Rachel Bennett - Little Girls Tell Tales

But now, for a moment, I breathed deeply and remembered the times Beth had come home with pockets full of wild mushrooms or foraged leaves or pignuts, those knobbly ground-nuts which she would leave scattered on the draining board, still half-coated in mud.

Beth had loved the curraghs, and they’d been good to her in return. Now, she was gone, but the land remained the same. This bog had been here long before me and Beth ever ventured into it, hand in hand, and it would be here long after all trace of us vanished from the earth. It was a permanent yet ever-changing place.

Behind me, Cora and Dallin had come to some kind of peace. We set off walking back towards the road.

I found myself at the back with Dallin. He was still in a huff, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket.

‘You agree with me, right?’ he said to me.

‘About what?’

‘We’re wasting time searching up here.’ Dallin gave a curt nod towards the fields which were visible through the thin trees to our right. ‘You weren’t anywhere near here when you found the body. Otherwise you would’ve said you could see the fields. So why’re we wasting our time?’

I thought about it before I answered. ‘I said I couldn’t remember seeing the fields,’ I admitted. ‘But I also said I’d been everywhere in the curraghs since that day. And I can honestly say I’ve never been here, in this exact spot. It never occurred to me to search at the edges. So maybe Cora’s right – maybe she has to search everywhere, including the places that don’t seem likely. If she skips bits, she’ll always wonder if Simone’s remains were lying in one of these out-of-the-way spots where she didn’t think to look.’ I shrugged. ‘She needs to be sure. That involves checking everywhere.’

Dallin grunted. ‘Still seems daft to me.’

‘You know what seems daft? The fact you’re here at all. It would’ve been much easier for you to just point Cora in the general direction of the Island and leave her to it. But you came all the way out here, in person. Why?’

‘I wanted to help.’ He tried and failed to sound sincere. ‘She’s a vulnerable person. I wanted to give her all the help I could. And I didn’t know if you would talk to her if I wasn’t there to smooth things over. If she’d turned up on your doorstep out of the blue, you might’ve turned her away.’

‘So why not call and explain the situation to me?’

‘I emailed.’

‘No, you didn’t. Last night I checked my emails from the last two months, plus the junk folder. You didn’t email me. And anyway, how much effort would it take for you to pick up the phone? It’s not like you don’t know the number; it’s the same as when you lived at home.’

Dallin pushed a hand through his hair. ‘You’re mad at me.’

‘Yes.’ It was easy to admit. ‘I’ve every reason to be mad.’

‘Listen, if I’d known it was such a big deal for you to get prior warning I was coming here, then—’

‘That’s not why, and you know it.’ I slowed my pace. I didn’t want Cora to overhear this argument. ‘I can’t believe how much of a hypocrite you are. Talking about how Cora needs you and you can’t possibly let her down. What about me? What about Beth?’

As I spoke, I realised this was the first time I’d said Beth’s name aloud in months. It rang in my ears. I wanted to snatch it back, like it was something private, not to be shared.

Dallin kept walking. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to Beth,’ he muttered.

‘So am I.’ A bubble of hurt expanded in my chest. For a moment I was filled by it, unable to breathe. Gradually it subsided. But that moment reminded me of all the moments before it, when the slightest word could trigger something. The hurt was always there. I’d come to understand it would never fully go away.

‘I’m sorry I lost contact with you,’ Dallin said. ‘With both of you. I thought—’ The words seemed to tangle in this throat. ‘I thought you were fine, y’know? You were living your lives and I didn’t want to intrude.’

‘She was really upset you wouldn’t come to the wedding,’ I said. Each word felt like broken glass. I spoke carefully so I wouldn’t cut myself.

‘I was out of the country. I wanted to come, believe me.’

I didn’t believe him. ‘You didn’t even reply to the invitation.’

‘I was travelling. By the time I got her email, it was too late. I’m sorry.’

‘What about the other messages? She tried to contact you after that, a bunch of times, after she got sick. Why the hell didn’t you reply?’

Dallin let out a long breath. ‘Honestly? I didn’t realise how ill she was. If she’d come right out and told me, of course I would’ve come home.’

‘She didn’t want to spell it out in an email. You should’ve known that.’

‘Listen, in hindsight, you are completely right. I should’ve come home. But at the time? I thought – I don’t know. The way she danced around the issue. All those half-hints. I thought it was one of her games.’

I almost choked in disbelief. ‘A game ?’

‘I know how terrible that sounds. But that’s what she was like as a kid. She would say something crazy and see which friends would come running. That’s all I thought it was.’

‘How could you think that? Why would she lie about something so awful?’

‘I have no idea why she would do anything. Let’s be honest, I barely even knew her by then.’ Dallin kicked a tree stump in annoyance. ‘I didn’t know either of you, apparently.’

I stopped walking and faced him directly. ‘Is that why you acted like a spoiled baby? Because you had a stupid childhood crush on your best friend and it turned out she wanted to be with me instead?’

Dallin met my gaze briefly. ‘You never loved her like I did.’

The anger that’d been absent from my life for so long rose up in me. I swung my arm and punched him in the jaw. It happened so fast I couldn’t believe I’d done it. One second I was standing there, the next, Dallin was reeling backwards. He put his foot down in a marshy puddle and almost overbalanced. If he hadn’t caught hold of a tree branch for support he would’ve fallen.

‘She was my wife,’ I said. My voice rose along with my anger. ‘Don’t you dare talk about her that way.’

I shoved past him.

Cora was staring at me with shock on her face. I walked straight past her too.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t do this.’

It wasn’t possible to run in the thick bogland, but I hurried as fast as I could in the direction of the road.

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