by Jenny Colgan
Flora looked up as she saw a small plane begin to circle around the island. Now that the storm had lifted, the experts could come in. And, she supposed, her father and the boys would be back too.
And Joel would leave, she thought, biting the inside of her mouth to stop herself from crying. She needed to be here, at least until the vote. He most certainly did not. He worked on huge mergers and acquisitions; big, technical court cases that required incredibly specialised expert knowledge…
‘Penny for them,’ said Charlie. She blinked, and went redder than ever.
‘Um, just worried about the poor creature.’
‘Aye. I know.’
He looked at her.
‘It’ll be all right. Thanks for the tractor.’
‘What can I do now?’
‘Wait, I suppose,’ said Charlie, as the men started to tentatively approach the creature. She was the size of about three adult males; impossible to lift and making heart-rending noises. Flora was beyond the barrier now and didn’t feel able to walk back.
As the men heaved and slipped in the sand, trying to manoeuvre the whale onto the nets, Flora meandered round to the creature’s head. It smelled very intensely of the sea. Its eye was the size of a tea plate; its huge mouth had a great lolling tongue, and strands of seaweed covered its teeth.
She never knew what inspired her to do what she did next (although her father and half the island never had the faintest doubt). While everyone else was occupied with moving the creature, Flora crouched down at its head, very softly and slowly, not making any sudden movements.
‘Shh,’ she crooned lightly, looking straight into its huge eye. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’
The whale continued to thrash and twist in the sand, its tail carving out a great trench. If they weren’t very careful, it would hurt itself. The men jumped back, not wanting to be hit by the great animal.
Flora ignored all of this.
‘It’s okay,’ she said again, gently and soothingly. ‘Oh, it’s okay.’
Carefully, slowly, she extended her hand, and laid it on what she supposed was the whale’s cheek, next to its mouth. And as she did so, almost unbidden, an old song of her mother’s came to her; the old mouth music, from a time before instruments, a time at the very birth of music itself.
Flora, in a bar in London, wouldn’t have performed karaoke at gunpoint. But here, it felt absolutely normal.
O, whit says du da bunshka baer?
O, whit says du da bunshka baer?
Litra mae vee drengie
she sang, not even noticing the waves crashing or the men shouting, or the lashing of the whale’s tail.
Starka virna vestilie
Obadeea, obadeea
Starka, virna, vestilie
Obadeea, monye
And slowly, astonishingly, as the clear evening light broke through the clouds once more, the whale stopped thrashing and lay still long enough for the lads to slip a knot of fishing nets around its belly and, using the tractor, pull the creature carefully out to sea.
Flora moved with them as Charlie drove, keeping her eyes on the whale all the time, singing as the creature made noises too, but quieter ones, as if it realised Flora was trying to help it; and Flora found herself splashing into the shallow water with it, heedless of getting her second drenching in as many days, and stayed with it until the tractor returned and the lifeboat took up the rope, and it was only then, with regret, that she leaned forward and – without even thinking about it – kissed the animal on the nose.
Then the boat took up the slack and the whale started to move again, and Flora stayed and watched as they towed it out to sea, and long beyond, when the boat was only a dot on the horizon, disappearing towards the mainland. And as she watched, she thought of the greatness of the animal, and the dancing silver sea, and everything that had happened.
As Joel stood on the dockside, waiting for Bertie Cooper to drive him to the airport for the delayed evening flight, he watched this amazing girl, this strange foreign girl, in this place where she belonged and he didn’t, and he cursed himself for allowing her to get so close; for making him do what he had sworn never to do, what he had protected himself from all his life. It had been a reckless day; a reckless time. He would leave; return to where he belonged, to a world of tall buildings and important, complicated work. He would seriously consider Colton’s offer of a job in his New York office… get back into triathlon training.
And yet all the way back down south, all he could think about was skin so pale that each time he kissed it, however gently, it left the shadow of a mark.
Chapter Forty-two
Everyone involved in the whale rescue ended up back at the farmhouse for some reason. Flora hadn’t noticed Joel down on the beach, and was bereft that he had gone without a word. She tried to explain it to herself, but couldn’t. Was he back at the Harbour’s Rest? Or maybe he’d moved into the Rock. It must be ready. That would… She liked that idea. Him waiting for her in one of those beautiful rooms… She smiled ruefully. That would be a step up. And it wouldn’t remind her of Inge-Britt either.
Colton showed up, an arm casually thrown round Fintan’s shoulders. Fintan was weary and dirty after the cattle transport.
‘Is Joel back at the Rock?’ she asked as lightly as she could.
‘Oh. No,’ said Colton. ‘He’s gone. It’s not him I need, sweetie, it’s you.’
Flora told herself she wasn’t going to cry. They’d been interrupted, that was all. She’d talk to him in London and they’d get to know each other properly, and…
Actually, she had no idea what that would be like. None at all. She imagined telling Kai what had passed between them, and it was horrifying. But how could she… seriously? They were going to have a relationship? In London? That was actually going to happen? They’d turn up to work together, the senior lawyer and the unremarkable little paralegal. That would totally happen.
She pushed away the painful thought of how unlikely that was.
‘I’m thinking of recruiting him for my New York office anyway. Or LA. Can’t decide,’ said Colton conversationally.
Flora froze. She picked up a hot toddy from the stove and sipped on it for a long time.
‘And what did he say about that?’ she said tightly, her throat constricted.
‘Oh, you know lawyers,’ said Colton. ‘Can’t get a straight answer out of any of them.’
This relieved her anxiety a little, but not entirely.
‘You know I can’t stay for ever,’ she said.
‘Ah, you’ll change your mind,’ said Colton.
‘Only for the summer,’ she warned. ‘Until the nights draw in.’
‘That’s what selkies always say,’ said Mrs Laird in passing.
‘Shut up!’
In the parlour, someone had taken out a fiddle, which was a good sign if you wanted a party, but a bad sign if you hoped that anyone was leaving any time soon.
‘I can’t… That cattle transport?’ said Fintan. ‘I got kicked nine times. Got shit all over me. I’m thirty-two years old and I can’t do this the rest of my life.’
Flora nodded.
‘It can’t carry on anyway,’ she said. ‘Not like this.’
‘It’s like… I’ve found something satisfying. Something that really and truly makes me happy. Finally.’
‘What are you two chittering about?’ said Innes. ‘Also, you’re a total freak, Flora.’
‘Shut up,’ said Flora. ‘You’re just jealous.’
‘That you kissed a fish? Yeah, right.’
‘It’s a mammal, actually, Captain Ignorant.’
‘It’s a mammal, actually, Captain Ignorant,’ repeated Innes annoyingly.
‘I thought having a child would make you grow up.’
‘Did you?’
He grabbed a few bottles of the local ale from the fridge and headed back to his farmer mates.
‘And Innes,’ said Flora. ‘What’s he going to do? After Dad, it was always
going to be Innes’ farm. And God, what will we do with Hamish?’
‘Hamish,’ said Fintan, ‘will always be fine.’
They looked over to the corner where he was sitting, bursting almost comically out of his shirt. He looked too large for the room and was glumly watching the women, some of whom had started to dance.
‘Nobody has to go anywhere. Nobody has to move,’ said Fintan. ‘And our future… It could be anything with Colton. There’s no future here, you know it.’
‘Hmm,’ said Flora.
‘I mean, with new things… It could be amazing. But the farming – we can’t compete, we really can’t. With cheap milk from super farms. And transporting those animals; you know what that does to our profits.’
Flora nodded.
‘It’s just a long, slow decline… you know it, Innes knows it. Unless we reinvent ourselves.’
‘But this is MacKenzie land,’ she said. ‘And it has been for such a long time. Such a very long time.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘We need to pick our moment. Let’s feed up Dad.’
Flora smiled.
‘On it,’ she said.
She was dishing up some vol-au-vents that Isla and Iona had made after studying the recipe book and deciding on balance not just to gather wild mushrooms from the hedgerows and hope for the best when a tall figure marched into the kitchen. Flora looked up. It was Jan, and she looked utterly furious.
‘Oh good, you,’ said Flora. ‘Um, this is my house, so if you’ve wandered up to be insulting, can I ask that you don’t? Or perhaps leave?’
She was slightly beyond trying to be nice and reasonable. It hadn’t really got her anywhere in the past.
‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you,’ said Jan.
‘No, you have a bone to pick with Charlie,’ explained Flora, too irritated to care about her tone of voice.
‘Apparently you’ve been touching wildlife,’ spat Jan. Her colour was high and Flora wondered if she’d been drinking.
‘Um, sorry?’ said Flora. ‘Vol-au-vent?’
‘You touched that whale.’
‘Yes, I did,’ said Flora. ‘It seemed scared and I wanted to make it less scared. So I just kind of patted it a bit.’
Jan shook her head.
‘Unbelievable.’
‘I wouldn’t pat a whale in a zoo,’ protested Flora. ‘I just wanted to help.’
‘You don’t interfere with the animal kingdom.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Exactly that. You start messing about with animal populations, all hell will break loose. You don’t think we interfere enough in the food chain? That we haven’t already done terrible, terrible damage to almost every species on this earth, particularly whales?’
‘I wasn’t harpooning it. I was soothing it.’
Jan rolled her eyes.
‘Do you think so?’
‘What would you have done? Left it on the beach to die?’
‘That’s what you’re meant to do! Whales beach themselves for reasons we don’t understand. Maybe she was old! Maybe she was sick! How would you know?’
Flora felt her skin starting to prickle.
‘Well, I don’t. But it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.’
‘Oh, people always think they know what the right thing is. They think they know. You sitting here in your posh farmhouse with your posh friends.’
The idea that MacKenzie Farm could be called posh by anybody who’d grown up in a First World country – and in the richest family on the island at that – riled Flora beyond belief, but she tried to keep calm.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t have watched it die.’
‘No. Too busy showing off,’ said Jan, which truly stung. Flora folded her arms.
Charlie wandered into the kitchen, his face breaking into a smile when he saw Flora.
‘Hey,’ he said.
Jan whipped around; he hadn’t previously noticed her.
‘Jan,’ he said.
Flora looked at them carefully. What the hell was going on?
‘Um, I’ll just grab a couple of beers.’ Charlie moved hastily to the fridge. ‘Good work today, Flora.’
Jan practically hissed in annoyance. Once Charlie had left again, she turned to Flora once more.
‘And we’re back together,’ she said. ‘So you can stop eyeing him up.’
Flora threw her hands up.
‘Oh for God’s sake. I don’t care! There’s… there’s someone else.’
She couldn’t believe that of everyone she could have mentioned this to, it was Jan.
Jan looked at her.
‘That American guy who thinks he’s it?’ she almost spat. ‘Good luck with that. I heard he was halfway up that Icelandic barmaid.’
‘Thank you,’ said Flora pertly, resisting the urge to tell Jan to get the fuck out of her kitchen, and her house, and in fact her life for ever.
Then she checked her phone again; but still nothing.
Chapter Forty-three
Joel had squash buddies, drinking colleagues, work acquaintances and college frat-boy chums who held regular get-togethers all over the world.
He never spoke to a single one of them. Not about anything real.
‘Where are the newspapers?’ he said brusquely.
Margo looked up. He was being belligerent even by his standards, had been in the week or so since he’d got back from Scotland. On the other hand, he’d caught up on his work in record time, which meant a vast amount of overtime for her.
‘Times, FT, Telegraph and Economist,’ she recited, looking at the lobby table. ‘What’s missing?’
Joel frowned.
‘I made an addition to the periodicals list,’ he said.
Margo checked her post.
‘Oh yes, here it is,’ she said. ‘Obviously comes out a day or two late.’
She stared at it.
‘Island Times?’
‘Just covers all our bases,’ said Joel.
‘Shall I put it out here?’
‘No, uh, give it to me,’ and Joel stalked off to his office with it tucked under his arm, Margo staring after him in astonishment.
How, thought Joel, how could he not have noticed Flora before? Because all he noticed in his office now was a huge Flora-sized hole. He thought he saw her everywhere he went, her pale hair blowing in the wind. Except he was in a hermetically sealed office fifteen floors up, and the windows didn’t open and the breeze never reached him.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. He’d picked up the phone to Dr Philippoussis more than once, but he knew what he’d say. Go to her. Tell her.
But she didn’t fit in his life. She couldn’t. She didn’t know it yet, but she belonged on the island. Communing joyously with that whale, or baking up something marvellous, or bantering with her brothers. Her face, so pale and pinched in London, was something else at home. And even if she thought she’d be happy back in the city, he could see deep down that she wouldn’t be.
And there certainly wasn’t room for him up there. That huge chap, Charlie, though that wasn’t what she called him. Always there. Biding his time. He’d be more suitable. Not someone like Joel, who carried around more baggage than Newark. What if she tried to fix him? She wouldn’t be the first. And then they’d really be in trouble.
It wasn’t in his nature to be unselfish. He’d never been able to take care of more than himself. But when it came to her…
He picked up the paper. There it was, as soon as he turned the page, the story about the whale. What was it about her? She wasn’t a supermodel. But somehow, that face, with its clear, direct gaze; the milky, creamy skin that must cover every inch of her… it made everyone else look overdone, too made up; those ridiculous eyebrows that looked like they’d been drawn on with a Sharpie. All the other girls he knew looked like bizarre overpriced cocktails, while she was a cool, clear glass of water on a boiling hot day.
Margo came in with a box full of fi
les and he started as if he’d been caught looking at pornography; thrust the paper underneath the box.
Normally he could attack his work like a machine. Get through it. Get to the nub of things, the nitty-gritty of contracts and points of law, and see clearly to something that was always to his clients’ advantage. Always.
Now he was staring out of the window, wondering what kind of bird he was looking at.
He should call her. But what was he going to say? It felt like stepping out into mid-air.
He sighed and picked up the phone.
The voice on the other end was gruff, and belatedly Joel remembered that it was very early in New York. This in itself was utterly uncharacteristic; normally he held all the time zones in his head in a tight line, accustomed as he was to doing business everywhere.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Who is that?’ said the voice. ‘No, of course, it’s Joel, isn’t it?’
There was a pause, and the noise of a coffee machine grumbling. Then the voice immediately turned softer.
‘I seem to be hearing from you a lot recently.’
There was such kindness in it. Such a gentle tone.