The Endless Beach Read online

  The worst feeling, she thought, was that she’d failed. She’d known Joel, she thought, as closely as anyone could know him. As close as anyone could get. And still she couldn’t crack it. She couldn’t get through; she couldn’t fix him. Everyone had been right. He wasn’t tameable, simply because he didn’t know what it was to be tame. But she had tried her hardest. She had.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until she got closer to shore, back into the range of Mure’s single lone mobile phone mast, that she realized her phone was ringing. She’d taken the voicemail off when she’d left London, not wanting to be a slave to her phone anymore.

  If anyone had ever checked the records, they would see that it had rung 138 times.

  Flora stared at it as Bertie looked at her, a hopeful expression in his eyes that turned to disappointment as she answered it. “Joel?”

  There was a short pause. Then just two words.

  “Help me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Flora burst through the door of the Harbor’s Rest.

  “I need to use the hotel phone and the computer,” she said. “Sorry, the signal is just too shitty. It’s an emergency.”

  “It is,” said Inge-Britt as Flora scrolled desperately through the Internet until she found a listing for the psychiatrist Mark Philippoussis in Manhattan and explained the situation to his receptionist, who patched her through. She remembered the room number and Mark got down there in record time, Marsha following, plus a police officer in case they couldn’t get into the room. Flora had also called the hotel management and caught the receptionist who was in love with Joel and who had too been increasingly concerned by his weight loss, his late nights, his odd hours and habits, and the glazed look in his eye whenever she tried to flirt or say hello. She could not have been kinder or more helpful to Flora then, and Flora was half glad and half absolutely distraught that she wasn’t there when they finally got through the door and found him, sitting on the balcony, looking over the edge, as if he wasn’t sure where he was, even with the huge pinkening city spread beneath his feet.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Well, fuck that, man,” Colton said.

  Flora couldn’t help but be impressed. Having not really contemplated, beyond the buying of holidays and possibly a little flat one day, what money could do, it was quite incredible to watch Colton in action.

  He was talking to Mark Philippoussis, or rather shouting at him.

  “Let me talk to him!”

  Mark was entirely calm about the whole thing. “One of your staff appears to be suffering from nervous exhaustion,” he said politely, “while also being tremendously drunk. I think the last thing I’m going to do is let you talk to him.”

  “He’s my employee and I have a duty of care and if I have to fly him back, I will.”

  Flora went up. “Please can I speak to them? Please?” She grabbed the phone and moved to another part of the hotel. “Mark?”

  “Flora? Is that you?”

  “Yes . . . What’s happened?”

  “Did you know he was working so hard?”

  Flora gulped. “He always does that.”

  “I know. It looks like . . . He’s dropped a lot of weight, Flora. I think he’s just exhausted. Did anything stressful happen to him at work?”

  “He never talks to me about work.” Flora shot a look at Colton, who turned away.

  “What about you two personally?”

  Flora paused long enough for Mark to pick up on it.

  “Listen, Flora. Why don’t you let me and Marsha take him to our place? Let him sleep it off?”

  “Then will you send him home, Mark?” said Flora anxiously.

  “Do you think that would be the best thing for him?”

  Flora wished she knew. “Yes,” she said. “Can I speak to him?”

  “He’s passed out, Flora.”

  “Jesus,” said Flora. “What is it? What’s wrong with him?”

  “I’ll need to talk to him, but I would say panic attacks and overwork. I don’t know what’s made him so anxious; he’s normally so controlled. As soon as he wakes up, I’ll call you.”

  “Are you taking him to hospital?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Good,” said Flora, relieved. He’d sounded so . . . so very desolate.

  Colton snatched back the phone to make it very clear to Mark that he would pay for anything required and could have a jet on standby, but Mark was short with him and the call ended.

  Flora sat by the window as, after ten, the evening finally began to darken, the moon at last to rise.

  “Did you know something was wrong?” said Fintan gently, twisting the brand-new ring on his finger.

  “I . . . I just thought he was like that . . .” She looked around, stricken. “He got further and further away. But . . . you know . . . Men do that.”

  Fintan nodded. “I know.”

  He placed a reassuring hand on Colton’s knee, even as Colton stared outside as they sat and waited the night through for news.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Saif’s boys hated his house, their new home. It was freezing cold and drafty. A flat handsome gray house made of expensive stone, it had beautiful outlooks, slightly out of the town.

  But the previous owner had had little spare money for its upkeep, and the window frames were peeling and cracked, drafts blew in everywhere, and the thick curtains Saif used to keep the light out during the long summer evenings were heavy with dust. It was cold and spooky, and as Saif looked around he wondered anew how this had never occurred to him before.

  This house had only ever been a place to eat and sleep. He left at the crack of dawn, usually to walk the beach, and to hope and wait for his family; then he was busy at the practice all day and on call most nights. Mrs. Laird came in a couple of times a week to do for him, and she would leave him a casserole or a lasagna—he’d gotten used to her bland cuisine eventually—and then he’d just make some soup or eat at the Café by the Sea and have a sandwich in the evening. He barely thought about food at all.

  Now, looking around, he realized how bleak the house really was, even with the pathetic stencils he’d bought to try and cheer things up. It had never been a family home, had never felt like one.

  He felt even more the idiot. If he hadn’t gotten so irrationally cross and silly with Lorna, she’d have helped him before to make up nice rooms for the boys—there was plenty of space in the house. All he needed to have done was to buy bright covers and curtains—or whatever it was boys liked. He felt sorry and ashamed.

  “I’m scared, Abba.”

  Ash was still clinging to him. He’d had his foot x-rayed and reset in Glasgow, but he was really meant to be walking on it to strengthen it. Instead, he still refused to be put down at all, not even for a moment.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I sleep in your beb?”

  Saif really wasn’t in the mood for another night of being kicked in the head by a small boy in a plaster cast. On the other hand, what were his options? He well remembered the first night he’d spent here, freezing, alien, sobbing.

  “Of course,” he said, putting on the lamps. “Bed. It’s pronounced ‘bed.’”

  “Bib?”

  He looked at Ibrahim. “Do you want to sleep with us too?”

  Ibrahim shrugged. “I don’t care.”

  Saif nodded. He knew this meant yes. “Okay. Well, let’s stay together tonight, okay? I’m sure the storm will have moved on tomorrow.”

  He was not remotely sure about this at all.

  His phone rang, and he cursed. All out-of-hours calls were still directed to the replacement service, surely? Who could want him this late? He glanced down and saw it was Flora MacKenzie. That was strange.

  “Hello?”

  “Saif? It’s Flora . . . I’m so sorry to bother you.”

  “That’s all right, but . . . Sorry. Is this medical?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, I’m on . .
. It’s the on-call doctor . . .”

  “I know, I know. I’m so sorry, Saif. But . . .” She explained the situation.

  Saif nodded. “That sounds like . . . It sounds like a nervous breakdown, Flora.”

  He could hear her swallow. “He shouldn’t stay there?”

  “I don’t know.” Saif thought about it carefully, even as Ash kept trying to pick his fingers from the phone. “I think . . .” he said eventually. “I think this kind of thing is best treated with care. And peace and quiet.”

  “But can you treat it?”

  “Yes. I can.”

  There was a pause.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Joel was always very hazy on what happened next. He dimly remembered Mark asking him lots of questions, but wasn’t too sure exactly how he’d answered them. Colton had organized a plane to bring him home, and Mark sobered him up with a large amount of coffee and a drip—the hotel was not unused to such scenarios.

  “What do you want, Joel?”

  And he had found that oddly funny, and then he was so exhausted and Mark’s voice was so kind and soft and he just said, “Can I go home?”

  And he got on the plane, and that was the last thing he remembered.

  * * *

  Flora didn’t sleep at all. She paced the Endless through the night when it didn’t really get dark, just a kind of twilight at midnight, the sun immediately rising again. Colton and Fintan dozed off together in armchairs, but Flora refused to rest all through the five hours Joel’s flight was in the air. It was a light and bright 4 A.M. when the tiny dot appeared in the wide white sky, slowly circling downward, the only manmade object for miles, above the tin shed that housed the tiny airport. Sheila MacDuff emerged. She would normally be furious to be woken at this time, but was feeling rather pleased this morning because the reason was so big and gossip worthy. Her husband, Patrick, who worked as air traffic controller and gift shop operator, waved from the little control tower as the plane made a perfect landing in the glimmering dawn.

  Colton and Fintan woke up and came out with Flora to greet the flight. Flora leaned her head on Fintan’s shoulder as the door opened on the tarmac and a thin, stooped figure, with Mark by his side, limped down the steps. Everyone watched Flora to see what she was going to do, but she just stepped forward, carefully, worried—as if he were fragile.

  Mark’s cheerful New York tones as he scanned the gravel and the windswept fields around the airfield broke the ice.

  “Where the hell is this place? The moon?”

  * * *

  Joel was woozy and quiet in the Land Rover. Flora took his hand and he looked at her. “I’m sorry about the fuss.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is Colton’s fault for working you too hard.”

  Colton, in front, was uncharacteristically subdued.

  “Yeah,” he said, turning round. “Yeah. I’m sorry. You can sue me if you like.” And he smiled weakly.

  Joel didn’t take the olive branch. Instead he stared at Colton, his eyes burning. Flora noticed the look, but didn’t understand it. It was as if Joel hated him.

  “You need sleep, man.”

  They parked up at Joel’s cottage at the Rock. Mark had a room down the hallway. Joel had never been so pleased to see anything in his life.

  He walked in by himself. “I’m not sick,” he said and turned around at the door. Colton was looking at him. “Thanks,” Joel muttered. “Thanks for getting me home.”

  “You’re welcome, man,” said Colton, and once again something passed between them. Joel had hardly looked at Flora at all.

  She followed him into the bedroom. He looked up at her, and she was deeply troubled by how thin and haunted he appeared. How had she not noticed when she’d seen him? Why hadn’t she questioned the evasiveness, the way he had stopped coming home?

  They looked at each other. Then Flora moved into the beautiful bathroom, with its old claw-footed tub, and started running a very hot bath. Joel screwed up his face.

  “Come on,” she said quietly, unbuttoning his shirt. “Get in.”

  And carefully, gently, she put him in the bath and climbed in behind him, and tenderly washed him and held him and kissed him gently and every time he started to woozily say something she would hush him and say tell me tomorrow, and he let her. Then he climbed into bed and was instantly asleep. She stood there, gazing at him, wondering what the hell she could do now, until, after five o’clock, she too became overwhelmed with exhaustion, and lay down beside him and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Forty

  Once again, Annie’s Café by the Sea did not open on Monday morning. Mrs. Cairns waddled down looking for her first cheese scone of the day (Saif had warned her about her weight many times, and she had looked at him and said, quite clearly, “Doctor, I am seventy-four years old, my husband is dead, my children live in New Zealand, and you are seriously telling me I can’t have a cheese scone?” Saif had said uncomfortably, “Madam, I think you can have one cheese scone but you cannot have four cheese scones,” and Mrs. Cairns, who had, after huge initial reservations about whether the brown doctor was there to blow up the island, rather overestimating the island’s political interest to ISIS as a target, grown to like him and the way he gravely called her madam, and actually he was rather handsome when you came to think about it, a bit like Omar Sharif . . .) and she sighed heavily when she found it shut. The gaggle of her friends and relations, many of whom she had hated for murky reasons for almost half a century, joined her slowly as they pondered where they could go to discuss their latest ailments and who may or may not have died.

  Charlie’s face fell as he cheerily led his latest bunch of troubled youngsters off the boat for their early morning sausage roll. It had been a difficult crossing: the ones who weren’t throwing up were, frankly, going bananas on the boat, charging about here and there, and the stewards, who knew him pretty well and were usually very tolerant, were raising eyebrows left, right, and center. He’d promised them all the best sausage rolls in the country if they’d behave, and now he was stuffed.

  Isla and Iona had been absolutely delighted by the news of an unexpected day off, having not yet caught up with the gossip, and had decided to go sunbathing, even though it was fifty-seven degrees with a wind that felt like somebody was spinning a fan over some ice, but Isla had waited a very long time for her new bikini to arrive from the mainland and was absolutely not going to miss the opportunity to wear it.

  Hillwalkers and holidaymakers, excited by the amazing TripAdvisor reviews (except for “Very disappointing lack of Chinese food—one star” and “Couldnt understand wot they was saying, theys shood speek English up here—one star”) and in the mood for something delicious to set them off for ten hours’ hard walking in goodness knows what weather, realized they were going to have to make do with whatever the supermarket felt like offering them, or the beer-smelling Harbor’s Rest. They tried, and failed, to put a brave face on it, particularly the dragged-along hikers, there to make up the numbers but who were now clearly going to do nothing but moan all day. It was not working out very well for anyone.

  If Flora could only have seen it, it would have cheered her up immeasurably to see how, in such a short time, the Café by the Sea had become such a mainstay of their little community.

  But she couldn’t.

  ***

  The confusion in Joel’s head as he awoke around ten-ish was hard to deal with. First, he had the mother of all hangovers. He also had absolutely no idea where the hell he was. He glanced around, his eyes scratchy and sore, his brain still furled up in cotton wool, muggy. What? What the hell had just happened? Argh, oh God, oh God, his head . . .

  He tore to the bathroom and threw up. He looked at himself in the mirror; he barely recognized himself. Where the hell was he? What was this?

  Finally, gradually, he pulled himself up, found a huge fluffy white towel, and pulled it around himself. He was so light-headed he staggered against the do
orframe. When was the last time he had eaten? He couldn’t remember. Oh God, he felt awful.

  It was only then, clutching the door, trying to work out what the hell had happened, that he caught sight of the room beyond, and his brain exploded.

  Wasn’t he in New York? His heart skipped in panic. The panorama in front of him . . .

  His first thought was he had died. He had jumped—suddenly it scissored back into his brain: the balcony, the heat, the height. He clutched again at the doorframe, his head trying to focus on what he was seeing.

  Instead of the bright reds and oranges of the New York sunset, ahead of him was a palette of washed-out pale grays: a huge glass window looking out onto a dawn that precisely reflected the room they were in, huge gray vistas, clouds and sea, soft white sands, pale flattened grass, deep blues. He blinked. And there, on the bed, stretched out, pale, her hair around her like sea grass . . .

  And then he remembered. And he was so grateful he nearly burst into tears. Okay, his career might be in ruins . . .

  But she was still here. The worst had not happened. He sat on the bed for a little while, making his breaths go in and out with hers. She shifted slightly in her sleep and he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead and headed out to blow the cobwebs away—to breathe the fresh air he had missed for so long.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Lorna turned up at school early and nervous. The news hadn’t reached her about Joel yet; she was worried about their two new arrivals. The children wanted to sing their alphabet song again—they had, to be fair, spent an awful lot of time practicing it—and it was a fine day, so Lorna decided to let them. Neda Okonjo had sent over the briefing notes on both the children, which she had to keep locked in a filing cabinet. Both gave Lorna cause for concern. She’d had children from difficult circumstances before, of course—there were divorces on Mure like anywhere else, and Kelvin McLinton’s father had fallen under the wheels of his tractor one awful stormy day.