Roisin wipes tears from her eyes. I wonder if she really does believe me now. It must be hard to accept that your own mother could do something like that. But something tells me there’s more to those tears. There is still something I don’t know, something she is hiding. I look at Joe. He looks away, but it’s too late, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in his eyes. Guilt.
His words of just a moment ago, coming rushing back to me.
‘Joe,’ I say, my voice one of total calm and composure. ‘What did you mean just now, when you said I wasn’t to blame for the accident?’
‘Nothing,’ says Joe.
‘You said Roisin knew I wasn’t to blame and that you knew it too.’
‘Tell her, Joe. Tell Erin what you told me earlier,’ says Kerry. ‘I don’t want to have to knock it out of you, much as I’d like to give you a feckin’ good thumping right now.’
Kerry’s threat isn’t wasted, although I’m not so sure it’s just a threat. I’m pretty certain Kerry means every word.
‘Don’t!’ cries Roisin. ‘Don’t say anything.’
Joe hesitates. He looks at each and every one of us.
‘Erin needs to know. She has a right to,’ he says at last. Roisin goes to protest some more, but Joe continues to speak. ‘Just as your mother has a right to know about Sophie, Erin has a right to know about the accident.’
My legs suddenly feel weak and my throat closes, making breathing difficult. I take a gulp of air. Kerry holds onto my elbow. ‘You okay?’
I nod. ‘I’m fine.’ All I want now is to hear what Joe has to say.
Chapter 41
I look at Joe. ‘What do I need to know?’
Joe looks uncomfortable. I get the feeling I’m not going to like everything I hear.
‘Remember, Erin,’ he says. ‘We were all just teenagers then. We did things, made decisions as seventeen-, eighteen-year-olds, not as the adults we are today.’
‘I get that,’ I say, impatient for him to begin.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Joe, get on with it,’ says Roisin. For once, I’m in complete agreement with her. Roisin doesn’t wait for him. ‘I’ll tell you my bit,’ she says, seemingly accepting it’s going to happen whether she likes it or not.
‘We’re all ears,’ says Kerry. He takes my hand in his and I appreciate the gesture of solidarity.
‘The night of the accident, Niall came to tell me he was leaving. That you and him were running away. He didn’t say anything about you being pregnant. He just said that Mam didn’t approve, that he couldn’t tell me everything that night, but once he was settled he would be in contact and he’d tell me then.
‘Anyway, naturally, I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want him to go with you. I begged him not to, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he loved you and wanted to be with you.’
For a moment I’m transported back to that night and the rush of emotion takes me by surprise. We did love each other, so very much. We really did. But now, as I look back, I know that it was teenage love and I’m realistic enough to know that it probably wouldn’t have lasted. Not with the odds so stacked against us. We were innocent and totally oblivious to how hard the adult world would be.
‘We did really love each other,’ I say quietly. I want Roisin to know that.
She ignores me and carries on. ‘I hated the fact that you were causing so much upset in our family. I didn’t know why Mam disliked you so much, but all I knew was that it was causing problems. If you were gone, out of the picture, then I thought our family would be happy and whole again.’
She pauses and looks down at her hands.
‘Go on,’ says Kerry.
‘I was desperate for Niall to stay,’ she says. ‘I was prepared to say anything to make him change his mind. I knew he had some weed on him, he often did, but I had seen him put the little box he kept it in in his rucksack. I persuaded him to sit outside with me and have a joint, you know, one for the road sort of thing. I got a couple of beers out of the fridge and we went down to the end of the garden.’
‘I always suspected he was a little bit high or tipsy,’ I say. ‘He had that glazed sort of look when he picked me up and his driving was all over the place.’
There’s a small silence.
‘Tell her the rest,’ urges Joe.
‘I’m getting to that,’ says Roisin. ‘I…I told Niall something about you.’
For the first time, Roisin actually looks guilty, even a bit remorseful.
‘What did you tell him?’ I ask, wracking my brains as to what it could possibly have been. I didn’t have any secrets then, not from Niall. He knew everything about me. To be fair, at sixteen, there wasn’t a lot to know.