by Fiona Gibson
‘And d’you know what he said? “For God’s sake, son – they’re for old people. I’ll not be needing one of those!”’ Her eyes glint as she laughs.
We are approaching the steps now, and Scout is zipping back and forth, showing no sign of tiring. I glance at Suzy, taken again by how she looks like she belongs here, so natural and at ease and, well … beautiful.
It’s just the two of us today. Arthur and Dad wanted a last wander around town together; it was my father’s suggestion, and I know from previous visits that they’ll have gone for fish and chips. And then – as part of Dad’s campaign to make sure Arthur has no teeth left by the age of fifteen – he’ll have taken him to choose a load of boiled sweets from the sweet shop.
‘Well, I’ll miss you,’ Suzy says, adding quickly, ‘I mean, I’ll miss you both. It’s been lovely for Scout, having all this fuss and attention.’ She seems to flush a little.
‘We’ll miss you too,’ I say lightly as we climb the steps away from the beach. We stop, and I scan the street, aware that I’m avoiding saying what I want to say: shall we stay in touch? I feel oddly self-conscious and out of place, which is ridiculous, as I’ve never felt that way here; the island is in my bones. And why would Suzy want to stay in touch anyway? I’m aware of her presence, so close to me, as I raise a hand in greeting to a couple of familiar faces across the street.
‘So, are you going to find your dad and Arthur?’ she asks – signalling, I guess, that she needs to get on with stuff.
‘Um, they’re actually coming here,’ I reply.
‘Oh, God, are they?’ It comes out in a rush. ‘I’d better go then, hadn’t I, before your dad—’
‘No, don’t rush off.’ Without thinking I’ve taken hold of her hand.
Her lips part and her gaze seems to hold mine, and for that moment everything else seems to fade away. There are no cars or people or seagulls squawking. There’s no clanking from the boats’ masts or the guys yelling to each other from the shellfish boats.
There’s just Suzy Medley and me.
‘Harry’s coming to see you,’ I say, aware of my heart thumping.
‘But why?’ She looks shocked, but she’s smiling.
‘To talk to you,’ I reply.
Now her smile broadens and she’s blurting out, ‘Did you persuade him? Oh, you did, didn’t you?’ Her eyes are sparkling and – possibly without thinking – she throws her arms around me. ‘Thank you, Ricky. Thank you so much!’
We pull apart and it all comes out a bit scrambled as I explain: ‘I talked to him, yes, but you know what he’s like, he never does anything he doesn’t want to do. So I think he must have wanted to really, because he’s seen how happy Arthur is around Scout. I mean, he talks about nothing but Scout—’
‘Good old Scout,’ she says, laughing.
‘And I think Dad realised that, well, you’re a dog person – like him …’
She nods, as if waiting for me to go on. But I don’t say anything else. I can’t, because my mind is so full of her, and just as I’m trying to get myself together, to say how much I’ve enjoyed spending all this time together, Arthur shouts out: ‘Dad!’
I step away from Suzy to see my father and son marching towards us. ‘Hi,’ I say in an overly bright voice.
‘Hi, Arthur, Harry—’ Suzy starts.
‘Hullo,’ Dad says, hands stuffed in the pockets of his waterproof coat.
‘We had fish suppers,’ Arthur announces happily, swinging his khaki rucksack by a strap, ‘and Granddad’s bought me sweets and Top Trumps.’
‘That’s great,’ I say, deciding now that they can’t have seen us holding hands, then hugging – but what does it matter if they did?
‘I remember Top Trumps,’ Suzy says, smiling. ‘My kids loved them. I didn’t know they were still around.’
‘Yeah, they’re brilliant,’ Arthur enthuses. In fact he used to love them too, though I assumed he’d outgrown them a few years ago. But then, as Suzy said, what the heck do I know?
‘Well, um, it’s good to see you, Harry,’ Suzy adds as Arthur crouches down to fuss over Scout.
Dad raises an eyebrow. ‘Yeah. So, anyway, about your letter,’ he says bluntly.
‘I, um … I really hope you didn’t mind me dropping it off to you …’
I glance at Dad. His expression is indecipherable and I find myself willing him to at least be pleasant to her, to give her a chance. ‘I s’pose not. You said you wanted to meet up with me?’
‘Um, yes,’ she says, her cheeks flushing pink now. ‘I mean, if it’s okay with you. Maybe we could arrange to get together and have a chat about everything? At a time that suits you, I mean?’
Dad purses his lips and glances up and down the beach, then finally seems to look at her properly for the very first time. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘how about now?’
Chapter Forty-Five
Two Months Later
Suzy
It tears at my heart to leave Scout on Sgadansay. I just have to keep reminding myself that he’ll have a far better time on the island than having to endure those ferry crossings again. Besides, I’ll be darting all over the place. There’s Frieda’s graduation in Cumbria, then Belinda and Derek are putting on a big dinner for Mum and Dad’s golden wedding anniversary. And – as Belinda has been at great pains to remind me – Derek has a bad reaction to dogs. As if Scout so much as putting a paw in the same county would trigger his allergies. So I reassure myself that I’ve made the right decision as I sip milky tea on the deck of the ferry, and then drive south, where I pick up Tony and we head onwards to Cumbria for our daughter’s graduation.
Isaac comes over for it too. It’s such a joyful day and it feels so right and comforting for all four of us to be together. In the whirl of celebration and happiness, the distillery recedes into the distance. I barely think about barley or barrels or the boxing room.
‘Guess we didn’t mess up too badly,’ Tony says with a smile at our family dinner later in a local restaurant. And I have to agree. However, I do think about Ricky. Of course I do. I think about that moment when he held my hand – in fact, I wonder now if I imagined it – and I picture him at his graduation, with all those dressed-up parents (‘A flurry of fascinators!’ he’d joked), and Harry, all tensed up as he was handed a glass of wine, in case somebody picked his pockets.
‘He must have been proud of you, though,’ I’d remarked on one of our beach walks. ‘What about all those school concerts you performed in? Seeing you up there on stage with your cello? I couldn’t watch my kids in a nativity without blubbing into tissues!’
Ricky had grinned at that. ‘Honestly, I think he went out of duty – because Mum made him,’ he explained. ‘From the outside it always looked like he was boss, but he wasn’t really. Mum was strong as an ox when it counted. So he’d always go along, dutifully. But he’d be one of the first parents springing up out of his seat when it was over, making for the exit, fag lit – he smoked back then – when he was barely out of the door, probably thinking, “Thank fuck that’s over.”’ And he’d laughed. ‘There was only so much Elgar my dad could take.’
The day after her graduation we leave Frieda preparing for a celebratory camping trip with friends, and drive Isaac back to Liverpool, where he and his mates are keeping their student house on for next year. Tony and I have booked ourselves into a couple of rooms at a nearby Travelodge. Maddy, his partner, has never been difficult about us spending time together when there’s family stuff going on. In fact, if it wasn’t for their brood of kids back home, she’d have come to Frieda’s graduation too.
Tony and I both love the city and cram in as much sightseeing as possible during our two days there: museums, art galleries, the Mersey ferry. ‘You’re such a pair of tourists,’ Isaac scoffs as he peels potatoes back in his kitchen. He’s insisted on cooking dinner for us instead of us all eating out. Keen to show off his newly acquired domestic skills, we suspect. Eager to show that there’ll be no microwave/kettle dramas on hi
s watch. The mood is happy and light as he pours us tepid white wine from a box and potato peelings ping onto the cracked lino.
His housemates, Rex and Matis, drift in and out with girlfriends and friends; there’s a constant procession of young people and everyone’s charmingly polite: their chatting-to-parents personas. Somehow, Isaac has pulled it together to make roast pork. The only accompaniments are roast potatoes and a jar of apple sauce but I have to say, it’s delicious. Our son, now twenty, appears to be entirely capable of cooking a meal without injuring himself or burning down the house. We all cram around the scuffed table, and neither Tony nor I mention the pizza boxes, plus a lone pineapple core, lying on the floor next to the overflowing bin. At least, not until the young ones are out of earshot when he nudges me and whispers, ‘At least someone’s getting one of their five-a-day.’
They’ll get better, I decide. They’ll leave uni and get proper jobs, and further down the line they might even acquire more than one set of bed linen and start paying attention to use-by dates on food. But there’s plenty of time for all of that. Acres of time to grow up and be sensible and discover that life can swerve off in unexpected directions, and there’s no handy guidebook to it, for anyone.
From Liverpool I head to Leeds for a meeting at Rosalind’s office. ‘I have to say, I’m impressed,’ she says, flashing a brief smile across her desk.
‘Thank you,’ I say, allowing myself a moment’s pride.
‘We both knew how difficult it was going to be to change everyone’s perception,’ she adds. ‘But you’re definitely managing it. All this media coverage seems to be helping, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, I think it is. I’ve set up some press trips so we’ll have journalists coming up to spend time on the island. I thought it was worth investing in that – putting them up for a few days in the art deco hotel there, giving them a lovely Sgadansay experience—’
‘That is a good idea,’ Rosalind says.
‘Harry, the master distiller, is back with us now,’ I add, ‘and when he heard about this he offered to take them on tours around the island.’ In fact, it was a bit of a surprise. I hadn’t imagined him as the tour guide type. But then as he’d told me, gruffly, ‘We might as well have someone taking them around who knows what they’re talking about.’ And no one knows the secret beaches and coves – the most interesting, tucked-away parts – like Harry.
‘This all sounds great,’ Rosalind concedes, ‘and it looks like we’re on target to meet those quarterly figures.’
‘I’m so pleased,’ I say. Although it’s not a natural talent, I’ve forced myself to get my head around the financial matters. Spreadsheets no longer fill me with dread. When our accountant calls me for a meeting I’m no longer seized by an urge to run away.
‘D’you think it’s helped,’ she asks, ‘basing yourself out there on the island?’
‘Definitely,’ I reply. ‘I wasn’t sure how it’d be but, you know, I loved Sgadansay that first time Paul and I visited. I mean, I really fell in love with it. I knew it was a special place.’ An image flashes into my mind of that glorious silver beach, with Cara, Ricky or Arthur throwing a stick or a tennis ball for Scout. It catches me by surprise and I sense my heart lifting. Again, it feels as if I might have imagined Ricky taking my hand, and the look we exchanged when I was sure I felt something between us; or maybe I dreamt it.
‘The main thing is,’ Rosalind continues, ‘you’ve restored a lot of faith in the company.’
‘I think a lot of that is to do with Harry,’ I say. ‘Paul called him a dinosaur and said he was stuck in his ways. But he’s not at all.’ It’s true; even Jean has mentioned that he seems to have returned to work with a newfound vigour, and he’s set on developing special edition whiskies and perhaps even ‘diversifying a bit’, as he put it (in typical Harry fashion he wouldn’t expand on that. I guess, like our whisky itself, he’ll be ready when he’s ready).
‘But actually,’ Rosalind adds, ‘you’re the one who’s turned things around, getting orders back up and creating a positive feeling around Sgadansay again.’ She meets my gaze and her face seems to light up for the first time since I’ve seen her. Even this drab little office looks a little brighter. ‘So don’t shy away from taking some credit, Suzy,’ she says firmly. ‘Really, it’s all been down to you.’
Perhaps that’s why letting go of my house, albeit temporarily, doesn’t feel difficult. I brought my family up here, and we raised guinea pigs in the garden – but even after a few days I’m itching to get back to the island again, and there’s no point in this place lying empty. It’s not forever, anyway. It’s for … well, we’ll see. I can no longer think too far ahead.
A friend of Dee’s youngest daughter is studying at the university here, and has apparently been living in a bit of a hovel. As she’s staying in York to work over the summer, she was apparently delighted by the possibility of living here with friends for a knockdown rent. It’ll help me, too, as I’m aware that I can’t stay at Cara’s indefinitely and I already have my eye on a tiny rental cottage on the edge of town. Dee has been popping in here regularly, and my indoor plants – and garden – have clearly been cared for, and my non-essential mail has been neatly stacked up in the hallway with her usual efficiency (any urgent stuff she’s been forwarding to me).
‘Thanks so much for taking care of things,’ I tell her when she comes round for lunch in my garden.
‘Well, thanks for letting the girls move in,’ she says. ‘They’re so excited.’
‘They seemed it,’ I say, picturing their gleeful faces as I showed them round. June sunshine beats down on us and bees hover around the herbaceous border. ‘I’m glad they’ll be here,’ I add. ‘I can’t quite believe I’m moving out, though. Not really. I mean, when it all started … d’you remember we called it his gazpacho thing?’ She knows what I mean; how Paul would become madly enthusiastic about things we’d seen or eaten on holiday, and would want to carry that feeling back home under grey Yorkshire skies.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘From that time you went to Majorca and he was mad about the chilled soup …’
‘Uh-huh. We kept going back to the same restaurant and he ordered it every single time.’
‘And then he made it when you got home.’ She grins at the memory.
‘But it was just a bland, tomato-based chilled liquid and he tipped most of it away …’
‘Anyway,’ she cuts in, ‘never mind Paul. How about Ricky? Have you been in touch since he went home?’
I smile. Obviously, his name has come up. I’ve told her about how he is as a dad, and a son, and a friend to me. I’ve told her all about Arthur and how brilliant he is with Scout; such a sweet and earnest but still endearingly enthusiastic kid. ‘No,’ I reply, ‘but I’ll text him. I will.’
‘You should!’
‘But … what for?’ I ask. ‘I mean, what’ll I say?’ I know I’m sounding like an awkward kid myself.
She grins at me. ‘Couldn’t you just ask how he’s doing? How he’s settled back into life after his holiday?’
‘Yes, that’d sound completely natural.’ I snigger. In fact, I have been poised to text, just to say hi. But since he left I haven’t quite summoned the nerve, which seems ridiculous as I’ve found the courage to tackle far more daunting stuff.
Anyway, I keep telling myself, he could contact me.
‘So, what’s the story with Arthur’s mum?’ Dee asks now.
I shrug as I gather up our plates. ‘I’m really not sure. All I know is that she hasn’t been in his life for a very long time. She disappeared when he was six, apparently. But that’s all Ricky’s told me and I’m not planning to quiz him about it.’
She frowns. ‘She’s alive, though, isn’t she?’
‘I assume so,’ I reply. ‘But honestly, I’ve got the feeling that I just shouldn’t go there, when we’ve been chatting, so I haven’t.’ I pause and top up our glasses with chilled rosé. ‘It’s a bit odd, though. I mean, he seems like a pr
etty open person about all kinds of stuff – like his ex going back home, all that …’ But not Arthur’s mum, I reflect. And, considering how much we’ve talked, she seems like a pretty significant omission.
‘And it was Ricky who persuaded his dad to come back and work with you?’ Dee asks.
I nod and smile. ‘Well, yes. He finally told me he’d actually had far more to do with Harry’s change of heart than he’d first admitted.’ And I tell Dee how Harry had kept saying, ‘Don’t mind me!’ whenever Ricky asked if he was really okay about him walking Scout and spending time with me. And how Ricky had said, ‘You keeping saying don’t mind me, but I mind. I mind how you feel about it.’ Finally, Harry had cracked and barked that he was absolutely-bloody-fine, thanks very much. And Ricky had said, ‘If you’re that fine, Dad, why not meet her properly?’
‘So it was a kind of showdown?’ Dee ventures.
‘I suppose so, yes. But Ricky knew his dad would be happier back at work, being respected, doing what he was good at. He was never a man for hobbies, Ricky said. He’d gone to seed a bit, hanging around the house, obsessively raking at his carpets with this ancient sweeper thing. Ricky said he—’
‘“Ricky said”,’ Dee repeats, teasing me, and I catch her expression and laugh.
‘Stop it,’ I say.
‘C’mon, Suze,’ she says, eyeing me over her glass, ‘there’s something between you two. I can just tell.’
‘D’you reckon?’ I sip my wine and look at her. ‘I mean, how d’you know?’
‘I just think …’ She pauses. ‘Yes, maybe he did it for his dad, because he knew it’d be good for him. But I think he mainly did it for you.’
Chapter Forty-Six
After she’s gone I deep-clean the house and box up the remains of Paul’s possessions. There isn’t much, as he’d left in his own car – in a cloud of smoke, I imagine, like in cartoons – and had managed to stuff it with most of his things. It’s tempting to drop off the rest at the charity shop without contacting him, because I really don’t want to hear excuses, apologies or whatever else he might happen to come out with. However, deciding I’d better give him the option, I message his friend George in London who replies: Paul says thanks but he doesn’t need any of that stuff. Like he wants to wash his hands of everything to do with us.