by Jenny Colgan
Joel moved forward, glancing at Saif who was shaking his head in disbelief. Before figuring out what would be best, Joel turned to the watching crowd.
“Would you mind . . . ?” he said awkwardly. Most people had never heard him talk and turned round. “I’m sorry. Would you mind . . . leaving, or going back to the tent please?” He looked at the disgruntled and concerned faces and had an idea. “Actually, no, hang on—Inge-Britt—can we continue the party at the Harbor’s Rest? Send Colton the bill? And we’ll keep everyone updated. I’m sure it’s nothing, just overexcitement.”
There were a few disappointed faces, but Joel looked smoothly authoritative and they had no choice but to turn away and head back up toward the house. Joel instructed the minibus driver, and let people tell Colton to get well soon, and hopefully they’d be back in time for the famous but terrible 1970s rock band he was rumored to have flown in for the occasion.
By the time he got back to Colton, they were no further on. The helicopter was still circling without landing. Fintan was still shouting in a way that couldn’t be heard over the din.
Joel moved quietly over to Colton’s other side. “What are you doing? You need to get on the helicopter.”
“I’m not getting on any fricking helicopter, dicks, and I don’t know how to make myself any more clear,” hollered Colton. He was sweating and looked dreadful and spoke into the phone again.
“Back off, Jim. I won’t tell you again. Get back to the mainland before you run out of fuel.”
“Please,” said Saif. “Please.”
“SOMEBODY, JUST TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON?!” Fintan yelled in pure frustration.
“JOEL KNOWS!” shouted Colton suddenly. The helicopter at that moment chose to peel off to the side, its blades whirring against the blue, taking off over the sea. The men watched it go for an instant. Then they switched their attention to Joel.
“What?”
“Joel knows,” said Colton again, wild-eyed.
Joel froze. Fintan was looking at him, eyes wide with incomprehension and fear.
“Knows what, Colt? What do you know?” he asked, his voice bitter and low.
Flora came out from the tent to see how the boys were; she’d seen everyone else head back to town, but she was damned if she was going. She folded her arms, ready for the fight. Her hair had escaped the bun she kept it in for catering, and it was flapping in the wind behind her back, the pale dress Joel had bought her, what felt like a million years ago in New York, blowing out in the breeze. Joel, glancing up, almost lost his breath. She looked like a fury: a beautiful, alluring avenger.
“Tell them.” Colton sounded husky. Saif folded his arms too, absolutely furious even as Flora stepped forward and Joel found himself surrounded by accusing eyes. All the MacKenzies: Innes, who’d sent Agot back with Eilidh and Saif’s boys; big Hamish, who wasn’t quite sure what was going on but was standing with his family anyway; Eck, trembling a little and quite confused. Everyone was staring at him, except for Colton who was resolutely looking away and out to sea, ignoring Fintan’s hand on his shoulder.
“What?!” said Fintan, looking petrified.
“For God’s sake, Colton,” Joel swore under his breath. He closed his eyes. For a moment, nothing could be heard except the rasp of Colton’s labored breathing.
All of this stuff. All of this stuff he had been carrying about for so long. All of this pain. His head tightened and twisted. He felt the snakes again, writhing, squeezing in his head.
As he stood there, Colton stretched out a gnarled hand, the skin tight over the knuckles, took Joel’s long fingers, and squeezed them. His watery eyes stared into Joel’s.
And Joel nodded in resignation.
“Uh,” he said, standing up straighter. “I have legally signed papers in my possession indicating the wishes and living will of Colton Spencer Rogers . . .”
“The what?” said Fintan. And before Joel could get any further he burst into tears and flung himself on Colton.
* * *
Flora watched Joel in disbelief. The entire day had cracked like an egg. She saw his hands trembling, even as Colton held on to him with one hand and tried to cover Fintan’s sobbing head with the other.
“It is his recorded wish that he remain on the island at all times, regardless of his health situation.”
Joel’s voice sounded robotic. Flora looked at Saif. He looked sad, but not at all surprised, and she realized with a jolt that of course he must have known all along too. Her fury rose even further.
“And you were going to tell me when?” shouted Fintan in disbelief. “We’re married! We just got married!”
Colton looked up at Fintan with terrible sadness in his eyes.
“Oh my God. You’re sick. You’re sick. You didn’t tell me. You bastard. You absolute bastard. How sick are you?”
Colton sniffed. “About a hundred percent, as it happens.”
“And you weren’t going to tell me?”
“No,” said Colton.
“Why? So you could trick him into being your carer?” shouted Innes suddenly, unable to contain himself. Everyone looked at him. Fintan looked up at Colton, tears falling down his cheeks.
“Did you not think I’d look after you? Did you think I’d walk away if I knew? Did you think I’d ever walk away from you?”
There was silence.
“Of course not,” said Colton eventually. He stared at Joel again, who cleared his throat.
“Mr. Rogers . . .” he said carefully. “Mr. Rogers has made it very clear in all of his paperwork that there was absolutely no evidence of coercion or weakened resolve when you agreed to marry and indeed when you did marry.”
“What? Why?” said Fintan.
“So that there wouldn’t be potential complications . . . later . . .”
“Nobody,” croaked Colton. “Nobody could say you married me for money, knowing what you know now.”
“But I don’t know anything now!”
“Saif?”
Saif stepped forward, very unhappy to be singled out. “The prognosis with this type of cancer . . .”
Fintan let out a howl of animal misery and buried his head in Colton’s lap. Colton stroked his brown hair.
“Sssh, it’s all right. Listen to the man. Don’t make him say it twice.”
But Fintan was muttering, “I can’t do this again, I can’t do this again,” and did not respond.
Saif had done harder things than this. “ . . . is . . . We don’t like to talk in terms of time, but months. Depending on what types of treatment are used.”
“Months for some and years for others?” said Innes.
“Some or more months.”
“But where is the cancer?”
“It is widespread.”
Fintan raised his head. “You said you had the flu!”
“I had that too.”
“And when you were always away . . . and you didn’t open the Rock?”
Colton nodded. “I had to . . . finalize a few things.”
Fintan looked at him. “How can you be so calm? This is the worst day of my life.”
Colton cradled his head to him closely once more. “It can’t be,” he said quietly. “Because it’s the happiest of mine. And from now on, every day has to count.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Joel had backed away, but Flora followed him.
“What have you done?” she said, her voice icy. “What have you done to us?”
“I was following his wishes. Someone would have had to have done it.”
“So what exactly is the stupid fucking plan? What?”
“Well, he didn’t want anyone to know.”
“For fuck’s sake! He’s going to die? But there must be treatments . . . new experimental stuff they let you have if you’re very rich?”
“Apparently nothing that’ll work longer than a couple of months. And he said he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to go to the hospital. He wants to manage it at home, fl
y anyone in he needs to. Sit by the beach, watch the tide go out. Here. Home.”
“Oh God,” said Flora, her voice cracking. “Poor, poor Fintan.”
“Poor everyone,” said Joel, staring at the floor.
Flora looked at his exhausted face, the stress the last few months had put on him, carrying all of this around, and could have wept for him. “You’ve carried this around all this time? You made me think it was all my fault!”
Joel was puzzled. “How could it have been your fault?”
She turned and walked away. She glanced around at the remains of the feast, of the washing-up the boys had done so diligently, but still there remained half-eaten crumbling pieces of cake, birds on the grass looking for crumbs, everything falling and decaying away.
Outside it was growing dark. Finally, the light summer nights were beginning to come to an end, reminding her that the long dark winter was coming, when the sun never rose at all, and everything was collapsing around her—and would get worse and worse.
She walked slowly back toward Fintan and Colton, still entwined in each other down by the water’s edge, even as the sun was setting and the stars were starting to appear behind their heads. As she did, a little figure moved toward her.
“UNCO FINTAN SAD?”
Flora turned round. Oh my goodness, why was Agot still here? Everyone was meant to be at the Harbor’s Rest; Agot must have run back on her own. She was such a minx.
“I’S HELPING!”
And she ran toward the two figures, her white hair streaming out behind her, and clambered up onto them, pushing her way in, surprisingly strong for such a tiny girl, until she was sitting between them.
Both of them immediately closed their arms around her too, making a trio, and as she saw that, Flora started to run, and knelt down next to them and added her own arms, and Innes and Hamish did too, and Flora got up and grabbed her father, who was still confused, and they all stuck together like glue. Joel saw them there, and he turned around and began to walk away. Flora’s head went up and she saw him, once more out on his own—once more alone of his own choosing, even in the very depths.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Joel walked through the darkening night, down the path from the Rock toward the Endless. It grew cold, but he didn’t care. Somehow, blundering around in the dark summed things up better than he could have predicted. Creatures scattered at his approach, as if he were some kind of incoming monster, and he pushed his way on through, completely and utterly unable to work out how his life had become such a mess.
He looked down the long stretch of pale sand, glinting now under the full moon rising.
Then suddenly at the end of the beach he saw something sparkling. And, simultaneously, out at sea, he heard a great thudding noise and saw a huge head tilt out of the water; it was unimaginably vast, a truly extraordinary-looking thing, with—Joel squinted—was that a horn? Did it have a horn on its nose? Like a unicorn?
Almost convinced he was dreaming, Joel moved forward to where most of the town was standing, watching the beast as it moved irrevocably closer to the shore.
“It’s going to beach itself!” someone yelled from farther down the beach, closer to the Harbor’s Rest. Joel looked at the poor creature, thrashing desperately about in the sea.
“No!” he said. He took out his phone and falteringly Googled what to do about a beaching whale. For once the Internet held, and he read, blinking, that you could lure a whale off a beach with fire. He glanced around to Inge-Britt, who had come up to see what was going on.
“Have you got anything we could set on fire?” he shouted. Then instantly he realized and turned around, running.
“Come with me!” he shouted to the group of Charlie’s boys who were also clustered by the waves, watching intently. They ran toward him instantly, and they all rounded the head of the beach in a tearing hurry.
“The torches!”
Of course, all the torches were set up at the Rock, lining the steps between the jetty and the building.
“CAREFUL!”
They grabbed as many as they were able, and Joel shouted for them to be handed over to the grown-ups (although a couple of the older boys demurred and followed him anyway), and, without thinking, he ran headlong into the sea, waving madly.
The creature was coming closer and closer as more and more of the islanders ran into the sea. It felt like the entire town was there now. One of the boys, who had done some fairly excellent cat burglary back in the city, had found the gardener’s hut where the torches were stored and had broken more of them out.
This alerted everyone at the Rock. There was a good view from there, up high.
Colton and Fintan were still sitting there with Agot between them. Now she wriggled out from underneath them and began dancing excitedly on the grass, shouting, “ALLO, WHALE! ALLO! DOAN GO, WHALE!”
* * *
The entire town now waded in deep, under the starry sky, frantically waving their flaming torches in the air, moving closer, shouting furiously at the huge beast who tossed and turned this way and that.
Flora moved down toward the waves, worried someone might get hurt. And then, and only then, did she see the person who was farthest out and deepest in, waving his torch so desperately in the air.
A quietness stole over her. It was a sense she had always had when close to the creatures of her island: the island of her ancestors, deep back into Viking lore and further even, back to the myths and dreams of selkies, and the people who came from the sea. It was a sense that this was something she understood.
She kicked off her shoes and walked slowly down to the water’s edge. The people with torches—she didn’t take one—parted to let her through. Fintan sat up to watch, wiping his eyes. The water was freezing but she didn’t notice or mind; the waves parted for her as she left the land behind; the noise of everyone screaming and shouting was drifting away and still she walked deeper and deeper into the water, feeling the cares of the island fade behind her, feeling the fear and panic of the huge animal even closer as she moved through the waves, her thin dress streaming behind her, her hair wet.
Finally, she was shoulder to shoulder with Joel, who looked at her, incredulous, but didn’t say anything, just held his torch as high as he could.
“Don’t say anything,” she said.
“My beautiful selkie girl.”
“I only wanted to be your girl, Joel.”
Her attention was caught by the huge beast, and suddenly a change came over her as she stepped farther into the water. “Much-mhara adharcach,” she called out softly. Joel couldn’t make out a word she was saying, but she wasn’t talking to him. She seemed, although it was absolutely crazy, to be talking to the huge creature. Certainly it looked as if it were looking straight at her—at them—but that couldn’t be right, could it?
The thrashing tail seemed to quiet somewhat and Flora moved forward, even though the water was up to her neck, and he wanted to grab her and hold her and keep her safe. He glanced back toward the beach. The flames—scores of them—roared high above the waves, the noise reaching them, but Flora was still talking quietly to the creature, and, as he watched her, she put her hand out and touched the beast on its gray-blue flank, just once, and as she did so, quick as anything, the creature’s tail shot up and hit Flora on the side. It knocked her clear out of the water and through the air, and there was a bounding and a massive churn of the waves, and a huge splash and noise, and Joel felt himself almost slip under the water as he yelled and pushed forward. He tripped and his head went under, and everything was churning beneath him. When he pulled it up again, he couldn’t see anything at all; his glasses had gone and he’d lost sight of the whale and lost sight of Flora and he could see nothing and hear nothing except the roar of the ocean and the cries of the lost.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Joel washed up on the shore.
By the time he had recovered his footing—if not his glasses—and started to fumble around, looking for
Flora, calling her name, realizing how freezing the water was, he saw that the sky was already lightening in this ridiculous place at the top of the world. A dawn was somehow coming. He looked around. The narwhal . . . The narwhal was gone. The great creature had somehow managed to turn itself around and get away from the island it had haunted all summer.
“FLO-RAAAA!”
Nothing. The sea ahead was just starting to glow with the first rays of light of the morning.
“FLOOO-RAA!”
He could hear nothing above the waves; his teeth were chattering. Then there was a noise behind him. He turned around, incredibly slowly.
All along the beach of the Endless stood a line of islanders, still brandishing their torches. And they were cheering and applauding.
In the middle of all the people was a pale figure with long hair the color of the sea, and a green dress that clung to her like a mermaid’s flesh, and she stepped forward, looking as if she didn’t feel the cold in the slightest, and she opened up her arms. And he pulled himself back and away from the waves, looking out into the open sea one last time, thinking he could just—could he?—make out the shape of a fin in the very far distance.
He waded in to shore, utterly soaked, utterly freezing, straight into the arms of Flora, who wrapped them around his neck, equally soaked, and kissed him in front of the entire town.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Oh God,” said Lorna, who had been waving a torch next to Saif, who’d wisely decided to stay on shore and try and persuade the more elderly and drunken residents not to get in the sea. “Oh God.”
Lorna was a little overemotional and had been up all night.
Saif shook his head. “I know.” He glanced up. “Would you mind coming and helping me with Colton?”
“Of course not,” said Lorna. Wild rumors had already been running riot around the Harbor’s Rest, unfortunately most of them correct. Together, with Fintan stumbling along behind him like a child, they managed to load him up onto one of the Rock’s golf carts to take him back to the Manse.