He took the binoculars back, looping them around his strong wrists. “Just for fun. For happiness, you might say.”
“Jumping for joy,” she said, eyes fixed on the water.
“Aye. Never understood why people are always so keen on swimming with them, though. Must be horrible for the poor beasties. They’re intelligent creatures.”
Annie nodded so vigorously her hat almost fell off. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“Oh, God. Why do you all look so happy? Oh, God. This is horrendous.” George stumbled past, ashen-faced, and puked loudly over the side. His orange life jacket clashed horribly with his gray face.
“These Londoners,” Dr. Max said, shaking his head. “No sea legs.”
“I’m fine,” Annie pointed out, conveniently forgetting that it had taken her half an hour to go near the side of the boat.
“Aye, well, maybe you’re special.” He said it offhandedly, and then moved over to Polly, who was sitting on a deck chair, all wrapped up in coats and blankets. “Don’t let yourself get cold now, hear? It could be catastrophic.”
God, Annie liked the way he said it. Catttasstroooophic. She looked out at the sea, spotting the dolphins again and the larger slow flick of the whale’s tail. There was no way to tell from the gray choppy surface anything was there, but she knew that beneath them the sea teemed with life, and the dolphins were so happy about it they couldn’t stay put in the water a second longer.
DAY 57
Eat something different
“What is in this haggis?” Costas was staring at his plate, prodding at the mass on it. It did resemble a tumor or something, Annie thought, underneath its translucent skin.
“It’s just lamb,” Dr. Max said, hefting another one over with an oven glove, and sticking it on Annie’s plate. Buster was sniffing about at their feet, driven wild by the smell of meat. “You eat a lot of lamb in Greece, right?”
“Don’t listen to him, Costas,” George said, grimacing. “It’s sheep stomach.”
“Stomach?” Costas’s eyes went round. “Maybe I will just eat these potatoes here.”
“Haggis, neeps and tatties,” said Dr. Max. “National dish of Scotland. Just try a wee bit, you’ll love it.”
Polly was already scarfing hers. “I’ll eat anything, me. Life’s too short to turn your nose up.”
“I once ate a live grub,” Dr. Max said cheerfully. In fact, he’d been cheerful the whole time they were in Scotland, Annie realized. Perhaps it was London that made him grumpy. “I was on a placement year in Brazil. Tasted like coconut.”
“Bleurgh.” George mimed retching. “I love you, really, Dr. Max, but is there a pizza delivery place around here?”
“Not for fifty miles. Just try it. Annie?” He held up a gravy boat filled with creamy whiskey sauce. He was wearing his mother’s flowery pinny, and his hair was even more disheveled than usual from the heat of the kitchen.
“I didn’t know you could cook.” She pushed her plate over. Maybe it would disguise the taste of the sheep stomach. “Thought you lived exclusively off Twixes.”
“Och, aye, lots of surgeons cook. Good hands, see.”
Annie studiously did not look at Polly.
“I suppose you’re used to seeing the insides of bodies,” George muttered, poking at his haggis.
Polly tapped his plate. “Eat it! Don’t be rude.”
Annie poked at hers. He was watching her. “Go on. It’s honestly delicious. My favorite food.”
Annie cut into the skin of her haggis, and out tumbled black mulch, a bit like potting compost. Gingerly, she took a tiny forkful to her lips. Her mouth was filled with a rich, meaty, spicy taste. “It’s really nice!”
“Told you. Try it with the whiskey sauce. I used ten-year-old Lagavulin for that.”
“Maybe I can just have toast,” George said with quavering self-pity.
Dr. Max relented. “That one’s vegetarian haggis. Also verra tasty. Not been near a stomach. Promise.”
Eventually they all ate theirs, and drank their whiskey, either neat or in whiskey sours, which made Dr. Max curse and mutter under his breath about them being a pack of philistines, and Edna, his mother, a tiny lady with a helmet of blue-rinse curls, came to say good-night (her bedtime was 9:00 p.m., no exceptions). She was buttoned up to the neck in a pink quilted dressing gown, as—no surprise—it was absolutely freezing outside the kitchen. “Och, did you enjoy your haggis?”
“Delicious,” George said, smiling broadly. Maybe he would make it as an actor, after all, Annie thought. “Are you off to bed, Mrs. F?”
“Oh, aye, verra late for me to be up. Your beds are all made up and I’ve put in a wee hot water bottle. Are you laddies okay bunking in together, aye?” She said the last to Costas and George, and Polly winked at Annie across the table.
“You didn’t need to do that, Mrs. F,” said George. “We don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” said Edna. “Stay put and have a wee dram. Maximilian never brings any friends here. It does my heart good to see you all.”
*
“Everyone gone up?” said Dr. Max. He and Annie had just washed the dishes, listening to the radio in comfortable silence. He sang along when songs he liked came on. The Eagles. Smokey Robinson. Even ABBA, surprisingly. “Say nothing,” he told her when she’d raised her eyebrows at that. “Maybe they’re not so bad, after all.” Now they were done, and back in the living room. Buster had fallen asleep in front of the fire, his paws twitching as he chased dream rabbits.
“Polly’s in the bathroom, I think.” George and Costas had said something about “looking for the northern lights,” and disappeared off. Annie was sleeping in the living room on the sofa bed. She’d planned to sit by the fire, nursing the whiskey. She thought she might be acquiring the taste for it everyone went on about, for the warming afterglow and the peaty smell that reminded her of heather and streams on a spring day.
He waved a hand at the sofa he’d sat down on. “Is this okay? I realize I’m in your bed right now.”
Annie hoped her blush would be disguised as heat from the flames. “It’s fine. Just enjoying my drink.”
After a few moments, he hunkered down by the fire, stirring it with the poker so the orange center of it flamed up. The smell of peat was the same as Annie’s whiskey, warm and clean somehow, like fresh air and earth and the outside. She could see the top of his head, where his untamed hair was starting to thin a little. He’d be bald when he was older, she thought to herself. Not yet, not till he was fifty or so. He’d age well, his beard graying and... She stopped herself from imagining anything more. “I’m glad you like it,” he said. “I mean, not just the whiskey but Scotland in general. You do, don’t you?”
“Of course. I can’t believe I never came before. It’s so beautiful.”
“I always think more clearly up here. In London everything seems so loud. Not just the streets but even my thoughts, my head. Here I can just...be quiet.”