The Endless Beach Read online

  Joel stalked straight past her. He didn’t even glance around at the seated or milling tourists who wandered in and out of the hotel lobby at all hours of the day and night: jet-lagged, confused, stressed out, or just plain lost.

  He moved smoothly over to see if the contracts he was waiting on had been delivered. The same receptionist always seemed to be on duty, he had subconsciously registered, but not actively thought about. She looked at him now with something important to impart on her face. He hoped it wasn’t hassle, like a room change. He just wanted a shower, some work, some food and, even though he had blackout curtains, a high-up, soundproofed room, and almost silent air-conditioning, he was hoping for sleep, although it was doubtful: he was grinding out the days and making his billable hours for Colton up until he could get home.

  Home. The word felt so strange and tentative whenever he thought about it. Was it even possible that there was somewhere he thought of as home? Somewhere he could keep, treasured, secret in his heart even as he walked through boardrooms and hotel lobbies a million miles away; somewhere special, just for him, that was waiting for him at the end of this city, and all the other cities exactly like it . . .

  The receptionist nodded her head. “Are you expecting someone, sir?”

  “No,” said Joel, his face wrinkling with distaste. He didn’t want to deal with any of Colton’s clients face-to-face if he could possibly help it, particularly the way Colton kept pulling out of their marketplaces without warning. Plus they were blowhards who went on about clean eating too much. He sometimes wanted to make them try some of Mure’s very best carbs and fats, just to see their faces recoil in horror. The receptionist of course knew full well he wasn’t; she’d just wanted to see the expression on his face. It gave her some satisfaction.

  “Well, there’s someone here to see you. Maybe it’s a surprise?”

  * * *

  When Joel first told Flora about his upbringing she never really realized its import.

  He had told her in such a matter-of-fact way and felt no need to expand on the issue. There had been no tears, no histrionics. He had simply told her that his parents couldn’t look after him and he had been brought up in the foster care system. Flora had always, looking at him, found it difficult to imagine that of Joel, who was so sorted, so handsome, so confident, so seemingly impregnable. He didn’t seem broken about it, didn’t seem even particularly fussed. It was his reality, and that was all it was.

  In later years, Flora was to realize how naive—how dangerously naive—she had been to think like this. Of course, her upbringing hadn’t been perfect—whose was, when you thought about it? Nobody’s. But she’d had two parents, who had stayed together, who had loved her and encouraged her to the best of their abilities, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. That was what family was: everyone muddling along.

  She didn’t get it. Not really. Not properly. She felt the sadness in the abstract, of course—not having a family, how awful. But she had had Joel on such a pedestal for so long, had seen him always when he was her boss as the great epitome of triumph and success and everything she longed for.

  He had told her, but she had not understood, and would not for a long time.

  If you have ever known a child in foster care, the one thing you do not do—you never do—is spring surprises. They have known surprises. They have known all the surprises they ever need to know. Surprises like: you won’t be seeing your parents again. Or you won’t be staying here anymore. Or you’re moving schools. Or we’re so sorry, this placement hasn’t worked out quite as we’d hoped.

  If you want to show your love to a child of difficult fostering, be entirely predictable. In every way. Tediously and relentlessly. Forever.

  Flora didn’t realize this even as she started awake, not knowing at all where she was or what time it was. She was surprised, in fact, to find herself in the lobby of a very upmarket New York hotel, still in her Mure overcoat on this hot day, feeling bleary and completely discombobulated, only to find Joel looking down on her with an expression of abject horror on his face—the sum of her worst fears.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hey,” Flora said weakly.

  She rubbed her eyes. He didn’t say anything. Behind him, Flora gradually realized the receptionist was watching, hungrily.

  “Hey,” said Joel eventually. There was no embrace. He was staring at her like he didn’t know what the hell she was doing there. And she didn’t either, she realized. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing there. Why hadn’t she obeyed her first instincts? Suddenly she wanted to cringe, to fold herself up or vanish into the ground.

  “I thought I’d surprise you,” she said timidly.

  “Consider me surprised,” said Joel shortly. He cursed himself for the look in her eyes: so disappointed in him. What the hell did she expect him to do? He was at work, trying to get through it, so he could come home. He wasn’t over here playing up with other women or whatever she seemed to think if she was checking up on him.

  “I just thought . . . I’ve never been to New York.” Flora couldn’t believe how lame she sounded, like she wanted to be his girlfriend so she could go on a school trip. “So here I am!”

  “And you’re staying here?”

  Joel said it without thinking. He was very tired, at the end of a long couple of weeks, and as soon as he’d said it he could have kicked himself. He didn’t even know what he meant, but even so.

  Flora’s face went very white and very still. “I’m sorry I inconvenienced you,” she said, and she went to grab her bag and leave.

  After a second, Joel realized that she meant it and headed after her. The receptionist wished she could follow him. This had to be the end; he was absolutely furious with her. Obviously this was nothing serious. She definitely had an in.

  “Flora!” he shouted as she headed through the bustling lobby. “Come back. Sorry. I’m sorry. You just . . . you just took me by surprise that’s all. I hate surprises.”

  Flora’s voice was trembling and her eyes were full of tears. “Well, I hate being an annoying idiot, so I guess we’re even,” she said.

  “Don’t . . . I’m the idiot,” said Joel. “I am. I’m sorry. Please. Please. Come upstairs. Let’s get a drink. Let’s . . . I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “Really?” said Flora. “Well, you dealt with it very gracefully. I’m going. I can stay somewhere else and I’m flying back on Sunday.”

  “Don’t be . . . don’t be ridiculous. Come on. Please. Come on. Come upstairs.” Joel glanced around. They appeared to be making a scene, which he absolutely could not bear. “Please,” he whispered urgently under his breath.

  * * *

  All the way up in the elevator—the receptionist had huffily made up a spare key for Flora, her displeasure very clear—they were silent. Neither of them wanted to talk about what had just happened. It was as if the first—of how many?—barriers had been held up in front of them. And they had both failed, in ways that weren’t clear to either of them. And now they were like strangers.

  Flora almost unbent when she saw the suite—not one of her nobler instincts, as she would have been the first to admit. It was large, with a huge sitting room overlooking the whole of Manhattan, glowing pink in the early evening spring light: south to downtown and the new spaceship of the World Trade Center site; east to Brooklyn.

  All the furniture was cream and gray: sofas and cushions, floor-to-ceiling windows, and, oh my goodness, the terrace . . . Flora was drawn toward it. It was utterly entrancing.

  She thought of how it was exactly what she’d dreamed it might be like . . . and how she and Joel would be sitting on that terrace, laughing at how brilliantly secretive she’d been, ordering cocktails . . .

  She rubbed stubbornly at her eyes. “I’m tired,” she said. “It’s one A.M. for me. Can I go to bed, please? I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

  Joel didn’t like crying women and he didn’t like being emotionally manipulated. He’d
drawn back; she was here. That was enough, wasn’t it? Or was he going to have to feel guilty the entire evening? He was sick of feeling guilty. Feeling guilty was his default. “Fine,” he said, going over to his desk and setting down his briefcase. “Are you hungry? You can order something.”

  Flora was starving. “No, I’m fine.”

  “Good.” His fingers strayed toward the briefcase.

  “Are you . . . are you working?” said Flora.

  “I have a major conference with Colton. There’s a lot he needs done. That’s why I’m here.” His jaw was set.

  Flora looked out at the lights popping on one by one over Manhattan—an amazing, astonishing world of amazing things out there she’d never experienced—and wanted to cry even more in frustration. Everything was out there and she was going to miss it all. Again. Because she wasn’t really Joel’s girlfriend. She’d wanted to find out and now she knew. She was just his . . . what. His bed and breakfast? His country retreat?

  Ignoring him, she went to the minibar, and pulled out a vodka and tonic without looking at the prices. She dumped her coat on the back of a chair, pulled off her big sweater—she’d been absolutely stifling—pulled the bobble from her hair, then poured her drink and took it out on the balcony, letting the mild spring breeze blow away the plane and the cobwebs and the jet lag.

  Here, even twenty floors up—or perhaps especially—she could feel the city coming at her in waves. The honking of the cabs, impossibly distant below; the setting sun slanting shadows of enormous buildings, one on top of another; the width of the bouncing boulevards and avenues all heading in the same direction, unlike the little winding paths of her home; the hundreds of lighted windows across from her. She eyed roof gardens and balconies enviously; people out on fire escapes and terraces on such a mild night; parties and friends and lovers and the oddity of a life lived far more closely and intimately with each other than she knew back in Mure, but at the same time distinct and anonymous and different. It was the oddest feeling. And, she thought, with a strange sadness, anyone looking her way right then would just have seen a girl with pale hair standing by herself. She might have been local, might have known New York like the back of her hand, might have been coming here all her life.

  Flora found she quite liked this thought and, if this was to be—and here was a thought so frightening she put it to the back of her mind—but if this was to be her first and last trip ever to New York, she vowed to enjoy it. She would go and see everything tomorrow. She had thought Joel might accompany her, or take her to places he liked, but no matter. She would visit the Empire State Building, and the Guggenheim, and Ellis Island and everywhere she fancied, and she would stop in nice areas and eat at places recommended on the Internet and . . .

  Well. She needed to have a plan. She had made a mistake . . . and one, deep down, that she thought on some level she’d been making all along. He was out of her league. She was all right for what the Scots called a “bidie in”—Flora MacKenzie, sitting at home, weaving and keeping the fires burning while the man went out and did whatever it was he was going to do in the great wide world. The bigger world beyond their quiet beaches and churning tides. Out there. Without her.

  She drank her drink and tried to think calmly about it. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned. By Margo. By her friends. It hadn’t been as if she hadn’t known.

  Music drifted up to her from some bar or concert far below and she listened to it gently swaying on the warm wind, trying to feel, at least, in the moment; trying to salvage something in fact. She was in New York, and the stars were popping out at the purple edge of the skyscrapers, and as the tears rolled down her cheeks, she thought: Isn’t that something? Doesn’t that count for something? Maybe, one day, she could say: Well, once I listened to music at the very top of New York on a warm spring night, and I was young, or young-ish, and it was beautiful, and very, very sad . . . and she wondered who she might even be telling that to.

  And she didn’t hear the door slide open silently behind her, and she was unaware of anything until she felt on her bare shoulders the softest kiss, the sense of his presence behind her, and she squeezed her eyes tight shut, and when she opened them again he was still there, saying nothing, this time putting his arms right around her, sheltering her from the wind, holding her, and he leaned his head against her back, just laid it there. And she thought of an old story of her mother’s—of the sea sprites that came in the night, and you couldn’t look at them to break the spell, even though they were the most beautiful, the most extraordinary of all the fairy world, but you could not look at them in the day. Not until the sun had gone down could they reveal themselves, and if you could not help yourself, if you took even the faintest peek, then they would vanish forever into the mist and you would spend the rest of your life on the lonesome road, searching for their traces in all the world up and down but never would you find them or see them again. And that weeping and wailing was the sound the wind made through the rushes at night. So, her mother had said. Do not be afraid of the noises you hear at night. But never, ever look at a fairy if you love them.

  So Flora stood, frozen, staring out still, her heart a waterfall, not daring to move, barely daring to breathe as Joel held on to her as if his life depended on it, kissing her softly up her shoulder. She shivered, and, thinking she was cold, he took off his jacket and put it round her, until gradually, reluctantly, as the moon rose behind the buildings, she turned round to face him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lorna pulled out her pad and paper.

  “Okay,” she said. “Blood test.”

  “Check,” said Saif.

  They were sitting on the harbor wall, preparing for Saif leaving, which he was doing the following week. His replacement was the scattiest person either of them had ever met, so Saif was just privately hoping everyone avoided getting frightfully sick until he got back. And when he got back, well . . .

  “Toys?”

  “Wait and see what they like.”

  “Good call. I will tell you that as of ten past three this afternoon it was Shopkins and fidget spinners. Which means it’s now something else completely.”

  “I don’t understand what you just said.”

  “Oh, Saif, you are so in for a . . . No, it’ll be fine,” said Lorna. “New clothes.”

  “Waiting to see sizes.”

  He had shown Lorna two screengrabs from the videos. His original wallet, with photographs, had been lost to the sea a lifetime ago.

  “They are very handsome boys,” said Lorna.

  Saif had smiled. “They are.”

  “Here.” Lorna handed over a parcel. “Don’t get overexcited. And I think this will just be the start of a deluge of gifts when everyone finds out.”

  “Don’t tell them,” said Saif urgently. Lorna felt slightly uncomfortable, but didn’t say that Flora already knew.

  He looked at the parcel.

  “It’s buckets and spades,” said Lorna, indicating the Endless Beach, where the hardiest toddlers were already marching up and down busily to the waves, making dams and digging holes, despite the chill breeze. “They never go out of fashion. And you can’t live on Mure without them.”

  Saif blinked. “Thank you,” he said. He clutched the parcel. “They’re really coming,” he said. “They’re really coming.”

  “And it’s wonderful,” said Lorna gently.

  “I am as scared as I have ever been,” said Saif.

  Innes came by. He was walking freely and Hamish was carrying vast loads of boxes: supplies for the Café by the Sea. Lorna was quite impressed by the division of labor.

  “Hey!” She waved. “Hey, Innes, how’s Agot?”

  He grimaced. “She’s a fiend. Bit her entire nursery class because she doesn’t want to go to school on the mainland.”

  “Good!” shouted back Lorna. “We need her for the school roll.”

  Innes shook his head. “I’m not sure wolverines should get enrolled. Have you heard from
my gallivanting sister?”

  “Nope,” said Lorna cheerfully. “I’m taking that as a good sign.”

  She turned back to Saif as the boys marched on. “And Wellingtons,” she added when they were out of earshot. “Don’t forget Wellingtons! Buy all the Wellingtons!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Flora turned round to face him.

  “No more surprises.”

  “Thank you.”

  They stood there, frozen.

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said after a long pause. “I thought you’d want to see me.”

  “I do,” he said. “That’s why I want to . . . to get my head down, to get finished, just to work. So I can get home. That’s all I do. That’s all I care about. I thought you’d see that.”

  Flora blinked. “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But I’m not just for . . . for coming back to when you’re tired of doing other stuff.”

  Joel squinted. He really was very tired. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you go to all these amazing places and it’s all right to take me sometimes . . . You know, I’m not just a scullery maid.”

  “I never thought of you as a scullery maid. Also, what’s a scullery maid?”

  “You never take me out to nice places like this!”

  Joel screwed up his face. “I’m working fifteen-hour days in a windowless conference room fueled by American coffee, the world’s most disgusting drink. All I think of is getting through it, so I can get home to you. That’s all I think about.”

  “But I’m here.”

  “I know. And I hate it here.”

  Flora looked around. “How can you hate it here?”

  She was weak, and put up with too much, and all of those things, probably. But oh my God, here she was, under a purple New York sky with a man, the very smell of whom made her want to turn herself inside out—with so much love she felt she would die from it. It was all she wanted to do . . .