Dev stared at his mum, and wondered why, with all his attention on her, he still hadn’t got a bloody clue what she was talking about. He had to speak to her again. He had to. It was, like, fate or karma or something, wasn’t it? Her turning up on stage right when he’d got here. He was meant to talk to her.
“Dev . . .” Kyle’s tone made him turn. The expression that greeted him wasn’t what Dev would call encouraging. “If you’re planning to go and speak to her . . . Harassment charges, remember?”
“Fuck that.” It came out a bit harsh, so Dev softened his tone. This wasn’t Kyle’s fault. “I got to, yeah? And it’s perfect, right? Out in the open. It’s not like I’m camping out on her doorstep or nothing.” He had to make Kyle understand he wasn’t just being a dick. “Look, if she tells me to piss off, I’ll leave her alone. But it’s like you said, yeah? I gave her a shock last time. Maybe she’s had second thoughts about it all. Maybe she wishes she’d, I dunno, told me a bit more about it all. Why she did what she did.”
Kyle squeezed his arm. “Do you want me to come with you? As a witness?”
“Nah. Don’t wanna crowd her.” And if she did tell Dev to piss off again, he wasn’t sure he could take having Kyle there to see it. “I’ll see you back here, yeah?”
“You’re going to wait until she steps down from the dais?”
“Course I’m gonna wait.” Shit, did Kyle really think he was planning on causing a scene?
“All right.” It sounded more like, If you must.
“And you’re gonna be okay, yeah? Not have an attack or anything?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Cheers, mate.” Dev flashed him a wobbly smile.
“Better go now, then. Before she leaves.”
Shit. Dev hadn’t realised she’d stopped speaking and stepped down from the stage. He legged it over there. He had to step over a fair few cables when he got to the stage, and a couple of people gave him funny looks, but nobody actually came out and said, Oi, you can’t go back there.
It was quiet behind the stage. In the lack-of-people sense, at least. Dev was fairly sure the volume of noise couldn’t actually have dropped noticeably due to him moving a couple of yards, but it definitely felt like it had. Everyone was out front, gawping at the displays and browsing the stalls.
She was standing alone to one side, checking her phone.
Dev took a deep breath and approached, being careful not to block her in.
“Uh, Miss Roscarrock?” It felt weird, calling her that, but what the fuck else could he call her? They weren’t on first-name terms, and anything else . . . There wasn’t anything else.
She froze, but just for a moment. So short that once it’d finished, Dev was left wondering if he’d only imagined it. Then she spoke, her voice even. “I’ve said all I have to say to you.” She turned and walked away.
Dev ran after her. “Look, I’m sorry about, you know, earlier. Coming to your house. It must’ve been a shock. I get that now, all right? But I just wanna talk to you for a minute, yeah? Please? Seriously. One minute. And then I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”
She stopped. “Except that’s never how it works, is it?” Her voice was soft. Almost kind, maybe? Not cruel, at least.
Dev seized on it, which probably proved her point. “I just . . . You’re the only one who can tell me about my dad. Did he . . . Did he treat you bad? Is that why you don’t want nothing to do with me?”
She looked startled for a moment—but then it was gone, and her face was as expressionless as before. “It’s not . . . He was just a boy. Here on holiday. We met, and . . .” She shrugged, a faint hint of a blush on her cheek.
“Was he Indian?” Dev urged.
“British. But of Indian ancestry.”
“Was it him who named me?”
She made a breathy sound through her nose. Like Dev had said something a bit funny. But only a bit. “No.”
“Did he . . . Did he know about me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She gazed at him steadily. “There was no point. His family were traditional, and they’d already picked out a bride for him.”
“And you didn’t . . . Christ.” Dev’s head was spinning. “Can you tell me his name? Where he used to live?”
“He won’t welcome you, you know,” Bea said. “He’ll have a family of his own. He won’t want—forgive me—a half-caste bastard turning up to embarrass him.”
“You mean, like you didn’t.” The hollow feeling inside threatened to swallow him up entirely, the casual racism just one more slap in the face. So this was what his family was like? Then fuck them. Fuck them all.
Who needed a family anyhow? They were a bunch of self-centred wankers. He was nothing more than a bit of wasted sperm to them, and he didn’t give a shit, all right?
“Cheers,” he managed, his throat almost too tight to talk. He turned away. She wouldn’t give a toss if he said good-bye or not, so why waste his breath?
“Wait,” she said, louder than he’d heard her speak so far.
Dev spun, more out of surprise than anything else.
For the first time, she wasn’t looking so closed off, so certain she was doing the right thing. “I’ll send you all the information I have about him. Your father. But you shouldn’t go to see him. It won’t end well.”
“Why? He gonna set the law on me and all?”
Her colour deepened. “You mustn’t blame my brother for being protective of me. We’re twins. He took . . . what happened . . . personally.”
“So why didn’t your bruv set the law on him?” Dev demanded, his voice thick.
“It wasn’t . . . I was young, that was all.” Meaning he’d been older. “I wasn’t used to drinking.”
Fucking shit. “And he . . .”
“It wasn’t what you’re thinking.”
“Like fuck it wasn’t.” Fucking hell, she was tiny now. What must she have been like at fifteen? How many drinks had it even taken before that bastard had been able to do whatever the fuck he wanted with her?
She blinked a few times, quickly, then took a deep breath. “It wasn’t. Yes, I was underage. But there was no coercion involved. And it was all a long time ago, in any case. I’m not interested in raking things up now.”
“I don’t wanna rake stuff.” Dev hugged himself. Tried not to look threatening. “Just . . . Can I keep in touch?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She met his gaze steadily, but Dev reckoned it took an effort. “You look a lot like him.”
“I’m sorry,” he managed, his throat tight.
She didn’t say, It’s not your fault. She just nodded and walked away.
Dev watched her go, then made his way back out into the crowd.
He found Kyle standing by a stall, his posture tense and uncomfortable. A wary expression flashed across his face as Dev joined him. “How did it go?” Kyle asked softly.
Dev cleared his throat before he spoke, but his voice still came out sounding funny. “Can we go somewhere?”
“Where?” Kyle’s expression had turned sad.
Dev couldn’t look him in the eye. “Dunno. Not back to yours. Anywhere. Long as there’s no people.”
“This is Cornwall in the summer. Could be a tall order.” Kyle gripped Dev’s hand. “Let’s try this way.”
He led Dev out of town, the crowds thinning as they walked. Were they going to the Round Hole again? That was a no, as Kyle took him on past. They didn’t stop at the castle, either, just kept going. A small white lighthouse poked its head up over the rise as they went on, getting taller as they got nearer. Dev could see the grey roofs of cottages around it when they reached the edge of the cliff. He glanced down. There was no beach here, just waves crashing against craggy cliffs like they were fucking furious at them and trying to knock the bastards down, raising angry white clouds of spray.
There was a stiff breeze blowing in from the sea, and the gulls’ screams seemed harsher here. Dev looked around. There was no one else in sight. No one at all. Something seemed to lift inside him.
“Okay here?” Kyle asked. He had to raise his voice against the sound of the sea.
Dev nodded. It was a good place. He sat down on the rough, springy grass. Kyle arranged himself behind him, legs spread wide so Dev could lean back into his chest, Kyle’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, warming him and keeping the world at bay. They sat there for a long while, gazing out across the water. There was a lump of jagged rock a short way out to sea, standing alone as if it was all that was left of a previous cliff face that’d lost the battle with the waves. Gulls swooped around it. Fuck knew why, ’cos there was no one there to chuck bits of half-eaten sandwich for them.
Kyle didn’t ask him any questions.
“Don’t you wanna know what happened?” Dev said in the end.
“Only if you want to tell me. When you want to tell me.”
Dev gripped one of the arms guarding him. He didn’t have the words for what that meant, right now. “This place got a name?” he asked instead, after a while.
Kyle breathed a laugh into his neck. “Stinking Cove.”
“Shut up. Seriously?”
“Seriously. And you see that rock out there? That’s the Giant’s Midden.”
“That the same giant what fell in love with the Round Hole girl?”
“That’s the one. Legend has it that he used to come out here and try to write love poems to her beauty. But he could never get them right, and so he’d wrap them around the remains of his lunch and toss them out to sea in disgust. When he died, the heap turned to stone and formed that stack out there.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Actually, yes.”
Dev twisted round to stare at him. “What?”
“I made it up. Sorry. Although this place really is called Stinking Cove.”
Huh. If you’d asked him five minutes ago, Dev wouldn’t have thought he could dredge up a smile for anything. Seemed he’d been wrong.
Wrong about a lot of stuff. The heaviness in his heart returned.
“Dev?”
“Tell me some more. Real stuff, made-up shit, I don’t give a monkey’s, all right? Just tell me stuff.”
Kyle was silent for a moment. “You see the lighthouse?”
Its white walls were almost blinding in the sunlight now breaking through the cloud. “Can’t bloody miss it, can you? S’pose that’s the point.”
“There’s a legend about that too. One of the keepers had previously been stationed at a lighthouse that could only be reached by sea, and he’d been all on his own for months after the only other keeper took ill and died. He was driven half-mad by the loneliness and the stress of constantly keeping the lamp lit all by himself—no electricity in those days—and when they finally relieved him, he was a shadow of the man he’d been. He was sent here as a softer posting, so he could recover. He lived in the lighthouse on his own, but he could go into town anytime he wanted, and he kept a pet for company, a sleek black cat called Jenny. All went well for a few months, although the townsfolk noticed he came into town less and less, and walked more slowly when he did. People began to say he should retire and let a younger man take over, but he was determined he could manage.” Kyle stopped.
“And then what?”
“There was a great storm one night. Dozens of ships were wrecked, but many more were saved by the light which kept burning all night long. When morning came, the grateful fishermen went to thank the lighthouse keeper for his part in saving lives.” Kyle paused. “They found him stiff and cold in his bed, clearly dead for several days, apparently of a heart attack. But the cat was strutting proudly around the lamp room. The townsfolk couldn’t decide what had happened. Had the keeper’s ghost kept the light burning? Or was Jenny the cat a witch?”
“So what—they exorcise him and burn her at the stake?”
“Nope. He was buried in the local churchyard, and Jenny received free fish for life. After all, there was no proof she was a witch—but if she was, best to keep on her good side. And ever since then, there’s been a cat kept at Porthkennack Lighthouse that’s a direct descendant of Jenny. And the light’s never gone out.”
Dev smiled. “That’s bollocks, innit? You just made all that up. Nah, don’t tell me.” He sat there a while longer, enjoying the warmth of Kyle’s arms and the weight of his head on Dev’s shoulder.
Then he took a deep breath. Enough wallowing. Kyle probably needed to eat or have a nap or something by now. “Wanna head back to yours?” He shifted in Kyle’s arms, and they fell limply from him. “Kyle?”
There was no answer. Carefully, so the bloke’s head wouldn’t fall off his shoulder, Dev wrapped Kyle’s arms around him once more and held them in place.