The Last Party (DC Morgan #1)(119)

‘I don’t know how to be,’ Seren says eventually. ‘Like, you were my sister, and I knew how to be around you. But now . . .’

‘I’m still the same—’

‘No, you’re not! You’re my – you’re my – God, I can’t even say it!’

‘You don’t have to say it. You don’t have to do anything, be anything. I’m not going anywhere, okay? When you’re ready, we can hang out. Maybe.’ Ffion grits her teeth. God, this is hard.

‘I hate it here.’ Seren kicks one foot against the other. ‘It’s so, fucking, in your face. Like, you can’t go anywhere without seeing someone you know. I feel like I can’t breathe.’

‘I know.’

Seren scoffs. ‘You don’t.’

‘I was exactly the same. Desperate to escape, to see the world, to find – oh, I don’t know – something real.’

‘Yes!’ Seren turns to her, her eyes flashing with enthusiasm, before she remembers who Ffion is. What she’s done. ‘And then you came back! Like, what the fuck for?’

‘I came back for you,’ Ffion says simply.

Seren’s bluster vanishes. ‘Oh.’ There’s a beat, before she frowns.

‘That’s not why I stayed, though.’ Ffion grins at the mock indignation on her daughter’s face. ‘Well, not entirely.’ She sweeps an arm in the direction of the lake. ‘I stayed for this.’

‘Llyn Drych?’

‘All of it. The lake. The mountains. The stupid stories about throwing rocks and waking the dragon by hitting its tail. It’s in my blood.’ Hesitantly, she puts an arm around Seren’s shoulders. ‘It’s in yours,’ she says quietly.

They stay on the bonnet of the Triumph, silently watching the lake. A minute or two passes, and then Seren slowly drops her head on to Ffion’s shoulder, and Ffion holds her breath and digs her nails into her palm to stop herself crying. All these years she’s told herself she isn’t a mother, won’t ever be a mother, doesn’t want to be a mother. She’s emptied her heart without even realising, and now it is full – so very full.

‘I can’t call you Mam,’ Seren says, breaking the silence.

‘You can call me whatever you want.’

‘Shit-for-brains?’

‘You’re not funny, you know,’ says Ffion, smiling.

‘I get my sense of humour from my mother.’ Seren moves, and Ffion feels bereft for a moment, but Seren turns and throws her arms around her, squeezing so hard it takes Ffion’s breath away. No sooner is she there than she pulls away. ‘I’d better go. I said I’d meet Caleb.’

‘Things still going well between you, then?’

Seren shrugs, but her face is lit up. ‘S’pose.’

‘That’s good.’ Ffion keeps her voice neutral. She is keeping an eye on Caleb Northcote. Clemmie narrowly escaped a custodial sentence for her part in a crime the judge described as abhorrent. She has her son to thank for that, as well as Dee Huxley, whose character reference spoke glowingly of Clemmie as a friend, neighbour and mother. Ironically, it is now Clemmie, not Caleb, who is under supervision, who must sign on at a police station and fulfil her community service obligations.

That evening, Ffion meets Huw in the pub. It’s the third time she and Huw have gone out in the past few months. Back in April Ffion had opened the door to find Huw standing there with a bunch of flowers.

Ffion eyed them suspiciously. ‘What are those for?’

‘Well, they’re not for me.’

They were proper flowers, not supermarket ones, wrapped in brown paper and tied with raffia. ‘Do you want to come in?’ Ffion knew she sounded ungracious.

‘You’re alright.’ Huw scuffed the toe of his boot against the doorstep. ‘So, you said you might come for a drink. When you’d finished that job.’

‘I did.’ Ffion counted the petals on something that looked like a daisy but probably wasn’t. He loves me, he loves me not . . .

‘And the job’s finished. Isn’t it?’

‘It is.’ He loves me.

‘Ah, come on! Will you have a drink with me, or not?’

Ffion looked at Huw’s furrowed brow, and thought about what it must take to keep asking.

‘I miss you.’

Everything was there, waiting for her. A husband. A house. Even children, if she ever decided she could; and for the first time in sixteen years she wasn’t ruling it out. All she had to do was take a step.

‘It’s just a drink, Ffi. Yes or no?’

‘Oh, go on, then.’

She worried it would be awkward – how did you date someone you’d already married? – but she’d forgotten what easy company Huw was. He talked about the lads at work, his jokes familiar and new at the same time; and she traded the guy who’d been caught dogging in a layby between Llanwys and Brynafon.

‘Whereabouts, exactly?’ Huw had pretended to make a note of it, and Ffion had grinned, feeling the warmth of familiarity, security.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ she says now. She pushes an envelope across the table. Huw frowns as he opens it, his eyes widening as he pulls out a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. ‘The prison finally gave Glynis authorisation to access her bank accounts.’