The Endless Beach Read online

  Joel shrugged.

  “Come on,” she said, shaking herself awake suddenly. “No, I have a plan. Let’s go out.”

  She couldn’t, she knew, just let him take her to bed. That was what always happened. And it was amazing, but nothing got fixed or moved on at all.

  All Joel wanted—he so desperately wanted—was to take her to bed, tear that dress off her, lose himself in the pale beauty of her curves and her skin, then finally, blessedly, find some sleep because she was near him. Just being so close to her again was bewitching, almost made him forget his cases, his workload, the strangeness of being back in America, the pace of it all.

  “Can I take you out tomorrow?” he said.

  “Aren’t you working tomorrow?” she said, teasing.

  “I want you so much.” He pulled her very close to him on the terrace, so she could feel it.

  “Tough,” said Flora, smiling at him. “You get me into bed, I’ll fall asleep. You need to take me somewhere noisy. With dancing.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “I don’t care.”

  * * *

  But Friday night in bustling New York, with a reluctant Joel and a clueless Flora, was a mistake, to say the least. Anywhere that looked nice had a two-hour wait for a table and rude, beautiful girls on the doors, looking doubtful when they hadn’t booked, while anywhere else was full of tourists. Avoiding the ridiculously fake Irish bars that Flora absolutely had no wish to go into, they ended up in a dark oak bar full of lawyers—exactly the type of people Joel had absolutely no wish to see—and their gorgeous dates, obviously picked up from Tinder or just around and about the place. And Flora, exhausted and strung out, misjudged completely the strength of the cocktails. She drank two and ordered another at top speed and was, not to put too fine a point on it, drunk in half an hour, while Joel was not. And every time she tried to bring up the subject of the two of them, she realized she was repeating herself and not making any sense at all.

  Drunk people horrified Joel—too many memories—and he tried, gently, to convince Flora to go back to the hotel. She argued against it and told him he was a dreadful guy who didn’t really care about her at all and was never any fun, and while Joel disagreed profoundly with the first accusation, he couldn’t help seeing that she probably had a point about the second. On the other hand, they had come out to have fun and hadn’t had the slightest bit of fun at all, and now Flora was the worse for wear and he was concerned about bundling her into the elevator at the hotel in case she started yelling at him inside.

  “Need any help, sir?” said the receptionist, smiling perkily at him in what she considered to be an unthreatening way. He tried his best to smile bravely back while Flora muttered unpleasant words in Gaelic under her breath about the receptionist, and kept trying to press the down button and stumble off to the bar as Joel was doing his best to encourage her upstairs. Finally back in the room, Joel went to use the bathroom. He came back prepared for a diatribe about how dreadful he was. Instead, fully dressed, Flora was lying diagonally across the bed, fast asleep.

  Sighing, he drew the blackout curtains, gently took off her shoes, put a glass of water and two ibuprofen by her bedside, and rolled her carefully under the duvet—then, knowing sleep had no interest in coming anywhere near him that night, put on the desk light in the main room, ordered up some coffee, and returned to his files.

  * * *

  Flora woke incredibly early, woozy, with a headache and not a clue where she was in the pitch dark. She rolled over, remembered, then groaned heavily. She had messed things up ridiculously. She remembered being rude to Joel last night, yelling at him. She realized to her horror that of course he’d put her to bed. Oh God. And then . . . what? Where was he? He wasn’t in the bed. Had he left in disgust? When she hadn’t immediately gone to bed with him . . . then had gone out and rolled around like a loony. Oh God. She thought of him, all buttoned up and restrained and her wanging on like a drunken harpy. She saw the glass and the ibuprofen next to her bed, and dropped her head in her hands. Oh Christ. She had never had a worse idea in her entire life. What on earth had she been thinking? What an utter idiot she was.

  Her eyes were getting more used to the dark room and she saw the line of golden light coming from next door. She got up to use the loo and brush her teeth, then glanced through the door. He was sitting, staring at his files, hadn’t noticed she was there, and he took off his glasses and put them down for a second, and rubbed his dry eyes. He looked so young and so lost with this little gesture that Flora wanted to go to him, but she was afraid of his judgment, could not face him quite yet, she was feeling so bad, so she went back to bed and lay there in the dark, unable to sleep because of the time difference. Eventually, when he finally came to bed, she still lay there and did not move toward him, nor did he move to her, even though neither of them was sleeping, and it felt like the dawn would never come.

  Chapter Twenty

  Joel was up early the following morning to go into the office. Flora apologized and Joel said stiffly not to worry about it, it was nothing. They had still not even made love, and this was terrifying Flora because it was in that space they had together that nothing was ever wrong, and nothing was ever misunderstood; it had always felt like their bodies could talk to each other in a way that their brains could not: directly, with total honesty and utter mutual understanding. Whereas this . . . this was just a mess. And she had absolutely no idea how to fix it.

  Still feeling utterly dreadful, she made coffee and sat in front of some strange American television show, finding it odd to think that this was normal for everyone who lived there. It was going to be a beautiful day, she realized eventually, after trying to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius. And there was the city at her fingertips . . . once she felt a little better. She had a long shower, which felt like being pummeled by water, in the amazing rainforest bathroom, and that definitely helped. Then she looked through her hastily packed suitcase to see if anything was suitable. Nothing was. She could go and buy some light, pretty dresses, she thought suddenly. But when would she wear them? It wasn’t like they got many hot days on Mure, or that they’d be suitable in the Café by the Sea.

  She felt homesick, suddenly. It would be afternoon there; the trade would be coming in—the walkers, hungry for big sticky slices of millionaire’s shortbread and raisin pies and steak bridies and everything they needed to refuel; the wee old ladies down from their grocery shopping who wanted scones and cups of tea; the farmers, in for their weekly look around the bright lights of Mure Town, who would take big sides of fruitcake back home to sit on their dressers all week to be consumed with small glasses of whisky and large hunks of cheese.

  Then she told herself to stop being ridiculous; to buck up. They would fix it tonight. Definitely. Wouldn’t they?

  She looked around the sitting room, which Joel had left incredibly tidy, as was his wont. Then she opened the cupboard, where his row of suits was hanging. She found a sweater, the only thing there not freshly dry-cleaned, that still smelled of him, and buried her face in it, trying not to cry.

  Suddenly the phone rang in the suite. Flora blinked. It must be Joel! Maybe he’d be free to meet her for lunch! Maybe he’d gotten to the office and changed his mind, realized he should take a day off to spend with her! Realized he loved her even if she was a . . . well, a sloppy drunk with a loud mouth, she reflected, with another stab of agony. Oh God.

  Tentatively she picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Hello? Joel?” It was a woman’s voice. Flora bit back her inevitable disappointment and tried to ignore her growing fear.

  “Um, hi, no,” said Flora stiffly. “This is Flora. Can I take a message?”

  There was a pause. Flora’s heart was beating painfully quickly.

  “Sorry, who is this?” Flora said. She couldn’t stop thinking of that blond girl in the bathroom, or even those girls in the bar last night, what she remembered of it, the ones Joel had thought were cookie cutter, but she had thou
ght were beautiful.

  “Oh my, sorry . . . Are you Scottish?” The voice seemed older now to Flora, who was wrong-footed. “Mark!” The voice on the other end was talking to someone else now. “Mark! It’s the Scottish girl!”

  “Excuse me?” said Flora again.

  “Oh, I am so sorry,” said the woman’s voice. She sounded nice: mumsy and friendly. “We had . . . we had absolutely no idea you were in New York.”

  “He never tells us anything!” came a voice from a distance behind her.

  “I thought we’d just leave a message! Well, my dear. It is so nice to speak to you.”

  Flora blinked. If she hadn’t known . . . or thought she knew . . . she’d have thought these were his parents.

  She suddenly felt how little she really knew about this man and it chilled her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sorry,” said Flora. “Sorry if this is rude, but . . . who are you? Can I take a message?”

  “Of course . . . I’m Marsha Philippoussis and . . . Has he really never mentioned us?”

  “No,” said Flora, more and more worried.

  “Well, Mark—that’s my husband—he . . . he used to be Joel’s . . . Well, I’m not sure if I can say. We’re friends.”

  “Friends.”

  It wasn’t that Joel didn’t have friends, Flora knew. He had squash buddies and lawyer buddies in most cities in the world and everyone was always pleased to see him. But he didn’t have best friends, or intimate friends as far as she could tell. He didn’t have a friend like she had in Lorna. But then, maybe most men were like that.

  “You can tell her,” shouted the voice.

  “Oh, okay. Well, dear. Mark was Joel’s psychiatrist. When he was younger. But now we’re . . . friends.”

  “Friends who never call each other when they’re in the city!”

  Clearly Marsha and Mark were quite the double act.

  “Well . . . yes. We were hoping, since he’s in the city, we might have dinner . . . Would you like to come, dear? Tonight?”

  “Um, I don’t know what he’s got planned.”

  Marsha laughed. She remembered what Joel’s plans used to be—head for the nearest bar; pick up the most beautiful girl in the room; walk out with her. So she was very keen to meet the girl who had finally—at last—apparently tamed the odd, serious, driven boy she’d known since he was a child. She was hard to imagine; in Marsha’s head she looked like a will-o’-the-wisp: a strange, exotic, bewitching creature.

  “I’ll call his cell,” said Marsha. “It’ll be turned off, but usually if you call four or five times he’ll pick up eventually.”

  Flora wondered how relaxed she would have to be with Joel to call him four or five times in a row. She didn’t know many people who’d dare.

  * * *

  She left the hotel tentatively, relaxing instantly in the warm spring sunshine. Oh, it was glorious after the long dark months on Mure. She checked she had enough sunscreen in her handbag (island skin and hot sunshine did not normally work together too well), then, despite everything, she felt herself unfurl luxuriously as she moved between the long shadows on the busy pavement, getting in people’s way but not even caring. The first hit of sun after a long winter made, she decided, everything about a long winter totally worth it. She breathed in the hot scent of New York pavements—hot dogs, pretzels, fuel, perfume, bodegas—and loved it. She let the sun tickle the backs of her arms, felt it soak through her dress and warm her back. She wanted to lift up her hands and twirl in it, to take a bath in sunshine.

  It was hard to feel so down. Okay, last night had been . . .

  It had been awful, she couldn’t deny it. Absolutely the opposite of everything she’d hoped it would be. There had been no delighted sweeping her up in his arms. There had been no impressed head shaking at her amazing appearance. No happy astonishment and brutal kisses in the shadows of the world’s greatest buildings, him showing her round the sights, taking some time off for the weekend so they could behave like . . .

  She was honest with herself. Like a proper boyfriend and girlfriend. Not what she sometimes felt they were: shipwrecked sailors thrown together on a desert island, clinging together for sanity and safety amid the wreckage of their own hearts.

  That was not what they were, she vowed. They could do better.

  She quenched her hangover with an enormous freshly squeezed juice in a huge cup and a pepperoni pretzel—which was utterly delicious, larger than her head, and couldn’t possibly be good for her, although she did consider appropriating the recipe—then set off to walk to the Empire State Building even though she realized quite early on that walking the huge blocks of the city took rather longer than she’d expected, and that there was rather more of Broadway than any street she’d ever been on before.

  It didn’t matter though. She was so entranced by looking at everything: the people; the shop windows; the little apartments perched in the sky; the business of everything. Maybe, she thought, she even fit in. Well, at least until she got to the Empire State Building and had to join the enormous line of other tourists just like everybody else, but even so. She looked thoughtfully at her phone. What if he didn’t call her? What if she’d come all this way not to see him? She tried to think of a way to spin this to Lorna, who’d sent her several envious texts already, telling her it was pouring down rain and asking for pictures. There wasn’t one. She glanced at Fintan’s Instagram—yes, Fintan had an Insta now for when he and Colton were flying about places having an amazingly romantic time. She tried her best not to be jealous of her brother’s relationship but there seemed to be absolutely no doubt who was having all the fun now, even if he had done nothing but sit in a barn by himself making cheese in the freezing cold for three years after their mother had died.

  She sent Joel a message:

  Sorry about last night—not used to NYC drinks!!!

  She had added too many exclamation marks, then she reckoned they looked a bit desperate and took them away, then decided the message looked too downbeat so she added one and then one more and decided that a) this was definitely it and b) she was going crazy. Then she sent it and held her breath and tried not to check her phone every ten seconds while the queue inched forward.

  * * *

  “Joel! You didn’t tell us you’d brought someone to New York!”

  Marsha just launched into the conversation; she didn’t give him a chance to say anything or tell her he was too busy or use any of his usual deflection techniques. She just bulldozed over him. Normally Joel would freeze up or become rude when faced with someone behaving like this. But he didn’t mind Marsha doing it. Quite liked it even. It showed how well she knew him, deep down.

  “So this is her? This is the girl?”

  Joel thought back to Flora ranting at him on the pavement last night outside the hotel and groaned. He really didn’t want to see the look on the Philippoussises’ faces if something like that happened again. He knew they would want to meet her, but he had absolutely no idea what they were expecting. Someone more model-like, maybe? More chicly dressed? Marsha was always immaculately turned out. But that was just New York women. Would they see that there was more to Flora—that maybe she didn’t have perfectly manicured fingernails but underneath it all was a good heart and a spirit and a fire?

  And it felt private to them as a couple—something only they shared—and he didn’t feel entirely comfortable exposing that to daylight. But, he realized, it was time. He hadn’t really had conventional relationships, but this had to be one of them. This is what he would have to do. It was what Flora wanted, of course it was. And Mark and Marsha were . . . well, they were the closest thing to family he had. It would have to be done. So Marsha was extremely surprised—she had a list prepared of nine reasons as to why he should agree to bring Flora to dinner—when he said laconically, “Sure. Can I bring her to dinner?”

  Marsha was so taken aback she could hardly speak. But she rallied pretty fast. “Joel,” she said. “You are
being nice to her?”

  And the pause told them both what they needed to know.

  “Leave work,” said Marsha. “It’s a Saturday.”

  Joel looked down at the papers. Colton had loaded so much on him it wasn’t even funny. Something was up and he was being expected to handle all of it.

  “And I’ll see you later,” said Marsha, hanging up.

  ***

  Flora was on the top of the Empire State Building, looking out at one of the most iconic views in the world, doing something she had dreamed of her whole life since she’d watched Sleepless in Seattle four times in a row one weekend. And all she could do was check her phone.

  This wasn’t right, she thought to herself. These endless nerves. He was her boyfriend. Okay, he’d never said the word—but on the other hand, he’d moved hundreds of miles to a tiny dot in the middle of the North Sea to be with her. If that wasn’t commitment, what was? He could have moved and not lived with her if it was just the island he liked, couldn’t he?

  She tried to take in the stunning surroundings, the amazing ability of New York to be so strange and yet so overwhelmingly familiar at the same time; she took photos for other, happier couples and tried not to look bitter as she did; she Googled where to go for lunch, for which she got thousands and thousands of responses, and glanced down at the list of amazing-sounding restaurants and wished she felt remotely hungry.

  She was just turning round to head back when she heard a ping on her phone. Somehow she knew straightaway that it was him—for good or for bad.

  “Hello?”

  “How are you feeling?”

  Joel’s detached, amused tones made Flora shut her eyes with overwhelming relief. She had been sure that he would find an excuse to withdraw even more, upset at her drunken rantings. Instead he sounded just like normal.