The Cafe by the Sea Read online

  “Thank you, Teàrlach,” she said, feeling funny and giggly, as if she had already been drinking Colton’s whisky.

  “Will you dance with me later?”

  “I might.”

  She felt bubbly and fleet and happy . . . and even more so when she caught sight of her father. She hadn’t thought he would come, had told the boys to mention it, but whether or not they would, of course, who could say? And he never went out, not really; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him off the farm.

  Of course she’d asked him to visit her in London, but when she prodded her heart, she knew how secretly relieved she’d been every time he’d said oh no, oh no, he couldn’t leave the farm.

  But when had he gotten so small? She remembered him striding the fields, huge, with a clutch of dogs by his side, visible from miles off as she sat doing her homework, occasionally glancing up, watching as the shadows passed across the hills, the clouds rushing, chasing one another, bouncing like the April lambs in the stone-covered fields below.

  Now she towered over him, it felt like, could see he needed a haircut. He still had some hair, white, over his ears, which were hairy too. He was wearing the old kilt that was all he’d ever needed: a Lindsay, the dark reds faded now, from his own mother’s side; a mainlander, she’d moved up from Argyll to marry his father after he returned from the war and the troop ships of the North Atlantic. He’d never seen the need to buy a new one; it had seen him through every wedding, every Hogmanay, every Viking festival, and every Samhain, and it seemed unlikely to change now. His cheeks were red, the veins broken from years of walking through the wind until he’d become, as the old Mure saying went, a man who couldn’t stand upright; but he was, for the first time since she’d gotten back, looking happy to see her.

  “Och yon, dhu,” he said, overcome, and Flora embraced him, the old tweed tickling her nostrils.

  “Well, I can’t say . . . I can’t say I like everything that’s been going on, all this fuss and folderol.” He indicated the brilliant room. “But aye, love, she would have been . . . She would have . . .”

  But neither of them had to say any more, and they both knew it.

  “Come on,” said Flora, rubbing her eyes. “Let’s go eat.”

  She’d change later.

  In the restaurant, the tables had been cleared to the side, and there was a huge array of food laid out on them, heavy silver plates gleaming on white tablecloths.

  There was lobster and Kelvin’s langoustines; herring done the Norwegian way, bristling with little red onions and cloudberries and capers; loaves of crusty rye bread; thick slabs of fresh butter gleaming slickly, great crystals of local salt shining through like jewels. There was locally cured salmon, including the whisky cured, which was always incredibly popular, as well as huge trays of kedgeree.

  Nothing fancy, nothing complicated. No posh cooking with frills on top. Just everything that was good and fresh and native to the islands, the type of food that had been cooked and eaten there for centuries, overseen by Fintan, who couldn’t stop grinning.

  Whisky, of course, was plentiful, but also gin, which had become a huge export—made in side vats where the whisky was matured, but a lot quicker to produce, with nothing like the twenty-five-year requirement of the single malts—and Colton stood near the refreshments table making sure everyone’s glass was topped up.

  And then there were the desserts. Flora couldn’t help a quiet internal smile of satisfaction. The pies, almost all of them perfect, took up a full tabletop. There were cakes too, brought by other people, but the pies were the real sensation, the fruit shining like jewels, the heavy cream pitchers beside them. It seemed almost a shame to cut into them, more than one person commented.

  Next to them, on a separate table, with a large mackenzie’s farm banner over the top of it, were the cheeses, cut already into neat triangles, a little taste of each on every plate, with the large wheels at the back, and endless freshly baked oatcakes lined up next to them. It was a feast.

  “No, no,” Colton murmured to her, seeing her gazing at the sight. “You go back to a horrible desk in a horrible city.”

  He handed her a dram of Mure single malt, and she drank it, rather too quickly, feeling it going straight to her head, mixing with the adrenaline.

  “A desk at a firm that will be working on all your requirements,” she pointed out.

  Colton, who was, Flora noticed, quite drunk, flung out his arm.

  “This kind of thing is hard to find, kiddo. Harder than you’d think.”

  Flora smiled as he refilled her glass.

  “Come on, you’re working. Let’s get you round the entire council.”

  Colton sighed.

  “This is worse than pitching my first start-up.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Flora, smiling. “Because now you know what you have to lose.”

  She didn’t mention that she was a little nervous too. People had long memories. But she had a job to do. She squared her shoulders.

  “Flora.”

  “Maggie!”

  Maggie Buchanan sniffed.

  “That was not bad. Not bad at all.”

  “I realize that. You’ve met Colton.”

  “Thank you for the party,” said Maggie drily. “With such noble and selfless aims.”

  Colton smiled.

  “Please,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  A Dashing White Sergeant had just started up in the next room. Maggie, who although nearly seventy was still incredibly light on her feet, thanks to her habit of cycling everywhere on rocky terrain through terrible weather, actually took Colton’s hand.

  Well, thought Flora. That was a step forward.

  Also, she realized, looking on and laughing, Colton had learned all the dances. He wasn’t a natural ceilidh dancer, as the boys and girls of the island were, keeping up this side of their Scottish heritage: everyone danced at weddings and parties and celebrations from as soon as they could walk, and it was as natural as breathing, or singing if singing was required.

  Colton, Flora soon figured out, was quite different. He kept referring to something in his pocket—at first she thought it was a hip flask, but then she realized it was a tiny book of ceilidh dancing. He was checking the figures and the moves, all of which he executed with exaggerated care, unlike the general flinging that was going on in other directions, smiling at everyone as he did so.

  He was a much more interesting, thoughtful man than she’d assumed, that first morning she’d seen him, brashly making noise about how crap London was in the conference room.

  She looked around for Fintan, and saw him tinkering with the cheese plates, looking full of pride, while actually following Colton’s progression round the dance floor with more than passing attention.

  She turned and went into the main crush of the room, away from the tables.

  “That baking,” said an ancient woman Flora dimly remembered from the post office. “That baking . . . oh, it was like having Annie back.”

  Flora blinked.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re like her—she was a proper selkie girl.”

  Sometimes there was no point in fighting it.

  “I know,” said Flora.

  “There’s a lot of her in you.”

  “I’m glad,” said Flora. “I’m so glad.”

  “Welcome home,” said the woman quietly, and many of the older people sitting there echoed the sentiment. “Velcom, velcom” echoed around the table in the local accent, and her glass was refilled yet again.

  Charlie appeared at her shoulder.

  “Come and dance with me; you promised,” he said, even though he was still forking large pieces of pie into his mouth.

  “You’re eating!” she said.

  “Yes.” He smiled. “I thought I’d better book you before you got too popular. And it’s utterly tremendous. Try it!”

  Flora had been too wound up to eat, but she tried a mouthful. It was the cherry,
and it was indeed pretty good. She smiled.

  “Yes, it’s true, I am fabulous,” she said, teasing.

  “It’s your night, Ms. MacKenzie,” he said, putting down his empty plate and proffering his arm.

  “Where’s Jan?” she asked suddenly. This was absurd: he was definitely flirting with her, and if he was in a relationship, it wasn’t fair. Because, undeniably, she liked him. He didn’t make her heart leap and her pulse race like Joel did. But that was stupid, because Joel was unattainable. Charlie was right here. His large, broad solidity; his bright blue eyes and open face. The opposite of Joel. But if she was going to get to know him better, she had to know.

  Charlie blinked.

  “Oh, she’s around,” he said vaguely.

  Flora caught sight of her then, going at the dessert display with great gusto.

  “Are you two . . .?”

  “Separated,” said Charlie quickly. “We’re separated. I’m amazed you didn’t know. I thought everybody did.”

  “Well, I’m not everybody,” said Flora brightly.

  “You’re not,” agreed Charlie.

  She wished she’d had a chance to get changed. Although in fact, what she was wearing suited her far better than the slightly too-small Karen Millen dress she’d bought the previous year for a wedding and that wasn’t repaying its investment at all.

  “But you still work together?” she went on.

  “Oh yes. We run the firm together. She’s a decent sort, Jan.”

  “So why—?”

  “Are you dancing?” said Charlie. “Or do we have to stand around here discussing every element of our lives like we’re on some mainland reality show?”

  Flora smiled.

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d have had much time to be watching that kind of thing,” she said.

  “Oh yes, because you know everything about me.”

  He took her hand and led her into the dance. Colton was now dancing with two old ladies from the curling society, in a move that involved two girls for every boy and vice versa, and they looked very pleased to have gotten him. Charlie happily whirled her in and round with Bertie on her other side, and they joined the throng.

  Flora gave herself over to the music, dipping and spinning at high speed without pause, the men’s kilts whirling and her twirling herself in and out of them. She felt so free suddenly.

  Behind one of the heavy curtains, deep in shadow, Joel watched her laughing with that big man who followed her around everywhere as far as he could tell, watched her with a hungry look he recognized in himself, and despised.

  He cursed and left the room.

  Giggling at the end of the dance, Flora realized she hadn’t checked on how Joel was doing, which was utterly remiss of her considering he knew hardly anybody there. She had to introduce him to people and look after him, seeing as Colton was busy. Also, she realized, while she’d been dancing with Charlie, she hadn’t thought of him at all.

  “Excuse me,” she said, looking around the room, but there was no sign of him. “I have to go. Can you ask Mrs. Kennedy to dance?”

  “No,” said Charlie. “She’s terrifying.”

  “Yeah . . . but she’s on the council.”

  Charlie rolled his eyes as Flora slipped away from the dance floor.

  Flora wandered through into the little nooks and crannies of the downstairs of the hotel, all beautiful cozy sofas and soft lighting, large open fires everywhere. She felt very warm from the room and the noise and the dancing and the smooth whisky now coursing through her veins.

  Suddenly, over the back of a sofa, she spotted his glossy nut-brown hair, and round the side, the shiny dark outline of his shoe and the long line of his trouser leg, his expensive suit, immaculate as always, so different from the rest of the men in kilts. Just himself. Just Joel.

  And it flashed across her mind once more the way he had looked at her when she was dancing—it was just a split second, but she hadn’t been imagining it, had she? Had she? God, what the hell was she doing?

  Slightly drunk, she forgot everything else. Forgot the rest of Mure beyond the doorway; forgot Charlie, waiting to dance with her again; forgot that she was meant to be sticking by Colton’s side, loyally listening to him and introducing him to everyone and getting people onside. She forgot everything except her proximity to Joel, to this man she had wanted so much for so long. And now they were a thousand miles away from everything else in their normal lives, everything that mattered to him—whatever that was.

  She had come here to please the firm. She had left Mure to please her mother. She had stayed away because . . . because she hadn’t known what else to do. Flora felt like a boat sometimes, tossed about on the tide, not sure where she was going to end up or why. Suspecting that she would look back on her life one day and not really remember making the choices that she had made.

  The fire crackled enticingly; the noise of the party faded behind her. He hadn’t seen her; his head wasn’t moving.

  Flora breathed in. This wasn’t like her at all. She didn’t feel in the least like herself. But even if it was just for tonight . . . when she wasn’t feeling guilty, or down, or like a bad daughter, or out of place. When she was feeling good, feeling that she deserved something, that her hard work was paying off. When people were getting what they wanted. Couldn’t she?

  She bit her lip nervously one last time, then stepped forward.

  “Joel?”

  “Flora! Hi! Great to see you!”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Inge-Britt Magnusdottir rose to greet Flora, assuming she was looking for her boss, although Joel hadn’t mentioned that she might want to speak to him. Not that Inge-Britt had been listening particularly; she’d been nestling suggestively in the huge sofa, concentrating on his flat stomach and long thighs and wondering how soon would be too soon to suggest they leave and go back to the Harbor’s Rest. Inge-Britt had a very straightforward approach to what she felt like doing, something that Joel, in his turmoil, had been appreciating. This was territory he understood.

  “Inge-Britt!” said Flora, completely wrong-footed and going instantly brick red. She felt like she wanted to cry. She did want to cry, very much. “It’s great to see you!”

  “Well, everybody’s here, so I wasn’t going to be doing too much business tonight,” said Inge-Britt, smiling. “You never mentioned that your boss was so . . . interesting.”

  “Didn’t I?” muttered Flora.

  Joel couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t. Was she annoyed with him? Disappointed? Did she want him? He wanted . . . more than anything he wanted, suddenly, to take that pale hair in his hands, to pull her into his arms. He wanted to sleep with her, of course he did. Joel wanted to sleep with most people. But it was more than that. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to comfort her; he wanted his sadness to touch hers; he wanted to share.

  Joel had never wanted to share. When you have no toys, you cannot learn to share.

  He shut it down. He didn’t lift his head.

  “You need me?”

  Yes, she wanted to say. I need you. I need something pure. I need good sex and the sensation of choosing something for myself, of not waiting to be chosen. I need to be myself; to sleep with someone people wouldn’t think was right for me; I need to be, for once, wild and dangerous, and not do what everyone expects a hardworking, quiet, colorless girl like me to do. Not in a million years.

  She swallowed.

  “No,” she said. “It’s fine. I just came to check you were all right. I don’t know if your ceilidh dancing’s up to much.”

  “I’ll teach you,” said Inge-Britt cheerily.

  “I don’t dance,” said Joel shortly.

  “Well, why did you come?” said Flora before she could stop herself.

  “Thank fuck,” said Inge-Britt, carelessly splashing more of a bottle of vodka she’d commandeered into both their glasses. “Scandis think it’s hilarious, I should tell you. A-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly.” She was quite drunk.
/>
  Flora was suddenly very aware of the ridiculous tightly laced velvet bodice she was wearing, the childish soft tartan hanging to her knees, her tumbling hair. She must look unutterably silly to them, a local hick.

  “I’ll get back to it then,” she said, trying to smile and failing miserably. “Colton will probably want a word later.”

  “Great,” said Joel, although it hurt him tremendously to do so. He took a sip of his drink in the hope that it would numb him. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  She went back to the dance, where Charlie was bravely trying to accompany Mrs. Kennedy. Without even caring about being rude, she walked up to him as the music stopped, took his hand, and pulled him away before he had a chance to bow.

  Outside, the sky was white, a tiny hint of blue at the edges indicating it was close to midnight. On the lawn where the stage had been, fairy lights were still hanging, and the rustles and whispers of other couples came from among the trees. She held his huge hand and looked up at him, and he returned her gaze with those clear blue eyes; then, as the music started again, he put his hand on her face, and emboldened, she reached up and kissed him, hard, all her passion in it.

  When the shock came, it was like being drenched with cold water. Which, Flora had absolutely no doubt, would also have happened if there had been any available.

  There was a hand on the back of her vest, hauling her off. She turned round in shock. She had been lost, entirely, in the sheer pleasure of kissing a handsome man under a clear night sky.

  Jan was standing there, her face brick red.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Flora staggered back, then glanced at Charlie, who looked defiant, irritated, and incredibly sexy.

  “You told me—” she began.

  “We’re taking a rest, you said!” shouted Jan. “Not broken up!”

  Charlie looked at her, then back at Flora.

  “It’s been months,” he said. “Look, Jan, be reasonable . . .”

  “No,” she said, her mouth a tight line. “You be reasonable. You know what Daddy said.”