already burned it. The landlord would take money out of all their deposits for that.

‘Oh, that’s great, Lucy,’ he said, turning around and taking a step backwards to expose her to everyone’s gaze. ‘You’ve arrived just in time.’

Lucy felt her face redden as the girls exchanged puzzled glances and then all stared at her. ‘Where are youse off to, then? Thompsons?’ she asked, slipping into the vernacular, and dredging up the name of a nightclub she’d overheard people talk about.

There was a subdued titter of laughter. Cathy, the only natural blonde among them, looked up from her place on the sofa, where she was stretched out reading Now magazine. ‘No one goes to Thompsons on a Sunday night,’ she said evenly, her thin lips unsmiling. Lucy gripped her upper arms so hard they hurt, praying that the ordeal would soon be over.

Bernie lit a cigarette, narrowing her eyes until they were no more than slits. She inhaled then removed the cigarette from her mouth with a little popping sound. ‘We’re going to Kremlin.’

Pretending that this statement constituted an invitation, Lucy cleared her throat and said, ‘Well, I’ve other plans for tonight.’

This seemed to annoy Dad for he said, sharply, ‘What other plans? You didn’t mention them in the car.’ And he held out his arm in a sweeping gesture towards the girls, like a cinema attendant showing her to her seat. ‘Sure, why don’t you go out with the girls?’

What was wrong with him? Couldn’t he see they hated her? Or maybe this was his awful, clumsy way of trying to force her on these unwilling airheads. He’d been doing it as long as she could remember. But she had tried to fit in, delighted that Vicky, who’d shared a maths module with her in first year, had invited her to join them – even though she got the poky room at the back of the house that never got the sun. But she’d very soon discovered, eavesdropping, that she’d only been asked because they couldn’t find anyone ‘sound’. After that she stopped trying to ingratiate herself with them. And in some ways it was a relief.

‘I just remembered. I’m going out with Amy,’ she improvised, holding up her mobile phone as evidence of some prior arrangement. Then she remembered that Amy always went to church on Sunday nights – but anything was better than staying here one minute longer. ‘Look, I’d better get a move on, Dad,’ she said, retreating from the room. ‘She’ll be wondering where I am.’

And, to her great relief, he followed her, calling out a cheery ‘Goodbye’ on his way. Immediately the music came back on. Lucy practically ran up the stairs, her stomach so tight it hurt, and unlocked the door to her neat and tidy room on the first floor. Dad followed her into the room and set the bag down on the floor. Lucy pulled out her mobile and, ignoring the cold water trickling down the back of her neck, pretended to read a text. ‘She’ll be here in a minute.’

When she’d finally got rid of him, Lucy covered her face with her hands. She’d tried so hard but she couldn’t do it any more. She hated everything about her life here in Belfast, in this house. There was only one thing that made it in any way tolerable. Quickly, she got her laptop out, went over to the small desk and plugged it into the large monitor. Immediately her heartbeat slowed.

She’d seen the TV ads for a new online bingo site at the weekend and she knew what that meant – special promotions. She’d already exhausted all the offers open to new players on every other site – and there were dozens of them. Sure enough, this site was offering a twenty-five-pound bonus to new players. The only problem was, you had to deposit ten pounds to qualify for it – and part of her current financial plan involved restricting herself to five pounds a day: thirty-five pounds a week. She frowned, but her hesitation was momentary – after tonight’s humiliation, she deserved a treat.

When the money was gone, Lucy sat staring at the debit card lying on the table. If she deposited another ten pounds she would earn a fifty per cent bonus. She liked that word ‘deposit’. It sounded safe, reassuring – and it reminded her that this was an investment in her future. She picked up the card and keyed in the number …

Later still, she sat on her bed, the music now thumping so loudly, she felt the vibration through the soles of her feet. The money was all gone and she’d won nothing. She tried not to feel disheartened. It was only a temporary setback. She looked at her watch. The girls would not leave the house until ten o’clock, maybe later, and they would not come home until the early hours. She could not bear it a minute longer. She grabbed her purse and keys and ran out of the room.

‘I didn’t think this would be your scene,’ said Amy, handing Lucy a glass of orange juice. There was wine – an unopened bottle of red and another of white on the sideboard – but no one seemed to be touching it so Lucy didn’t either.

She took a sip of the lukewarm drink and tried to ignore the wet jeans sticking to her thighs – she’d had to walk all the way over here in the rain to gatecrash this party. The party, if you could call it that, was in the lounge of a student house on Stranmillis Gardens, much the same as the house Lucy shared. Except this one was clean and it didn’t smell of chip fat and stale cigarette smoke. And this shindig was nothing like the parties the girls at Wellington Park Avenue threw. For a start, no one was smoking, shouting, vomiting or snogging someone they hardly knew on the sofa.

People stood around in small groups talking quietly and laughing, some kind of acoustic guitar music playing softly in the background. A smiling girl came round carrying a tray of cocktail sausages. Lucy took one and nibbled it thoughtfully. There was something else that marked these people out from her housemates, apart from their wholesome appearance – they were friendly. Yet Lucy felt as alien here at she did at Wellington Park Avenue.

‘You know what the girls in the house are like, Amy. They were getting stuck into vodka and cranberry juice,’ she offered to explain her presence. ‘The music was so loud I couldn’t stand it. I had to get out.’

Amy raised her right eyebrow, the same colour as her flaming red hair. With her sharp features, small pale eyes behind wire-framed glasses and translucent skin so white it almost glowed, Amy was not beautiful. But she had an inner goodness that drew people to her and she was a kind and loyal friend. She read Pure Mathematics and they’d known each other since the start of first year. And while Lucy had known from the outset that Amy was a committed Christian, she had only ever tried to force her beliefs on Lucy in the gentlest of manners, occasionally inviting her along to special events run by the Christian Union.

‘I don’t know why you share with them, Lucy,’ she said at last, shaking her head ruefully. ‘They’re not like you.’

Who is? thought Lucy. She wished for a moment that she had faith like Amy, so that she might feel connected to the people in this room. She wanted to belong – to feel part of something. But, while she believed in God, she could honestly say that she had never felt personally touched by His spirit. The compulsory religious studies she’d done in school had always felt like an interesting, but academic, exercise.

‘Well, I don’t have much choice. I’m tied in by the lease agreement until the end of the academic year,’ said Lucy. Even if she extricated herself from the house, where would she go? Amy couldn’t help – she lived with her parents in East Belfast. She could live at home she supposed, but her parents would want to know what was wrong. They claimed university was as much about ‘the student experience’ as it was about academic achievement. They had no idea what it meant in reality for Lucy.

‘Well, I’m really sorry to hear that,’ said Amy, looking into her drink. ‘I know how much you hate it there.’

A loud ripple of laughter broke out on the other side of the room, giving Lucy the opportunity to look away, effectively bringing the depressing conversation to an end.

A small group of girls near the door to the kitchen were clustered around a very tall, well-built man, maybe six foot four, with a straight choppy fringe of light brown hair and a broad, clean-shaven face. His big hand encircled a pint glass of coke and he was casually dressed in distressed jeans and a faded rugby shirt with the collar turned up around his thick neck. He looked older than the rest of the group and the way he held himself – straight-backed and square-shouldered – combined with his imposing physique gave him an air of authority. His reserved, lopsided smile suggested that he was the source of the sudden mirth.

The laughter died away and the tall man glanced up, his eyebrows knitted together in an amused expression. His blue-eyed gaze, as bright and piercing as a spear, met Lucy’s and she felt a strange, unfamiliar sensation in her stomach. Her heartbeat fluttered momentarily, then stabilised again. Startled, she put a hand to her chest as if holding it there might steady her heartbeat.

‘I can’t stay long tonight,’ said Amy, glancing at her watch, and Lucy looked over her shoulder to see who the man was staring at. But there was no one there. When she turned round again, he was standing right in front of her. She let out a little silent gasp and, shyly, looked up at his face.

‘Hi, I’m Oren Wilson,’ he said, the smile replaced with a searching, curious look as if he was trying to remember if he’d met her before. To Amy he said, without looking, ‘How’s it going, Amy?’

‘Good. This is Lucy Irwin, Oren,’ said Amy absentmindedly, and she waved at someone on the other side of the room. ‘Did you win today?’

‘Fifteen-three,’ he said and, taking in Lucy’s blank face he added, ‘Rugby. We were playing against Malone.’

‘Oren’s captain of the first eleven,’ interjected Amy.

Lucy, impressed, said, ‘Oh.’

‘Yep, a couple of my team-mates are over there.’ Oren pointed at two ruddy-faced, muscled blokes amongst the group he’d been talking to. ‘They’re sound lads. The rest of them are out getting smashed somewhere.’ He rolled his eyes and his smile, when he shook his head, conveyed a kind of benign disapproval.

‘Look, would you two excuse me a moment?’ said Amy. ‘I have to speak to Carolyn about Talkshop on Thursday night. We’re nearly out of coffee and biscuits.’

Amy disappeared and Oren, who had not taken his eyes off Lucy, said, ‘So, are you a first year?’

‘N … No,’ said Lucy and she tried to smile but her heart was inexplicably full of a feeling akin to, but not quite the same as, dread. ‘I’m second year, like Amy. I’m doing Applied Mathematics and Physics.’

‘You must be very clever,’ he said, his tone one of mild amusement rather than conviction. Was he making fun of her?

‘Are you?’ she squeaked.

He laughed easily at this. ‘With humility comes wisdom. In that sense, I hope I have insight.’

She blushed, tongue-tied by confusion and said at last, ‘I … I meant are you a first year?’ And then she blushed again at the stupidity of her question while Oren looked on, his thin closed lips almost smiling. He was too old to be a first year; he must be a mature student, or a lecturer even. ‘So, what are you doing? I mean studying? If you’re a student, that is …’ Her voice trailed away and she looked at the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow her whole. Not only was she stupid, she could hardly string a coherent sentence together.

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