Falling Fast (16 page)

Oh my God
. My stomach lurched. I’d completely forgotten Flynn’s sister asleep next door.

Flynn stood up. ‘Jesus,’ he groaned under his breath. Then he turned and grinned at me. ‘We gotta talk about stopping and starting like this, Riv. It’s killing
me.’

I eyeballed him furiously, as I struggled to straighten one of the bra straps.

Flynn reached over and untwisted it. ‘Don’t blame me.’ He laughed. ‘You shouldn’t look like you do.’ He held up my shirt for me. I poked my arms through the
sleeves. As I hauled it round and fumbled for the first button, I heard the bedroom door open.

‘Flynn?’ It was a little girl’s voice.

He disappeared through the curtain.

‘I’ve told you to knock, Caitlin,’ he said mock-seriously.

‘‘S my room too,’ Caitlin said crossly.

I stood up, fiddling with the bottom button.
There
. I smoothed down my hair.

Flynn poked his head back round the curtain.

‘Come and meet Caitlin,’ he grinned.

I emerged into Caitlin’s section of the room, feeling extremely self-conscious. She was standing by the door, dressed in a long pink skirt and a white T-shirt. She was pretty – about
eight or nine – with the same dark red hair as Siobhan – but curly and cut in a short bob. Her pale blue eyes widened into saucers as she saw me.

‘This is River,’ Flynn said.

Caitlin stared at me.

‘Hi, Caitlin,’ I said.

She carried on staring. There was something slightly haughty about the way she was looking at me that reminded me of Flynn.

Flynn rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus, normally we can’t shut you up, Cait. What’s your problem?’

Caitlin turned to him. ‘Is she your girlfriend?’ she asked.

Flynn put his arm round me. ‘Oh yes,’ he grinned. Then he bent down and whispered in my ear: ‘Wait here a minute, I’m just going to tell Mum you’re here.
She’ll freak if we just show. Okay?’

I nodded. I was feeling slightly freaked myself by the entire situation: Flynn’s home, his life story and now meeting his sister and his mum. It was all a bit overwhelming. Still, it was
what I wanted. My heart soared as I thought of how relaxed Flynn had been with me just before Caitlin walked in. How close to him I’d felt. Closer than ever.

Flynn slipped out of the room, leaving me and Caitlin alone. She was staring at me again. I looked round the room again, trying to think of something to say to her. My eyes lit on the faded
Barbie cover stretched neatly over the mattress.

‘D’you like Barbie, then?’ I said.

‘No way.’ Caitlin’s face screwed up into a contemptuous grimace. ‘Not since I was really young,’ she said. ‘It’s a very old duvet cover.’

‘Yes.’ I bit my lip. ‘Of course.’ I sat down on the floor, remembering where Flynn had said she’d been. ‘So you’ve been to Mass, then?’

She nodded, sitting down opposite me on the mattress.

‘What’s that like?’

Her eyes widened. ‘Don’t you go?’

I shook my head. ‘Never.’

‘What, not
ever
?’ Caitlin seemed dumbstruck by this news. ‘Not even at Christmas and Easter like Siobhan?’

I shook my head again. ‘I’m not Catholic.’

Caitlin nodded. This seemed to make sense to her. ‘What’s your name? Was it R
ee
va?’

‘River,’ I said. ‘Like the water.’

Caitlin made another face. ‘That’s weird,’ she said.

I grinned. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I used to get bullied about it when I was your age.’

Caitlin looked interested. ‘Did you tell a teacher?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Jaysus, Paddy.’ A woman’s voice across the corridor – an Irish accent. ‘What are you doing with the poor girl, keeping her hidden away in your room?’

Footsteps pounded towards us. I caught Caitlin’s eye. She grinned.

As the door opened, I scrambled to my feet.

Flynn’s mum stood in the doorway. She was slim and smaller than I’d expected. Only a centimetre or two taller than me with the same red hair as Siobhan and Caitlin. But what struck
me most was how tired she looked. Her pale forehead was creased with deep lines and there were dark rings under her eyes.

We blinked at each other for a moment, then Flynn’s mum started talking.

‘It’s grand to meet you, River. I’m so sorry Paddy took you into the room there. I don’t know what he was thinking. You didn’t want to see all his messy bits and
pieces all over the floor . . .’

‘I—’

‘Come on, now, with me and we’ll put on the kettle.’

She gripped me firmly by the elbow and drew me across the corridor and into the little living room/kitchen area. Flynn was sitting on one of the beanbags, his chin propped in his hands, gazing
up at us with a slightly bemused expression on his face.

‘Now, Paddy,’ his mum said. ‘Get up and make us a nice cup of tea. Go on with you now. Go on.’

Flynn leaped to his feet and strode towards us, into the little kitchen area near the door. Three of us standing there was a squeeze, so his mum walked across the little carpet and eased herself
down onto a beanbag.

I caught Flynn’s eye as he filled the kettle under the tap. He was blushing slightly, his expression both amused and embarrassed.

‘Sugar?’ he said.

I took a step closer to him. ‘Thanks,
Paddy
,’ I whispered.

I wondered if he remembered how, ages ago, I’d asked him what his family called him. How he’d ignored me, then.

Smiling, he bent down and kissed the side of my head.

‘Flynn to you,’ he whispered. ‘Swampy.’

As he straightened up, I noticed him glance over at his mum. She’d turned the TV on and was tapping her fingers on her lap, very carefully ignoring us.

I turned away from him and stood there awkwardly. His mum looked up and smiled at me again. She patted the beanbag next to her. ‘Come and sit down – Flynn’s told me a little
about you, but not much . . . you know how he is, not a big one for talking.’

I nodded, as she went on.

‘River’s such a pretty name. I’m Mary, by the way.’

I wandered over and sat down next to her. The bright overhead light cast shadows across her face. She was almost pretty when she talked – her face lit up and animated. But when she fell
silent, as she was now, her face sagged with what seemed like a bone-deep weariness. I realised with a jolt that if she’d only been sixteen or so when she’d had Siobhan, she
couldn’t be more than thirty-two or -three now. That was fifteen years younger than my mother.

Yet she looked at least ten years older.

‘Now, I know you and Paddy met doing the play at his school.’ She smiled warmly. ‘I’m so pleased he’s finally introduced me to a friend of his. I was beginning to
think he was ashamed of me. Are you enjoying doing
Romeo and Juliet
?’

‘I love it,’ I said. ‘It’s a great play.’

‘Oh yes.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘So romantic.
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear it shall be Romeo . . .
That Juliet was a bold piece, wasn’t
she, talking to her mother like that!’

My mouth must have dropped open.

Flynn’s mum laughed. ‘Now you didn’t think I’d know that, did you? I’ve been reading Paddy’s play to test him on his lines – he’s so good in the
part and with his school studies and so hard-working. He’s going to be a lawyer, you know.’

‘Stop it, Mum,’ Flynn grunted, walking towards us with a mug of tea in each hand.

His mum beamed up at him as she took one of the mugs.

‘Go on with you,’ she said. ‘You know that you’re loving me talking you up to your girl here.’ She turned back to me. ‘Now, River, you will stay for something
to eat, won’t you?’

I blinked at her. Stay for dinner? I looked around, wondering where on earth they all ate. There was no sign of a table and no space for chairs. There would barely be room for all four of them
to sit down on the three beanbags as it was.

‘We eat out of tins,’ Flynn said solemnly. ‘Sometimes just out of our hands. It saves washing up.’

‘Paddy.’ His mum flapped her hands at him exasperatedly. ‘Get off with you. Leave River here to help me with the tea. Go and do some of that homework you’re always
complaining you don’t get enough time to—’

‘I don’t complain,’ Flynn grinned. ‘I—’

‘Go
on
.’

And he went.

I stood at the kitchen counter with his mum peeling potatoes. Her hands were red raw and chafed. She yawned constantly as she worked, in between keeping up a non-stop chatter about her jobs and
her two girls. I learned that Caitlin was good at school, but lazy and prone to answer back ‘like her brother’, Flynn’s mum said darkly. And I picked up that, like Flynn, she
worried about Siobhan. She didn’t exactly say so, but her whole face grew concerned as she told me how hard Siobhan found talking to people.

Flynn’s mum asked me questions too. Subtle ones about my family – I found myself saying how difficult it was to talk to my mum, how close I felt to my dad – and I’m sure
she realised how I felt about Flynn. I went bright red whenever she mentioned him.

She talked about him proudly, telling me how well he’d done in his GCSEs.

Once the potatoes were on, she took a pot out of the tiny fridge and set it on the gas cooker. It was some kind of stew. A bit of meat, padded out with loads of pearl barley and carrots, she
said. Flynn reappeared just before it was ready. He glanced anxiously over at me.

Are you OK?

I smiled back.

Flynn was sent to fetch Siobhan and Caitlin and we all sat down on the living room floor to eat. It was weird. The TV blared out the whole time, a permanent background noise. There was no table.
No chairs. None of the plates matched and there weren’t even enough proper forks to go round, so Caitlin had to use a spoon. And yet it was a real family meal. Warm and chatty and full of
laughter.

At my house I was used to hardly speaking to Mum – and Stone just grunted when anyone talked to him. Here everyone chattered on non-stop. Flynn and Caitlin teased each other all the time.
Even Siobhan joined in occasionally, accusing Flynn of borrowing her hair wax that morning. Flynn’s mum kept it all together, never letting the conversation get too mean or aggressive, her
eyes flickering about from plate to plate, looking horrified at Caitlin shovelling her food down in huge mouthfuls, then concerned as Siobhan picked listlessly at hers.

I noticed how carefully she’d measured out the delicious stew. She took hardly any for herself, then gave Siobhan a little more. Caitlin and I both got bigger portions. But the
lion’s share was reserved for Flynn – not only did he get by far the biggest helping but also, I was sure, the one with most actual meat in it.

I tried to make his mum take some of the stew on my plate, but she refused so adamantly that I didn’t dare push it. I sat back, savouring each guilty mouthful and watching the others,
especially Flynn.

I loved how they all adored him. You could see how much Caitlin looked up to him. How Siobhan relied on him. And as for his mum – well, it was obvious to me after about five minutes of
watching them together, that while she might love her daughters, Flynn was utterly and completely the centre of her universe.

There was only one moment when I glimpsed any major tension between them and that was when Flynn’s mum started telling me about Caitlin’s first Holy Communion, which had apparently
been postponed from last summer when Caitlin was ill and was now coming up after Christmas. She talked as if she assumed I knew what a first Holy Communion was. In fact, I had no idea, but I
listened and nodded politely.

After a minute or two she said, ‘So do you ever go to Mass, River?’

‘Jesus, Mum,’ Flynn snapped, a real edge to his voice. ‘No, she frigging doesn’t.’

‘Watch your language,’ his mum snapped back. She stared down at her plate, clearly hurt. I looked round helplessly. Siobhan had suddenly become transfixed by whatever was on the TV.
Flynn was staring at his mum, his expression half angry, half guilty.

Caitlin, however, was grinning. ‘River’s not even Catholic,’ she said archly.

Flynn’s mum’s head shot up, her eyes wide with shock. ‘But I thought with the play, with the schools getting together that . . .’ She glanced at Flynn who was glowering
at her, clearly restraining himself with difficulty from snapping at her again.

‘My school’s not a religious school,’ I said quickly. ‘In fact, I don’t really have a religion at all. Well, I think my mum’s parents might have been Jewish,
but I don’t know any more about that than . . .’ I stopped. They were all staring at me. I looked at Flynn.
What?

He grinned at me as if I’d just made the funniest joke, ever.

‘There you go, Mum, she’s Jewish,’ he said.

Siobhan beside me gave a little snort of laughter.

Their mum blinked for a second, then beamed at me. ‘Don’t listen to them, River,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter in the slightest what religion you are, they just
like to tease me.’

We finished eating, then Flynn cleared away the plates. As he strode over to the sink and started washing up, Siobhan nudged me in the ribs. ‘He’s showing off for you,’ she
whispered. ‘He wouldn’t normally wash up.’

Flynn’s mum stood up, yawning. ‘It’s all right, Paddy. Why don’t you take two minutes to tidy up next door, then maybe you and River would like to do some studying
together.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Flynn came over and hugged her. She looked tiny in his arms. She whispered something in his ear. He rolled his eyes, then winked at me over her shoulder and
vanished.

‘Now, Caitlin,’ his mum went on. ‘You can stay here and help me. I’ve not got work tonight and there’s a programme you’ll like on in a minute.’

One minute later Flynn reappeared. ‘All tidy now,’ he announced. He grabbed my hand and whisked me back into the room he shared with Caitlin. I giggled as he pulled
me behind the curtain and dragged me onto the mattress. I looked around. His attempt at tidying up seemed to have consisted of picking up the clothes on the floor and hurling them into a single
pile in the corner, and stacking up a precarious tower of books and magazines against the only available wall space.