Barefoot Over Stones by Liz Lyons Page B

better rescue Dan from his obvious mortification. ‘Look, Ciara has told me about your dad and her sister Leda and what’s meant to be going on. But I am ready to hear your side if you want to tell me. Just because Ciara is my friend doesn’t mean I don’t want to get to know you. I’ll understand though if you don’t want to talk about it because we have only just met. It’s none of my business, after all. I just figured that Abernethy is such an unusual name that there couldn’t be too many families called that in a place the size of Leachlara.’
    ‘No, there is only one lot of Abernethys. We punch above our weight though when it comes to shitty family stuff,’ Dan said with as much humour as he could manage under the circumstances. The sensible thing to do would be to bolt for the door, but the longer he looked at Alison the more he wanted to stay. She had taken his breath away when she walked in. He’d known she was beautiful from watching her at the Daisy May but he was taken aback by just how gorgeous she looked. Her hair tumbled around her slightly made-up face and her petite frame was dressed in a slim-fitting red shirt and dark denims. He wanted to snog her there and then so there was no way he was going to let his father’s foul-ups ruin his chances. ‘If it’s all right with you, Alison, maybe we could start off like this is a totally normal run-of-the-mill first date and I will get to the heavy stuff later. That’s of course if you are still interested and you haven’t decided to run for the hills.’
    ‘I promise to stay until the end.’ Alison was relieved. She would tell Ciara eventually but there was no need to tell her straight away.
    They talked until after midnight when the barman at Conlon’s downed tools and started to flick the lights in an effort to chase the handful of drinkers on to the street. They swapped stories about growing up, their respective schools and their university courses and agreed that it was nice to live in Dublin where people didn’t know every ounce of your business.
    ‘Well, at least I used to think that about Dublin until I asked out this beautiful, mysterious girl from the Daisy May and realized that she knew loads about me and all I knew about her was her name and that she was from Cork. Oh, and that she nearly always burns whatever is in the frying pan when I am drinking coffee at the counter. I’d say you owe poor Rose a brace of frying pans by now!’
    Alison grinned. Talking to him was so easy; she felt she could say anything to him. No point then in ignoring the huge elephant sitting in the corner any longer. Con Abernethy might as well be sitting between them in Conlon’s.
    ‘Look, Ciara is just looking out for Leda. You can’t blame her for that and she may have exaggerated the story a bit. I mean, I’m sure your dad wouldn’t – didn’t actually do anything. Did he?’
    ‘To be honest, he says he didn’t and I want to believe him but I can’t be absolutely definite thatthis whole thing with Leda is entirely innocent. I’m just back from home now where all hell is breaking loose between my mam and dad. He seems remorseful that he might have led Leda on but he says that she made most of the story up to compensate for a pretty poor home life. I think he’s telling the truth but he is a politician after all and his job is to make people believe him. He’s good at that. As for my mam, she was never his biggest fan so she wants his guts for garters.’
    ‘Well, I think he has a point about Ciara’s parents. I’ve never met them but from what she says they are not with it at all. Ciara seems very glad to be away from home, says her dad is clueless and her mother has been depressed for a long time. So maybe Leda is just engineering a way out for herself too. She stayed with us for a couple of days in December. Ciara was trying to persuade her to stay longer but she hightailed it home without even telling us and took a week’s kitty money