Sometimes I think Rose and Conor fell in love the first time they saw each other on the beach, when they were both nine and Nana invited him to come to Seaglass for lemonade. Something happened that day. It wasn’t something you could see or explain, but it was there. You could feel it. I often wonder whether we are born with love in our hearts, and whether life just slowly erases it, eating it away little by little, until all the empathy and warmth is completely rubbed out. We learn to love regardless of whether there is anyone in our lives to teach us how. Love is as instinctive as breathing, but we don’t have to give it away. Like our breath, we can hold onto it if we choose to. But not forever. Because then it starts to hurt.
I wasn’t the only one who was jealous of their relationship. When Conor turned eighteen, Rose gave him her virginity as a birthday gift wrapped in black lace underwear. Lily – who already felt a bit abandoned – was furious. Conor was the only boy in Blacksand Bay who Lily really wanted to fool around with, and the only boy she hadn’t. And she wasn’t the only one secretly in love with her sister’s boyfriend. The eldest sibling inevitably wins most of life’s unspoken races. Rose was the first to fall in love, but also the first to experience the sorrow and grief of breaking up.
When Conor says something in the present, it’s so unexpected, I jump.
‘Daisy, I can’t imagine how awful it would feel to see what is happening to your family tonight.’
He’s speaking to me.
After all these years of him acting like I don’t exist, I am overcome with emotion. I just wish it hadn’t taken something so awful for him to forgive me.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
Conor sits down on my bed right next to me, and I’m a little girl again, in love with a boy who never really noticed her.
‘I blamed you for what happened all those years ago for such a long time,’ he says. ‘But it wasn’t your fault. I know that now. Deep down, I always knew, and I’m sorry for everything that has happened since.’
Tears are streaming down my face. I’ve waited so long for him to say these words.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, and consider reaching for his hand. But the sound of a door slamming downstairs interrupts the moment and it is lost. Conor’s face is now filled with fear, and I imagine my own must look the same.
We hurry back down the staircase and see that the muddy boots are gone. Conor knocks on the closed library door, where Rose said she was getting changed, but nobody answers. I feel a strange sensation, like when your heart skips a beat, but it’s more than that. He’s about to knock a second time when Rose opens the door. She has changed into a white T-shirt – and clearly isn’t wearing a bra – along with another pair of skin-tight jeans. The jacket is gone, and she has untied her long dark hair so that it falls down past her shoulders in damp, wavy curls. Something unspoken passes between the two of them, and I feel like a spare part again.
‘We left the back door open and I think the wind slammed it shut,’ Rose says, answering the question before we ask it. Then the clocks in the hallway start to chime, and they sound even louder than before.
‘What is that?’ Rose asks, looking over my shoulder.
Conor and I turn and see what she is staring at. The door on the front of the grandfather clock – the largest of the eighty different varieties of clock in the hall – is open. And there is what looks like another VHS tape covering its face. My mind whirs like all the clocks I’m surrounded by, and just as loudly. Lily and Trixie could have put the tape there while the three of us went to get changed. Or Rose could have put it there while Conor and I were upstairs. Or Conor could have put it there when he left the bedroom. Or someone else could have done it while we were all distracted, then let themselves out the back door. For a moment I can’t decide what is worse: the idea that a stranger is here doing this to us, or that it might be one of the family.
Unpleasant thoughts tend to outstay their welcome, just like unpleasant people. I stare at Conor and Rose and can see that they are thinking the same thing: wondering if they can trust each other or anyone here at Seaglass. They both reach for the tape at the same time, their hands grazing just like they did before. I’m not imagining the chemistry between them, and it’s making me feel a bit peculiar. I know I have no right to feel anything at all, and there are far more important things to worry about. But the last of my nerves are being gotten on, and I feel sick with fear.
When Rose picks up the latest VHS tape, I feel even worse. The cover has a new message spelled out in Scrabble letters stuck to the front of it: