Things I Know - Softcover

Helena Close

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1915071038 ISBN 13: 9781915071033

Publisher: Little Island Books, 2022

Synopsis

Saoirse (18) can’t wait to leave school – but just before the Leaving Cert her ex-boyfriend dies by suicide. Everyone blames Saoirse – even Saoirse herself, who cheated on him with his best friend. She is shunned by her schoolmates and suffers unbearable levels of anxiety.

Everything becomes too much, and on the night of the school Debs, Saoirse throws herself into the river – and wakes up in a psychiatric hospital. Slowly, painfully, with the support of a friendly hospital cleaner, her old best friend, her kind and hilarious grandmother, and even her irritating sister, Saoirse regains her sense of herself. Eventually she is ready for a new life at University. 

About this title

About the Author

Helena Close is a native of Limerick City in Ireland. She has been writing full-time for over 20 years. She has written or co-written eight novels, published by Hodder Headline, Hachette Ireland, Little Island and Blackstaff Press. She is Munster Rugby obsessed, and she loves cats and dogs and sometimes people.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

‘Take the devil out,’ says Cian, pushing his big bacon-and-cabbage head right inmy face. ‘Fuck sake, Saoirse, just give it one good slug – what’s wrong with you?’

He grabs the wine bottle from me, some cheap shit from Megan’s mother’sendless stash, and glugs it back, like water.

‘Devil gone,’ he says, laughing and scratching his crotch.

Megan and Kate giggle in unison, like they rehearsed it earlier. Dylan and Finn keep talking, their voices low and urgent. Dylan has an arm around Finn, like he’s trying to convince him of something. The Clancy twins have finished a full slab of cans between them and are beating the shit out of each other near the waterfall. Cian hands the bottle to Megan and picks up my guitar. My fucking beautiful guitar that I should never have brought. He perches his arse on a flat rock and strums the chords of ‘Outnumbered’. His voice is whiney and Americanised, West Clare accent well hidden, and if Dermot Kennedy could hearthis version, he’d never sleep again.

It’s one week before the stupid Leaving Cert. Our last hurrah for the next few weeks and everything’s wrong. Broken. I want to blame them, but it’s me. I know that now and I understand why Megan’s cold with me. Finn’s her twin. There are lots of twins in West Clare and I’d love to know why.

‘Saoirse, you’re weird as fuck tonight,’ Cian says, giving up on the singing and reverting to his real talents, drinking and being a dick. ‘Weirder than usual, like.’

He laughs, looking around for joke validation. He gets none. ‘Why didn’tyour pal come, the mad wan from Limerick? She’s a great laugh, her. Thought she was all on for a party?’

He scratches his arse this time – just for a change. I shrug and take a canfrom the pile on the grass near me. To have something to hold. To play with. I watch Finn and Dylan and am relieved when I see them laughing. At least they won’t end up beating the crap out of each other too. Then Finn goes all Heathcliff, big moody head on him. He even has the dark curls and he fixes me with his eyes,spearing me, X-raying me. Dylan’s all golden lad beside him, shimmery shine off him, even from here. The moon has risen over the rapids and the sun’s setting over the forest, and that’s one thing I love about the west coast – the way moon and sun drag out the day. There’s this space between, a no-time space that I’dlike to live in, and I really want Finn to stop staring at me. I pop the can and the cheap beer is warm and smells of vomit. Cian has taken to flicking bottle caps at Megan and Kate. Some fucking party.

Why didn’t Jade come, after I begged her to? I pleaded with her, told her how awkward it would be with Finn, how Megan was being weird with me, how I just needed her to come here to this god-forsaken hole for one last time before Icould escape back to Limerick and college. Bitch. She probably met someone, and when Jade has a new interest it’s like her brain is a wiped hard drive. I miss her. She was great when we moved here first, two years ago, and I didn’t know anyone and I was sad and Mam was gone and … and not much has changed. Mam is still dead, Dad’s still living a borrowed life, and maybe so am I.This one doesn’t fit. It’s tight and loose at the same time and I can’t pull it off no matter what I do. Fuck. Cian is right. I’m weird and it’s funny that he’s the one that picks up on it. Big Clare head on him, no brain, itchy balls, and he can smell an imposter from three fields away.

‘Play a few tunes, Saoirse,’ he says now, like he knows I’m thinking about him. Megan laughs and turns away from us. I’ve seen a lot of Megan’s back recently, at school, in town, at the beach. Her back has become more familiar thanher face. Cian finishes the wine in one slug and throws the bottle against the rocks under the waterfall. The crash of glass sends crows and conversations skittering.

'‘What’s wrong with ye at all? We’re supposed to be partying, like – I’d morefun at my grandmother’s funeral. I’m getting locked, so fuck ye,’ Cian says, and he unscrews a naggin. He downs it without flinching – only possible when you’ve an iron stomach and no brain. He grabs my guitar and starts to play, beating thestrings into tuneless submission, and a black knob of anger rises in my chest, squeezing air from my lungs. I could feel it when he smashed the bottle, the tiny hello of it in the pit of my stomach, and if I open my mouth now it’ll come out like a fist and hammer the fuck out of him.

It’s Finn who cops it. Feels it. And he’s over and talking to Cian and taking the guitar away from him and my eyes are blurry with tears and rage and something else. Loneliness. Weirdness. I don’t know what to call it.

Edition details

• Publisher: Little Island Books
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1915071038
• ISBN 13: 9781915071033
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304