“I feel I didn’t fit in here. Then I went away and I don’t fit in there. So I don’t know. Why is it so easy for you?”
“Ha!” said Lorna. She’d always loved teaching. She’d gone to teacher-training college on the mainland and had a wonderful time, then she’d been perfectly happy to come home again, where her friends and family were, eventually (to be fair, there wasn’t a lot of competition for her tiny posting) becoming headmistress of the island’s little elementary school. Its falling roll was a worry, and she’d like to meet a nice man, but apart from that . . . “No,” she admitted. “It’s no bad.”
“I just feel sometimes that I’m not sure I belong anywhere.”
Lorna tutted and stood up. Flora followed her obediently outside and across to the edge of the harbor.
“Look,” said Lorna.
Flora didn’t know what she meant. It was just the same as usual, wasn’t it? Same old waves beating against the harbor walls. Same old boats bobbing around the place, same old seagulls clattering away at the bins, same old colored houses, and round the headland, the farms and the fish-processing plants.
“Yeah?” she said. “It’s just the same.”
“No!” said Lorna. “LOOK! Look at the clouds scudding across the sky. How much sky do you get in London anyway? When I went there, all I could see were buildings and more buildings and pigeons, and that was just about it.”
“Hmmph,” said Flora.
“Take a breath,” said Lorna, stepping up onto the wall. The air was fresh and clean, tinged with salt; the wind whipped her hair. “Taste it! The last time I was in the city, I thought I’d choke from the fumes. This is awesome.”
Flora grinned. “You’re nuts, you are.”
“BREATHE! There are so few places in the world where you can breathe like this. It’s the freshest air in existence. Breathe it in! Take your stupid yoga classes and shove them up your bum! Nothing’s better than this.”
Flora was laughing now.
“SERIOUSLY!” Lorna was wobbling across the top of the wall now. “You’re mad, Flora MacKenzie. It’s awesome here.”
“But it’s freezing!”
“Buy a bigger coat. It’s not rocket science. Look! LOOK!”
Flora followed her up onto the top of the wall, where they used to sit when they were teenagers, eating chips and swinging their legs. She followed Lorna’s pointing finger. Below them she could see the elongated neck, the extraordinary beauty of a tall heron. It stood on one leg, poised like a ballerina, as if totally aware of how lovely it was, a halo of sunshine around its head; then, as if waiting for them both to be watching, it spread its glorious wings and sped, fast and low, over the bouncing, gleaming waves, the echo of the other, coarser birds yelping off the walls of the brightly painted pastel buildings behind them as the bird headed for the white horizon.
“You don’t get that in London,” said Lorna.
And Flora had to admit, as they watched the heron scoop a glistening fish from the sea without so much as slowing down, that Lorna was right.
As they stood together gazing out to sea, Lorna leaned over toward her.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said quietly, because she was the very best type of friend to have, the type who could never hold a grudge; and out of the blue, Flora found herself blinking back tears again, and cursed herself. She realized, suddenly, that that was the first time anybody had said that. Her father couldn’t say it, because it wasn’t true for him. He’d lost everything; things weren’t going to be okay. But the boys, they all seemed so trapped. And the island seemed to think she barely deserved to come back.
“Do you think?” she said, with a quiver in her voice. Lorna looked confused.
“Of course it is!” she said. “Of course it is. It won’t be the same—it’s never the same. You’re in a different world when you lose a parent.”
“I should have done more,” said Flora, turning suddenly.
Lorna shook her head. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You weren’t to know. Nobody does. Not until you cross that river. Not until you live in that world. Then you understand.”
“And it gets better?”
“It does.”
The heron had stopped on a rock, gazing fervently at the horizon. It was so still and perfect, it looked like a photograph. Flora stared at it as she blinked her tears away.
“So,” said Lorna. “What are you going to do today?”
Flora sighed.
“Do you know what the boys could really do with? A proper home-cooked meal.”
“Oh yes!” said Lorna. “Your mum was the best cook I ever knew. She taught you, didn’t she?”
“She did,” said Flora. “I’m very rusty, though. God, the food in London—”
“DON’T START!” said Lorna. “I was just starting to like you again.”
Chapter Ten
Margo popped her head round the door. Joel had pulled an all-nighter working on another case, and there were shadows under his eyes. She did wonder about him sometimes. She saw his e-mails, took his incoming calls. Apart from the occasional distraught girl who’d thought she was onto something, there was nothing personal. Ever.
Of course, that didn’t mean anything. But sometimes she wondered if his rudeness was covering up something else. And sometimes she just thought he was a tool.
“Coffee?”
He shook his head irritably.
“Are you going to get to Scotland today?”
He twisted his face.
“Do I have to go? Really? Can’t I just deal with it from here?”
She shrugged.
“Colton seems very fond of the place. So it might make sense for the future, if you’re trying to get him onside.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Well, let me know when he calls. I want to stay out of the godforsaken hellhole for as long as possible. Have you seen where it is on a map?”
Margo shook her head as he showed her how far north of the British mainland it was.
“If they’ve got more than one eyebrow between them, I’ll be amazed,” he said. “God. Right. I’ve changed my mind about that coffee.”
Margo scuttled off.
Flora stomped around the very small supermarket, feeling exasperated. She’d had plans to make something different for dinner, something they wouldn’t have normally, that wasn’t like the food her mother used to make. She didn’t think they were ready for her mother’s recipes yet.
She thought back, briefly, to when she and Hugh were dating, and they’d go down to Borough Market, just next to London Bridge. It was a foodies’ paradise, and extraordinarily expensive, and they’d dally there on a Saturday morning, planning something wonderful to make that night—squid ink risotto or hot and sour Thai soup—and trying lots of things she’d simply never tasted before: kimchi and ceviche and all sorts of other delicacies. She was still a traditional cook, but Hugh knew a bit about food and he’d pushed her taste buds.