Good Enough to Trust (Good Enough, Book 2 - Going Back) (8 page)

“No, Dane isn’t
here. I’m on my own.” She sighed, a little wistful sigh, because Holly didn’t
do pushy, or difficult, and I was being both, with a dash of temperamental and
self pity in the mix. And she definitely didn’t do temperamental and emotional.

“Sorry, of course
I’ll meet up for lunch. But it’s a bit early, it’s only—” I glanced at my
watch. It wasn’t early. Somehow between Will getting up and leaving, and the
phone buzzing, I’d lost a few hours. Bugger.

“I know you’re
here to get away and sort things out and I promise I won’t hang around, it’s
just Dane—”

I wanted to forget
Dane. Dane who thought he knew all the answers and was probably right.

“And Soph?” The
worry trickled down the line. “Who’s Ollie?”

“We’ll talk, I
promise. Over lunch.” I didn’t need to tell her where to meet me, Crackington
Haven only had one pub, and one café, and one car park. And right now one
Holly.

I’d overstated the
facilities at the village— come winter time the café was shut and it just came
down to the sum total of a pub and car park. They seemed a bit surprised to get
visitors in the pub too, which was fair enough given what it had to offer was a
view, which in the summer was quaint and in the winter gloomy, and a rocky
beach that had morphed from idyllic and sheltered, into dangerous and smuggler
territory.

We didn’t have to
make much of pleasantries, we were good friends so it was straight to the hug
and then the nitty gritty. Well, after the food and drink had been sorted.

“You look good.”

“Thanks.” I wasn’t
sure how damp air that frizzed up my hair and left my cheeks as pink as a
slapped bottom looked good, but she said it as though she meant it.

She grinned.
“You’ve got a man haven’t you? You look kind of relaxed and chilled, you’re never
chilled.”

I raised an
eyebrow.

“You’re always
bouncing about and proving to everyone how good life is, but you’re not doing
that.”

“No one to prove
anything to here.” I glanced around the bar, deserted apart from a man with a
dog and the elderly guy behind the bar.

She laughed. “You
know what I mean.”

I did. She was
right, I hadn’t actually sorted anything out yet, no answers, nothing. But I
did feel strangely calmer, strangely like I might almost expect things to pan
out, in the end.

“He was there when
Dane rang wasn’t he?”

“They both were.”
I winked and she spluttered into her beer, which sent froth up her nose and
left her frantically searching for a tissue as her eyes streamed. But she never
took her gaze off me. I passed her a serviette and sipped my drink in a
ladylike manner whilst she finished choking and showering the table with beer.
“I mean, what else is there to do here?” I put on my best look of innocence.

“I wish I did soul
searching the same way you do.”

Okay, I did feel a
twinge of guilt because she looked a bit miffed, it had all been very sombre
when I’d told her I needed time out on my own to sort things. Now it looked
like I was partying, which was just the surface dressing to make me feel a bit
more normal. Zero to hero takes time.

“Why are you here,
Sophie? I mean I know that Dane knows, everyone always knows more than me, and
I know he’s all wound up, but don’t you trust me enough to tell?” It was almost
a plea. She was putting brave face on it, but she was hurt. She was bound to be.
I mean what type of a best mate just walks out, and what type of a mate lets
her, gives her time.

“I was going to
explain Holl, in my own time.” I’d gone off the idea of food and stopped
messing with my cutlery, pushed my drink into the centre of the table. “This is
where I was when—” It happened? When everything in my muddled up world
imploded. “—my parents died.” I could say it, it didn’t make me feel
miraculously better, but I could say it. Not the committed suicide bit, but the
‘died’ bit. “I’d come here with a boyfriend and I don’t know whether—” I could
feel the tension in my brow, the tightness in my throat, “—I didn’t know
whether I was running away from them, cos I couldn’t stand any more, or whether
I was doing it for him.” I traced a line in the condensation of the glass. “For
us. We were kids Holly, bloody, silly kids.”

“So, you came here
to find him.” It was statement, the same one everyone was making.

“Oh, no. No.”
Maybe that was a bit firmer than it warranted. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t come here
to find him. “I didn’t know he was still here, I just never thought….” I hadn’t
thought. When I’d got over the numbness of burying my parents, when I’d stopped
crying at the drop of a hat, and yelling at people for breathing, when I’d
replied to his texts with enough anger to make me feel better, then I’d
thought. I’d wondered where he’d gone, wondered if I’d ever see his face again.
And then I’d buried the thoughts and got on with my life in the way I’d hope my
mum would have been proud of.

“But this boyfriend,
it’s Ollie, right?”

“Yup.”

“And that was who
you were with last night, the one who’s made you happy?” She had a hopeful look
on a face, that type of look that meant she knew I was going to say everything
was fine.

“No.” I paused and
hoped I sounded matter of fact. “That was Will.” It seemed best not to mention
Stevie that would have just made it more complicated.

“Will? But Dane
was going on about Ollie…” Her voice trailed off. “You’ve not found Ollie?”

“Ollie is the
other one. I didn’t find Ollie, he found me. They were both there, but it was
Will who stayed over.”

“I think you’ve
lost me.” I think I’d lost myself as well. “You came here to find Ollie—”

“No. How many
times do I have to say it? I came here to find answers.”

“But you didn’t
find Ollie, you found Will. Who the hell is Will?” She frowned at me.

“Just some guy I
bumped into.” It wasn’t sounding good, even to me. “I got lost when I was going
up to the kieve.”

“Kieve? What’s the
kieve when it’s at home? You mean cave?”

“No, kieve, its
Cornish for bowl. Can I finish?” She nodded, but the look on her face was pure
doubt and confusion. “I wanted to go up to this place Ollie and I found. It was
kind of mystical, almost like when you’re in a church, if you know what I
mean?” She half nodded. “I thought it was a good place to start, a place to
think. But I got lost.”

“And bumped into
Will?”

“Well, more like
his bullocks, and he popped out of the mist and suggested we go for a drink.”

“A drink?”

“Yeah, just a
drink. He’s nice.” Sophie didn’t look convinced, and who could blame her. “He
is, he’s a really nice guy, you know like Charlie is. But not quite like
Charlie. And then I bumped into Ollie.”

“When you went for
a drink with Will?”

“Next day, when I
went down to the beach.”

“Beach? In this
weather?” She gave a half shudder and rolled her eyes, which was totally
unnecessary if you ask me.

“Oh cut the Am
Drams, I went down to the castle in Tintagel so that I could get some air, and
think. We used to go a lot and I thought if I sat there for a bit I might be
able to remember what it was all about.” I emptied what was left in my glass.
“And Ollie turned up.”

“And you
remembered?” Holly’s voice was soft, and when I looked up and caught her eyes
she was watching me carefully, as though she was afraid of saying the wrong
thing.

“You know how
sometimes you have good times with someone?” I gazed into my glass and could
see the way he used to be, when we first met, his smiling face, clear,
uncomplicated. “And when it’s over you go back to a place you shared just half
hoping everything will be back how it was. That they’ll be there and you can
sort it all out?” I glanced up and she was watching me. “Well, I think it was a
bit like that in my head when I set off down here, but I didn’t expect to see
him. It was all too long ago, we were different, and I just wanted the feeling,
not to actually make it happen.” She half nodded, though I wasn’t convinced I
was making any kind of sense at all. “We came down here as kids, Holl, then it
happened and I rushed back and he never followed me. I thought he would, and he
didn’t. Oh yeah, I blamed him as well as me, and told him not to come, but
y’know I just thought…” I’d thought lots of things over and over again, but
mostly I’d just thought that he hadn’t cared after all.

“He never called,
at all?”

“Eventually, but
it was too late. It was far too late and I told him if he ever came near me
again I’d call the police.”

“What do you mean
too late?” She knew impatient was my middle name, I just got on with things,
she probably thought I was talking about a week, two weeks.

“I’d gone home,
sorted things and gone back to school when the new term started and it was like
several months later, when I was doing my ‘A’ levels and everything. I’d
applied to Uni and decided that whatever happened I was going to get qualified,
just, well just concentrate on work and make Mum—” I swallowed, tried not to
think too much “—make Mum proud, not be some bummer like he was.” Like hopeless
and trapped with a man who beat you up, like Mum had been. Except sometimes I
had a feeling she’d stayed because she wanted to, not because she had to. “Dane
tried to make me talk to him, but he didn’t understand.”

“I don’t get it,
what has Dane got to do with all this?”

“They’re cousins.
Dane and Ollie are cousins.”

There was a
silence while she took it all in. “Cousins?”

“Yup. I was
seventeen when I met him and he was nineteen, the same age as Dane. They were
buddies really, except Ollie was the bad boy, and I guess at first Dane was
jealous when Ollie started spending time with me. And he went off the wall when
I told him me and Ol were heading off for the summer. He’d lost his mate.”

“Are you sure he
wasn’t jealous of Ollie? I mean you and he…?” She gave me a pointed look, which
I did my best to ignore.

“Whatever. And
anyhow, he’d met Sal so what was it to do with him? He said I was too young,
and being daft and I didn’t know what I was doing. That Ollie was just out for
a laugh.”

“Which made you
more determined?”

“Well, yeah.” I
couldn’t stop the little smile that crept out when I thought about how Ollie
had wrapped his arms protectively around me and told Dane to take a hike. He’d
told me he’d look after me, he’d said ‘trust me’ and I had. And Dane had given
us a look that almost said he’d never forgive us. “But, part of it was that it
was so shit at home.” I stared down at the table and wished I didn’t have to
think about it. “Dad was getting worse, he’d come in pissed and be throwing the
dinner at the wall.” When we were little, Meggie and I would sit in our room
with our hands over our ears, but it didn’t help. Pain can get through any
barriers. Then my big sister Meg had moved out, and it had just been me. It was
always the same, shouting, hurling, abuse, muffled screams and then the bang of
the front door. I never could remember what it had been like at the start, when
we were young. Never remembered the good times that Mum insisted we’d had. “She
wouldn’t leave him, it didn’t matter what I said she’d just give me a little
smile and a hug, and tell me not to worry.” But the way she often winced as she
did, it meant I couldn’t help but worry. “I shouldn’t have left her with him. I
should have stayed or made her come with me.”

“You couldn’t make
her, Soph.”

No, I couldn’t
make her leave, but I could have stayed. “We’d only been gone a couple of weeks
when the police tracked us down on the campsite and told me I needed to go back
with them. Joint suicide they said.”

He’d killed her,
killed her because there was no-one there to stop him. Holly had heard some of
it before, but she didn’t know I’d run away. “So I went back with them and
Ollie said he’d sort things and follow me. But he never did. And then there was
all the funeral and questions and endless shit and it didn’t seem to matter
anymore.” I rested my chin on my hands and tried to remember what it had been
like, it all seemed so long ago now. “Dane made a few noises about Ollie, but
him and Sal were as thick as thieves, and he didn’t really have time to stick
his nose in too much. We were just kids playing a game that went wrong.”

And all for
nothing.

“She might have
loved him, Holl, but she wouldn’t have killed herself. She wouldn’t. Why would
she do that?” And why would she lie, and add her farewell kisses on the bottom
of a note that was as flimsy and crumpled as the words written on it? “Maybe it
was wrong to come back here. It’s not going to solve anything is it?”

“You won’t know
till you’ve done it though, will you?” Holly had always thought she wasn’t good
enough for anyone, and why the hell she’d let herself believe it, I don’t know.
She was the best friend I’d ever had. And the only person I’d told the whole
story to.

“Looks like
someone is trying to get your attention.” I twisted to see what she was looking
at, and Will was stood at the bar, watching us quietly as he nursed a drink in
his big bear’s paw of a hand, and the second I waved he grinned and set off
towards us. He could sure move fast for a big man.