by Megan Tayte
I stared at her.
‘Didn’t you know? The island is privately owned, so technically…’
Jeez. It was one thing rolling down a hill in a plastic ball; it was another breaking the law.
‘Cara –’
‘You said you wanted to live it up this summer. C’mon, it’s a deserted island; we’re just gonna look about and then leave. On the criminality scale it’s right down there with mooning. What harm can it do?’
It was a fair point. Besides, I’d spent a lifetime following the rules, and how much fun had that been?
I nodded.
Cara whooped and hugged me and then declared that this called for a fresh round of drinks.
‘Scarlett Blake,’ she yelled as she made her way down the stairs, ‘we’ll make a rebel out of you yet.’
23: KISS ME
Despite setting the alarm for seven-thirty, to allow me plenty of time to get ready for my date with Luke, I overslept on Saturday morning by an impressive three and a half hours. It had been a brilliant week – I couldn’t remember a time I’d laughed more or talked more or lived more – but there was no denying that all the out-and-abouting took a toll on my health. Though I did my best to ignore the ever-present exhaustion, it haunted me. Last night I’d hit the sack before the sun had even set, but the night had been a long one of tossing and turning and dreaming.
I’d planned a gentle morning – a leisurely breakfast in the garden, followed by a long soak in the bath and then time to rummage through my wardrobe, dry and straighten my hair, and practise the art of putting on makeup so that it looked like I hadn’t put on makeup. But late as it was, pamper was out and speed-prep was in. I showered in record time, scrubbing my body and hair vigorously and shaving underarms and legs with such gusto I took a chunk out of my right knee. Then I stood, dripping, at the mirror and slapped on makeup – a daub of concealer here, a dash of mascara there. I was just reaching for lip balm when the rumble of Luke’s van outside became audible. Crap! I had no time to play with outfits, so I had to throw on what Cara had laid out for me the day before when she came over for coffee – a pair of fifties-style, high-waisted black shorts with a grass-green off-the-shoulder top and strappy sandals in black. I managed a quick squirt of perfume before I heard knocking downstairs.
I took the stairs two at a time and flung open the door.
‘Sorry!’ I declared, panting. ‘You’re right on time and I’m late! Stupid alarm didn’t…’
But the words dried up in my mouth as I took in my date for the day. I was used to seeing Luke dressed down – cargo shorts and tees and trainers. It wasn’t like he’d turned up dressed in a suit or something, but boy did he scrub up well in a pair of simple jeans and a white shirt open at the throat. Even his trainers were white today, rather than scuffed and sandy as usual. Only his hair was wild, as always – though it was a little wet-looking, as if he’d tried to tame it with a product.
As I stood there, grinning stupidly, Luke looked me up and down. His lips quirked and then he leaned in and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. ‘Good morning. You look beautiful.’
I felt my cheeks redden. ‘Um, thanks.’
‘Did you oversleep?’
Ruefully, I nodded.
He looked at his watch. ‘I was going to take the scenic route, but we can go directly instead. If you need some more time…’
I shook my head. ‘It’s fine. I’m ready. Let me just get my bag.’
I grabbed my shoulder bag from the bottom of the stairs and began checking its contents – keys, purse, phone, brush, mints, sunscreen...
At the door, Luke gave a low cough. ‘Um, Scarlett. Perhaps a brush?’
‘Got that,’ I confirmed. I looked up at him. ‘Will I need swimwear?’
‘No. But um, Scarlett? Your hair is kind of… interesting.’
I slapped my hand to my head in horror. My hair! I’d done nothing with it since washing it. I hurried over to the hallway mirror and groaned. It was less hair, more bush. Still, at least Luke had been polite enough not to point out the mascara smeared across one cheek. Mortified, I rubbed it off and then set to work with the small brush from my handbag, yanking through knots until my eyes were watering.
Luke appeared in the mirror behind me. ‘Here, let me…’ Gently, he took the brush from me and began to tease out the tugs. The feel of his hands on the nape of my neck sent shivers of feeling down my back and his breath was divinely tickly.
‘There, all done,’ he said at last.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
I turned to face him. In the confined hall, we were close, so close his shirt brushed my nose. I looked up, and up some more – he towered over me.
‘So, shall we go?’ I said in a voice that was barely a whisper.
I watched his lips form a husky reply: ‘In a minute…’
His knees bent and he slowly sank down, until, when his eyes were level with mine, I thought: Oh God, he’s going to kiss me… But he carried on moving until he was squatting on the hallway floor.
‘First,’ he said, touching a gentle finger to my knee, ‘we’ll address the minor issue of your leg looking like something out of a horror film.’
*
A half-hour drive later – during which we discussed favourite music while I scrubbed a lot of blood off my leg with baby wipes; that would teach me to speed-shave – we arrived at the restaurant.
The location was stunning: the Grade I-listed Royal William Yard, where the Plymouth bay – the Sound – met the River Tamar. It was a former Royal Navy depot that had been developed into exclusive apartments and a cultural centre with galleries, creative office space and smart eateries. The River Cottage Canteen had a prime location in the former brewhouse, and inside the space was cavernous and rustic with wooden floors and tables and whitewashed stone walls, with just a hint of modern in the metal detailing. A waitress showed us to a table at the window, from where we could watch boats drifting by lazily in the summer breeze.
The restaurant, Luke informed me, was his favourite in the city. Founded by a celebrity chef, it served a daily changing menu based on locally sourced, seasonal ingredients. As he talked me through today’s menu, explaining the reasoning behind ingredient combinations and making recommendations, I watched him. He was so animated – hands waving, face lit up with enthusiasm. His passion was very attractive.
Lunch, when it arrived, was delicious. We’d opted for sharing boards, one with seasonal vegetable mezze and the other West Country meats and cheeses. Having missed breakfast, I was ravenous, and I gave up all pretence of being ladylike and ate heartily. That pleased Luke no end – he couldn’t stand people who picked at food, he said.
The conversation flowed easily – about food and music and movies and surfing. Beneath the table, Luke sandwiched my knees between his own, and each tiny movement in his legs sent tingles through me.
Finally, once we’d shared a summer-berry cheesecake and argued over the bill – he insisted on paying – Luke took my hand and we wandered out of Royal William Yard and along a street lined with period houses. After a time I noticed plaques inlaid in the pavement at regular intervals, and I slowed to read one:
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
Bemused, I read the next one:
Good, Watson! You always keep us flat-footed on the ground.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Sherlock Holmes?’
‘Yeah. Arthur Conan Doyle had a practice on this street. We did a project on him at school. For months and months. Turned our whole class into total Doyle geeks. They brought a coachload of us to this street to read the plaques.’
‘Sounds like a fun school trip.’
‘My thought exactly. Still, it was better than the one to the sewage plant.’ He shuddered.
We read the next plaque:
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
‘From “A Case of Identity”,’ said Luke. He caught my look. ‘Like I said, Do
yle geek. Useful in a pub quiz once, though – I won a case of beer listing his stories. Hey, that’s a thought. Do you know what the first Sherlock Holmes work was called?’
‘Hound of the Baskervilles?’
‘Nope. His first story was “A Study in Scarlet”.’ He put on a menacing tone: ‘“There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”’
An involuntary shiver shook me.
‘Too geeky?’
‘Too macabre.’
Luke put an arm around me. ‘Sorry. Tell you what’ll warm you up – a Cornish pint.’
*
The Edgcumbe Arms was my kind of pub: traditional and timeless in feel, from the white facade covered with hanging baskets to the handwritten blackboards promoting the day’s specials. But for the absence of a thatched roof, it could have been a picture-postcard cottage. It was on the Rame Peninsula at the very edge of Cornwall, by the landing for the passenger ferry that had brought us across the river in just a few minutes.
We sat at a picnic bench right on the waterfront, a pint apiece on the table. Truth be told, it was my first pint ever – and, having taken a few swigs, I was quite happy for it to be my last. But given the view and the company, I felt no desire to rock the boat, and I sipped it slowly as Luke pointed out all the sights of Plymouth across the water.
‘And that island there, with the deserted barracks – that’s Drake’s Island. See?’
I nodded. It was kind of hard to miss the island; it was the focal point of the entire bay. I wanted to be honest, to just casually say, Oh yeah. Drake’s. You know, Cara and I’ll be trespassing there on Saturday... But I knew Cara would kill me. I’d better change the subject, and fast.
‘Playground games!’ I declared. ‘What was your favourite at school?’
Luke looked a little bewildered by the random conversational turn, but then crooked an eyebrow and said, ‘Kiss chase.’
I laughed. ‘Not too popular at my school. No boys to kiss.’
‘But out of school?’
I was just knocking back some beer and congratulating myself on a successful, if bizarre, diversion from Drake’s Island when I realised by the intense look on Luke’s face that this was it: we were having The Talk.
‘Er, not really,’ I admitted.
‘So,’ said Luke casually – but the tight grip on his pint glass betrayed him, ‘you, um, have you…’
‘Had many boyfriends?’
What to answer? Was there a ‘right’ answer to this question? I hadn’t a clue, so I opted for total honesty. ‘There was this one guy in Tuscany last year, but just a summer fling, you know.’
Luke nodded, but said nothing.
I didn’t need to return the question. I’d already grilled Cara on Luke’s background. I knew he’d dated girls – ‘not enough to make him a player, but enough to prove he’s a red-blooded guy’ was how Cara had put it – but he hadn’t got serious with any of them. Still, I didn’t want Luke to realise Cara and I talked about him, so I asked, ‘You?’
He shrugged and said simply, ‘There’ve been a few girls. No one special, though...’
There was a pause and some unspoken final point hung in the air. I hoped it was ‘Not until you, Scarlett’ and not ‘Bit like you, Scarlett’.
‘You up for a walk?’ Luke asked. ‘There’s a place I want to show you.’
He gestured behind him, to the Mount Edgcumbe country park just beyond. It looked inviting – all sweeping lawns and long hills and towering trees. The day so far had been easy, and I’d relaxed into it, enjoying the time with Luke. Now, the thought of being alone with him in such a beautiful spot woke my inner butterflies.
I took a deep breath, swigged back the rest of my drink, stood, staggered, righted myself and said with zeal, ‘Let’s do it!’
Luke’s mouth twitched and he murmured something about being a lightweight as he stood and took my hand.
The park was busy, full of people taking in the sunshine. Luke led me along the waterfront, weaving through gardens set around an orangery, past an old gun battery and a small beach on which children collected shells, and then up a path into woodland. We passed a man and his dog, and a young couple walking hand in hand, and then we were alone in the silence of the woods. Soon we were walking single file, more climbing than walking, as the narrow path rose up the steep hillside. My sandals were fast filling with dirt, and the darkness and silence were becoming a little eerie.
‘Um, Luke…’ I began, but he shushed me.
‘Trust me,’ he said.
Then I saw that the trees were thinning, and I broke through into sunshine. I stopped and shielded my eyes as I looked up and around. Where the hell were we?
Luke took my hand once more. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘Nearly there.’
We climbed some more, up grass. Calves burning, I kept my head down, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, until Luke called a halt and I braced my hands on my legs and leaned forward to catch my breath.
‘You okay?’ said Luke, moving ahead to stand uphill of me.
‘Fine,’ I breathed. ‘Just not… quite getting… why afternoon stroll… turned into… mountain climbing.’
Luke put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face the way we’d come.
We were beside the ruins of a beautiful stone folly teetering on the edge of a very, very high hill. The view was panoramic: I could see all around the bay, from Royal William Yard to the city of Plymouth to the breakwater to the coast curving away to Twycombe.
‘Ooooooooooh,’ was all I could manage. I sat down, quickly, on solid ground and held on to some clumps of grass.
‘Hey,’ he said, coming to sit beside me. ‘You’re not afraid of heights, are you?’
My mind flashed back to two summers ago. Montjuïc in Barcelona, another massive hill. My sister had insisted on the whole family taking the transbordador down to the port. In the dangling cable car I’d had the most spectacular meltdown, which had sent Mother into a migraine, Father into a stinking mood and Sienna into fits of laughter.
‘’Course not,’ I lied.
His eyes narrowed. ‘Oh no. You are, aren’t you? That’s why you walk so slowly up and down the cliff path to the cove.’ He lay back on the grass, threw an arm over his eyes and muttered, ‘Nice one, Cavendish.’
‘Hey.’ I let go of my grass handholds – with some effort – leaned back on my elbows and stared out at the view. ‘Really, it’s great here. The view is stunning.’
I felt Luke shift beside me and he echoed me: ‘Stunning.’
Then his hand was on my cheek and he was turning my face to look at him and I could see it in his eyes – he was going to kiss me. And I should have leaned forward, should have found his lips, but I couldn’t move. Because there was no going back from this point. If I took this step, I was lost. I would feel, and I would let him feel for me, and then if I ever lost him… I cringed at the thought, and Luke caught the flash of pain on my face. He pulled away.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’
‘You’re frightened.’
His eyes missed nothing; he knew me. I nodded ever so slightly. He sighed and sat up and looked away, at the view.
Silence fell.
How had such a sunny day got so dark, so fast? I wanted him to kiss me – I wanted to kiss him – why was I making it so damned hard?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said miserably. ‘I’ve done a Scarlett.’
‘What?’ He turned to me.
‘Done a Scarlett. Something my sister used to say. A lot. Whenever I wasn’t… well, like her.’
‘Like her? What does that mean?’ His tone was stern, almost, and I squirmed.
Hole. Shovel. Digging deeper.
‘Um, well, brave, I guess.’
He shook his head, and his mouth twisted. Disgusted, that’s how he looked. I was mortified. And all the more so when I couldn’t hold back th
e hot, stinging tears any longer.
When he saw the first tear run down my cheek he ran a hand through his hair. ‘Oh hell. You’re crying. I made you cry…’
I buried my face on my knees, hiding from the horror in his eyes.
He swore, and I flinched, and he said quickly, ‘No! I wasn’t swearing at you. I was swearing because I’ve upset you. Because I’m a total idiot when it comes to talking about… stuff.’
I didn’t understand. He was blaming himself?
‘The last thing I want in the world is for you to be hurting,’ he said softly. ‘Jesus, haven’t you hurt enough? All I want to do is protect you from pain, not open you up to it. Scarlett?’
I wanted to look up. But I couldn’t quite get the tears under control. It had been like that for me since Sienna – never one tear; always an ocean.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’
‘Give me a minute,’ I said thickly into my knees.
He moved, and I thought for a moment he was going to walk away, leave me to pull myself together, but then he was behind me, a leg sliding either side of me, and his arms were enclosing me, pulling me up to sit against his chest. He leaned down and put his lips near my ear and said gently, ‘Is this okay? Can I hold you?’
I nodded, beyond words. He’d found a way to respect my need for space, while reassuring me that he was there, right there.
‘You cry if you need to cry,’ he murmured, his breath warm on my ear. ‘And I’ll just sit here and tell you… I want to kiss you, Scarlett Blake. I’ve wanted to kiss you since that first day on the beach, when I pulled you out of the water. You were so lost and bedraggled but determined to prove you were fine. And I knew you weren’t fine, but your courage…’
I jerked at the word.
‘Your courage,’ he breathed into my ear, ‘that day – every day; it’s beautiful. I know you don’t see it, but I do. It’s all I see when I look at you. You’re the bravest, strongest person I’ve ever met.’ I began shaking my head, but he shushed me. ‘You’re crying, remember, and I’m telling you how I feel. And you’d better let me, because I’m not half as brave as you, Scarlett, and if I don’t get this out now, I may never say it.’