Joel paced the suite, trying to distract himself. Something occurred to him – something that, even if he had screwed everything up, even if he had to move, he could do. One useful thing.
The country may be different, the context might be strange, but there was one thing that nobody knew more about than Joel: child services.
He reopened the laptop.
Dear Saif,
I just wanted you to know I have heard your wonderful news, and would be delighted to represent you, pro bono, for anything that may lie ahead.
Chapter Twenty-six
Sometimes a good night’s sleep can solve everything. Sometimes you get two seconds before you realise that, no, everything is still pretty rubbish. Flora blinked at the ceiling and sighed. She hadn’t called Joel. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know how she felt or where she was going to go, or where they were. She stared at the ceiling. Oh yes. And she had a wedding to prep for that she’d completely ignored while dashing off to the other side of the world.
The wind was coming in off the sea but it was salty and fresh and helped get the jet-lag cobwebs out of her brain as she opened up the kitchen door and let the dogs out, their huge tails wagging cheerfully in the morning light. She headed into the kitchen. ‘Ta-da!’ said Fintan. He held up some freshly made sausages in a paper packet. ‘Haggis and herb.’
‘That sounds gross.’
‘And that is where you are wrong,’ he said, turning up the Aga. ‘Just you wait. These will cure all ills.’
Flora smiled sadly. ‘How’s Colton this morning?’
Fintan’s face lit up. ‘He’s great! He’s in LA shouting at shareholders. If it wasn’t for this stupid wedding I’d be there too.’
Flora smiled. ‘Ah, good.’
Fintan leaned over. ‘If he’s not making you happy …’
‘Don’t start,’ said Flora. ‘I can’t think about it just now.’
‘That means you’ll just stay in the same place for ever, if he thinks doing this kind of thing is okay.’
‘I know,’ said Flora. ‘I do know that. It’s just … I met his psychiatrist.’
‘He took you to meet his psychiatrist?’
‘It’s an unusual situation.’
‘Does he have literally no friends? Did he have to pay him?’
‘It’s not like that,’ said Flora, going pink. She had never mentioned Joel’s past to anyone, which was difficult, as it made it harder to excuse him. ‘He’s had a rough time of it.’
Fintan paused and turned the sausages, which were spattering in the pan. ‘He’s a rich, handsome lawyer who can travel the world.’
‘Rich, handsome lawyers have problems too.’
Fintan looked at his sister. ‘I think …’ he said slowly. ‘I just think … he should be treating you like a princess.’
Flora smiled. ‘Cinder-bloody-ella, you mean. The jobs list for tomorrow is insane.’
‘I know,’ said Fintan. ‘Isn’t it brilliant?’
Charlie and Jan’s wedding was booked in the ancient chapel that overlooked the headland, the lines of ancient graves standing sentinel against the waves. It was old – old old. By the time the missionaries had arrived, there had already been people living on Mure for thousands of years. Conversion had been swift – too swift, some said. The people had accepted the new religion, but had never quite forgotten the old, layered stories of sea gods, of seals and of Viking gods and princes in ice towers that were brought over the cold sea and told down the generations round the fire and out of earshot of the minister.
The reception was to be in the Harbour’s Rest, slightly to Flora’s surprise – she had expected a marquee in Jan’s rich parents’ garden, rather than the old, slightly slovenly hotel on the edge of town. Still, it would be handy that you could just leave when you’d had enough rather than waiting for the entire town to go, and the Rock of course still wasn’t open. There was a guest list, obviously, but it was accepted that locals – and particularly the town’s elderly residents – might well just turn up anyway at the church, weddings being rare on Mure in their small community (although outsiders came to get married there all the time for the picturesque backdrop and as a bit of one-upmanship, wedding-style, in terms of how complex they could make getting there for their guests). These extra guests would probably tag along to the reception too, so Jan had requested a buffet rather than a sit-down, and a reasonable limit on the cash bar.
But for the food, she wanted everything. Flora cursed her, under her breath, and tried to think of the money as she rolled out hundreds of individual sausage rolls; miniature scones, all light fluffy and perfect, to be served with local cream and bramble jam; tiny immaculate simnel cakes; pies of every description; jellies and possets, even though Flora had had to dig deep into her mother’s recipe book even to find out what they were. But not the wedding cake, of course, Jan had said smugly. That would be sent over from the mainland, the implication being that of course they wouldn’t entrust Flora with the really important stuff … Flora had just smiled and bitten her tongue and said that was fine.
There was – she could not fail to admit – a tiny bit of her thinking: what if?
Could it have been her waking up this bright and breezy spring morning, not with a sense of dread, but with a secure sense of happiness? Knowing that she was going to marry a handsome, kind, upstanding man with whom she could build a life, straightforwardly and happily? With whom she could raise children who would speak Gaelic and English and who would go to Lorna’s school? Seeing each other every day; working reasonable hours …?
A very simple kind of happiness … That had been offered. But Charlie had seen the doubt in her eyes, the way her head turned whenever that damned impossible American had entered the room; he had seen it and known it and left her alone. She was doomed – never to have a simple, happy life like everyone else.
Flora felt incredibly sorry for herself – even as she fired up soda bread to be served with plenty of butter and island whisky, smoked salmon and local roe, and iced ginger buns that popped in the mouth with crème patissière squirting out, and endless eclairs, as Isla and Iona cut cucumber sandwiches in the back kitchen with the radio turned up loud and talked about what boys they hoped were going to show up and how short they could wear the black skirts Jan had requested.
By eleven o’clock, however, when the ceremony was going on – she didn’t know if Jan thought she might have tried to crash it – she surveyed the room in pleasure. The carpet was faded (and a little dusty around the edges) and the ceiling was still tobacco-stained after all these years, but the long tables were absolutely stuffed and groaning with food around the centrepiece of a cake (which was very plain and unadorned and nothing Flora couldn’t have knocked up in the Seaside Kitchen). There were heavy jugs of cream, two sides of locally smoked salmon and little hot bowls of Cullen skink, and it really was quite beautiful.
Flora allowed herself a little smile. So … A bride she was not. But she was definitely edging closer to being able to call herself a cook. Fintan stuck his head round the door, and gave her two thumbs-up.
They heard the wedding party before they saw it; it was a lovely bright and windy shining day and there were no wedding cars on Mure, unless you wanted to put flowers on a Land Rover (and some people did), so the entire party simply walked down the main street, to shouts and congratulations from holidaymakers and passers-by, delighted to find themselves in the middle of a wedding procession, as the bells rang out from the church. Flora steeled herself a little. This was Jan’s day, and there weren’t many people who didn’t know that she and Charlie had had something of a flirtation the previous summer. She wished just for once that Joel could be by her side for something that mattered to her. Fintan, as if he could sense this, moved closer to her and squeezed her arm. He also dusted off some of the flour that had fallen on her apron and in her hair.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Fintan. ‘You have nothing to feel bad about.’