Fintan looked at him. ‘How can you be so calm? This is the worst day of my life.’
Colton cradled his head to him closely once more. ‘It can’t be,’ he said quietly. ‘Because it’s the happiest of mine. And from now on, every day has to count.’
Chapter Sixty-five
Joel had backed away, but Flora followed him.
‘What have you done?’ she said, her voice icy. ‘What have you done to us?’
‘I was following his wishes. Someone would have had to have done it.’
‘So what exactly is the stupid fucking plan? What?’
‘Well, he didn’t want anyone to know.’
‘For fuck’s sake! He’s going to die? But there must be treatments … new experimental stuff they let you have if you’re very rich?’
‘Apparently nothing that’ll work longer than a couple of months. And he said he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want to go to hospital. He wants to manage it at home, fly anyone in he needs to. Sit by the beach, watch the tide go out. Here. Home.’
‘Oh God,’ said Flora, her voice cracking. ‘Poor, poor Fintan.’
‘Poor everyone,’ said Joel, staring at the floor.
Flora looked at his exhausted face, the stress the last few months had put on him, carrying all of this around, and could have wept for him. ‘You’ve carried this around all this time? You made me think it was all my fault!’
Joel was bamboozled. ‘How could it have been your fault?’
She turned and walked away. She glanced around at the remains of the feast, of the washing-up the boys had done so diligently, but still there remained half-eaten crumbling pieces of cake, birds on the grass looking for crumbs, everything falling and decaying away.
Outside it was growing dark. Finally, the light summer nights were beginning to come to an end, reminding her that the long dark winter was coming, when the sun never rose at all, and everything was collapsing around her – and would get worse and worse.
She walked slowly back towards Fintan and Colton, still entwined in one another down by the water’s edge, even as the sun was setting and the stars were starting to appear behind their heads. As she did, a little figure moved towards her.
‘UNCO FINTAN SAD?’
Flora turned round. Oh my goodness, why was Agot still here? Everyone was meant to be at the Harbour’s Rest; Agot must have run back on her own. She was such a minx.
‘I’S HELPING!’
And she ran towards the two figures, her white hair streaming out behind her, and clambered up onto them, pushing her way in, surprisingly strong for such a tiny girl, until she was sitting between them.
Both of them immediately closed their arms around her too, making a trio, and as she saw that, Flora started to run, and knelt down next to them and added her own arms, and Innes and Hamish did too, and Flora got up and grabbed her father, who was still confused, and they all stuck together like glue. Joel saw them there, and he turned around and began to walk away. Flora’s head went up and she saw him, once more out on his own – once more alone of his own choosing, even in the very depths.
Chapter Sixty-six
Joel walked through the darkening night, down the path from the Rock towards the Endless. It grew cold, but he didn’t care. Somehow, blundering around in the dark summed things up better than he could have predicted. Creatures scattered at his approach, as if he were some kind of incoming monster, and he pushed his way on through, completely and utterly unable to work out how his life had become such a mess.
He looked down the long stretch of pale sand, glinting now under the full moon rising.
Then suddenly at the end of the beach he saw something sparkling. And, simultaneously, out at sea, he heard a great thudding noise and saw a huge head tilt out of the water; it was unimaginably vast, a truly extraordinary-looking thing, with – Joel squinted – was that a horn? Did it have a horn on its nose? Like a unicorn?
Almost convinced he was dreaming, Joel moved forward to where most of the town was standing, watching the beast as it moved irrevocably closer to the shore.
‘It’s going to beach itself!’ someone yelled from further down the beach, closer to the Harbour’s Rest. Joel looked at the poor creature, thrashing desperately about in the sea.
‘No!’ he said. He took out his phone and falteringly googled what to do about a beaching whale. For once the internet held, and he read, blinking, that you could lure a whale off a beach with fire. He glanced around to Inge-Britt, who had come up to see what was going on.
‘Have you got anything we could set on fire?’ he shouted. Then instantly he realised and turned around, running.
‘Come with me!’ he shouted to the group of Charlie’s boys who were also clustered by the waves, watching intently. They ran towards him instantly, and they all rounded the head of the beach in a tearing hurry.
‘The torches!’
Of course, all the torches were set up at the Rock, lining the steps between the jetty and the building.
‘CAREFUL!’
They grabbed as many as they were able, and Joel shouted for them to be handed over to the grown-ups (although a couple of the older boys demurred and followed him anyway), and, without thinking, he ran headlong into the sea, waving madly.
The creature was coming closer and closer as more and more of the islanders ran into the sea. It felt like the entire town was there now. One of the boys, who had done some fairly excellent cat burglary back in the city, had found the gardener’s hut where the torches were stored and had broken more of them out.
This alerted everyone at the Rock. There was a good view from there, up high.
Colton and Fintan were still sitting there with Agot between them. Now she wriggled out from underneath them and began dancing excitedly on the grass, shouting, ‘ALLO, WHALE! ALLO! DOAN GO, WHALE!’
The entire town now waded in deep, under the starry sky, frantically waving their flaming torches in the air, moving closer, shouting furiously at the huge beast who tossed and turned this way and that.
Flora moved down towards the waves, worried someone might get hurt. And then, and only then, did she see the person who was furthest out and deepest in, waving his torch so desperately in the air.
A quietness stole over her. It was a sense she had always had when close to the creatures of her island: the island of her ancestors, deep back into Viking lore and further even, back to the myths and dreams of selkies, and the people who came from the sea. It was a sense that this was something she understood.
She kicked off her shoes and walked slowly down to the water’s edge. The people with torches – she didn’t take one – parted to let her through. Fintan sat up to watch, wiping his eyes. The water was freezing but she didn’t notice or mind; the waves parted for her as she left the land behind; the noise of everyone screaming and shouting was drifting away and still she walked deeper and deeper into the water, feeling the cares of the island fade behind her, feeling the fear and panic of the huge animal even closer as she moved through the waves, her thin dress streaming behind her, her hair wet.
Finally, she was shoulder to shoulder with Joel, who looked at her, incredulous, but didn’t say anything, just held his torch as high as he could.
‘Don’t say anything,’ she said.
‘My beautiful selkie girl.’
‘I only wanted to be your girl, Joel.’