Stonemouth

‘No.’ I frown as I say this, trying to hint at Why the hell would I want to see Ryan? without actually saying so.

‘She really hurt him, you know.’

Ellie and Ryan had been one of those obvious rebound relationships that everybody else pretty much knows is kind of doomed. Ellie’s whole thing with Ryan seemed to come out of nowhere, for everybody. It was almost like she’d designed it that way just to annoy people. When I heard, I had to think quite hard just to remember what Ryan even looked like, and I knew the MacAvetts fairly well. Ryan was only a year younger than Josh and me, but he’d been just one more boring younger brother of a pal, usually encountered staring slack-jawed at the TV or sitting tensed and muttering at the screen while cabled up to a PlayStation and slugging Red Bull.

You might have thought this whole ludicrous dynastic-alliance-through-marriage thing would have been discredited by now, with Josh being Mr Gay Pride in London and me fucking his sister (in my defence, just the once, though admittedly I’ve yet to meet anybody who thinks that makes the slightest difference), but Ellie apparently thought Ryan was just the right chappie to make everything well, and presumably couldn’t wait to have Jel as a sister-in-law, too, so — over the raging objections of her father and the serious doubts of Mike and Mrs Mac, not to mention anybody and everybody else she might have consulted on the matter but didn’t — she and Ryan skipped off to Mauritius and got married on the beach outside their luxurious, five-star, villa-style hotel with a few distant friends and the sun going down.

Lasted less than a year. The miscarriage may not have helped, though you never know; with some couples stuff like that draws them closer together. Either way, they never celebrated their first anniversary, which to people of my dad’s and Mr M’s and Mike Mac’s generation just feels like lack of application.

I don’t know if anybody actually said, ‘I told you so,’ to Ellie, but even if it was never quite articulated, the air must have been thick with it.

She took off, tried living in Boulder, Colorado, for a while, then San Francisco because she missed the sea, then came back to Stonemouth, homesick, within the year. Last I heard, she was working part-time for a charity with centres in Aberdeen, Stonemouth and Peterhead, for rehabilitating drug users. So at least the girl hasn’t lost her sense of humour.

Hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder how Ryan might have been affected by all this. A mean part of me probably thought, Look, he got to have the best part of a year with my girl, the woman I’d always thought of as my soulmate, not to mention the prettiest girl in town; he’d already had a lot more than he probably deserved.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say.

‘She really messes people up, that girl,’ Jel says.

I look at her for a moment or two. ‘Yeah. Whereas you and I …’ But the only things I can think to say are hurtful and sort of pointlessly petty. I’ve learned, belatedly, not to say stuff like that just because I feel I need to say something, anything.

I’ve never blamed Jel; I don’t think she meant to break me and Ellie up, that night; it was my choice, my stupidity, my fault. But Ellie was messed up first, before she did any messing up of her own. Ryan was just collateral damage from my idiocy. If he feels hurt he should blame me, not her. Jesus, I should probably add him to the already long list of people I might want to avoid over the rest of the weekend.

‘Yeah, you and me,’ Jel says, looking at me like she’s evaluating. ‘I suppose that’s about as short-term as it gets.’

‘I suppose.’

‘You didn’t have to run away, you know.’ Jel sounds like she’s wanted to say this for a while.

‘Oh, I think you’ll find I did.’

I still have nightmares about being trapped in a car at night while men armed with baseball bats prowl around outside, shaking the car as they stumble around, searching for me. In my dream the men are always blind, but they can smell me, know I’m there somewhere.

‘You could have stayed here,’ Jel says. Shades of petulance, unless I’m being oversensitive. ‘Dad would have protected you.’

I’d have caused a fucking gang war, you maniac is what I want to say. ‘Didn’t feel that way at the time,’ I tell her. I shrug. ‘All in the past now anyway, Jel.’

She stares at me for quite a few seconds, then says, ‘Yeah, except it isn’t, is it? Not if you have to fuck off back to London before Don lets his boys off the leash. Anyway.’ She lunges forward, stands, gathers her robe about her. ‘I’d better get dressed.’ She hurries to the door, then turns. ‘Sorry. How rude. Can I get you anything?’

‘No thanks.’ I smile. ‘I’m fine.’

She nods slowly. ‘Yes. And no,’ she says, then she’s gone.