‘He’s the next call,’ said Fintan. Flora bit her lip. He’d called her first. Without Mum, he’d called her first. That meant so much.
‘He’ll be …’ She thought for a moment. ‘Well. He’ll handle it.’
‘Do you think he’ll walk me down the aisle?’
They both burst into fits of hysterical laughter.
‘Oh, Fint,’ said Flora suddenly. ‘Oh, Mum would have loved it.’
The boys fell silent on the other end of the phone.
‘Aye,’ said Fintan. ‘Reckon.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Flora. ‘Who’s going to break it to Agot? She’d better be flower girl.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Fintan. ‘Come on, come on. I’ll pick up some food from home. We’ll get the fires lit up at the Rock. Come on.’
And that is how Flora didn’t get around to phoning Joel until much, much later.
Joel hadn’t realised he’d emptied the minibar: it just suddenly was empty, and he was staring at it, slightly dumbfounded. Everything seemed very off. He tried to remember when he’d last eaten, then realised he couldn’t. He eyed a wobbly Toblerone but decided he couldn’t face it. He looked at his phone. Nothing. Nobody to call, nobody to … He looked at his computer. The words swam in front of his eyes. Christ, he was tired. He was just so damn tired. Of holding it together. Of doing well. Of needing nothing, and nobody.
And he didn’t. He didn’t need anybody. He got up, staggered to the terrace again, fell down. Perhaps he should go out. Perhaps he should see if they had any whisky downstairs. They had to have whisky, didn’t they? In Mure they served the best whisky in the world … What was it called again? Something weird and Gaelic and unpronounceable and you sat round the fire and got cosy and mixed it with a tiny bit of water and the first time Flora had bought some for him he’d mentioned ice and she’d looked utterly horrified and …
The next thing Joel knew, he was back on the balcony. Perhaps he’d blacked out for a second. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know what was happening. Only that everything was too much.
The champagne cork popped and everyone cheered, their faces bright in the evening light after the sun had made its late appearance. A huge fire still crackled in the grate – you could always do with a bit of insurance on Mure. Everyone was laughing and Fintan was sitting on Colton’s knee, occasionally glancing up at him as if in wonder that all of this had come to pass.
‘Have you got a ring?’
Fintan nodded and leaned over. Flora gasped. It was exquisite: two bands of silver, between which was a carved metal design of little cogs slotted together. ‘Like a butter churn,’ said Fintan.
Flora shook her head. It was utterly beautiful, unique and absolutely them. ‘It’s lovely.’
‘What did Joel say?’ asked Colton lazily, who was not really listening to the MacKenzies’ chatter. When they all were yapping en masse, he found the accent got thicker and became difficult to follow, but he rather liked this. He simply leaned back and let it all wash over him like birdsong – sipping whisky rather than champagne, the man he loved on his lap, the fire flickering in the fireplace, still light past nine o’clock – and felt that a happy life had nothing much more to offer.
Flora froze. You would have to have known her rather less well than her brothers not to notice. ‘Um, I haven’t …’
Innes frowned. ‘Are you two …?’
‘Sssh,’ said Fintan quickly.
‘No,’ said Flora. This was ridiculous. Of course she would phone him. They were normal people. If he was out in a bar or too busy to talk to her or …
Suddenly her heart started to race. This. This was a reckoning. She would call him. She would tell him the loveliest, happiest news that had happened to the MacKenzies in a long time. And if he was truly her boyfriend – a part of her family, her community – he would be delighted, thrilled, interested.
And if he was too busy, if he passed over it … Well. Then she would know.
She felt cold inside. But after the disastrous trip … There had to be limits. There did. She didn’t need a perfectly designed engagement ring that cost a fortune. She didn’t need a big wedding or a fancy declaration. But she needed to know where she stood. She needed to know she meant something.
She stood up, excused herself from the table, knowing full well the boys would watch her go then gossip about them. She couldn’t think about that just now.
Outside it was colder than it looked. The sun was making a full high arc of the sky, the wide light the palest yellow, almost leached of all colour; the sea, unusually, as still as a millpond as far as the eye could see, a perfect flat calm. It was an utterly ravishing evening, and up here at the Rock, with its manicured gardens and walled terraces – with its red carpet leading down to the jetty where guests would arrive by boat – the fiery torches were lit, a merry path although it was not dark at all.
The air was heavy with the scent of the last of the spring bluebells, neatly serried in rows by the Rock’s army of gardeners, the very last of the daffodils fading away.
Flora looked around, took in the beauty of the evening, terrified that everything was about to change so much and spoil and leave her. She thought of Joel, his beauty, his set face, his unexpected flashes of humour which, she now suspected, he had used all along to keep her from getting close. The sex.
Maybe. Maybe she could live like this. Maybe she could handle it. Being ignored. Undervalued. Left on her own for months on end. Waiting around for some crumbs from her lover’s table. Or maybe she couldn’t.
Joel was sitting down on the terrace when the phone rang, although he wasn’t quite sure how. He’d been standing up, hadn’t he? Trying to get cool? Or had he? Everything was quite jumbled in his brain.
At first, he didn’t realise what was making the sound; his head was full of noises and everything sounded like the scream of a phone, but it persisted and persisted then it stopped – did it? Or did he pass out? – and then it started again and then it stopped.
Flora stared out at the sea, furious. She wouldn’t leave a message. This was too important. He would see it was her on the caller display, even if he was out. He was never more than two feet from his phone, not even at night when he used it as an alarm clock. He walked about with his life in the palm of his hand, wrapped in plastic. The phone was important to him. Whether she was was a different matter.
She hung up and phoned again, hung up and phoned again, realising this was bordering on craziness but so wound up and anxious and angry she no longer cared how she seemed or came across. If he thought she was some kind of disposable, cool, non-interested girl, well … she wasn’t, and that was how it was.
She glanced back at the beautiful building of the Rock, tranquil in the evening light: the grey stone so comforting; the glories of the garden just beginning to come to fruition; the small group inside laughing convivially in the soft light. It looked so happy. She felt so on the outside looking in.
She dialled again. Dialled again. Last time, she promised herself. She would dial one last time.
Joel half-opened an eye. He felt like a shipwrecked man, clinging to a world that turned round and round and tipped him up and down again until he no longer knew which way was up. And still that persistent sound in his ears. He had to make it stop. He had to make it stop.
He grabbed the phone, which had skittered nearly to the very edge of the balcony. There was a gap between the glass protective wall and the floor. He was tempted to kick the phone over. See how it fell, first. See how it soared and twirled through the air; see if it was the right …
He squinted at it, realising he was seeing double, that he couldn’t make sense any more of the words that were there. F … l …
‘What?’
‘Joel!’
‘What is it?’
Flora was taken aback. ‘Um. Does there have to be a reason?’
‘No, of course not. Tell me … Is it nice there? Not too hot? Christ, it’s fucking hot here …’