Flora blinked.
‘My point is: don’t you think if we fancied each other, we’d have done something about it by now? There’s nobody else here!’
‘Well, maybe that’s it. When you’ve been through everyone in the world and there’s nobody left …’
‘Seriously?’ said Lorna.
‘He’s been single for ages! Agot and the business take up all his time.’
‘What if we got together and broke up and you had to take sides?’
‘I’d take yours,’ said Flora. ‘I’ve got loads of other brothers.’ Lorna smiled. ‘Oh, come on, are you telling me you find him disgusting?’
‘I’ve just never thought of him that way,’ said Lorna. Innes had been the heart-throb at school but she’d always spent so much time with Flora he’d just been the guy who’d teased her and called her Freckles and touched her plaits. She hadn’t liked it one bit. But there was no doubt he was pretty much the pick of what was on offer.
‘Plus it’d be weird,’ she said. ‘Agot will be coming up soon.’
Flora shook her head. ‘She’ll go on the mainland with her mother.’
‘Are you sure? She’s here a lot.’
‘I know,’ said Flora fondly. ‘I will miss the little wildebeest.’ She glanced at Lorna. ‘Of course, if you snared her father …’
‘Stop it, you big weirdo!’
‘I just want someone to be happy! Except for Fintan and Colton: they’re too happy.’
‘So you want people to be happy but only to a certain Flora-acceptable extent?’
‘This is why I will never run for parliament. Inge-Britt! Tell me what you do for men!’
‘Are you stupid?’ said Inge-Britt. ‘What about the nuclear submarine out in the loch?’
‘The what?’ Lorna and Flora both said at the same time.
‘Whoops!’ said Inge-Britt serenely. ‘I forget it’s top secret.’ She picked up the empty glasses. ‘Those Russian sailors,’ she whispered. ‘Wowza.’
And she sashayed off, leaving Flora and Lorna looking after her in confusion and not a little envy.
Chapter Forty-six
Joel squinted through his glasses as he and Mark took their constitutional. After the first day, they never spoke about Joel’s health again. They spoke about books they’d read or baseball. Not a single thing that touched on what was happening or the future, what Joel would do or where he would go. Mark felt he had to decompress the boy within the man, and give him enough breathing space to figure out what to do after that. He was well aware this was a rich man’s cure. He was equally well aware that he and Marsha both blamed themselves for not taking the boy in when he was young and raising him as their own. They should have done. If he wasn’t having such a nice time, this would have felt like penance.
Up on one side of the fell on a bright breezy day, they came across a group setting up tents. Joel remembered the name in time. Charlie: Flora’s ex, the one he’d met before. He was with a grumpy-looking woman with short hair and a large collection of young boys. He looked at them curiously. They were unkempt, many of them, with razor-short hair done cheaply and quickly; bitten fingernails and missing teeth and surly expressions.
Joel recognised them with a start. The hand-me-down T-shirts from goodwill stores. The slightly aggressive stance in children who had been just as likely to receive a blow as a kiss. A belligerent look on their faces that said that they didn’t care what you were going to say to them; they’d heard worse. He looked at Mark, and Mark understood wordlessly and nodded at him to go forward.
Joel had heard Flora mention Charlie’s work of course, and something about a wedding, but he had been in full work mode then and not paid attention. No. He was trying to be more honest with himself: he had heard perfectly well, but hadn’t wanted to listen. Other lost boys were not his concern, and he’d suffered just as badly at the hands of other foster children as he had in other homes; they jeered at him for his bookish ways. There was always that ongoing sense of competition between them: who would get adopted? Who was getting too old to be charming?
Now it was as if he was seeing them for the first time, as he stood, alone in the world, scowling at it, just as the boys did.
Charlie smiled, his wide-open, uncomplicated face simply friendly and welcoming, and Joel suddenly wished savagely that Flora had married him after all so at least one of them could be happy. If she’d married him, he wouldn’t have to worry about her any more, could be sad by himself.
‘Morning!’ said Charlie. ‘Say hello to Mr Binder, everyone.’
‘He-lloww, Misterr Binder,’ chorused the boys sullenly.
Charlie came close. ‘I heard … I heard you’d been having a tough time of it.’
Joel shrugged. ‘Honestly, it’s nothing. I’m fine. Bit of overreacting.’
‘Um, right,’ said Charlie, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. ‘I must have got the wrong end of the stick.’
Joel could feel Mark looking at him, and took a deep breath.
‘No,’ he said. ‘In fact, you didn’t. I have been finding things pretty rough. Thanks for asking.’ Mark beamed approvingly. ‘This is my friend, Dr Philippoussis.’
The fierce-looking woman marched up. ‘Who’s this?’ she barked.
‘Um, this is Joel and Dr …’ Charlie was not used to Greek names and rather let it peter out. ‘And this is my … uh, my wife, Jan.’
Jan looked him up and down.
‘You’re Flora’s American,’ she announced. ‘I thought you’d have had a bit more meat on your bones. Like my Charlie,’ she said smugly. Joel remembered now that Flora didn’t like her, which was puzzling, as Flora generally liked everyone, like a Labrador. But he was beginning to see her point.
‘Are you off?’ she said. ‘You’re on mental health leave, aren’t you?’ She could not have picked a worse term. Joel’s face tightened. ‘Excellent! We can use you round here. Get your DBS check, and come and join us. Here, I’ll drop the forms in.’
‘Excuse me, what?’
‘We need volunteers! We always need volunteers! Come and help us with the boys.’
‘Oh, no, I … I don’t think so.’
Mark coughed meaningfully.
‘Everyone else on this island has two jobs. You have none. Seems about right, don’t you think? Don’t worry; we won’t make you do anything mentally taxing or stressful. Just put up some tents and cook some sausages.’
‘I don’t think it would be appropriate.’
‘Or maybe it’s your moral imperative,’ said Jan in that direct way of hers that brooked no argument.
‘This is Joel, who’s going to come and help out,’ she announced to the boys, all of whom cheered.
‘Oh, I really don’t … I really don’t …’
‘I’ll drop the forms in to the Rock. Bye!’
Jan marched on. Charlie looked at Joel apologetically.
‘Is she always like this?’ Joel couldn’t help asking.
‘She gets stuff done,’ said Charlie.
‘I like her,’ said Mark, rubbing his beard.
Chapter Forty-seven
‘Do you know who fancies you madly?’
Flora was in one of those moods when she got home, and she’d had another gin and tonic. She was meant to be cooking for all the family but it wasn’t working too well. Hamish was off again in his ridiculous sports car, it being a Friday night, and her father had decided that if she was to come up to the house smelling of gin in a way that would make her mother’s eyes roll in her head (it would not have done this), then he was going to have a whisky.
Innes had just arrived, Agot marching ahead. It was true, Flora thought, a little fuzzily. Agot was here a lot more now. She realised Eilidh was busy with her full-time job on the mainland and Innes being his own boss made it easier for him to have her around – plus she’d been raised on the farm, and Mure was the kind of place where everyone kept an eye on everyone else’s children. Even so.
‘I BORED,’ announced Agot. ‘I WAN SISTER.’
‘You’ve got me,’ said Flora ingratiatingly. Agot looked her up and down.
‘YOU ATTI,’ she said crossly. ‘AND YOU OLD ALSO.’
‘Also’ was Agot’s new word. Flora wasn’t sure she approved.
‘Agot,’ said Innes. ‘Behave.’