The Survivors(6)

‘Two weeks, five days.’

‘There you go. Keep your eye on the prize.’ He grinned. ‘You’ll be back to walking around the house naked before you know it. You’ll love it.’

‘I’ll love not having to chase up her share of whatever bill she owes me. Oh –’ Olivia looked across the dining area. ‘Hang on, I’d better see to that.’

The t-shirt boys, their arms only the faintest shade of blue, had admitted defeat and come inside to pay. Kieran watched with interest as Ash’s eyes followed Olivia all the way to the cash register. He had never known Ash and Olivia as a couple. They weren’t quite how he would have imagined, but then he’d never really imagined them together. Ash almost certainly had, though. Kieran would be surprised if the idea of being with Liv Birch hadn’t crossed the minds of most blokes in town at one time or another.

As he reached for his drink, Kieran felt it before he saw it. The prickling sensation of being under scrutiny. He didn’t move his head, instead sliding his gaze slowly around the room. It took him a second to locate the source, but when he did, it was with a sinking feeling.

The boy – man, really, these days – was standing behind the kitchen hatch. He was broad-shouldered and wearing a grease-stained apron and an expression that made Kieran wish he were anywhere else.

From the guy’s size and stance he could have been in his mid-twenties, but Kieran knew for a fact he was nineteen. He was wearing a nametag too small to read, but Kieran didn’t need it anyway. Liam Gilroy.

Kieran took a breath, then another, and forced himself to make eye contact. Liam immediately pretended to be looking past him, then turned back to his grill. Kieran waited for a feeling of relief, but none came. There would be no real trouble, he knew, there never was, but the room suddenly felt stifling. Kieran checked if Mia had noticed the exchange, but she was absorbed in picking a loose thread off one of the hats without unravelling the whole row of stitches. He stood, a little too quickly, and his chair squealed against the floor.

‘Back in a minute.’

Ash and Mia immediately looked up, both flashing an identical don’t leave me plea with their eyes. They got along fine in wider company, but struggled with small talk one on one, Kieran knew. Still, that couldn’t be helped.

He left them to their slightly strained smiles and made a beeline for the toilets. There was no-one else there, and he stood in the quiet. The mirrors above the sinks were streaked and in the harsh bathroom lights his reflection looked a little older than his thirty years. He was always tired these days. The lack of sleep since Audrey had arrived had been brutal. He washed his hands slowly, debating whether he and Mia could decently leave before Sean arrived. Probably. He and Sean went back far enough that he could get away with it. But at the same time, it went against the grain a little.

Mia didn’t really get it.

‘Male friendships are so weird, you guys barely keep in touch,’ she’d said to him as they were packing to come here.

‘Yeah, we do. I see them every time I visit.’

‘In between, though. I mean, you never even speak.’

That was true. Kieran had heard about Ash and Olivia getting together through Mia, who had heard it from Olivia in one of their thrice-yearly catch-up emails.

‘I suppose,’ he’d said. ‘Works out, though.’

And it did. Kieran was never worried about that. Partly because when the three of them did see each other they really were able to pick up where they’d left off. But mostly because if they had been going to fall apart, it would have happened twelve years ago. Kieran turned off the tap and looked away from his reflection. If they’d managed to survive that – those really dark days of blame and reckoning – they could certainly survive a couple of years of sporadic text messages.

Kieran dried his hands, checked his phone and, unable to string things out any longer, finally pulled the door open. He’d barely stepped out into the tight vestibule separating the toilets from the dining area when he heard the familiar voice floating from the kitchen. The words were muffled by the whine of the industrial fan, but were clear enough to make him stop short. Kieran stood very still, knowing with an instinct that he’d fine-tuned over the years that the conversation was about him.

‘If it was up to me, he wouldn’t even be allowed in here.’ Liam sounded very pissed off.

A girl’s polite laugh. ‘Well, last I checked, nothing around here was up to us.’ It was Bronte speaking; Kieran recognised her voice now. ‘Anyway, he seems all right.’

‘And how would you know that?’

Bronte seemed taken aback. ‘I don’t, really –’

‘You don’t know anything about him.’

‘No. I suppose not. I just –’

‘What?’

‘I don’t get why you’re giving him a hard time, that’s all.’

‘No?’

Kieran realised he was holding his breath. He let it out. There would be no surprises in what was coming next.

‘Well, whatever.’ Liam’s voice was hard. ‘But the way I see it – you kill someone, you deserve all the shit that’s coming your way.’





Chapter 3


It was lucky – or perhaps unlucky – that Sean was sitting at the table when Kieran re-emerged into the bright lights of the dining area, because otherwise he would have grabbed Mia’s hand, said a swift farewell to Ash and left. He was still strongly considering this course of action when Sean stood to greet him, a broad lazy smile spreading across his face.