The Cafe by the Sea Page 5

  “I just feel sometimes that I’m not sure I belong anywhere.”

  Lorna tutted and stood up. Flora followed her obediently outside and across to the edge of the harbor.

  “Look,” said Lorna.

  Flora didn’t know what she meant. It was just the same as usual, wasn’t it? Same old waves beating against the harbor walls. Same old boats bobbing around the place, same old seagulls clattering away at the bins, same old colored houses, and round the headland, the farms and the fish-processing plants.

  “Yeah?” she said. “It’s just the same.”

  “No!” said Lorna. “LOOK! Look at the clouds scudding across the sky. How much sky do you get in London anyway? When I went there, all I could see were buildings and more buildings and pigeons, and that was just about it.”

  “Hmmph,” said Flora.

  “Take a breath,” said Lorna, stepping up onto the wall. The air was fresh and clean, tinged with salt; the wind whipped her hair. “Taste it! The last time I was in the city, I thought I’d choke from the fumes. This is awesome.”

  Flora grinned. “You’re nuts, you are.”

  “BREATHE! There are so few places in the world where you can breathe like this. It’s the freshest air in existence. Breathe it in! Take your stupid yoga classes and shove them up your bum! Nothing’s better than this.”

  Flora was laughing now.

  “SERIOUSLY!” Lorna was wobbling across the top of the wall now. “You’re mad, Flora MacKenzie. It’s awesome here.”

  “But it’s freezing!”

  “Buy a bigger coat. It’s not rocket science. Look! LOOK!”

  Flora followed her up onto the top of the wall, where they used to sit when they were teenagers, eating chips and swinging their legs. She followed Lorna’s pointing finger. Below them she could see the elongated neck, the extraordinary beauty of a tall heron. It stood on one leg, poised like a ballerina, as if totally aware of how lovely it was, a halo of sunshine around its head; then, as if waiting for them both to be watching, it spread its glorious wings and sped, fast and low, over the bouncing, gleaming waves, the echo of the other, coarser birds yelping off the walls of the brightly painted pastel buildings behind them as the bird headed for the white horizon.

  “You don’t get that in London,” said Lorna.

  And Flora had to admit, as they watched the heron scoop a glistening fish from the sea without so much as slowing down, that Lorna was right.

  As they stood together gazing out to sea, Lorna leaned over toward her.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said quietly, because she was the very best type of friend to have, the type who could never hold a grudge; and out of the blue, Flora found herself blinking back tears again, and cursed herself. She realized, suddenly, that that was the first time anybody had said that. Her father couldn’t say it, because it wasn’t true for him. He’d lost everything; things weren’t going to be okay. But the boys, they all seemed so trapped. And the island seemed to think she barely deserved to come back.

  “Do you think?” she said, with a quiver in her voice. Lorna looked confused.

  “Of course it is!” she said. “Of course it is. It won’t be the same—it’s never the same. You’re in a different world when you lose a parent.”

  “I should have done more,” said Flora, turning suddenly.

  Lorna shook her head. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You weren’t to know. Nobody does. Not until you cross that river. Not until you live in that world. Then you understand.”

  “And it gets better?”

  “It does.”

  The heron had stopped on a rock, gazing fervently at the horizon. It was so still and perfect, it looked like a photograph. Flora stared at it as she blinked her tears away.

  “So,” said Lorna. “What are you going to do today?”

  Flora sighed.

  “Do you know what the boys could really do with? A proper home-cooked meal.”

  “Oh yes!” said Lorna. “Your mum was the best cook I ever knew. She taught you, didn’t she?”

  “She did,” said Flora. “I’m very rusty, though. God, the food in London—”

  “DON’T START!” said Lorna. “I was just starting to like you again.”

  Chapter Ten

  Margo popped her head round the door. Joel had pulled an all-nighter working on another case, and there were shadows under his eyes. She did wonder about him sometimes. She saw his e-mails, took his incoming calls. Apart from the occasional distraught girl who’d thought she was onto something, there was nothing personal. Ever.

  Of course, that didn’t mean anything. But sometimes she wondered if his rudeness was covering up something else. And sometimes she just thought he was a tool.

  “Coffee?”

  He shook his head irritably.

  “Are you going to get to Scotland today?”

  He twisted his face.

  “Do I have to go? Really? Can’t I just deal with it from here?”

  She shrugged.

  “Colton seems very fond of the place. So it might make sense for the future, if you’re trying to get him onside.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah. Well, let me know when he calls. I want to stay out of the godforsaken hellhole for as long as possible. Have you seen where it is on a map?”

  Margo shook her head as he showed her how far north of the British mainland it was.

  “If they’ve got more than one eyebrow between them, I’ll be amazed,” he said. “God. Right. I’ve changed my mind about that coffee.”

  Margo scuttled off.

  Flora stomped around the very small supermarket, feeling exasperated. She’d had plans to make something different for dinner, something they wouldn’t have normally, that wasn’t like the food her mother used to make. She didn’t think they were ready for her mother’s recipes yet.

  She thought back, briefly, to when she and Hugh were dating, and they’d go down to Borough Market, just next to London Bridge. It was a foodies’ paradise, and extraordinarily expensive, and they’d dally there on a Saturday morning, planning something wonderful to make that night—squid ink risotto or hot and sour Thai soup—and trying lots of things she’d simply never tasted before: kimchi and ceviche and all sorts of other delicacies. She was still a traditional cook, but Hugh knew a bit about food and he’d pushed her taste buds.

  She was thinking that for that night she’d make some little chive dumplings with a spicy chicken broth, and some garlic and chili kale. Perfect for the boys if they were hungry coming in from the fields; the day was bright and clear, but there was still a wind coming down from the north and it would be good to have something warming inside.

  “Hello,” she said to old Wullie, who worked, as far as anyone could tell, about twenty hours a day running the island’s only grocery shop. He might not even be that old. He might actually just be a very tired thirty-five.

  “Flora MacKenzie,” he grunted. Flora felt oddly disgruntled. She’d have quite liked someone to have taken a look at her smart clothes and nice boots and gone, “Flora MacKenzie! Look at you!” But nobody had.

  “Hi there!” she said. “I’m back! Well, for work, you know. I work in London.”

  Wullie stared straight ahead without interest, as he always had.

  “Aye,” he said.

  “So,” she said. “Um. Have you got any . . . rice wine?”

  “Neh.”

  “Lemongrass?”

  He looked at her and blinked slowly.

  “Soy sauce?”

  “Aye,” he said, and pointed out a tiny, very dusty, sticky-looking bottle.

  “And what about vegetables?” she said brightly. Wullie gestured at a shelf full of cans and Flora felt very cross. They grew all sorts of good stuff on the island: carrots, potatoes, tomatoes that loved the long summer evenings as long as you could keep them warm enough. Why was none of that here?

  “Isn’t there a farmers’ market?” she said.

  “A waut?” said Wullie with a fai
nt air of menace in his voice.

  “Nothing,” said Flora, scampering away.

  In the end she made it, out of all things, from an old Pot Noodle bouillon cube and some harsh local onions she found in the pantry at the house. In her anxiety—as well as trying to clean the filthy kitchen at the same time—she horribly overboiled the chicken on the unfamiliar Aga, and the dumplings were hard as bullets.

  Innes regarded the food carefully when they came in from the fields, washing up at the big sink.

  “Is this a feminist position?” he said as they took their familiar places at the table: Innes and Hamish on the window side, Flora and Fintan on the other, her father nearest the range. “Is being terrible at cooking all the rage in London these days?”

  “Well, we could pebble-dash the barn with it,” suggested Fintan, poking at his plate dubiously.

  “Or there’s that drywall that needs putting up,” said Innes. “We could use it for putty.”

  “Stop complaining and just eat it,” said Flora.

  “But it tastes like dishwater,” said Innes, in what he clearly thought was a reasonable tone.

  Flora wanted to throw a plate at him. She knew it was ridiculous—the whole thing was absolutely horrible—but she felt incredibly embarrassed and angry at the same time. She was so rusty about everything up here.

  “I like it, Flora,” said Hamish, who’d practically licked his plate clean. “What is it, please?”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Hamish,” said Fintan. “You’re worse than Bracken and Bramble.”

  “Is there anything else?” said Innes sadly.

  “Not unless any of you thought to make anything.”

  They all looked at each other.

  “Well, you can starve then,” she said, crossly.

  “Toast!” said Innes joyfully, and they all got up.

  “What?”

  “Mrs. Laird,” explained Fintan. “You know, who used to look after the vicar? She can actually make stuff. She makes bread for us.”

  Flora went pink.

  “I can do all that.”

  “Come on, love,” said her dad from the fireplace. “We’re only messing with you. Nobody gets it right the first time.”

  Flora took a deep breath and looked round at the filthy kitchen.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she said.

  “To the chippy?” said Hamish hopefully.

  “No!” said Flora, tears stinging her eyes as she marched out of the house. She’d have banged the door behind her, but it never got shut in the summer and had warped a bit, and nobody had thought to oil the hinges, which also made her furious. Had they all just given up?

  And now they were doing the big ha-ha-has, teasing her, just like they always used to. With no one to stick up for her.

  Well, she wasn’t putting up with it. She was going to head out, go somewhere . . . but where? The pub would be full of her dad’s friends and she didn’t want to get into that. Everything else was shut. Oh for God’s sake, this place. But she couldn’t go home either.

  She decided instead to take a walk up the Carndyne fell and clear her head.

  The great fell, from which you could see across to the mainland, and to the islands behind if you went on that side, was a beautiful hill—more of a mountain, really. People came from all over to climb it, and in the winter it got very snowy. It was unexpectedly dangerous; it could be mistaken for an easy summer walk when in fact it was unusually tricky and could get perilous in bad weather. There wasn’t a season passed when Mountain Rescue wasn’t called out to one idiot or another who thought they’d take a quick wander up the lovely green hill and got themselves into trouble far faster than they could imagine, even though there were plenty of signs and the guidebooks were very clear.

  Murians, who often made up Mountain Rescue in the summertime, scoffed at this kind of thing and had little truck with girls who marched up in flip-flops and T-shirts, or boys who thought they could traverse a col without a rope and were very grateful for the dog rescue and the wry remarks of the locals.

  Flora, of course, knew it like the back of her hand, had first climbed it at the age of nine. It was also the alternate-year school trip, which always provoked loud groans. The other class got to go to Esker, a little village on the mainland that hosted a pathetic excuse for a summer funfair, with rackety rides and straightforwardly fraudulent stalls that nonetheless provoked wild excitement in the stimulus-hungry island boys and girls, who would come back laden with enormous lollipops and cheap felt toys, sneering at the climbers, who had nothing but empty lunch boxes from sandwiches eaten at 10 A.M., sore feet, and, occasionally, hoods full of rainwater.

  It was late in the day, but the evenings were so long now, and as Flora climbed higher, she began to breathe deeply and take in the sights all around her. After another ten minutes, she turned round in surprise to see that Bramble was following her, panting cheerfully.

  “Oh no!” she said. “No, go back down. Honestly, I need some alone time.”

  Bramble completely ignored this and waddled up to her, licking her hand gently.

  “Dog! You are too old and fat to walk up this mountain! What if you get stuck?”

  Bramble wagged his tail gently. Flora looked behind her. If she took him all the way down, she’d have to walk back into the kitchen, into the weird silence she was sure would have descended on everyone, and apologize for her outburst, or just generally look foolish. She sighed and marched on.

  “You’d better keep up with me, then.”

  Bramble moved forward, his claws clicking on the stones. If it wasn’t for the chubby wobble of his haunches, he’d have looked quite noble.

  Flora passed on up over the ridge and onto a long grassy midsection. The air was clean and cool, and as she turned to look back, she saw the late-evening sun glittering and dancing off the sea, which unusually was as calm as a pond. In the distance she spotted the ferry carving out its familiar path across the bay. It must be, she thought, a pleasant night to be on board a boat. Then she could catch the sleeper from Fort William and be back in London . . .

  Mind you, it was 88 degrees in London right now. It would be horribly sticky, with that nasty smell of overheated garbage and cars blaring music everywhere and a slight undercurrent of noise and menace and people living too close together. London in the summer was . . . it was great, but it was just so crowded. So many people cramming onto the South Bank, jammed into overheated tubes and sweaty buses, searching for a tiny patch of scrubby grass in a park or a garden somewhere, hot pavements and cooking smells, and dope hanging over everything.

  Up here, undeniably, she could breathe.

  But that’s not the point, she argued crossly with herself. It wasn’t the point at all. Nobody was denying it was beautiful up here. Of course it was; it was gorgeous, everyone knew that. The question was whether it was right for her. For everything she wanted to accomplish, for everything she wanted to do with her life, whatever that was.

  And now she was back in that stupid farmhouse, chained at that bloody sink, just like her mother had been. She kicked a stone bitterly. This had not been the plan. This hadn’t been the plan at all. And if everyone was going to keep making fun of her after the sacrifice she’d made, well, she didn’t want to deal with them in the slightest.

  She carried on climbing, hoping the vigorous exercise would calm her down a little, but instead she found herself having quite long arguments inside her head about things, which wasn’t helping at all. Blinking, she realized she’d come higher than she’d meant to, and could see right across to the hills on the mainland. The sky was filling with little pink clouds scuttling here and there, and the harbor below was barely more than a dot, likewise the ferry reaching the port. She marched on.

  Nearing the top, she finally felt tired enough—it was a tricky scrambly bit, up some scree—for her head to start to clear. She found the waterfall she knew was tucked behind a wall of rock, and she and Bramble drank deeply of its freezing, utt
erly refreshing water, like liquid crystal on her tongue. She had just decided that this would be far enough when suddenly she heard a yelping.

  She glanced round.

  “Bramble? Bramble?”

  The dog whined in response, but didn’t run up to her as he normally would.

  “BRAMBLE?”

  The sun was starting to dip behind the mountains, and the chill was instant and noticeable. Concerned, Flora made her way across to the dog. To her horror, he had gotten one of his paws trapped in between two rocks. His back legs were desperately scrabbling against the wet stone as he tried to right himself.

  She waded into the water and carefully freed his paw from the hole it had gotten stuck in, while he writhed in panic in her arms.

  “It’s okay! It’s okay. It’s okay,” she whispered in his ear as she heaved his enormous bulk onto the nearest patch of soft earth. “You’re going to be fine.”

  Bramble was whimpering now, and trembling hard. They were both completely soaked, and with the sun gone, it was becoming increasingly chilly. The dog’s front right paw was hanging at a very unpleasant angle; Flora felt slightly sick even to look at it. Bramble yelped and looked at her as if it was all her fault, and she made soothing noises, all the while feeling panicked inside. She didn’t have her phone; she’d stormed out without her bag, too annoyed to pick anything up. Even if she had had it, there wasn’t a signal up here at the best of times, and this was beginning to look very much not like the best of times.

  It was at least ninety minutes down the fell. The poor creature couldn’t walk, and he weighed more than she did; she couldn’t possibly carry him. But she couldn’t leave him here either; he’d just try and follow her, and who knew what would happen then? She didn’t have anything to tie him up with—and the idea of tying up and leaving an animal in pain, even if it was to get help, was just unbearable. Plus, it would be dark up here shortly, and how was she going to get anyone to come back up in the pitch-black to look for an animal? It was far too dangerous; it would put human lives at risk.