Alex Barclay - I Confess

She peeled herself away from the door and walked down the hallway. As she passed the dining room, a movement inside caught her eye, and she stopped. Mally was standing at the dinner table, taking a photograph with her phone.

Edie walked in. ‘Hello, Mally.’

‘Oh!’ said Mally, startled.

‘What are you up to?’ said Edie, smiling.

‘Just – I love what you’ve done!’ said Mally, looking around.

The room had been transformed from elegantly formal into elegantly mismatched. The dining table still had its white starched linen table cloth, but there was a brown tweed runner on top, covered with fresh greenery and a mix of squat cream pillar church candles on slices of polished woodcream taper candles in short brass candlesticks. The napkins were in muted blues and greens, with porcelain hummingbird napkin rings. The usual heavy silver cutlery was replaced with 1940s bone-handled knives, forks and spoons. The wine glasses were a collection of modern and antique – crystal, etched, gold filigree, all different, all beautiful.

Mally was staring at Edie, eyes bright. Edie sometimes wondered whether Mally was hopped up on ADD drugs. There was a wide-eyed, nervous intensity about her that could sometimes veer into something darker. And why would Mally be looking at place settings? She barely ran a hairbrush through her hair.

Edie’s gaze moved down to Mally’s hand. Edie had put a childhood photo at every setting, face down, peeping out from each napkin. Mally was holding Helen’s. In it, Helen was sitting at her kitchen table in a white dress, her tenth birthday cake in front of her, candles lit. She was beaming at the camera, chin up, eyes scrunched tight, a pink paper crown on her head. Clare was standing to Helen’s right, with her rosy red cheeks, looking like she was about to blow out the candles herself. Edie was in the back row, smiling serenely, her two arms neatly in front of her. Murph was standing sideways behind Clare, his arm up like a robot, but his head turned to the camera. His eyes were sparkling with mischief and he had three party blowers in his mouth. It looked like whoever had taken the photo had got distracted by him, because they hadn’t waited for Jessie – the birthday girl’s best friend – to make it into the frame. There was a glimpse of her at the edge – the end of her long black wavy pigtail, the sleeve of her bright pink dress.

Dylan appeared in the doorway. ‘Hey, Mom …’ He frowned when he saw Mally.

‘I was admiring your mom’s party styling,’ said Mally. She held up the photo. ‘Look at your godmother – she was so adorable!’

‘She really was,’ said Edie.

Edie smiled. She wondered would any of her friends realize how much effort had gone into the photo selection. She knew that Helen’s tenth birthday was her favourite, and among the few photos she found, she had chosen the only one where Jessie wasn’t right by her side. She hoped Helen wouldn’t notice the fraction of her, caught at the edge – she didn’t want to see the sting of a painful memory on her face.

‘Who’s this?’ said Mally, pointing to the picture. ‘Is this the girl who died in the fire?’

Edie’s eyes widened. ‘Yes … How did you know that?’

‘Just a guess,’ said Mally. She shrugged. ‘I mean not a total guess – I read about the fire online and saw a photo.’

Dylan frowned at Mally. ‘We have to go. It’s insane out there.’

‘I can give you a lift, if you want to wait,’ said Edie.

‘No,’ said Dylan. ‘What about your hair?’

‘How many teenage boys would ever think of something like that?’ said Edie.

‘Only the ones who want something from you,’ said Mally.

‘Shut up,’ said Dylan. ‘I don’t want anything, Mom.’ He went up to Edie and gave her a hug. ‘Have fun, tonight.’

‘You too,’ said Edie, kissing his cheek, before he pulled away. ‘Be back at midnight and not a minute later.’

Edie went to Helen’s place when they had left. She felt a stab of guilt that she was checking whether Mally had left a grubby fingerprint somewhere – Mally was never unclean, just dishevelled. She had left Helen’s photo upturned. Edie picked it up. Helen had never said why her tenth birthday was her favourite, but maybe it was because it was the last summer before they all found out that bad things can still happen on sunny days.

The truck was parked in the square, twenty feet long, the side folded down to make a stage. A banner with JUNIOR TALENT CONTEST! hung from the front, flapping only once since the crowd had gathered; a single breeze on the hottest day of the year.

Jessie Crossan, eleven years old, was standing at the bottom of the wooden steps at the side of the stage. The quietest boy in her class, Patrick Lynch – his eyes bright with panic – was slowly shrinking through a tuneless ‘Green Fields of France’. It was Jessie’s father’s party piece, and she knew all the words. She was singing them in her head to will Patrick along. She loved Patrick. He was so sweet, so shy. He brought jam sandwiches to school for his lunch, and something about that made her sad. When he had no lunch, she would make him take half of hers. He would never have asked. She wanted to come to his rescue now, too; to run up on to the stage, and sweep him away like a superhero. Then dance. She had been practising for weeks.

Jessie didn’t know any excitement like performing. She lived in a quiet house, with parents who didn’t say much to each other, but when they sat side by side on the sofa, listening to her sing, watching her dance, she knew that was when they were happiest. She was sad they weren’t there to watch her today – her mother was away, and her father wouldn’t be back from work until dinner time.

Patrick went suddenly quiet, his pale hands intertwined, his knuckles white. His spindly legs had been shaking as soon as he stood in front of the microphone, but now the shaking turned violent, and he held a hand to his thigh to steady it. An older boy in the crowd – Johnny – shot out a laugh, and Patrick’s head jerked towards the judges’ table. There was the parish priest – Father Owens, jacket off, dabbing a handkerchief to his brow; Sister Consolata, Vice Principal of the secondary school – hands folded on the table in front of her, head tilted, legs crossed at the ankles, and the Sergeant, Colm Hurley, playing MC for the day.

‘I forgot the words,’ Patrick muttered, his gaze back on the floor.

‘Do you want to go again, Patrick?’ said Father Owens. ‘Give it another blast?’

Patrick’s eyes filled with a desperation that presaged tears.

Father Owens paused, then gave a hearty clap. ‘Well, you did a great job, Patrick! That was a fine rendition!’

Patrick’s eyes widened a fraction.

‘Indeed, it was,’ said Colm joining in the applause. ‘Well done.’

‘Yes!’ said Jessie, louder than she meant to. She looked, full of hope, at Sister Consolata, who was staring up at Patrick with her tight smile and lifeless squint. Sister Consolata had a loud clap despite her tiny hands, and eventually threw two distinct ones into the fading applause. Jessie had worked out years earlier that this was Sister Consolata’s way of giving marks out of ten.

Patrick, his head dipped, left the stage, and ran down the steps past Jessie.

‘You were brilliant,’ she said, but he didn’t hear her.

Sergeant Colm had bounded up on to the stage from the front. He gave Jessie a warm smile. ‘Up you come!’ he said. ‘Here she is, ladies and gentlemen – eleven-year-old Jessie Crossan, who – by the rig-out and the tape recorder – I’m going to guess will be dancing for us today. Is that right?’