The Endless Beach Page 20

  “I’ve just never thought of him that way,” said Lorna. Innes had been the heartthrob at school but she’d always spent so much time with Flora he’d just been the guy who’d teased her and called her Freckles and touched her braids. She hadn’t liked it one bit. But there was no doubt he was pretty much the pick of what was on offer.

  “Plus it’d be weird,” she said. “Agot will be coming up soon.”

  Flora shook her head. “She’ll go on the mainland with her mother.”

  “Are you sure? She’s here a lot.”

  “I know,” said Flora fondly. “I will miss the little wildebeest.” She glanced at Lorna. “Of course, if you snared her father . . .”

  “Stop it, you big weirdo!”

  “I just want someone to be happy! Except for Fintan and Colton: they’re too happy.”

  “So you want people to be happy but only to a certain Flora-acceptable extent?”

  “This is why I will never run for parliament. Inge-Britt! Tell me what you do for men!”

  “Are you stupid?” said Inge-Britt. “What about the nuclear submarine out in the loch?”

  “The what?” Lorna and Flora both said at the same time.

  “Whoops!” said Inge-Britt serenely. “I forget it’s top secret.” She picked up the empty glasses. “Those Russian sailors,” she whispered. “Wowza.”

  And she sashayed off, leaving Flora and Lorna looking after her in confusion and not a little envy.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Joel squinted through his glasses as he and Mark took their constitutional. After the first day, they never spoke about Joel’s health again. They spoke about books they’d read or baseball. Not a single thing that touched on what was happening or the future, what Joel would do or where he would go. Mark felt he had to decompress the boy within the man, and give him enough breathing space to figure out what to do after that. He was well aware this was a rich man’s cure. He was equally well aware that he and Marsha both blamed themselves for not taking the boy in when he was young and raising him as their own. They should have done that. If he wasn’t having such a nice time, this would have felt like penance.

  Up on one side of the fell on a bright breezy day, they came across a group setting up tents. Joel remembered the name in time. Charlie: Flora’s ex, the one he’d met before. He was with a grumpy-looking woman with short hair and a large collection of young boys. He looked at them curiously. They were unkempt, many of them, with razor-short hair done cheaply and quickly; bitten fingernails and missing teeth and surly expressions.

  Joel recognized them with a start. The hand-me-down T-shirts from Goodwill stores. The slightly aggressive stance in children who had been just as likely to receive a blow as a kiss. A belligerent look on their faces that said that they didn’t care what you were going to say to them; they’d heard worse. He looked at Mark, and Mark understood wordlessly and nodded at him to go forward.

  Joel had heard Flora mention Charlie’s work of course, and something about a wedding, but he had been in full work mode then and not paid attention. No. He was trying to be more honest with himself: he had heard perfectly well, but hadn’t wanted to listen. Other lost boys were not his concern, and he’d suffered just as badly at the hands of other foster children as he had in other homes; they jeered at him for his bookish ways. There was always that ongoing sense of competition between them: who would get adopted? Who was getting too old to be charming?

  Now it was as if he were seeing them for the first time, as he stood, alone in the world, scowling at it, just as the boys did.

  Charlie smiled, his wide-open, uncomplicated face simply friendly and welcoming, and Joel suddenly wished savagely that Flora had married him after all so at least one of them could be happy. If she’d married him, he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore, could be sad by himself.

  “Morning!” said Charlie. “Say hello to Mr. Binder, everyone.”

  “He-lloww, Misterr Binder,” chorused the boys sullenly.

  Charlie came close. “I heard . . . I heard you’d been having a tough time of it.”

  Joel shrugged. “Honestly, it’s nothing. I’m fine. Bit of overreacting.”

  “Um, right,” said Charlie, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. “I must have got the wrong end of the stick.”

  Joel could feel Mark looking at him, and took a deep breath.

  “No,” he said. “In fact, you didn’t. I have been finding things pretty rough. Thanks for asking.” Mark beamed approvingly. “This is my friend, Dr. Philippoussis.”

  The fierce-looking woman marched up. “Who’s this?” she barked.

  “Um, this is Joel and Dr . . . .” Charlie was not used to Greek names and rather let it peter out. “And this is my . . . uh, my wife, Jan.”

  Jan looked Joel up and down.

  “You’re Flora’s American,” she announced. “I thought you’d have had a bit more meat on your bones. Like my Charlie,” she said smugly. Joel remembered now that Flora didn’t like her, which was puzzling, as Flora generally liked everyone, like a Labrador. But he was beginning to see her point.

  “Are you off?” she said. “You’re on mental health leave, aren’t you?” She could not have picked a worse term. Joel’s face tightened. “Excellent! We can use you round here. Get your DBS check, and come and join us. Here, I’ll drop the forms in.”

  “Excuse me, what?”

  “We need volunteers! We always need volunteers! Come and help us with the boys.”

  “Oh, no, I . . . I don’t think so.”

  Mark coughed meaningfully.

  “Everyone else on this island has two jobs. You have none. Seems about right, don’t you think? Don’t worry; we won’t make you do anything mentally taxing or stressful. Just put up some tents and cook some sausages.”

  “I don’t think it would be appropriate.”

  “Or maybe it’s your moral imperative,” said Jan in that direct way of hers that brooked no argument.

  “This is Joel, who’s going to come and help out,” she announced to the boys, all of whom cheered.

  “Oh, I really don’t . . . I really don’t . . .”

  “I’ll drop the forms in to the Rock. Bye!”

  Jan marched on. Charlie looked at Joel apologetically.

  “Is she always like this?” Joel couldn’t help asking.

  “She gets stuff done,” said Charlie.

  “I like her,” said Mark, rubbing his beard.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Do you know who fancies you madly?”

  Flora was in one of those moods when she got home, and she’d had another gin and tonic. She was meant to be cooking for all the family but it wasn’t working too well. Hamish was off again in his ridiculous sports car, it being a Friday night, and her father had decided that if she was to come up to the house smelling of gin in a way that would make her mother’s eyes roll in her head (it would not have done this), then he was going to have a whisky.

  Innes had just arrived, Agot marching ahead. It was true, Flora thought, a little fuzzily. Agot was here a lot more now. She realized Eilidh was busy with her full-time job on the mainland and Innes being his own boss made it easier for him to have her around—plus she’d been raised on the farm, and Mure was the kind of place where everyone kept an eye on everyone else’s children. Even so.

  “I BORED,” announced Agot. “I WAN SISTER.”

  “You’ve got me,” said Flora ingratiatingly. Agot looked her up and down.

  “YOU ATTI,” she said crossly. “AND YOU OLD ALSO.”

  “Also” was Agot’s new word. Flora wasn’t sure she approved.

  “Agot,” said Innes. “Behave.”

  “AGOT NOT BEHAVE ALSO.”

  Flora deftly cut her a piece of the new bread and spread it thickly with butter. “I think Robot Wars is on,” she said optimistically. Robot Wars was Agot’s new favorite show as she now felt Peppa Pig was for unsophisticated babies.

  “KILLBOT LIVES!” shouted A
got, marching into the underused front room to turn on the old television set. Innes watched her go.

  “So anyway, back to this person who fancies you madly,” said Flora, chopping onions for curry, which her father disapproved of. She thought about adding extra chilies, then thought of an evening of Agot complaining and decided against it.

  “Who?” said Innes, with a puzzled look. It was true: in his youth he’d been through half the island. “I mean, someone I don’t ‘know’?”

  Flora smiled annoyingly.

  “Stop being annoying.”

  “Flora being annoying?” said Fintan, coming through the door wearing a new, incredibly expensive-looking man bag, which he placed reverently down on one of the ancient threadbare armchairs. “That doesn’t sound like her, except for every day.”

  “Shut up, Fintan,” said Flora, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Oh God, hark at the metropolitans,” said Innes, rolling his eyes.

  “Someone fancies Innes, and he’s so old now he’s forgotten what it’s like,” said Flora, embracing Colton who’d come in just behind. He was looking tired, but was clutching a bottle of wine a client had given him as a parting gift that they would drink that evening without checking the label—and none of them would ever find out that it was an incredibly rare vintage worth approximately £8,000.

  “Well, I’m not surprised,” said Colton.

  “HEY!” shouted Fintan, batting him on the lapels.

  “What? I’m being gentlemanly. You don’t want me to say, Christ, your family look like raccoons.”

  “I want you to say everyone in the world looks like a raccoon next to me,” said Fintan, mock crossly, then they kissed and everyone rolled their eyes.

  “Stop it!” said Flora. “Or I’m canceling your party.”

  “A lady fancying Innes,” said Fintan. “How strange and unusual.”

  He came over, tasted Flora’s curry sauce and stuck a heap of extra chili in it. She hit him on the hand with a wooden spoon.

  “Who is it? Mrs. Kennedy? Apparently she can take out her false teeth.”

  “Shut up, Fintan,” said Innes.

  “Well, you are getting on a bit. Mrs. McCreedie? If you like a sheepskin bootee, she’s the one for you.”

  “Actually,” said Flora. “It’s someone you know very well.”

  Innes grimaced. “It’s not one of your crazy friends from the mainland again, is it?” he said. “They’re all completely weird and they talk total shit and have stupid hair.”

  “I think what you mean there is they’re contemporary and fashionable,” said Flora.

  Innes snorted. “Aye, that’ll be right.”

  “Fine,” said Flora. “Don’t find out.”

  “Just invite her to the barbecue,” said Fintan. “And we can spot her then.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Are you sure you’re really going to throw an actual barbecue for the party? I don’t know anyone who even has one.”

  There was a superstition on Mure and indeed many of the islands that to buy anything deliberately intended for outdoor use was simply tempting fate: storms, power cuts, and torrential rain. If you wanted to barbecue something, you could use bricks and an old grill like everybody else; you were mad to try something different. It was arrogance that would simply invoke the wrath of the gods.

  “Colton’s bringing one over. Apparently he has a top-of-the-range, blah, blah . . .”

  “Colton is bringing a barbecue to your house?” Lorna frowned. “Why don’t you just go to Colton’s? And he’s got flunkies and things.”

  Flora shrugged and Lorna remembered that Joel was up there, and changed the subject. “It will be pouring.”

  “It might not.”

  “You’re planning something for two days away. You’re a crazy person.”

  “I know,” said Flora. “But on the other hand . . . Come to the barbecue. Toast the happy couple. Have a couple of beers. Stand close to Innes. Eat a sausage in a suggestive manner.”

  “Flora!”

  Lorna couldn’t deny it though. She was so lonely. The idea of dressing up nicely to go and do something glamorous . . . Well, not glamorous, but something . . .

  “What were you going to be doing?” asked Flora annoyingly.

  “Bundle up in my raincoat, watching the rain pound against the windows,” said Lorna. “That is exactly what I’m going to be doing.”

  “See you there,” said Flora. “Wear something sexy.”

  “My pink fleece or my brown fleece?”

  “Just make sure you’ve unzipped the top bit as far down as you can.”

  “To reveal my other fleece underneath?”

  “Something like that.”

  * * *

  “Don’t let me stop you going,” said Joel.

  “You’re not going? I know I said you should be careful of Flora, but this is a big event.”

  “I said I’d help out with the boys today.”

  Joel couldn’t face seeing Colton and Fintan so happy. He just couldn’t.

  Mark frowned. “And what might Flora say to that?”

  Joel shrugged.

  “Don’t you think you should tell her?” Mark’s tone was gentle, but firm. “I think you’ve had enough time apart now. Don’t make her wait for you, Joel, if you can’t be there.”

  Joel knew he wasn’t just talking about the barbecue.

  * * *

  Saif was just so damned tired. All the time. It was just one thing after another. He hadn’t really thought about how much Amena and his mother had done for the children at home; hadn’t really appreciated how much they’d tended to their needs while he’d at first gone to work, then later worked hard constantly on figuring out how to get them away and to safety. He thought of those long days in the market square; the low voices and misinformation; the selling of everything they had to sell. The planning and the fear.

  But it was the day-to-day stuff he couldn’t figure out now. He’d thought he was prepared for the mental anguish, the pain, and the difficulty. He wasn’t at all prepared for Ash sitting on the corner of his bed, refusing to get up and instead pulling the Velcro on his tiny sneakers to and fro, every noise like a wire brush on Saif’s brain, no matter how often he told him to stop, or threatened to take the sneakers away. Which he couldn’t, of course: Ash’s huge eyes would fill with tears, and the idea of depriving him of anything, or making him unhappy in any way at all suddenly seemed utterly unbearable.

  So they would start over. And he also faced an internal battle about tearing Ibrahim away from his iPad, when it was the only thing he wanted to do . . . He had succeeded, though, in switching it to English, which was something, he supposed. But every day he approached the school hoping for better news, and every day Lorna was too kind to tell him that he would have to stop carrying Ash everywhere, for everyone’s sake, and that the boys still weren’t accepting Ibrahim, who lashed out when anyone went anywhere near him, and how she wished she knew what to do, she really did, and it must only be time, mustn’t it?

  The Thursday before the barbecue was a glorious evening and Saif decided to walk the boys down to the harbor front and buy them some fries and Irn-Bru. He couldn’t personally stomach Irn-Bru, even without knowing what was in it, but he understood that it was part of Scottish religion, and respected that. Hot vinegary fries, though, reminded him of the spiced fried potatoes they used to get at home, and he had developed a fondness for them and wanted to introduce the boys. Ibrahim mooched down the hill, looking as if going for a treat on a beautiful day was the single worst thing that could possibly happen to him.

  Outside in the queue—for plenty of Murians had had the same idea on such a glorious evening—was Innes, holding Agot by the hand.

  “Hey,” said Saif, wondering how Innes, who looked to be a single father to all intents and purposes, managed everything—his job and his daughter—while still looking so at ease in his own skin. Perhaps it just came naturally to some people. Perhaps he ha
d just been a fool for thinking it would come easily to him. “Thanks again for the other night.”

  “ASSSHHHH!” yelled Agot.

  And then, in the queue, Ash did the most unexpected thing. He clambered out of Saif’s arms of his own volition.

  He limped over to where Agot was jumping up and down.

  “FRIES, FRIES, FRIES!” Agot was yelling in excitement.

  Ash grinned. He’d lost one of his front teeth, which made him look very comical. Then, all of a sudden, “FRIES, FRIES, FRIES!” he shouted, in a perfect imitation of her broad islands accent.

  “KETCHUP ALSO!” hollered Agot.

  “KETCHUP ALSO!” echoed Ash.

  “Goodness,” said Saif, completely taken aback. Innes smiled distractedly. Agot bossing around other children she’d met was hardly a new experience for him.

  “Oh, it’s nice they’re getting on . . . Things going better then?”

  Saif was overwhelmed with the desire to say, “Awful, unbearable, how does anyone cope?” Then he glanced at the two children, Agot a little hopping imp, Ash desperately trying to imitate her.

  “Well, you know,” he said weakly.

  “We were just heading to the harbor wall,” said Innes in his easy way. “Want to join?”

  Innes never knew how much that simple invitation meant to Saif. A simple outstretched hand of friendship, meant without expectation, neither intrusively nosey, nor desperately worried about saying the right thing. It was just one chap to another, with no agenda. Saif had lived with nothing but other people’s agendas for so long: the sheer banality of the invitation made him want to weep.

  “Sure,” he said.

  So they bought fries and Irn-Bru, except Agot wanted something called Red Kola, so of course Ash wanted it too, and got it, and Saif offered some to Ibrahim too, who shrugged and said he didn’t care, which Saif realized meant he desperately wanted some, and they all took the steaming paper-wrapped parcels and crossed the cobbled street to the sea wall. They sat, watching the children on the little harbor beach, shouting at Agot every time she tried to feed the seagulls who swooped around the children and looked entirely huge and alarming enough to carry them away.