Eighteen Kisses (23 page)

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England

puffinbooks.com

First published 2012

Text copyright © Laura Jane Cassidy, 2012
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-141-96108-8

I watched the funeral pass by from the window of our cluttered caravan. The renovation of our new cottage was not yet complete, so that summer we were living in a little caravan at the top of our lane, overlooking the winding country road. My mum was among the cluster of darkly clad mourners headed to the graveyard. The body in the coffin was that of Jim Cullen. He was a popular man who had lived in a stone cottage about ten minutes’ walk from the village of Avarna. Jim had died suddenly of a heart attack aged seventy-two. He was survived by his wife, Lily, and two children. I’d never met him.

We had been living there only two weeks. Mum had met him several times when she’d been house-hunting in Avarna the previous year. It was Jim Cullen who had told her about one particular house that would be coming on the market, as its eccentric owner, a farrier named Alf, was moving to an island off the south coast. The moment she saw it Mum put in an offer and set about selling our house in Dublin. Thanks to the late Jim Cullen she had her idyllic country residence. I’d begged Mum not to accept the job, not to move. I really didn’t want to live in the country. I’d screamed and cried and pleaded with her not to make me leave Dublin, but it was no use. She’d never
understand just how hard it was for me to leave my friends, my school, my band, everything that was important to me.

When I protested about going to Jim’s funeral she presumed it was because I was still mad at her. That was true, but there was another reason. I really disliked funerals. I’d always found myself sensitive to other people’s suffering; I seemed to soak up their grief like a sponge. I already felt unwell that day; I had a headache and just knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I watched until the large crowd passed and then went back to strumming my guitar.

Mum didn’t go to the Cullen house for tea afterwards because she only vaguely knew Jim’s relatives and didn’t want to intrude. I noticed how her eyelids were red when she dozed off later. No doubt she felt just like me: the day’s events had reminded her of my dad’s funeral. He’d died of a brain tumour when I was nine and even after six years I could still recall the small details of that day. The navy woollen tights that made my legs itch, the smell of the white lilies laid out on the coffin and the grip of my mum’s hand on my own small trembling one. He’d been sick for a while, but then suddenly he was gone and the funeral was the first time I began to accept this. Mum and I had learned to cope since then, but we still thought about him all the time. We liked to remember the happy times, how he’d always made us laugh … and the way he used to sing along really badly to the radio.

The caravan was a poor replacement for our suburban terraced house, but Mum had assured me that soon we would have a beautifully refurbished cottage, a home unblemished by memories, a fresh start. I missed Dublin so much that I couldn’t really appreciate this. I was still coming to terms with
the fact that I would have to move to a new school in September, make new friends, find a new band, basically rebuild all these vital parts of my life. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. I was looking forward to moving into the house though. The caravan was unbelievably cramped, which didn’t make things easy between me and Mum when we both needed our own space.

I’d thought living in a caravan would be great fun, kind of like living on a tour bus. And it had been fun … for about ten minutes. Mum had rented it online and somehow it looked massive in the images, but in reality it was more like one from an episode of
Father Ted
– except nobody was laughing when it was delivered and we saw how tiny it was. My head almost reached the roof, and I’m only five foot five. At one end there were two single couch beds with some very compact storage space underneath, and there was a table in between them that you could have either up or down. At the other end of the caravan there was a counter top with a hob and a kettle and two cupboards underneath. And in the middle, beside the tiny space that joined the ‘bedroom and kitchen’ (as the website had put it), was an even tinier bathroom. My bed was the most uncomfortable thing on the planet and I dreaded getting into it.

The night of Jim Cullen’s funeral I slept uneasily and awoke from the strangest dream with the scene still vivid in my mind: a drunken man stumbled up a lane, struggling to stay upright. A car pulled up beside him, almost knocking him to the ground. The window rolled down. A hand emerged, clutching a brown leather handbag.

‘
Here. Take this and burn it. Do you hear me? Burn it! This
and everything in it.
’ The hand was trembling but the voice was steady.

‘
Why the … why the hell should I?
’

‘
Because if you don’t I’ll tell everyone what you did. Do you really want me to tell them about –
’

‘
Fine … I’ll burn the bloody bag. Whose is it anyway?
’

He got no response. The car reversed out, leaving tyre marks in the earth. The drunken man continued up the dark lane, the bag dangling from his right hand.

Once was unsettling enough, but I’d had the same dream nearly every night that week. The way it was so clear in my mind was starting to scare me, and there was one particular thing about it that really freaked me out. I recognized the lane. It was the one that led to our new house. I didn’t recognize the men though. I’d never seen them before and I certainly had no desire to. Particularly not the one sitting in the car. His pale eyes held a vicious manic stare that I couldn’t forget.

As I tried to get back to sleep, the image of the bag kept coming into my mind. It was a satchel made of chocolate-brown leather, with a little handle as well as a longer strap, and it swung back and forth as the drunken man moved hesitantly along, the moonlight glinting off its gold buckles. The bag looked familiar, like something I’d see when I was searching through vintage shops for clothes.

I hate it when I’m trying to get back to sleep in the middle of the night and my mind won’t stop racing. I tried hard to think about something else. Maybe I was so fixated on the dream because I didn’t have anything more exciting to distract me. Clearly my anxiety over the move to Avarna had created a recurring nightmare composed of random memories. Once I
felt settled I was sure it would go away.
I should spend more time exploring the village
, I thought.
I’m sure there were interesting little corners I hadn’t yet discovered. Places like that café and the garden by the river, and that cute little clothes shop. It looked expensive but maybe I’d call in anyway …
Eventually, after the distraction of planning my tour of the village, my brain shut down and I fell into a welcome dream-free sleep.

The next morning there was a gorgeous blue sky and I felt a lot better. But we’d run out of milk so I couldn’t have cereal. Instead of being annoyed I decided it was fate; I’d wander into the village to get some milk and explore a bit more.

As I walked into the local shop, I heard a loud smack on the window. A fly swatter hit the windowpane with brutal force. I watched as the doomed wasp fell on to the dusty sill, its legs flickering for a moment before it died. The shop owner, Mary Reynolds, stood triumphantly, clasping the blue swatter.

‘The little feckers come out earlier every year,’ she said as she scooped the tiny corpse into a tissue and dumped it in the bin behind the counter. ‘How are you, Jacki? Are you keeping well?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, trying to be cheerful and heading for the fridge.

Mary knew all of Avarna’s residents by name and there was little that happened in the village that she didn’t find out about. The first time I’d gone into her shop was only for chewing gum, yet she’d kept me chatting for twenty minutes. She found out my name, my age, that my mum, Rachel, was the new primary school teacher starting in September, that I’d just done my Junior Cert. exams and that I didn’t have a boyfriend. In return
I was subjected to her son Nick’s entire life story. He was a year older than me, had just finished transition year, was allergic to tomatoes and played electric guitar.

Today I was spared from interrogation as she was soon chatting to another customer. She introduced me to Joe Clancy, owner of the aptly named Clancy’s, one of Avarna’s four pubs.

‘And did you hear Tommy Ford’s wife had a baby girl?’ said Joe. ‘I’m not sure what they called her …’

‘Chloe Louise, eight pounds twelve ounces, big head of brown hair,’ said Mary as she stared at the open window, daring another wasp to fly through it. The shop was uncomfortably warm, as was everywhere in the village during that unusually hot summer.

‘Here’s hoping she gets her looks from her mother,’ said Joe. ‘That fella Tommy has a face like a melted welly.’

‘You’re terrible,’ said Mary with a laugh.

I smiled to myself. You couldn’t help liking Mary, in spite of her knack for getting information out of everyone who came into the shop.

‘Anyway, I better be off,’ said Joe. He sauntered out with an ice-cream cone in his hand and a folded newspaper tucked under his elbow.

I checked the selection of biscuits, searching for my favourites.

‘Nick!’ shouted Mary. There was silence. ‘Nick!’ she bellowed again. A few moments later her son emerged from the storeroom in the back with a copy of
Kerrang!
magazine in his hand and a disgruntled look on his face. Although I’d heard a lot about him from Mary, this was the first time I’d seen him. He
was tall and slim and wore faded blue denims and a black T-shirt. His brown hair was quite long and curled across his forehead. As he came towards us, I could see his striking blue eyes and that he had a few freckles on his cheeks. His arms were strong and tanned.

One syllable echoed silently inside my head: Wow. Nick was gorgeous, even with that grumpy look on his face.

‘Nick, I have to go to the wholesaler’s, so stay behind the counter, will you?’ said Mary. She mustn’t have realized we hadn’t been introduced.

Nick nodded grudgingly and slumped down on the stool behind the till.

‘Bye, Jacki,’ said Mary, and then she hurried out the door, taking with her any affection I felt for my ex-boyfriend in Dublin. I took out my purse and approached the counter with my milk and biscuits.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi.’

I tried to think of something intelligent to say, but failed miserably.

‘That’s two ninety-five,’ said Nick.

‘Thanks,’ I murmured as I handed him three euro with a slightly shaking hand.

‘So, you’re Jacki?’ he asked as his eyes met mine, and he dropped the change into my palm. My insides jolted when I heard him say my name.

‘Eh … yeah. You must be Nick.’ There were a few moments of silence. I tried to think of something to say. Anything at all. But nothing came.

‘So how are you finding Avarna so far?’

‘Yeah it’s … it’s cool.’ Avarna was a lot of things, but cool certainly was not one of them. Why did I have to say cool? Any other word would have done. Any one at all.

‘That’s good,’ said Nick. He smiled at me. I could feel my cheeks warming. The thought that they were undoubtedly bright red made me cringe.

‘OK, I better be off,’ I said. I wanted to get out of there before I said something else embarrassing.

‘See you around,’ he said.

And then it came. Whatever possessed me to wave at someone whose handsome face was a mere metre away from me I will never know. But I did. I gave him a big giant wave. He looked at me a little strangely as I turned away, embarrassed, and rushed out of the shop, my cheeks burning so brightly I could almost feel my new social life going up in flames.