‘I’ve not really had that many people you could call boyfriends,’ I said. ‘I had a few flings in college, like most of us did. I had a friends-with-benefits-type thing going on for a while. Actually, it’s technically still going on because we never really ended it. We just call each other and if we don’t answer, it’s cos we’re with someone else.’
‘Has he called you recently?’
‘Nope. And I wouldn’t answer if he did.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘A few dates here and there. And, urgh, there was the very unwise kiss in a hotel with one of my bosses.’
‘You had a fling with your boss?’
‘No, I kissed one of the bosses.’
‘One of your current bosses?’
‘Yes, he still works there but he wasn’t my direct boss, I was just training in his department at the time.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing. Had a crush, kissed him, both regretted it, never mentioned it again. Total non-event. What about you, who was your last relationship with?’
Logan sighed and sat away from me then and my heart sank. I’d somehow stumbled into that area again. Since the day when he asked me over and over if I wanted him to fall in love with me, we’d done our best to avoid subjects that would take us anywhere near where The Ice Cream Girls resided. We just didn’t talk about it any more. I’d packed away the papers, hidden them in the storage cupboard in the bathroom, behind the spare fan, extra bucket and boxes I couldn’t bring myself to throw out. We just pretended away that part of our lives and, for me, that included not seeing my parents as much. Because when I did I’d be reminded that I wasn’t telling them about Logan and I’d replay bits of Mum’s testimony and be either tearful or furious. I didn’t know how much Logan saw his sister or family because we didn’t talk about it.
And, by asking this question, I’d obviously thrust us back into that arena and we’d have to slog it out or pretend I hadn’t asked. ‘I was with someone for quite a while,’ he said, staring at the fireplace, trying to be somewhere else – that much was obvious from his rigid body, the clenched jaw, the scrunched-up brow. ‘We were talking about marriage when Poppy came out of prison. That was meant to be a good thing, you know? I finally had my sister back. After twenty years she was in my life again and what I wanted more than anything was to spend all my time with her. And Bella. The three of us back together. And it didn’t matter she’d been away, she was back and we could pick up again. Be brother and sisters again.’
‘And your fiancée-to-be had a problem with that?’
‘More the fact that I hadn’t mentioned having a sister in prison. Let alone one who went to prison for murder. As far as she was concerned, she couldn’t trust me. I’d hidden this huge thing from her, I could be hiding another family as far as she knew.’
‘Really?’
‘I can understand it, to be fair. It came from nowhere, this sister of mine. She was quite close to Bella, too, so it was like a double betrayal. She didn’t realise, though, we didn’t talk about Poppy – at all. My parents acted as though she was dead for so many years and, after a while, Bella and I did, too. I mean, sometimes we’d talk about her, but not for any length of time. We just made ourselves forget. It was easier that way. And I feel bad about it. Especially when we found out that she’d been writing to us and sending birthday cards and Christmas cards and our parents never even passed them on.
‘If you found out that this situation had been playing itself out right in front of your nose, in the heart of your relationship, wouldn’t you be a bit peeved?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘We limped on for many, many months after she told me how she didn’t trust me. I did everything I could to please her. I didn’t want to lose her. I was totally in love with her. But it was not going to work out.’
‘That’s really sad.’ I clambered over the sofa and cuddled up to him. He slipped his arms around me and held me as though he never wanted to let me go. ‘Really sad.’
‘No more sad than . . . than a sad thing.’
‘Quite true.’
‘So, your boss you had a thing with—’
‘Let me stop you there. I didn’t have a thing with him. It was nothing and we’re not going to talk about it because there’s absolutely nothing to talk about.’
‘All right, all right. Point taken. But what about your friend Howie you’re always getting messages from? Nothing happened there?’
‘Nooooo, no, no, no. Howie is one of my best friends from college, nothing more.’
‘How come?’
‘We’re just better off as friends. I met him in college and we discovered we were both from Brighton so we instantly bonded. Well, he’s over in Southwick, but you know what I mean. But it’s all platonic.’
Logan tipped my chin up to look at him. ‘I’m glad.’
‘Oh? Why are you glad?’
‘Because I get you all to myself, don’t I?’ He dropped a kiss on my mouth. ‘I get you all to myself.’
Now
‘He slipped into a coma just before we got here,’ Dad says when he exits the bowels of the hospital where I assume they were working on Logan. I think Mum texted him to tell him we’d arrived and he came out of ‘the back’ carrying his tuxedo jacket and not seeming to notice the amount of blood staining the front of his white dress shirt.
Honestly, he had looked so handsome. When he and Mum posed (ironically) for pictures in front of the fireplace, I’d got a lump in my throat. They looked so incredible together, the perfect couple. And now Dad is covered in blood, and Mum is covered in horror. She looks close to broken.
I don’t know how drunk Dad was before. But when Mum was giving the speech about him, he seemed pretty sober. But then, I’m never quite certain if Dad can get drunk. He has a few beers but I’ve never seen him slurring his words or stumbling around or talking shit because too much booze has loosened his tongue.
‘A coma,’ Mum repeats. ‘Will he come out of it?’
Dad sits next to me on this bank of chairs, so I am a Verity Gillmare filling between the bread of Mum and Dad. ‘No one knows. He had bleeding on the brain as well as significant swelling. It looks like it happened quite a few hours ago so no one is sure how he managed to get himself to the beach.’
Dad presses his fingers over his eyes; he looks exhausted. Really very tired. He looks like he has aged a lifetime in the hour it’s taken to get from the Sea Maiden to here. Mum wraps her scarf tighter around herself and she looks just as exhausted, just as aged.
‘Is he . . . Is he related to . . . ?’ Dad asks.
‘He’s her brother,’ I explain.
I’m sure Mum knows that, has worked that out, but I don’t think she can speak about this.
‘The police said they were on their way here to talk to me,’ Dad states as though I haven’t enlightened him about who the man whose life he was trying to save was. ‘They’ll be here soon, I expect.’
I thought, I genuinely thought, that when Mum and Dad found out there’d be a lot of shouting. And recriminations. Tears. A lot of snot. And many, many, many words of explanation needed. I didn’t expect silence and more silence.