“Sorry, Elsie,” Tay says. “Get home and warm up, eh?” He smiles, and I feel a hot rush of blood. Already, I forgive him.
Danny drives smoothly and slowly, both hands on the steering wheel. He’s like an older, stronger version of Dillon, with a long neck and blond stubble on his chin. He even sounds like Dillon as he lectures me.
“You could’ve got yourself into some serious trouble.”
“I’m fine.”
“Look, I don’t think you should come back to the harbor. I’m guessing your parents wouldn’t be too happy if they knew you were jumping into the sea.”
“Well, they don’t have to know about it, do they?” I say.
He purses his lips. “It’s hard to keep secrets around here.”
It sounds like a threat. I run my hand through my frizzing-up hair in a way that I hope shows him I’m not bothered by empty threats. It’s not like he would have the guts to turn up at my house and tell my parents that he let me jump off the harbor wall into ice-cold, life-sucking water, right?
“Why have I not seen you around before?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “Maybe you just weren’t looking.”
“You didn’t go to school here?”
“Inverness. I lived with my mum before but spent most weekends here. Only moved to the Black Isle when my dad decided to open the diving club.”
When we pull up outside the house, he stares at our front gate for a while. Then he unbuckles my seat belt for me and reaches right over me to open the car door. It makes me feel claustrophobic. He stares at me as I gather the strength to move.
“Stay away from the harbor, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
My eyes feel heavy and I fight sleep. I don’t tell him that for a few seconds down there, for the first time in five years, I stopped feeling any pain at all.
COLIN: What did one tide say to the other tide?
CELIA: I don’t know, what did one tide say to the other?
COLIN: Nothing. It just waved.
1
I PAINT MY MOTHER’S NAILS MOCHA TO MATCH MINE. We sit at the kitchen table, both glancing at the window, waiting for my father to come home from his Saturday meeting. Lots of people want to discuss loans on Saturdays, but I’m pretty sure most banks close at two p.m., and it’s already five. Beads of sweat break out on Mum’s forehead every now and then. I’m still feeling hot and cold after idiotically hurling myself into the North Sea.
“Who was that guy?” Mum asks, staring at the spot where Danny’s car had been earlier. “Your boyfriend?”
“Just a friend.”
She snaps her head to me. “I don’t think you should hang around with him. He’s too old for you. It’s odd that he would want to hang around with someone your age—I don’t trust him.”
“He’s eighteen, same as Dillon.”
But she’s right. There’s something suspicious about him, and he knows too much. My throat feels itchy just thinking about him.
Mum blows on her fingers and then reaches under the sink for the bottle of Bombay Sapphire. It’s half empty, and I know she only bought it two days ago. She glugs it straight from the bottle, and when she finally puts it back down, her eyes water but there is a serene look on her face.
“Go on, have some,” she says. “You seem as miserable as me, sometimes. Let’s not let those boys get to us.” She takes another gulp and slams the bottle on the table in front of me.
“I thought everything was okay with you and Dad.”
“Never assume,” she says. “Never think that everything’s okay.”
The gin makes me retch after the first sip. She throws her head back, laughing, and says, “It’s a bit of an acquired taste.”
I want to acquire the taste. I get a glass and pour some into it.
We stay there at the table and as the light fades, our bodies form long, wavering shadows over the kitchen surfaces. She glugs from the bottle and I take tiny sips from my glass, getting used to the burning in my throat. She doesn’t stop me when I pour myself some more.
“I miss her,” she suddenly says.
At first I wonder who she’s talking about, but then I work it out. I sometimes forget that Granny isn’t around anymore—she stopped visiting when Eddie and I were nine, so it’s been a long time since I saw her. Dad says she visited once after Eddie had gone, but I must have been at school that day.
“Yeah, I miss her too. It’s hard to believe she’s gone.”
Mum looks wistful, like she’s remembering something nice. She never talks about her childhood, except to say that when she was really small, it had been good.
“Why did Granny leave the Black Isle?” I ask, thinking it’s a good way in and maybe Mum will open up to me. She seems to be in a sharing mood.
“It was the bridge,” she says, as if that’s all the explanation needed.
“The bridge? Why? What happened?”