THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS. Erin Kaye

sweat beaded his brow. The top of his balding head was sunburnt – it looked painful. He smiled widely, exuding a roguish, even boyish, charm with which he thought he could inveigle himself anywhere. ‘Can I come in?’

      Louise said, unsmiling, ‘If you like.’ He hesitated just a moment at this frosty reception, then, when she turned and walked inside, followed her. He called for Oli and he came and stood at his bedroom door. Her father pulled a big family bag of Maltesers out of his pocket and Louise gasped. ‘You’re not giving him all those are you?’

      Her father chuckled. ‘Sure I am. If his Papa can’t spoil him, who can?’

      ‘There’s more sugar in there than he normally gets in a month,’ said Louise sullenly.

      Ignoring Louise, her father held the bag out to Oli. ‘There you go, son.’

      Oli, who had never before received such a quantity of sweets all at once, opened his eyes wide in astonishment, then grabbed the bag out of his grandfather’s hands and held it protectively to his chest.

      ‘Here, let me open it for you,’ said her father. Oli handed it over.

      ‘Not so fast,’ said Louise. She snatched the bag and went into the kitchen followed by a whining Oli.

      ‘They’re my sweets. Give them back!’

      ‘Just a minute, Oli. I’m just going to—’

      He stamped his foot on the floor and pouted his full, delicious lips. ‘Give them back!’ he screamed.

      Something inside Louise snapped. ‘How dare you be so rude, Oli! Demanding sweets like that. Stop that at once! Do you hear me?’ She glared at Oli who lowered his head like a bull about to charge, folded his arms across his chest and glowered at her.

      ‘Don’t be so hard on him, Louise. He’s only a baby.’

      ‘Babies can’t talk and walk and demand sweets. He’s a toddler, Dad, and he has to learn what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not.’ She took a deep breath, pulled a small green plastic bowl out of the cupboard and, addressing Oli, said, ‘I was going to say that I’m going to put some of the sweets in a bowl for you. And I’ll put away the rest for later. Okay?’ This was a lie – the rest would be binned. All that sugar and fat wasn’t good for anyone, let alone a tiny three-year-old. By tomorrow Oli would’ve forgotten all about them.

      Oli nodded reluctantly.

      Her parents had no sense – they always plied her son with excessive quantities of sweets. It hadn’t been a problem when they only saw him a couple of times a year. But if this was going to be a regular occurrence, she really would have to lay down a few ground rules. She held the bowl out to Oli, he grasped it and a short tug-of-war ensued until Louise commanded, ‘Say thank you.’

      Oli complied and Louise released the bowl. He ran off into the bedroom clutching it in both hands.

      ‘What’s eating you?’ asked her father, who’d followed her into the kitchen.

      ‘Nothing,’ said Louise and she slipped past him into the lounge and went over to the table. She turned the papers she’d been working on face down and folded her arms defensively.

      ‘You and Oli shouldn’t be stuck inside on a glorious day like this,’ said her father, with a glance out at the cobalt blue sky. He acted as though he had not noticed her non-verbal signals, which only a blind man could’ve failed to see. ‘Why don’t we take a walk down to the front?’

      Louise looked out the window, noticing properly for the first time what a beautiful day it was. On the other side of the street the grey-harled terraced houses, much older than the nearly new block she lived in, shimmered in the heat of the afternoon sun. Down on the street two small girls in vest tops and leggings played hopscotch on the pavement, their shrill voices rising like hot air. It was nearly two and she and Oli hadn’t set a foot out the door all day. It wasn’t, she realised, fair on the boy. ‘Okay. I’ll get him ready.’

      Louise marched at a brisk pace down Tower Road. As they approached the promenade a light breeze, laden with the smell of seaweed and salt, played with her hair and clothes as she thrust the buggy forward like a weapon. Her father walked at her side, struggling to keep up. ‘Hey, what’s the hurry?’ he said, with irritation in his voice. ‘It’s supposed to be a walk, Louise, not a frog march.’

      She sighed loudly and slowed down and they were both silent until they came to the promenade at the end of the road. Behind them lay the hulking grey building that had started life in the seventies as Ballyfergus Swimming Pool. With the more recent addition of a gym and two sports halls, it had been renamed Ballyfergus Leisure Centre. And straight ahead lay the Irish Sea, calm and inky blue, the surface of the water like ruffled lace in the breeze. On the other side of this sea, beyond her vision, lay Scotland – and Cameron. She wondered momentarily what he was doing now.

      To their right lay the mouth of the harbour where a small sailing craft was making its way slowly into Ballyfergus Lough. And almost directly ahead was a long, straight path which led to a memorial tower erected some hundred metres offshore in memory of some long-dead merchant from Ballyfergus’s past.

      The tide was out, revealing a shoreline of black, wet rocks rounded into orbs and strewn with flotsam and jetsam thrown up by the sea – uprooted seaweed, segments of brightly coloured plastic, a tangle of blue nylon rope, a smashed-up lobster pot, a brown leather safety boot. The stench of decaying seaweed was almost overpowering. It had always characterised this part of the town, Louise remembered. But the smell whilst unpleasant was also reassuring, timeless – a reminder that some things never change. Like her parents’ attitudes.

      Her father leant on the blue railing, crusty with layers of flaking paint, a futile attempt to keep the rust at bay. The vertical posts were streaked with ochre red, like dried blood. He removed his sunglasses, narrowed his eyes and stared out to sea. ‘That’ll be the Cairnryan ferry,’ he said and she followed his eyes to the misty, hulking shape of a vessel some miles out to sea. Uninterested, she looked away.

      ‘You haven’t returned any of our messages. We haven’t heard a peep from you since the party. Your mother was worried.’

      No answer.

      ‘Did you get the messages?’ he persisted.

      ‘Oh, I got them all right.’

      He turned his head towards her, one foot on the lower rung of the railing, the stance of a much younger man. ‘Are you upset about something, Louise?’

      Louise secured a stray lock of hair, blown about in the wind, behind her ear. ‘Why did you tell Auntie P that I’d got pregnant by some bloke who subsequently left me?’ she asked, locking eyes with him.

      ‘Ah, that,’ he said softly and looked away.

      Louise crouched down in front of the buggy and unbuckled Oli. ‘Come on out, darling. Time for a little walk.’ Oli tumbled out of the buggy, picked up a stick and started whacking the metal railing with it. It made a tinny sound that was evidently satisfying to his ear. He whacked it again and again. To her father she said, ‘Yes, that.’

      ‘We didn’t tell her anything much. She came to her own conclusions.’

      ‘Delusions more like. And knowing Auntie P she’ll have gone about telling half of Ballyfergus. Why didn’t you tell her the truth?’

      Dad sighed again and rubbed his forehead with his right hand. ‘We didn’t think it was anybody’s business to know how Oli came into this world. People think what they want to think.’

      ‘Rubbish,’ said Louise and her father baulked slightly. ‘People think what you let them think, what you lead them to think. And you were quite happy for her to assume that about me, weren’t you? You’d actually rather she thought that than knew the truth.’

      Her father turned to face her then and regarded her thoughtfully as though deciding on something. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘We did think it was for the best.’