“Okay,” said Colton. “Set up the pink house. Organize the party. Lobby it up. Then we’ll be good to go.”
“But . . .,” said Flora again. She felt pressure on her left shoulder. It was Joel, maneuvering her toward Bertie and his little boat.
“This has been great,” said Colton. And he stuck out his hand to shake Fintan’s, and held on to it for rather too long.
Chapter Twenty-seven
There was white all around. The sky was white; the sea was the palest gray, reflecting the strange light straight back until it felt as if she was sailing across a blank page, the ripples in the waves sentences stretching out behind her. She was on a ship, an old creaking sailing ship, its bare masts high—where were its sails? Someone was missing. Who was it? Stop! she found herself shouting. Stop the boat! Stop it. But nobody was listening, and they powered on. Someone had gone over the side, and she wanted to reach them, but the ship was going farther and farther away, and she was shouting, but nobody could hear her and nobody would stop . . .
It was probably—no, certainly—the whisky, but Flora woke bolt upright at 3 A.M., her mouth dry, from a strange white dream of ships and ice and cold. Her thin duvet was half thrown off, the house freezing.
She’d protested all the way home in the boat, and Joel and Fintan had, absurdly, ganged up on her and told her they’d discuss it the next day.
The first thing she noticed was her phone blinking. She rubbed her eyes, pulled a blanket round her trembling shoulders, and picked it up.
It was work: memos, plans, a flurry of ideas, from Joel. But it was the middle of the night.
Aren’t you asleep? she texted.
He replied immediately.
It’s BROAD DAYLIGHT. How can anybody sleep in this?
Flora thought nothing of it. She’d been accustomed to going to bed in bright sunlight since she was a child, and conversely, of course, going to school in the pitch-dark in the winter months.
Draw the curtains? she suggested.
They’re dirty.
Flora felt for him. The Harbor’s Rest was pretty grim, after all.
Why couldn’t you stay at the Rock?
Apparently they’re still finishing the bedrooms.
Seriously, could they have been worse?
That’s a very good point. I should have pushed it. Three walls would have been better than this.
Flora smiled at her phone.
A bit of salt spray aids a restful night.
That’s an island saying, is it? I might suggest to the landlady that a bit of cleaning spray aids a restful night.
Oh come on. Admit it. It’s not so bad here.
I never said it was.
Joel was enjoying their conversation. It felt strange just to be chatting like this, especially late at night. Not after anything. Not a booty call. He frowned. She wouldn’t think . . . No. She couldn’t. She was the office junior, right? It was clearly professional. It was just that she was easy to talk to. And Christ, he really couldn’t sleep.
He jumped up and paced the room. The peeling wallpaper was making him depressed, but outside it looked unearthly and rather beautiful.
Is it safe to take a walk here?
Be careful of the wild haggis. They can be tricky. But you can run away from them; they have one leg shorter than the other from stomping round and round hills.
Hahaha.
Flora looked at the message, feeling suddenly excited.
Where are you going for a walk?
I thought I’d start at Broadway, then head up to the shopping district, then maybe stop off to eat in Chinatown . . .
Hahaha.
Joel pulled on his overcoat. He felt restless.
Dunno. Harbor? Everything’s shut.
It’s 3:30 A.M.
There was a long pause. Finally Flora typed: Would you like me to come down?
He squinted at his phone. He normally . . . Well. He did well without company. The lone wolf, Dr. Philippoussis called him. He looked out again at the pale water.
If you like.
She scrubbed her face, grimaced at her hair, and plaited it back so it fell over her shoulder, then stuck a bunnet on it. She hauled on her jeans, a striped T-shirt, a fisherman’s sweater, and some big boots. She absolutely did not look like someone out to seduce anyone, she told herself sternly. Well, maybe another fisherman. Certainly not her slick, hot London boss whom she was meeting in the middle of the night. No.
And actually that was quite far from her mind as she headed for the stairs. What she really wanted to discuss was Colton’s crazy idea that she and Fintan were going to somehow take over his catering. This needed to be nipped in the bud sharpish.
She drank a large glass of freezing water to flush the whisky out of her system, then made up a thermos of strong coffee. Bramble had perked up as she walked into the kitchen, and Flora nodded to him that he could come along. She stepped out of the farmhouse into the bracing freshness of the morning air, even though morning, technically, was several hours away.
Never busy at the best of times, at this hour Mure felt like the moon; it felt like everyone else on earth had simply disappeared, that it was the very end of everything. A light haar was still lying on the land, giving a dreamy quality to every shape looming out of it: the hilltops swathed in bottomed-out clouds, the telegraph poles vanished, the freshness of the air changing to dankness as you walked through great banks of mist.
Flora saw him before he saw her, standing by the harbor wall, staring out to sea. He looked utterly out of place in his well-cut coat and stylish shoes, like an astronaut washed up on a strange shore he didn’t understand, who had found everything he had been sure of in his life completely alien to him.
Bramble whined inquiringly, and Flora bent down. “He’s all right,” she whispered, rubbing the dog’s soft ears. “It’s okay.” Please like dogs, she thought, crossing her fingers.
Bramble, soothed, shot off across the cobbles of the harbor.
Just at that moment, Joel turned round, to be greeted by a huge, slightly muddy, overenthusiastic dog leaping up on his expensive clothes. He nearly toppled over, trying to both push and welcome the dog at the same time, then turned to see Flora laughing a few feet away, the fog settling around her like a living thing.
“Yes, all right, very funny. Thanks for having me attacked by a horse,” he said as she approached.
“BRAMBLE!” she shouted. “Come here, you bad dog.”
Bramble totally ignored her, as usual, and bounded off to have an early-morning dip. Joel looked down at his muddied trousers.
“I wonder if Colton will cover my dry-cleaning costs.”
“We’ll get Fintan to ask him.”
He looked at her and smiled. She looked so different from the girl he’d hardly noticed in the office. In the big old sweater, no makeup, just the pink of her cheeks, her hair tumbling out from underneath the cap, and those strange watery eyes.
He looked at what she was carrying.
“Is that . . . is that a thermos?”
“It might be.”
“Are we going fishing?”
“Do you want coffee or not?”
Joel smiled.
“I want coffee more than anything in the entire universe.”
“I thought you’d have been calling room service to get it for you.”