Pepper’s mother cleared her throat, her expression thunderous.
‘Wine?’ blurted her dad, reaching for the list and hiding behind it. ‘There’s a nice Riesling here, if anyone fancies that?’
‘Riesling is German, right?’ Pepper checked, and he nodded. ‘In that case, yes please.’
‘We had a lovely bottle of that at that fish restaurant in Berlin, didn’t we, Mart?’ Keira was twiddling a dark-brown curl around her finger.
‘Your dad took me there for our first mini break,’ she confided to Pepper. ‘I’d never thought much about Germany before then, if I’m honest, but it was great. So much to see and all that history.’
‘I just got back from Hamburg,’ Pepper said. ‘I loved it.’
‘What were you doing there?’ demanded her mother, who seemed to have been switched off sleep mode for once. ‘I thought it was Lisbon that you went to, Philippa?’
‘It was,’ said Pepper patiently. ‘I went to both, remember?’
Her mother took a sip of water and coughed.
‘City breaks are all the rage these days, aren’t they?’ Keira continued. She seemed blissfully unaware of any tension, but Pepper could almost feel the sharp tips of her mother’s eye-daggers as she pointed them across the table. ‘It’s so easy to pop off for a sneaky little weekend away.’
‘Is that what the two of you did when you started your affair?’ her mother asked politely.
‘Mum!’
Pepper looked across at her father, who had turned a violent shade of crimson.
‘It’s all right,’ Keira reassured her. ‘This can’t be easy for you,’ she said kindly. ‘Either of you,’ she went on, turning towards Pepper.
‘It’s fine.’ Pepper glared at her parents. ‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to be rude, did you, Mum?’
Her mother said nothing, she merely fixed Pepper with a withering stare.
There was an awkward pause.
‘I think I’ll just find out where that waitress has got to,’ muttered Keira, dropping her napkin on the table as she tottered away.
‘You promised to be civil,’ Martin hissed at his ex-wife. ‘Keira is trying her best. You could at least meet her in the middle.’
‘I shouldn’t like to meet her anywhere,’ Pepper’s mother said rudely. ‘I’m only here to support Philippa.’
‘Come on, Mum.’ Pepper was almost pleading. ‘There’s no need to start a row. We’re all grown-ups here.’
She distinctly heard her mother tut in reply.
‘Just spit it out,’ she said wearily. ‘Whatever it is you want to say, get it out now before Keira gets back.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ her mother replied.
‘Do what?’
Pepper’s father picked up his wine glass only to realise it had yet to be filled.
‘Talk to me as if you’re the parent and I’m the child.’
Feeling wounded, Pepper recoiled in her seat. There were so many words fighting to get out, so much injustice in what her mother was saying.
‘Maybe I am guilty of that,’ she said coldly. ‘But only because I’ve had no choice. Someone had to look after you, didn’t they? Someone had to step up after Bethan died.’
‘Don’t you dare say her name,’ her mother said, in a hissing sort of whisper.
‘Why not?’ Pepper retorted. ‘She was my sister.’
‘And my daughter.’
‘Please,’ said Pepper’s father, sounding drained. ‘Let’s not do this. Not tonight. This is supposed to be a happy evening. I had hoped we could focus on the future for once.’
‘Tch!’ her mother spat. ‘That is typical of you, Martin – running away from anything remotely difficult, trying to pretend that the past never happened.’
‘How could I pretend?’ he exclaimed. ‘When you would never let me forget, even for one sodding moment? Bethie was my daughter, too – you have never made allowances for that. I’m sorry for what happened, we all are, but it was an accident. We should be able to carry on with our lives and be happy. It doesn’t mean we love her any less.’
‘An accident,’ her mother echoed bitterly, shaking her head.
Pepper looked at her father. He looked as if he had aged five years in the past five minutes, and her heart went out to him, out to all of them, for all their sorrow, for all they had been through and were still going through. She knew her mother was in pain, but she wished that she would just try – it was time she forgave herself for still being here, for being alive.
‘I’m sorry, Trin,’ said her dad. ‘It was a silly, stupid accident – a tragedy. But it was nobody’s fault.’
‘That’s the thing, though, Dad.’ Pepper got slowly to her feet. ‘Mum thinks it is someone’s fault – my fault.’
‘No, darling.’ Her father was shaking his head now, as if trying to rid his mind of her words. Pepper braved a look at her mother and found her ashen, her face pinched with misery.
‘I’m going to go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I need to go. I can’t, I just can’t.’
Fumbling for her jacket and bag, Pepper stumbled blindly towards the door and pushed it open, hurrying towards her car. She felt numb, as if her blood had ceased to move, her heart squeezed to a standstill by the same tight fist that seemed to have wrapped itself around her throat.
‘Wait!’
It was Keira, breathless having run across the pub car park in her high heels.
‘Don’t go, please.’
Pepper hung her head.
‘I think I have to,’ she said. ‘It’s not you – it’s my mum. I find it–– It’s too difficult. If I stay, I’ll only upset her more. I never seem to know the right thing to say, you know?’
Keira took a timid step closer.
‘Marty told me,’ she said. ‘About your sister. That must have been so hard.’
Pepper sighed.
‘You can’t change the past, unfortunately,’ Keira went on. ‘You probably think of me as some young bimbo, but I have seen a lot, and been through a lot. My family have their own fair share of skeletons, and there’s plenty in the past that could wreck us, if we let it. But we don’t, because we’re a family – and families pull together.’
‘Mine doesn’t seem able to,’ Pepper said helplessly. ‘We scatter and hide.’
‘It might seem that way,’ she said. ‘But you all came here tonight, didn’t you? That must mean something. Even if you’re bickering, at least you’re all doing it in the same room.’
Pepper was too overwrought to take in what she was saying, too tired of being stuck on a wheel that never seemed to stop circling, churning up the same dirt over and over.
‘I guess I’m just tired of nothing ever changing,’ she said, fighting back the tears. ‘I’m so tired of it.’
Keira deliberated for a second, then opened her arms and enveloped Pepper in a hug.
‘What’s this for?’ she muttered, her arms dangling down by her sides.