Page 80 of A Wedding in a Week

“Just the one now.” I wet suddenly dry lips. “Jess is getting older. It’s past time I got some puppies for her to train up to look after all my daft beggars.”

“You mean sheep?” Noah asks. “They’re daft?”

“The daftest. Show them a cliff and they’ll follow each other over its edge, one after another.” I scrub my face with a hand that stopped tingling at some point while hefting bales. I’m back to full strength, or I will be if I can see these two face-to-face soon. “But then again, I almost went over a cliff edge once, so maybe I’m the daftest beggar in Cornwall.”

Noah’s voice breaks, squeaking before deepening. “You went over a cliff?”

“Almost. And I almost ripped my elbow right out of its socket while hanging upside down in my Land Rover.” I tilt my hand like a seesaw. “It rocked over the sea like this for ages. Can’t say I recommend it.”

That doesn’t seem to matter. Noah sits up straighter, looking interested and so much like his brother. He breathes, “That’s epic.” Then he squints. “What are those photos of?”

The next album page only shows photos of blackness.

Carl takes over, giving me a run for my gruff money, his voice low and rasping. “Marc took these his first summer with us. I took him up on the cliffs. We waited for the sunrise together, didn’t we?”

It’s Marc’s turn to breathe out a quiet, “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

Carl lands an arm across my shoulder, still speaking to Marc. “You couldn’t get over how many stars you saw before the sun came up. You even saw Venus, didn’t you?” He switches his focus. “I’d show you too, Noah, if you get to visit. Bit of sea air wouldn’t hurt either of you. Think you might squeeze in a visit soon, Marc?”

I didn’t get to see any stars on our last evening together, but today on this sagging sofa?

Marc says, “I really want to,” and I see plenty.

* * *

A second week passes, and I get busy. Not only on the farm. I also work through a mental checklist.

First is clearing out a bedroom with my brother’s blessing. His face fills my phone screen, his yawn massive, no way to avoid that he’s exhausted. He doesn’t hide it from me, and I’ll take that openness as proof that we’re striking a new balance. He even says, “I’m knackered,” which would usually send me into a strong and silent tailspin.

Now I inhale, slow and steady, and the world keeps turning. “Your Destiny keeping you busy?”

He cackles, and that’s better. “She’s fucking terrifying.” He yawns again, but all I see is satisfaction. And his tonsils. “But anyway,” he says between more yawns, “if things work out and you do get a blessing from Social Services to set up your own coppertop commune, I can always sleep in Mum and Dad’s old room or bunk up with John when I come home.”

I leave him to catch up on his sleep, making another call that’s become part of my daily routine.

Noah opens with a sulky sounding, “I’m bored shitless. There’s fuck all to do here.”

That language is testing. Dad would have levelled a silent look my way that spoke volumes if I’d tried it. Marc also sets boundaries. I hear him in the background.

“Watch your language.”

It’s another sign that Noah must be so much better if Marc’s stopped tiptoeing around him.

“Saying shitless and fuck is nothing,” Noah grumbles, but Mum and Dad were a double act, so I have a go at what isn’t quite parenting, not exactly, or not yet. It’s setting expectations for a future that isn’t gang related.

“Whenever I swore, Dad would let Lukas go on this instead of me. You ever driven one?” I turn my phone, and Noah’s voice breaks again, childish with wonder instead of hardened.

“Whoa. You’ve got a quad bike?”

“Yep. I use it a lot to round up my daft beggars.” Jess woofs her agreement, and I turn the phone to face her. She woofs again at Marc telling her she’s such a good girl, and I take them with me, if only on my phone, Jess following as I show Noah what the farm looks like from the cab of my dad’s tractor.

Noah’s the same mix of streetwise and soft that I remember from his brother, alternately too cool to care but wildly curious, like Marc was. “You really can see all the way over the hedges. Is that…” The video lags. Noah’s face is closer to the screen when it stops pixelating. “That’s really the sea?”

“Right on my doorstep.” It glitters today, tipped with diamonds, but the real treasure is Marc’s phone call later.

“He wants a go on that quad bike so bad he’s hardly said fuck since. He’s desperate to visit.” I hear how much Marc wants that too. “But I don’t want to risk hours on the train with him. Not yet. Jack says Rex could be back in London at the end of next week. He might give us a ride back. It’s only ninety minutes.”

“Noah will be well enough to travel?”

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