‘AGOT NOT BEHAVE ALSO.’
Flora deftly cut her a piece of the new bread and spread it thickly with butter. ‘I think Robot Wars is on,’ she said optimistically. Robot Wars was Agot’s new favourite show as she now felt Peppa Pig was for unsophisticated babies.
‘KILLBOT LIVES!’ shouted Agot, marching into the underused front room to turn on the old television set. Innes watched her go.
‘So anyway, back to this person who fancies you madly,’ said Flora, chopping onions for curry, which her father disapproved of. She thought about adding extra chillies, then thought of an evening of Agot complaining and decided against it.
‘Who?’ said Innes, with a puzzled look. It was true: in his youth he’d been through half the island. ‘I mean, someone I don’t “know”?’
Flora smiled annoyingly.
‘Stop being annoying.’
‘Flora being annoying?’ said Fintan, coming through the door wearing a new, incredibly expensive-looking man bag, which he placed reverently down on one of the ancient threadbare armchairs. ‘That doesn’t sound like her, except for every day.’
‘Shut up, Fintan,’ said Flora, kissing him on the cheek.
‘Oh God, hark at the metropolitans,’ said Innes, rolling his eyes.
‘Someone fancies Innes, and he’s so old now he’s forgotten what it’s like,’ said Flora, embracing Colton who’d come in just behind. He was looking tired, but was clutching a bottle of wine a client had given him as a parting gift that they would drink that evening without checking the label – and none of them would ever find out that it was an incredibly rare vintage worth approximately ￡8,000.
‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ said Colton.
‘HEY!’ shouted Fintan, batting him on the lapels.
‘What? I’m being gentlemanly. You don’t want me to say, Christ, your family look like raccoons.’
‘I want you to say everyone in the world looks like a raccoon next to me,’ said Fintan, mock-crossly, then they kissed and everyone rolled their eyes.
‘Stop it!’ said Flora. ‘Or I’m cancelling your party.’
‘A lady fancying Innes,’ said Fintan. ‘How strange and unusual.’
He came over, tasted Flora’s curry sauce and stuck a heap of extra chilli in it. She hit him on the hand with a wooden spoon.
‘Who is it? Mrs Kennedy? Apparently she can take out her false teeth.’
‘Shut up, Fintan,’ said Innes.
‘Well, you are getting on a bit. Mrs McCreedie? If you like a sheepskin bootee, she’s the one for you.’
‘Actually,’ said Flora. ‘It’s someone you know very well.’
Innes grimaced. ‘It’s not one of your crazy friends from the mainland again, is it?’ he said. ‘They’re all completely weird and they talk total shit and have stupid hair.’
‘I think what you mean there is they’re contemporary and fashionable,’ said Flora.
Innes snorted. ‘Aye, that’ll be right.’
‘Fine,’ said Flora. ‘Don’t find out.’
‘Just invite her to the barbecue,’ said Fintan. ‘And we can spot her then.’
Chapter Forty-eight
‘Are you sure you’re really going to throw an actual barbecue for the party? I don’t know anyone who even has one.’
There was a superstition on Mure and indeed many of the islands that to buy anything deliberately intended for outdoor use was simply tempting fate: storms, power cuts and torrential rain. If you wanted to barbecue something, you could use bricks and an old grill like everybody else; you were mad to try something different. It was arrogance that would simply invoke the wrath of the gods.
‘Colton’s bringing one over. Apparently he has a top-of-the-range, blah, blah …’
‘Colton is bringing a barbecue to your house?’ Lorna frowned. ‘Why don’t you just go to Colton’s? And he’s got flunkies and things.’
Flora shrugged and Lorna remembered that Joel was up there, and changed the subject. ‘It will hose it down.’
‘It might not.’
‘You’re planning something for two days away. You’re a crazy person.’
‘I know,’ said Flora. ‘But on the other hand … Come to the barbecue. Toast the happy couple. Have a couple of beers. Stand close to Innes. Eat a sausage in a suggestive manner.’
‘Flora!’
Lorna couldn’t deny it though. She was so lonely. The idea of dressing up nicely to go and do something glamorous … Well, not glamorous, but something …
‘What were you going to be doing?’ asked Flora annoyingly.
‘Bundle up in my raincoat, watching the rain pound against the windows,’ said Lorna. ‘That is exactly what I’m going to be doing.’
‘See you there,’ said Flora. ‘Wear something sexy.’
‘My pink fleece or my brown fleece?’
‘Just make sure you’ve unzipped the top bit as far down as you can.’
‘To reveal my other fleece underneath?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Don’t let me stop you going,’ said Joel.
‘You’re not going? I know I said you should be careful of Flora, but this is a big event.’
‘I said I’d help out with the boys today.’
Joel couldn’t face seeing Colton and Fintan so happy. He just couldn’t.
Mark frowned. ‘And what might Flora say to that?’
Joel shrugged.
‘Don’t you think you should tell her?’ Mark’s tone was gentle, but firm. ‘I think you’ve had enough time apart now. Don’t make her wait for you, Joel, if you can’t be there.’
Joel knew he wasn’t just talking about the barbecue.
Saif was just so damned tired. All the time. It was just one thing after another. He hadn’t really thought about how much Amena and his mother had done for the children at home; hadn’t really appreciated how much they’d tended to their needs while he’d at first gone to work, then later worked hard constantly on figuring out how to get them away and to safety. He thought of those long days in the market square; the low voices and misinformation; the selling of everything they had to sell. The planning and the fear.
But it was the day-to-day stuff he couldn’t figure out now. He’d thought he was prepared for the mental anguish, the pain and the difficulty. He wasn’t at all prepared for Ash sitting on the corner of his bed, refusing to get up and instead pulling the Velcro on his tiny trainers to and fro, every noise like a wire brush on Saif’s brain, no matter how often he told him to stop, or threatened to take the trainers away. Which he couldn’t, of course: Ash’s huge eyes would fill with tears, and the idea of depriving him of anything, or making him unhappy in any way at all suddenly seemed utterly unbearable.
So they would start over. And he also faced an internal battle about tearing Ibrahim away from his iPad, when it was the only thing he wanted to do … He had succeeded, though, in switching it to English, which was something, he supposed. But every day he approached the school hoping for better news, and every day Lorna was too kind to tell him that he would have to stop carrying Ash everywhere, for everyone’s sake, and that the boys still weren’t accepting Ibrahim, who lashed out when anyone went anywhere near him, and how she wished she knew what to do, she really did, and it must only be time, mustn’t it?
The Thursday before the barbecue was a glorious evening and Saif decided to walk the boys down to the harbour front and buy them some chips and Irn-Bru. He couldn’t personally stomach Irn-Bru, even without knowing what was in it, but he understood that it was part of Scottish religion, and respected that. Hot vinegary chips, though, reminded him of the spiced fried potatoes they used to get at home, and he had developed a fondness for them and wanted to introduce the boys. Ibrahim mooched down the hill, looking as if going for a treat on a beautiful day was the single worst thing that could possibly happen to him.