The Betrayal by Laura Elliot

with you when I was fifteen.’
    ‘I made no such promise. You’re still way too young for such an arduous trip.’
    She faced him, eyes blazing, fists clenched by her sides. ‘Liar! You did… you did .’ Her mood change was sudden but I had become used to those unexpected outbursts.
    I picked up apple and orange peelings, cheese wrappings, butter melting gold into the grass. Eighteen was the age she planned to leave with him. She spoke about it often enough.
    ‘Why are you doing this?’ Max asked. ‘We’ve had a perfect day and you’re spoiling it by making a scene.’
    ‘I’m going with you,’ she shrieked. ‘You can’t leave me alone again with her .’
    ‘Don’t refer to your mother as “her.”’ I thought he would lose his temper, as my own father would have done, but he never raised his voice. ‘She loves you and has always taken care of you. Why are you pretending otherwise?’
    ‘But you don’t love me. If you did, you’d take me away. You never keep your word. It’s all your fault that she’s an alco – ’
    ‘Stop it at once.’ This time I heard his anger and Karin paused, her mouth open on that ugly word.
    I emptied out the dregs of tea and screwed the top back on the flask. The ripples the kingfisher had made were still visible in the flow of the river.
    ‘Tell him, Nadine.’ She dropped to her knees before me. ‘You heard him promise. He said fifteen .’
    I bent my head, afraid to look at her, and fastened the straps on my backpack. She leaned forward until I was forced to meet her eyes.
    ‘Tell him to his face that he’s a liar,’ she said. ‘I want you to say it.’
    ‘You’re the liar.’ I straightened my shoulders, stared her down. ‘He never said any such thing.’
    She pushed me backwards with such force that I lost my balance. I think she would have pummelled me if Max had not pulled her away.
    ‘Have you finished?’ he demanded when she stopped struggling. ‘If you’re still determined to behave like a sulky puss then go into the forest and shout at the trees. We’re going back to Cowrie Cottage. Whether or not you come with us is no concern of mine.’
    He lifted his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. The leather was scuffed and covered in stickers from places he’d visited. Karin walked on ahead, almost running in her effort to get away from us. The breeze blew my hair before my eyes and the feather was tossed lightly on a current of air before settling on the water. I watched it flow downstream and out of sight. We returned in silence to Cowrie Cottage, each of us wrapped in our own private thoughts.

    The remaining days slid together in a blur of sunshine and games on the beach. I played volleyball and swan until I was exhausted. The sun played over my body when I lay face down on the rug to recover my breath, an intoxicating drug that pressed my thighs hard against the yielding sand and filled me with unfamiliar stirrings. I was in thrall to the wonder, terror, bliss, achiness, illusions and splendidness of first love. At night I wrote love letters, secrets outpourings for my eyes only. I cut a slit in the lining of my anorak and hid them deep inside it. Soon it would be time to go home. We would be returning to Gracehills on the day after Shard’s much publicised gig in Barney’s pub. Like Karin, I was in the grip of mood swings, wanting the holiday to end, longing for it to last forever.

Chapter 11
    O n the morning of the gig we met Reedy and Daryl in the small village supermarket. They were stocking up on beer for a party after the gig and the trolley was filled with six-packs, crisps and frozen pizzas.
    Karin had begged her parents to let us go to the party. Joan refused to even consider it. We could go to Barneys to hear the band but we were returning with her and Max to Cowrie Cottage afterwards. He agreed with her. Subject closed. We were too young… always too young for everything, Karin raged. Joan was an ‘alco–’ she almost spat