I Confess. Alex Barclay

that always followed, pretending not to notice the small spark of panic in their eyes or the tremor in their smile.

      It was as if a signal was being fired off inside them: no, we don’t smile at things like this, not in places like this, because something is not right. Something is wrong.

      She would see some beautiful, eager young girl arriving with her young boyfriend who had spent a month’s wages on one weekend, and he would beam as her eyes lit up, but Edie would see the rest. She knew it wasn’t because this girl felt out of place – everyone was made to feel welcome at the inn because everyone was welcome. But sometimes Edie felt that the reason everyone was welcome was not because that was her job, not because the vast extravagance of the refurbishment had plunged them into an alarming amount of debt, not because a family has living expenses, and Dylan has to be put through college, but because she hoped that one day, someone would walk in and they would light up and it would be pure, there would be no strange aftertaste, and the spell would be broken.

      Edie shook off her jacket and hung it on the carved oak hallstand. She paused as she heard the sound of a door slamming, and heavy footsteps echoing towards her.

      ‘Dad won’t let me go to Mally’s tonight!’ said Dylan, stomping half way across the hall. He stood with his hands on his hips, his face red, his chest heaving.

      ‘Dylan!’ said Edie. ‘Calm down, please.’

      Johnny appeared behind Dylan.

      ‘And why does it even matter,’ said Dylan, glancing back at him, ‘when you’re all going to be here partying anyway?’

      ‘Partying?’ said Johnny. ‘It’s Helen’s forty-seventh birthday – we’re hardly going to be dancing the night away.’

      Dylan looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘Oh my God! That is so mean!’

      Johnny stared at him, bewildered.

      ‘Mom – did you hear that?’ said Dylan. ‘Just because Helen’s in a wheelchair.’

      Johnny did a double take. ‘What?’ He looked at Edie, then back at Dylan. ‘Dylan – that had nothing to do with Helen being in a wheelchair. That was about us being so old that we don’t have the energy to dance.’

      ‘Well, that’s depressing,’ said Dylan.

      Edie started to laugh.

      ‘Well, I’d rather depress you than be accused of making fun of Helen,’ said Johnny.

      Helen was Dylan’s godmother, and he was fiercely protective of her.

      Helen was diagnosed with MS ten years ago, and had been in a wheelchair for the past three years, and still, when Edie saw her, she could get hit with the unfairness of it. Even though Helen was such a part of their lives. Before the diagnosis, Helen had been fit, strong, the director of nursing in the local hospital, living with her partner, who left her as soon as her symptoms started to really show. She was still in the relapsing-remitting stage, but her condition was slowly deteriorating. She had an older sister in Cork, but they weren’t close, and apart from her friends from the hospital, Johnny Dylan and Edie were the ones who helped her out the most.

      ‘Jesus, Dylan,’ said Johnny, ‘you have to stop attacking people because of some assumption—’

      ‘Says the guy roaring at Terry earlier,’ said Dylan.

      ‘I wasn’t roaring at him,’ said Johnny. ‘We were having a … discussion.’

      Dylan made air quotes.

      Johnny turned to Edie. ‘All that was going on with Terry is I asked him to board up the chapel windows properly, with decent timber, so they wouldn’t look like an eyesore, and instead he throws up some bullshit with streaks of paint and black God-knows-what all over it. Do you want the lads arriving in and seeing that?’

      ‘It’ll be dark,’ said Dylan.

      ‘Not in the morning when they’re getting the tour,’ said Johnny. ‘And what’s with you defending Terry all of a sudden? Last week he was the worst in the world.’

      ‘Because he thinks I’m the person who smashed the windows!’ said Dylan. ‘Which, I’d like to repeat, I am not. Terry spots someone in jeans and a hoodie running away from the “scene” and it’s automatically me.’

      Johnny gestured to Dylan’s jeans and hoodie, and shrugged.

      ‘Literally, everyone dresses like this,’ said Dylan.

      ‘But you can see where he’s coming from,’ said Johnny. ‘He calls me to say he’s caught you and Mally in the confession box in the chapel—’

      Edie looked at Johnny. ‘Can we stop this—’

      ‘No,’ said Johnny. ‘He still hasn’t given us an explanation.’

      ‘Stop making it sound so creepy,’ said Dylan.

      ‘You were supposed to be in school!’ said Johnny. ‘The one day we’re in Cork trying to get stuff done—’

      ‘I don’t know why he had to call you,’ said Dylan.

      ‘Here’s why,’ said Johnny. ‘Health and safety. The chapel’s a building site, basically, you had no hard hats on you—’

      ‘Hard hats,’ said Dylan. He rolled his eyes. ‘Mally thought the whole thing was—’

      ‘Why would I care what Mally thinks?’ said Johnny.

      Dylan looked at Edie. ‘Seriously, Mom … what is his problem with her?’

      ‘I don’t have a problem with Mally,’ said Johnny.

      Dylan’s phone beeped. He took it out of his pocket, and read the WhatsApp message. ‘Well, I can’t not go now,’ he said. ‘Because Mally’s already on her way over here. In the rain. I can’t suddenly go “Oh sorry – go home. Oh – and I can’t come back with you later.”’

      Edie turned to Johnny, her eyebrows raised. He gave her a resigned look.

      ‘So she’s going to be here for the day while your mother’s trying to get the place ready for tonight?’ said Johnny.

      ‘They’ll be over at the house,’ said Edie.

      ‘Obviously,’ said Dylan. He looked at Johnny. ‘Can I go now?’

      ‘Yes,’ said Edie.

      ‘And can I go over to Mally’s later?’ said Dylan.

      ‘Yes,’ said Edie.

      ‘Thanks, Mom.’ He walked across the hall and they waited for him to disappear down the stairs.

      ‘Why do you always have to do that?’ said Johnny.

      ‘Oh, good God,’ said Edie. ‘Grow up. What is your issue with him going over there, all of a sudden? I don’t want to have to deal with any meltdowns tonight, and if he’s over there—’

      ‘She’s a bad influence on him,’ said Johnny. ‘She always ’s just in your face. She’s … nosy. She’s …’

      Edie gave him a patient look.

      ‘Look – I know she’s no fan of mine,’ said Johnny, ‘but that’s not the point. They’re always … whispering and skulking about the place.’

      ‘For God’s sake,’ said Edie. ‘They’re sixteen. Well …’

      ‘And that’s the other thing – why is a nineteen-year-old college girl hanging out with a sixteen-year-old boy? It’s weird.’

      Edie raised an eyebrow. ‘From the twenty-one-year-old with his eye on the sixteen-year-old?’

      ‘That’s different. And … different times.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘And what makes you think he’s going to have a meltdown?’

      ‘Look