Page 67 of Tears of Ink

“I’m sorry, what?” I shake my head and try to make sense of what she’s saying.

“Nuns. You know? They ran our school.”

I’m wide-eyed. “Wow.”

Tabitha grins. “I’d say wow, it was interesting.”

With a wink, I lean over the table and drop my voice. “Was it all Enid Blyton, anchovy paste on toast, and pillow fights?”

“Anchovies on what?” Tabitha makes a gagging noise which causes the woman behind the bar with the big bust to look over with a frown.

“Come on, you must have read Enid Blyton?”

She shakes her head. “It’s no wonder he likes you so much. Eli’s always talking about books like they are real.”

“Really?” I can’t help but absorb this little nugget of information.

“Hell yeah, he’s such a geek. You know Peter used to bully him so bad when they were kids because Eli always wanted to read, or make stuff indoors, and Peter said he wasn’t built like proper boys.”

“Well that’s cruel.” And I can assure Peter that he’s built exactly like other boys. I might not have seen what’s under the clothing, but I’m highly skilled at judging hidden form.

“Siblings, right?” She shrugs. “I was always out of it because I was so much younger.”

“That is a massive age gap.”

“Ten years between Eli and I, but he always looked after me. Peter I never really saw. He was off to Prep school and was happy there. Eli was a home bird. He hated Prep and being away from home.”

I’m not entirely sure what a Prep school is, but I know it’s something rich people go to, and really that’s all I need to know. I can imagine Peter there all too well. Then I can see those big blue eyes of Elijah absorbing everything and seeing it in shades of depths of colour. Real, painful, and alive.

“When did your dad leave?” I ask. Without even thinking about it, my gaze drops to the teardrops I have running along the inside of my right wrist.

Her eyes hold mine. “When I was two.”

“And you still see him?” Elijah didn’t say much in his studio once he’d tried to explain his weird relationship with his family, and I’ve got to colour in the blanks somehow.

“No.”

“What, never?”

She shakes her head and I know to drop it.

“What about you? Do you have any siblings?”

A cold creeping crawl spindles sharp tingly claws down my spine. “No.” I drain my glass.

“That’s sad.”

“Tragic.” I motion to her glass. “Want another one?”

She nibbles the inside of her mouth. “We should get back.”

“One more and then we will get back for a nice sensible night before tomorrow’s fun.”

Tabitha squints her eyes and I think I probably should have asked her if she’s even drunk before. I guess I just thought all teenagers did. Maybe that’s just in Brighton.

Three more wines later and Tabitha has wisely switched onto orange juice—straight. The wine is flooding my veins, hot molten lava of reckless inhibition. It calls to me, crooning my favourite song. My legs are a little weak and heavy and I’m beginning to think how lovely it would be to touch someone, to have hands on my flushed skin and to lose myself to that one desperate moment of euphoria.

“You know.” I lean over the table again, although I don’t think my voice is as quiet as it should be —not that I really care. “There’s a serious lack of talent in this pub. Is the whole village like this?”