Several weeks had passed, and Flora had never known what it was like to be so busy, even after the ridiculous fuss of her being in the paper had passed. The Café by the Sea was absolutely inundated. They started doing picnic hampers with homemade Scotch eggs and plowman’s lunches, and these were even more crazily popular, with locals and visitors alike. The visitors liked to take them up the fells, or through the ancient abbey, whose gray stone walls cast a somber shadow on gloomy days but in high summer proved an irresistible playground for young children, who ran up and down the ruined spiral staircases, jumping in and out of the low glassless windows, as their parents sat in the long grass, sharing a bottle of Eck’s bramble wine, which they shouldn’t technically exactly be selling, at an utterly shameless markup.
The oddest thing was, Flora couldn’t be heartbroken. She couldn’t. She was sad not to hear from Joel—and she had to occasionally file reports, to which Margo would respond. But she didn’t blame him, or wonder whether what had happened had meant anything to him. It was all on her side. She had to get over it. Her crush had extended slightly, one strange afternoon, that was all, and now she had to . . . well. She had to get over it. Get on with things. Get on with the job. Even the less pleasant parts.
Which was why, finally, one glorious August day, as the breeze rippled across the sea—meaning everyone needed a cardigan, but otherwise it was so very pleasant to sit out on the stone wall and watch the insects buzz lazily over the headland—Fintan summoned Innes and Hamish down from the fields, had a quick telephone call with Colton, and whispered urgently to Flora. She nodded.
Eck was snoozing outside the farmhouse with Bracken at his feet.
“Dad,” she whispered. “Dad, can we talk to you?”
“Family meeting!” said Fintan.
Agot was dancing in circles and swinging on Innes’s and Hamish’s hands.
“I’S THE ONLY GIRL! I’S THE PRINCESS!”
“Hi, Agot,” said Flora, bringing warm shortbread from the oven and a fresh pot of tea. Innes eyed it warily.
“Are you trying to bribe us?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“YOU NOT PRINCESS, AUNTIE FLOWA,” came the insistent voice.
“Yes, I know that, my darling,” said Flora.
“YOU SELKIE.”
“Could you stop with this, please?”
“YOU IN PAPER.”
She didn’t like to think of that day. Not anymore. She was here till the Lughnasa—the late harvest. Then Joel would be gone to the States and she could simply go back to work and all would be fine. And she would never see him again. And everything would be beyond awful.
No, she wouldn’t believe that. She would get on with the job in hand. And she was making a difference; they all were. They absolutely were. But they’d hit crunch point now, if Fintan was going to go and work at the Rock.
“Dad,” she said.
Innes looked concerned. Hamish as usual sat silent in the corner of the yard, his face still smeared with muck from doing the lion’s share of the heavy work.
“Well, everyone, really,” she added. The farm was in their father’s name, but there was no doubting the way of things. The boys would inherit, and that was how it had always been and always would be, as long as the sun set in the west and the tide reached the wild seagrass.
“Fintan and I . . .” She turned to him. “Do you want to do it?”
He looked straight at her and shook his head.
“Can you do it, Flora?” he said.
“No,” said Flora. “Well. Both of us.”
She took a deep breath.
“There’s been an offer,” she said. “A good offer. A really, really good offer. To buy the farm.”
It was as if Eck didn’t quite understand. Flora found herself repeating it in the old tongue, just to make sure he knew what they were saying. Fintan was on his phone, obviously repeating everything to Colton.
“But,” her dad kept saying. “But I’m fine, Flora.”
“This is Agot’s birthright,” Innes was saying.
“NO FARM! ME PRINCESS!” Agot yelled.
“I’m not sure we need a three-year-old at the negotiating table right now,” said Flora, slightly peevishly.
“But, Flora . . . I mean, it’s fine.” Eck was completely bewildered.
Flora looked at the sagging lintel over the door, the rusting farm machinery out in the field. He couldn’t see it, she knew. In his head he still lived in a long golden summer where she and the boys ran about the outhouses half naked, utterly filthy, and laughing their heads off; or lined up in front of the television, furiously pushing and shoving for space to watch Countdown; or begged him to tell them stories of the olden days, when they’d had to make their own clothes and were regularly cut off from the mainland for months at a time and there’d been no television, they’d just had to make their own music; at which point she and the boys would giggle and sigh in utter disbelief, and their mother would tell them to hush, it was exactly like that, though it was nice too, and she’d smile, and suggest a round of cheese on toast and homemade soup for everyone, and they’d all cuddle up in front of the fire, until Flora and Fintan fell out about who was taking up too much space, then everyone would collapse laughing and the dogs would bark madly.
That was what he saw. Flora knew it.
“Dad,” she said. “I’ve seen the books. You know I have. Innes knows it. You know we can’t go on like this.”
Suddenly she wanted to sit in his lap, like she had as a very little girl. But he had shut himself off from her a long time ago, and she knew why.
“There’s nothing left.”
“And, Da,” said Fintan, his face as pale as Flora’s suddenly. “Da, I don’t want to farm anymore. I want to work with Colton Rogers.”
Her father blinked. Flora looked at Fintan intently.
“And also. Colton’s my boyfriend.”
Even Agot was silent at that.
The blood rushed to Fintan’s face.
“Well. He’s someone . . . someone important to me. I don’t know if I’d call him . . . I mean, it’s very early days.”
Innes and Hamish just sat there, unmoving. Flora wasn’t entirely sure Hamish had even understood, or Eck, for that matter. Fintan’s stance was sullen, as if daring them to challenge him. He looked more like sixteen than thirty-two.
Agot went up to him.
“YOU GOT BOYFRIEND?”
Fintan smiled shyly, and shrugged. “Well, kind of. Not sure. He is nice, though.”
“I’S GOT BOYFRIEND.”
He crouched down.
“Who’s your boyfriend?”
“PEPPA,” said Agot.
“Pepper?”
“PEPP-A! HE PIG.”
Fintan smiled.
“Well, it’s nice to know I haven’t got the actual weirdest relationship in the place right now.”
Innes stood up and stepped forward, bright red too. They weren’t used to talking like this, the MacKenzies. His hand went to the back of his neck. Flora flashed back to all the teasing—at school, yes, but at home too. Pansy. Girlie. Wimp. All of it. On and on.
Innes stuck his hand out.