The Endless Beach Page 24

  Then Lorna turned and saw him and her heart leaped, and every idea she’d had of playing it cool or not reacting or ignoring him in favor of Innes . . .

  She stopped, frozen, caught in mid-smile, unable to disguise her delight at seeing him, her heart lurching. Oh, he was exactly the only person she wanted to see and they gazed at each other . . .

  “Hey, beer?” Saif blinked, and tried to focus on the person handing him a drink. It took him a moment to realize it was Colton, and he was about to make his excuses and move toward Lorna when he stopped and looked twice, and suddenly everything changed.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Colton wasn’t Saif’s patient—Saif presumed he had a private doctor elsewhere—so Saif hadn’t seen him for a long time.

  Probably it wasn’t as noticeable if you saw him day to day.

  But Saif knew. In his country, where medicine could be expensive, many people put off going to the doctor until as late as they could. Often far too late. And when they came into his office, they had a look about them. It was experience that taught you, and Saif knew it very well.

  Saif stared at Colton, who was looking at him cheerfully, beer still outstretched.

  Gradually, Colton took in the look. Saif glanced around to make sure nobody was standing too close to them. He didn’t see Lorna’s face fall rapidly into deep disappointment, as he had seen her and then immediately snubbed her to talk to Colton.

  He did not see her tip the rest of the glass of wine down her throat in double-quick time, grab a huge refill, then march off, face hot, to look for someone—anyone—else to talk to, and to stop herself bursting into tears.

  “What is wrong with you?” Saif said quietly and urgently. He never realized how direct and rude his English could sound sometimes. The English language not having a formal tense meant he just assumed nobody minded how you spoke to them.

  “What are you talking about?” said Colton. “Have a beer, enjoy the lovely day. You drink beer, right?”

  Saif rolled his eyes and didn’t answer, taking the beer. “You have not been to see me.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  Neither was Colton’s. “Why would I have to do that?” he said uncomfortably.

  “You have lost a lot of weight.”

  “I’m getting married. That’s what people do.”

  Saif shook his head. “I do not want to alarm you. But I would like very much for you to come in and see me. In fact, I would like to send you for some tests. I do not want to scare you or spoil your party. But I would highly recommend that . . .”

  Colton grabbed Saif by the arm and marched him over to the quiet side of the barn, where there was no one else around. “Shut up,” he hissed. “I don’t want to hear it. And I don’t want you shooting your mouth off either.”

  “What would I be shooting my mouth off about?”

  Colton spat on the ground. Saif looked into his clouded eyes and heaved a sigh. “Doesn’t he know?”

  There was a long pause. Colton stared at the ground.

  “You’re getting married! You should tell him! Where is it?”

  There were so many options now. Treatment in the West was astonishing to Saif. For all the complaints about the NHS, he found it passionate and compassionate and mind-bogglingly successful.

  “Pancreas. Well. It started there.”

  Saif never swore, as he was never sure which taboo words in his new language were mild and which were unfathomably insulting. But now he did. There was barely a worse prognosis.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “You sound funny when you say that,” said Colton.

  “Stage?”

  Colton held up four fingers. “You’re a doctor, right? You can’t tell anyone.”

  “You should perhaps tell your husband.”

  “After the wedding,” hissed Colton.

  They glanced round. The scene under the wispy clouds in the sky was idyllic. The football match; the dancing; the laughter in the air; the children running; the fiddle music; and the green hills stretching down, dabbed with lambs and wildflowers and bright waving poppies all the way to a deep blue sea that went on forever.

  “There is nothing they can do . . . ?”

  “You think I can’t afford the best doctors, Doc? No offense. You think I haven’t checked this shit out? That that hasn’t been my full-time job for months? I have my own morphine supply, my own whisky distillery . . . Hell, I’m just happy it isn’t dementia.”

  Colton’s bravado was touching, but he wasn’t even fifty.

  “Doc.” Colton leaned over. His voice was slightly slurred. It seemed impossible Fintan hadn’t noticed.

  “I have one. Last. Summer. I want to spend it here, on this place I love. I want to get married to the boy I love, without everyone giving me fucking puppy dog face. I want to be happy, and then I want to drift away. Chemo will give me an extra six months of throwing up in a fucking bucket. It doesn’t matter anyway, because this shit is spreading to my brain and you know what that means.”

  Saif did. Delirium. Hallucinations. Mental incapacity. The full checklist of horrors.

  “I’m not having it,” said Colton. “I control my life. I control what I do. I always have. And I am telling you. I’m not having it.”

  “Don’t say any more,” said Saif. This was perilously dangerous, legally speaking. “Please don’t say any more.”

  Colton swigged from a paper cup of whisky. “I find I worry less these days,” he said, “about how much alcohol is good for me.”

  He pointed at Saif.

  “Vow of silence, right? Hippocratic Oath.”

  “Who knows already?”

  “That piss-ant lawyer of mine,” said Colton, sighing. “I sure wish I’d never told him. He fell apart. That is the one thing I feel bad about.”

  Agot suddenly appeared, her little witchy face sly.

  “UNCO COLTON! UNCO COLTON, IS AGOT YOUR BRIDESMAID?”

  “Yes, of course you are, Agot. Always.”

  “WE NEED HORSIE! ME AND ASH NEED HORSIE!”

  Ash was jumping up and down, pretending he knew what was going on.

  “AND YOU, ASH DADDY ALSO,” said Agot indignantly.

  Which was how, after receiving the devastating news, Saif and Colton, after another slug of his whisky, ended up on all fours in the long, sweet-smelling green grass, riddled with tall daisies and dandelions, each with a child on his back, roaming the garden and making appropriate noises.

  And Lorna gave up, and drank another too-large glass of wine, and decided to go and see what Innes was up to.

  * * *

  Flora was going crazy in the kitchen, bustling about, taking cling film from the tops of salads and things people had brought, sending Hamish out with bottles to top people off. Anything, in fact, to save her having to smile and answer questions about Joel. She sighed heavily just as Mark walked in, carrying the most expensive bottle of wine the little supermarket sold (which was not very expensive), and with a huge pile of hog roast on a roll. He looked as happy as a clam, but his face fell when he saw her.

  “Ach, my Flora,” he said, putting his arm around her. “I know. I know.”

  “I haven’t even seen him,” said Flora. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

  “You need to let him recover. Let him get there on his own.”

  “What if he doesn’t?!”

  Mark patted her on the shoulder. “Life is difficult,” he said. “Your food, on the other hand . . . it is amazing. And it is a wonderful afternoon, and the sun is shining and there is wine . . . Life could be worse.”

  “Yes, it could. But, Mark. Why can’t . . . why can’t he just let me in?”

  Mark sighed sadly. There was so much he could say. But he couldn’t say any of it.

  “It’s very difficult for him,” he said.

  “It’s difficult for everyone,” said Flora. “Can I ask you one question?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “If you were me, wo
uld you wait?”

  Mark rubbed his neck. “Come on, Flora. There’s only one person who can answer that.”

  “No, there are at least three, and two of them won’t talk to me. By which I mean you and Joel, by the way, in case it wasn’t obvious.”

  “It was quite obvious, thank you,” said Mark amiably. “But that only leaves one person to answer the question.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Saif finally managed to persuade Agot and Ash there was ice cream in the kitchen if they went and asked Flora nicely. He looked closely at Colton, pulling himself up. His face was gray, and he was sweating and breathing heavily. Saif didn’t say anything.

  “There you are!” Fintan came up to Colton and slung an arm casually around him. “You look hot. Are you too hot?”

  “I’m fine!” said Colton. “And a man in need of a beer.”

  Fintan kissed him. “Your wish is my command,” he said. Then he added, “Don’t expect it to be like this after we’re married,” and headed off to the kitchen.

  “I won’t,” said Colton, watching him go. Away from the noise of the musicians, the afternoon suddenly felt quiet: the sun not so warm; the sky not so bright; the music slow and getting slower as the two men stood there in silence.

  * * *

  Saif badly wanted to go home, but he couldn’t. Agot was showing Ash Frozen in the back parlor, and to Saif’s total surprise when he’d wandered in to check, Ash knew all the songs in Arabic. When he asked him how, Ash, not wanting to tear his eyes from the screen, had muttered something about the soldiers having it, leaving Saif wondering precisely what had happened then, and whether Ash would ever really remember. He would have asked Ibrahim but the boy had finally—finally—gotten himself insinuated into the football game and there was absolutely no way Saif was going to mess with that. So he watched with the little boy and girl for a bit—Agot having decided she wanted to sing the same words as Ash—rubbing his beard, then reluctantly went back outside.

  * * *

  Lorna had definitely found her courage from somewhere, somewhere being a chilled glass of rosé on a warm summer’s day. Innes was standing watching the football, talking hay prices with some of the farmers who’d driven their tractors here from over the hill. She walked over to him, feeling the sun warm on her back, her dress fluttering around her legs.

  “Hey,” she said, handing him the beer she’d picked up for him on the way.

  Innes blinked at her, took in the dress, the pretty hair . . . Oh my God! This was Flora’s mystery woman! Of course it was: those two were thick as thieves! He’d rather assumed Fintan and Flora had just been teasing him, but now here she was . . . He’d never given Lorna a second thought; she was his annoying little sister’s best friend after all, always closing the door and giggling and smelling the place out with what he had learned was nail polish (with the occasional undercurrent of cider and black in their teenage years).

  “I’m here to persuade you to enroll Agot,” she said, grinning.

  He looked at her. Her face was smiling.

  “I think you could persuade anyone to do anything,” he said frankly. His blues eyes crinkled in his suntanned face, and Lorna felt her insides suddenly turn a little watery. She felt defiant too. Why shouldn’t she have some fun? Why shouldn’t she stop moping after some ridiculous, completely out-of-reach man she was never going to be with? Was she going to sit on a shelf forever?

  “Well, that’s fortunate,” she said, moving closer. “But we don’t have to talk about school.”

  Lorna wasn’t very experienced at flirting, and not particularly good at it. But suddenly, there was something in the evening that made them both not care.

  “We don’t need to talk about anything,” said Innes, taking a grateful swig of the beer. The fiddlers had started up a fast jig. “Dance?”

  Lorna held out her hand.

  * * *

  Joel glanced at his watch. The streets of Mure were empty. Every single person on the entire island was up at the barbecue. And he should go, he really should, even if it was the last thing he could handle right now.

  Joel took the hill road, expecting to see the boys—it was their last day today; they’d catch the morning ferry back, but Jan had said they didn’t need him. He had watched, genuinely surprised as the boys had complained less, laughed more, seemed to stand up straighter by the end of their stay. They had gone brown as nuts in the sun, laughing and splashing about in the stream. He was going to have to have a word with Colton, make sure they didn’t lose their funding, as Jan kept threatening they were about to . . . No, he wasn’t going to think about Colton.

  He wandered up and the boys crowded around him.

  “Well,” he said. “Nice to meet you all.”

  They cheerfully chorused a good-bye and Joel had the pleasant sensation of doing something positive, something that wasn’t just for him.

  Before he’d gotten too far, Caleb had caught up with him. “Oi! Mister! Joel! Mister!”

  Joel turned round. He glanced up, expecting to meet Jan’s disapproving face, but she just smiled.

  “He wants to come into town with you!” she yelled.

  As usual, Jan didn’t ask whether this would be all right or not. She said what was happening and you had to deal with it.

  “Okay then,” said Joel.

  They walked in reasonably companionable silence. Joel stopped at the grocer’s and asked the boy if he wanted anything, expecting an order for sweets, but Caleb shook his head. “That’s all I get,” he said quietly. “Can I have proper food?”

  And Joel’s heart sank and he wanted to take him to the Café by the Sea to buy him something wholesome, but of course it was shut for the party, so then naturally Caleb wanted to know where everyone was, and when he found out they were at a party, his eyes got very wide and he rushed back and told everyone. Almost before Joel knew it, they all appeared to be marching up the hill road to the MacKenzie farm, where the boys could smell the most delicious barbecue. Caleb gleefully slipped his hand into Joel’s, as the other boys congratulated him on his magnificent scheme. Joel looked down at him and grinned.

  Caleb gazed at him wonderingly. “Can I see your watch? I won’t steal it.”

  Joel unstrapped the heavy Jaeger-LeCoultre he always wore, which had been knocking the boy’s slim wrist. He had bought it when he got his first bonus, solely because Mark had one and it seemed a nice, heavy, centering thing to have. Caleb looked at it in awe.

  “How much is this worth?”

  Joel smiled. “It really doesn’t matter.”

  “Can I have it then?”

  For a moment, Joel was tempted to give it to him, before he realized the horrendous amount of trouble they would all get into if he let this happen.

  He looked at Caleb. “When you finish school,” he said. “If you get all the way through and pass your exams—because you’re obviously smart—then you come and find me. And I’ll help you in any way I can. And then you can have the watch.”

  “Whoa! That’s going to be my watch!”

  “If you get your head down,” said Joel. “And ignore all the crap. And just get on. And try your best. Caleb . . .”

  The boy was staring at him as if he held the meaning of life.

  “There is a way out. I promise there is. You just have to work harder than the next person. Which doesn’t seem fair and it doesn’t seem nice and you’ll think nobody will care, and you might be right. They might not. But then it doesn’t matter, because you’ll be old enough and out of there and you can make the world care about you. It just takes time.”

  Caleb nodded. “Well, I’ll have time,” he said cheekily. “Because I’ll have your watch.”

  “You’ll have my watch,” agreed Joel, feeling very nervous as they approached the farm gates, and very unsure of the welcome awaiting him.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Flora walked out into the courtyard, glass in hand. She noticed to the side that Innes now had his arm around
Lorna’s waist and, across the room, that Saif was trying very hard not to look at it. She saw her father, happily oblivious to all of this, beaming at everybody there, obviously quite surprising himself with the speed with which it had become completely normal to him that his son was marrying another man—a foreigner at that. Amazing. Almost as amazing as Hamish, who was sequestered in a corner with a girl Flora had never seen in her life before—busty, and incredibly overdressed for a Sunday barbecue, in a low-cut top and a very short skirt. Hamish wasn’t saying much, but he looked utterly delighted.

  Flora cleared her throat.

  Colton and Fintan were holding each other closely, looking expectantly at her as the crowd quieted. God, Colton had lost a lot of weight. She thought only brides did that.

  Joel was nowhere to be seen.

  “Um,” she said, her voice growing quieter.

  “I just wanted to say . . . thanks for coming. To celebrate the engagement of Colton and Fintan, even though obviously that’s very annoying as two people shouldn’t get married whose names sound exactly the same . . .”

  There was some appreciative laughter.

  “But we are so happy that they are and that they’re going to be staying here on Mure . . .”

  A cheer went up.

  “ . . . and Colton will be getting the drinks in. Hopefully.”

  Colton raised a glass with a half smile.

  “So. Eat, drink, be merry, everyone . . . and here . . .”

  There had been a collection box in the Café by the Sea for weeks, hastily hidden if either of the happy couple came in. Flora didn’t think anyone hadn’t contributed. She lifted the cloth she’d had underneath the trestle. There it was. A swing.

  She didn’t know when it had occurred to her that a swing would make a nice gift. It was for the tree just outside the Rock before you got to the walled garden where the vegetables grew. It just seemed the perfect spot for it. It was a large swing, built for two by the endlessly talented Geoffrey, and inscribed carefully by old Ramsay at the forge: “Colton & Fintan, July 2018” in immaculate letters.