He can’t stay here. He pushes on, pushes past. He knows most but not all of the people at the party, but in this alcohol-glazed fug they could all be strangers. He feels disconnected from them, from himself, as though he’s viewing the party through thick glass. So many people. They were curious to see inside The Shore; to see what Rhys had made of himself, since he’d left Cwm Coed. Or perhaps they simply wanted more fuel for the fire that had started the day the planning application went in.
A shout rings out. ‘Give us a song, Rhys!’
The request prompts a chorus of pleas from around the piano, but Rhys waves them away, pointing vaguely across the room as though he is on his way to see someone, to do something. A pianist begins thumping out ‘Yellow Submarine’， and Rhys stumbles towards the door. He thinks it’s likely he will throw up, and he would prefer to do so outside. In fact, he’d prefer to do it in his own bathroom. Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to be in his own lodge, slipping between cool sheets, within dashing distance of the en suite. His heart’s racing, and he wishes he could stop the images in his head; memories he thought he’d forgotten.
It isn’t too late to be a better person, he tells himself.
As he reaches the front door, he hears the opening bars of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’， and he’s grateful he didn’t stay. Outside, the icy air brings a moment’s relief, but the clarity is short-lived. His stomach heaves and he lurches from the path, vomiting violently into the bushes. He thinks of his cool sheets, of the bottled water in the bedroom minibar.
The driveway is pooled with lights from the lodges. Despite the cold, there are shapes huddled in the trees – teenagers, perhaps, skulking out of sight with the cider they think they stole unseen.
As he staggers towards his own lodge, Rhys sees movement upstairs in Dee’s place; at number three, the Staffords’ door is wide open. He stumbles on, past Clemmie’s lodge, to number five. He’s glad to find the front door unlocked – he can’t remember where his keys are – and he pauses only to throw up again, beside the ornamental grasses.
He doesn’t take off his shoes. He doesn’t turn on the light. He grips the banister and grits his teeth as his guts churn. He reminds himself he is seconds away from privacy, a clean loo, crisp white sheets. Seconds away from the oblivion he craves, and tomorrow will be a new start, a chance to make good the mistakes he’s made. When he wakes up, everything will feel better. He will be better.
EIGHT
JANUARY 2ND | FFION
‘Did he kill himself, then?’
Ffion looks at her watch. She’s going to be late to meet Leo. ‘Mam, you know I can’t talk about the case.’
‘Not even to your mother?’ Elen’s folding laundry, a mug of tea going cold on the side. Elen isn’t built to sit down. Occasionally Seren makes her watch something on Netflix, but after twenty minutes Elen starts twitching, looking for a job to do.
‘Especially not to my mother. Everyone knows I’m job, and they’ll all be asking you what you know.’ Ffion balances her toast on her hand, spreading marmalade awkwardly with the other.
‘Plat, Ffion!’
‘Saves washing up.’ Ffion eats the toast in four bites and brushes the crumbs into the sink.
‘I’d tell them I didn’t know anything.’
Ffion snorts. ‘You’re a terrible liar, Mam. Your ears go pink.’
‘You’d be surprised what I know and haven’t told you.’ Elen folds the last piece of washing and picks up the basket. ‘People are saying he had a stalker. From London.’
Ffion puts on her coat. ‘People can say what they want.’
‘So that means you’re not looking for someone round here, doesn’t it? If it was the stalker who killed him?’
‘Bye, Mam.’ Ffion closes the door firmly. God, she has to find somewhere else to live. She could have rented somewhere when she walked out on her marriage, only it had been so easy to go back home, and the couple of weeks she planned to stay have somehow turned into a year. It is, she’s ashamed to admit, nice to be looked after, but . . . well, turns out you can have too much of a good thing.
Ffion has arranged to meet Leo at the lake, so she leaves the Triumph parked outside the house. She’s barely out of the gate when Elen hollers after her. She turns to see her mam in her slippers, legging it down the path. Either side of her, the husks of verbena lean like skeletons, last summer’s colour long since faded. Rewilding, Elen calls her approach to gardening.