Mainlander

by Will Smith

  ‘I’ve heard the roads are hell with all the trees down, Arthur.’

  ‘I don’t trust Bygate not to set up a press conference.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Arthur, let’s just get him home.’

  ‘Mr Labey,’ Colin said, as loudly as he could without shouting.

  The man came back on the line. ‘We’re on our way.’

  ‘If the roads are bad it might be better for me to take him along the coast, where there are fewer trees, to the hospital.’

  ‘You said he was fine. Why does he need the hospital?’

  ‘He’s cold and wet, probably suffering from exposure. They should check him out.’

  ‘Listen, I can’t thank you enough for finding him, but kindly do not involve the authorities any further. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but haven’t you done enough damage?’

  ‘I have to call the police to tell them he’s been found.’

  ‘Leave that to me.’

  ‘They’re searching for him, they need to be informed.’

  ‘I will speak to them.’

  Colin hung up and immediately rang the police station. Detective Vautier was out, dealing with an incident, but the message would be passed on. The duty sergeant didn’t seem particularly moved by the news.

  ‘Don’t you want to interview him?’ Colin asked. ‘He has some serious allegations about a member of staff.’

  ‘All in good time, sir, but we’re a bit busy right now. You might have noticed that the Island was hit by a hurricane last night.’

  Yes, and I was right in the middle of it doing your job, thought Colin. He would ring Vautier again later and make sure things were followed up properly. He rang Duncan’s parents back.

  ‘Lab—’

  ‘It’s Mr Bygate again. I’m taking Colin to the General Hospital. You can pick him up there. Bye.’

  Someone had to look after the boy’s interests. He needed medical attention and, besides, his parents were less likely to bawl Duncan out in front of doctors and nurses. He got back into the car.

  ‘I’m going to drop him at the hospital. By the time an ambulance has driven out here, we could have got there.’

  ‘Did you speak to his parents?’ whispered Debbie.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ muttered Colin. ‘You okay, Duncan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re going to take you to the hospital just to warm you up, get you on your feet. Your parents will meet us there.’ He turned to Debbie. ‘I’ll drop you on the way.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ she said, clearly disappointed.

  Colin squeezed her hand, smiled and mouthed, ‘I love you.’ She beamed.

  Everything was slightly askew on the coast road. Colin had been right about the lack of trees: it was built-up pretty much all the way. But greenhouses were shattered, conservatories cracked, sheds upturned and the flagpoles leaning.

  He pulled in to the driveway of Debbie’s small bungalow just before Green Island.

  ‘I’ll just see Miss Hamon in,’ he told Duncan, getting out of the car.

  ‘Will you come back when you’ve dropped him?’ she asked at her doorway.

  ‘Maybe. We all need to warm up.’

  ‘I know a way to warm up,’ she said, pulling him inside for a stolen kiss.

  ‘You know I want to, more than anything, but I need to tell Emma first. You understand. After all she’s said about us, all she’s inferred, I can’t let her be right.’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I love you. You’re so fair, so … I was going to say decent, but it’s so unsexy.’

  ‘I was worried you’d think I was being petty.’

  ‘No. You’re doing things right. That’s what you do. So when can I expect you?’

  ‘As soon as I can make it. But she’s not likely to hear me out and shake on it. There could be a protracted debate.’

  ‘But the outcome will be the same?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Just let me know when to hand in my notice.’

  ‘You’re sure about leaving the Island?’

  ‘Yes – why? Are you?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but you’ve spent your whole life here. It’s a big thing.’

  ‘I took myself off to Tokyo for three months, which you insist on forgetting.’

  Colin smiled. ‘Okay, I’ll stop patronising you. I’m sure you’ll cope with the Big Island. But we should wait till this business with Duncan is settled. I can’t leave him in the lurch.’

  ‘You’re not changing your mind, are you?’ She frowned. ‘Because if you are, tell me now. I couldn’t take it if those things you said were just …’

  Colin kissed her and she melted into his forceful enveloping tenderness. ‘I have not changed my mind. I just want to do things …’

  ‘Properly,’ she said, laughing, kissing him again. ‘I’ll wait for you. Although I can’t wait, I will.’

  He broke off from another kiss. ‘I have to go now, otherwise I’ll stay for ever.’

  He bounded back to the car.

  ‘She’s great, Miss Hamon,’ Duncan said, as he got in.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘When you were in the tower and we were stuck out there with the waves coming in, she told me it would be okay. She told me you wouldn’t let anything happen to us.’

  The tunnel was closed due to a rockfall, so they skirted the harbour, where masts and rigging were tangled as though they’d been stored in a giant’s toy box. ‘Jesus,’ said Colin, ‘this’ll cost the Island a fortune.’

  Five minutes later they were at the hospital. Colin helped Duncan in to A&E and explained the situation, adding Vautier’s name to the contact list and writing that the officer should ‘be kept informed of progress and discharge by order of the Bailiff’. He thought about staying, but decided Duncan’s parents would not be best pleased with his actions and demand he be removed. He was also hit by exhaustion and, cold to his core, felt he’d better go and lie in a warm bath, then crawl into bed. He shook hands with Duncan, renewing his promise to be at the boy’s side throughout any investigations, and drove the short journey home.

  He parked, feeling as if he could just sleep right there at the wheel, but gathered himself to climb out and walk slowly to the flat. When he woke he would speak to a lawyer, he mused, as he opened the door to the block. Although it was Saturday, or was it? Either way he should meet Emma first and set her straight. He wished he could do it all in a phone call, but she’d want a full autopsy into their marriage, even though she had already hinted it was as good as dead.

  His contemplation was punctured by a pair of familiar feet that came into view as he neared the top of the stairs, legs stretched towards the door, and a ginger cat on a lap.

  Emma jumped up when she saw him. ‘Where have you been? Are you okay?’ she asked, putting her hands to his face.

  He held her hands and moved them away. ‘It’s a long story, but I’m okay. For the first time in a long while. We need to talk, about the future, about us.’

  ‘Yes, we do. Can I go first?’

  24

  ROB

  Sunday, 18 October 1987

  Rob found himself eyeing up the air hostesses as they came through the arrivals gate. Randy little bed-hoppers in his experience – why else would you do the job? It was like the Navy, but for straight young women: see the world, and while you’re at it, suck dicks like they’re about to be discontinued. Concentrate, concentrate, he urged himself. His wife would be here at any moment and he had to get his story straight. Well, not his story – he couldn’t change the facts, just the way they were presented.

  She’d called him yesterday afternoon after the storm. Her early-morning flight had been delayed, then cancelled, the previous night’s cancellations having led to a backlog, so she was now looking at a full twenty-four-hour wait. This included a night at one of the airport hotels, which, coupled with her day in the departures lounge, meant the call had been exceedingly fractious.

  ‘They should h
ave cancelled it straight away, instead of letting us hang around in this dump. The toilets stink. Probably because the food is so bad. God, I’d rather have taken my chances in the bloody hurricane than stay another moment in this place – screaming kids everywhere.’

  ‘I hope they’re going to pay for the hotel.’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t be worth paying for. I’d be better off in a tent than whatever dismal hovel passes for a hotel out here.’

  ‘Why don’t you go back into town?’

  ‘And stay where? It’s Saturday night. Anywhere half-decent will be booked.’

  ‘There’s a big new Trusthouse Forte near Marble Arch.’

  ‘I am not staying in a Trusthouse Forte – I might as well stay in a stable. Oh, there’s no point in talking to you. I’ll ring you when the flight’s called tomorrow.’

  It hadn’t been the moment to lay some groundwork for her sympathy, which he had planned to do by relaying what he’d heard from Christophe that morning: his boat had been torn from its mooring and hurled through the windows of the restaurant. He’d succeeded in assuaging his initial panic by proclaiming it a great photo-opportunity, one of the most dramatic and telling images of the night. Sure enough, later that day it graced the front page of the Island News, along with pictures of the flattened trees in Millbrook Park and a headline about the return of that missing boy. He’d wondered wildly if the boat could be retained as a feature, the restaurant rebuilt around it, or at least the bar renamed Dry Dock, until Christophe had grounded him in his practical Gallic manner.

  ‘I’m afraid the damage is a good deal more serious than your solutions allow for.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I’ll come down and take a look later today, or maybe tomorrow. I’m trying to get Sally back from London right now.’

  ‘My assessment is that we will be closed for some time. This will necessitate a rethinking of our business plan.’

  ‘Fuck it, be fine, insurance will cover it. In many ways, it’s a godsend, go back through the books and cook ’em up so we had a full house every night. Let’s jack up our loss of earnings. Many rubberneckers?’

  ‘A steady stream on the beach.’

  ‘Reckon we can charge them? Rope it off, let them in closer for a fiver?’

  ‘I doubt they’d pay it and, besides, we do not own the beach.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think there’s some ancient cockling right my dad mentioned. May be worth checking out.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  The fact that he couldn’t face going down and seeing the damage for himself was perhaps a clue that not even he was convinced by his bravado, wary that it would wither in the face of reality. He was also distracted by the further damage that he had to inform his wife about, and found himself playing down the carnage at the restaurant to himself but exacerbating it to Sally. In the call before she finally boarded her plane, he didn’t pitch outright ruin, just enough gloom that she wouldn’t be too hard on him when he presented her with Friday night’s other disaster. He would imply that he had heard of it while she was up in the air. Sally didn’t like secrets – at least, she didn’t like the ones she found out about.

  The arrivals doors opened again and she appeared, behind a luggage trolley that to him seemed excessively laden for one planned night away, dressed in a lime-green jumpsuit and powder-blue blouson jacket with a matching beret, none of which he recognised. This sent him into a low-grade panic: should he compliment her on the new outfit and risk ridicule for not clocking an established ensemble, or say nothing and be held up as the kind of ape who wouldn’t notice if his wife came down to breakfast missing a limb? Marriage! What a fucking minefield. Juggling mistresses and one-night stands was a comparative walk in the park.

  Sally was now upon him, and mistook his paralysis about her clothing for trauma over his loss. ‘My poor, poor boy’s boat’s broken.’

  He clicked back into his loosely planned narrative. ‘And the bloody restaurant, just when things were picking up as well.’ He took over the trolley. ‘Aren’t these more bags than you left with?’

  ‘I stayed an extra night so I needed extra clothes, which meant I needed another overnight bag. Don’t pull that face. I’ve been through absolute fucking hell.’

  ‘But … Never mind.’

  ‘What? Go on.’

  ‘That bag’s new as well.’

  ‘There’s a Selfridges and a Liberty at the terminal. Would you rather I put my purchases in plastic bags in the hold?’

  ‘Glad you made the most of it, then.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I needed to cheer myself up.’

  ‘Exactly. Lovely jacket.’

  ‘I’ve had it for ages! You men, if it’s not a car you don’t see it.’

  ‘I meant it went well with the jumpsuit,’ he gambled, ‘which is new. Sorry, I’m a little out of it.’ That was better, remind her of his own agony. ‘What with the boat and the restaurant.’

  ‘You said insurance will cover it, though,’ she said, with a frown.

  ‘Oh, yeah … It’s just … You know how bloody long those buggers take to come through with stuff. Still, might exaggerate the loss of earnings a tadge.’

  ‘You dirty dog. Always come out on top.’

  Rob cursed himself for eroding the brief resurgence of her sympathy. He was now struggling to find a way to break his news. Maybe blasé was the way to go. They were approaching the exit.

  ‘Pretty much everywhere suffered damage …’

  ‘Oh, my Lord, I can’t walk in this wind.’ They’d come out into some still strong flurries on the pavement that led to the car park.

  ‘This is nothing. It was ten times stronger last night.’

  ‘I don’t care about last night, Rob. I care about now, and I can’t walk through this with my hair.’

  ‘You’ve got a hat.’

  ‘I’ve also got a hundred-pound fringe cut by Nicky Clarke that I don’t want ruined. Go and get the car.’

  ‘Sure. Wait here.’

  ‘I’ll go inside.’

  ‘Okay. Look for me to pull up.’

  ‘No, I won’t. I’m going to sit down. I’m not standing in front of automatic doors – they’ll keep opening and I’ll get blown away. Come in and get me.’

  ‘I’m not supposed to leave the car in the waiting zone.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’m not standing around. I’m exhausted.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll come and find you. See you in a minute.’

  ‘Ah-ah-ah, where are you going?’

  ‘To get the car.’

  ‘Well, take my bags, why don’t you?’

  Rob walked back to the abandoned trolley and began pushing it as best he could against the wind and the sideways slope of the pavement. For Christ’s sake, how come she was the one who’d had a hard time flying over for a stupid haircut? He’d lost a boat and a restaurant. Not to mention ten grand to that bitch Louise. What a bloody week.

  He fitted the luggage behind the front seats of the bootless Morgan. How did she always manage to have one bag too many for the space? They had so many bags now that their spare room felt like a left-luggage office. What the hell was in this new yellow monstrosity? He was about to cram it between the Delsey and the back of the car when he saw the corner of something hard poking out at the bottom. He sat back in the front seat and took a breath. Do it properly, he told himself. No point in incurring needless wrath by scuffing her pristine purchase. He leant back into the storage space and unzipped the bag. He started feeling his way gingerly through the clothing, past tissue-covered bras and panties, blouses, through a seeming forest of price tags, till he approached the heel or the handle or whatever it was that was threatening to puncture the leather. It was a small box. Normally he wouldn’t care about a jewellery purchase, but most days he wasn’t having to contend with a boat being flung through a window. Not that it wouldn’t work
out fine and to his advantage, and not that he could tell her to take back whatever overpriced junk she’d bought.

  He snapped open the box and immediately felt guilty. A pair of silver Concorde cufflinks. She’d been shopping for him too. What a sweetheart. Really cool cufflinks. He couldn’t wait to put them on. But he had to maintain the aura of surprise, so he worked the cufflinks back down to the base and squeezed the bag into the space, hoping that the unavoidable but minimal disruption to the contents would be put down to transit.

  He got behind the wheel and pulled out, heading back to the waiting zone outside the exit. He honked, but of course she didn’t come out. He glanced around. There were no parking attendants about, and he could afford a ticket, but it was more about making Sally meet him halfway. He hopped out and ran in. She was sitting sulkily on a plastic chair next to the newsagent. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  She walked silently back to the car with him.

  ‘They found that boy.’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘The one that had gone missing.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Home. Normandy College boy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know the one you mean.’

  ‘He’d got stuck out at Seymour Tower with a sprained ankle. Luckily a couple of fishermen found him.’

  ‘Good. I suppose.’

  Rob waved away an approaching attendant as they got into the car, and she apologised as he drove off. ‘Sorry, darling, I landed in a right grump. None of it’s your fault. The hotel was just ghastly. And the breakfast! I asked for Eggs Florentine, and this girl just stared at me and said, “Scrambled or fried?” Another night and I would have killed myself, although God knows how. There was no way I could have drowned in a bath that size.’

  ‘Well, you’re back now.’

  ‘Good God, what happened here?’ They were passing the Aero Club, where the smaller private planes had been flipped over in the night.

  ‘The storm. It was horrific. There’s loads of trees down – you won’t recognise bits of the Island. A guy was killed by one, drove straight into it. In a way it’s a good job you didn’t fly back last night – could have been me smacking into a tree on my way to pick you up. Christ, imagine if I’d gone down to the bar to watch the waves last night. I could have been killed by my own boat.’