Page 63 of The Blue Hour

Nick laughed. Oh yeah. Just like that.

Being around Nick awakened in Grace an old longing, though for what exactly she wasn’t sure. Friendship, certainly, but more than that, she wanted attention, she wantedcomfort. She kept thinking about the trip to St Malo, watching Nick comb tangles out of Audrey’s long dark hair after they’d been for a swim. She wanted something like that, but she didn’t know how to ask for it; just the thought of asking for it made her cringe with her whole body.

So instead, she took care of him. She worked and cooked and cajoled; Nick barely moved from the couch. She noticed quite early on that if she left money lying around it disappeared; she noticed that the leather jewellery case containing an ancient string of pearls she’d been left by her grandmother was gone, too. And yet he wasn’tusing, she felt sure. She could tell. Surely she’d be able to tell?

He was depressed, though, anyone could see that. He needed to get out more. At the time, Grace was still living in Carrachan, in an ugly little house with a view of the distillery, the air thick with the smell of yeast and vinegar. Nick needed light. He needed fresh air and exercise.

‘This weekend,’ Grace said to him one day, ‘if the weather holds,we could go out to Eris. It’s a tidal island, a bit further south. It’s very beautiful. We could take the bus down, go for a walk? You used to love a good hike. It’ll be like that time we went to France, do you remember? Just like the old days.’

The weather didn’t hold. By Wednesday, the Met Office was predicting storms, an amber warning, winds forecast to reach ninety miles an hour. When the storm hit in the early hours of Friday, it was even worse than feared and Grace thought the gale would rip the roof off. Train services were halted, roads closed. Hundreds of trees were felled along the coast.

But on Sunday, the sun shone. The advice was still not to travel unless necessary, but Grace was desperate to get Nick off the couch and out of the house, so they put on their coats and took the bus to Eris.

As they walked through the harbour car park they saw someone sitting on one of the benches, sobbing as though her heart might break. She was so small they thought at first she was a lost child, but as they started to approach, she looked up and they saw it was a woman, beautiful and bruised. She spat out a word that sounded like a curse.

‘BitWicker Manout here, isn’t it?’ Nick muttered. He was wearing a matching red scarf and hat he’d borrowed from Grace and the ensemble made him look childlike, too.

It was cold, the wind brisk, the waves choppy, higher than they would usually have been half an hour after low tide. Eris Island was deserted – no one else fool enough to cross – and miraculously beautiful. The world washed clean, the sea wild, the bracken golden, still sparkling with rain.

They made their way up the track past the derelict farmhouse, slogged up the hill, skirting the wood. ‘It might be dangerous,’ Grace said. ‘Some of the trees might be ready to come down.’

Nick was quiet but biddable, shivering in his too-thin coat, pulling the sleeves down over his hands and retracting his head into the collar like a tortoise. ‘Who owns the house?’ he asked as they paused for a moment on the shoulder of the hill, looking back down the slope towards the mainland, their breath clouding the air.

‘It’s a matter of some dispute,’ Grace said. ‘At least that’s what the nurse at the surgery told me. The owner died intestate a couple of years back, his kids are arguing over what to do with the place, and all the while the house is left to crumble into ruins.’

‘Wonder how much they’d take for it?’ Nick said, plunging his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. ‘Be a pretty good place to lie low, wouldn’t it?’

‘Is that what you’re doing?’ Grace asked.

Nick shrugged. ‘It’s what I’d like to do. Just … live quietly, get my shit together. Somewhere like this?’ He smiled at her and Grace’s heart lifted.

At the top, they ate their sandwiches with their legs dangling over the edge of the rock, watching the gulls do battle with the wind, watching the sea hurl itself against the cliff face. When they had finished eating, Nick climbed carefully to his feet and reached for Grace’s hand, pulling her up.

‘This has been a good day,’ he said, his hand still holding hers. ‘Thank you.’

It had been a good day, but they’d lingered too long. By the time they started their descent, the sky was already taking on the inky blue of night and so they took the most direct route, through the wood, hurrying, Grace glancing anxiously at her watch, cursing herself beneath her breath. Bloody idiot.

‘Could you give me a lift to the station tomorrow?’ Nick asked as they manoeuvred their way around the deep pit left where a tree had been uprooted.

Grace stopped abruptly. ‘To the station?’

‘Yeah,’ Nick said. ‘If the trains are running, that is. I need to get down to Manchester. I was thinking …’ He paused. It was almost dark in the wood, but even in the low light, Grace could see his gaze shift, his eyes sliding from her face, focusing on some point beyond her. ‘I was thinking I might try to track Audrey down … I’d like to try again, just one last time, to sort things out. And I need money, I need to start looking for work.’

‘But …’ Grace felt her breath coming suddenly very fast; she dug her nails into the palms of her hands. ‘What about … what you said, about making a choice between being with her and getting clean? What about—?’

‘I am clean now,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t need to choose any longer.’

‘But what about everything you said, about lying low, about the old days—’

‘Youtalked about the old days, Grace.’ Nick sounded exasperated. ‘And I mean,lying low? I was just talking, I was daydreaming, I’m not going to buy a fucking house on an island, am I? I barely have enough money to keep me in milk and bread.’ He craned his neck to look further over her shoulder. ‘We should go, we don’t want to get stuck here—’

‘You could look for work here,’ Grace said, standing her ground.

Nick laughed grimly. ‘Here? What the fuck would I dohere?’

‘You could get a job at the hotel,’ Grace suggested weakly, ‘or maybe the pub?’

‘I know I didn’t finish my degree, Grace,’ Nick muttered, rolling his eyes, ‘but I was studying medicine. I think I’m probably capable of abitmore than bar work.’

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