Page 37 of One Night on the Island

‘I wasn’t planning to make a thing of it, really,’ I say, reflective. ‘It’s just …’ I break off, rolling the stem of my glass. Most people would interrupt at this point, guess at what I’m about to say and offer a platitude. Or suggest I’m worried about being single, mention that I’ve a good few childbearing years left in me, if I decide I want kids. Mack doesn’t interrupt; he just sits alongside me, watching the beach, and waits until I’m ready. I appreciate his silence and drink a little more wine because some things are harder to say than others.

‘My dad didn’t make it to thirty. He was twenty-nine when he died.’

Beside me, Mack sighs heavily and places his wine glass down. ‘Oh man, Cleo. That’s so young.’

I nod, dully aware that this is the deeply embedded crux of everything going on inside me, the driver behind my need for change, and exposing it hurts like pulling a scab. ‘I don’t have any precious memories of him to look back on and I don’t know the sound of his voice to conjure him in my head when I need his advice,’ I say. ‘He was the great big love of my mum’s life. They were so young when they met, little more than kids really, but it was the real deal. Tom was born just before Mum’s twenty-first birthday, my sisters not long after.’ I can’t fathom three babies in three years at any age, let alone back in my early twenties when I could barely take care of myself, never mind anyone else. ‘They just hit the love jackpot early, I guess. Mum always calls it her magical decade. And then she lost him, twenty-eight and on her own with four kids.’ I have boundless admiration for my mum. I was just turned one when it happened, all of us too young to appreciate the burden she carried. ‘Dad was killed in an accident on the way to work. Left as usual one Wednesday morning with the lunch Mum had made for him in his bag and never came home again. I know it probably sounds crazy, but being thirty, being older than my dad, kind of breaks my heart.’

I can’t keep the crack from my voice and Mack scoots in closer to put his arm around me. I lean my head against his shoulder, glad of his warmth.

‘I get it now, it makes sense,’ he says. ‘The thirty thing.’

‘I’ve never said it out loud to anyone else. Easier to let people think I’m scared of being “left on the shelf”.’ I sigh as I enclose the trite, outdated phrase in air quotes.

He squeezes my shoulder softly. ‘I can’t see that happening.’

‘It might. I don’t have the best track record when it comes to love,’ I say.

‘Hey, that hot tub salesman sounded like a dude.’

‘You reckon?’ I half laugh, half huff. ‘He was just the first on the list of bad boyfriends.’

‘Who was the last?’ Mack asks, looking down at me. ‘The one who really broke your heart?’

Wow. He sees through me as if I’m made of glass. I don’t usually talk about my father, and I don’t talk about George Portman, either. Until now, it seems.

‘George.’ My failed flamingo. The last guy I let truly close. Just saying his name stirs old wounds. ‘We lived three doors apart as kids. He was an only child, spent more time in our house than his own growing up. Mum used to joke she was going to have to charge him rent.’ I close my eyes and I’m eight again and racing around the garden, hiding behind the old shed ready to jump out at him. Again at thirteen, watchfully guarding his school bag full of spray paints while he graffitied the railway arches. ‘We were friends. Best friends, really. It was never romantic between us at school – he had girlfriends and I had …’

‘The hot tub salesman?’

‘And the English teacher,’ I say, wry. ‘Everything changed when we went to uni. I missed him so much and we were both home for Christmas and … we just climbed into my single bed, natural as breathing. Me and George Portman. I was blindsided, him as well, I think.’

‘Sounds a lot like love,’ Mack says, his thumb rubbing back and forth over my shoulder.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It felt a lot like it too. For a while, anyway.’

‘What happened?’

I knot my fingers in front of me, my eyes on the ocean. ‘He was a complicated person. A really brilliant artist.’ I allow myself to remember the poky bedsit studio George rented after we graduated, the cloy of oil paint in my nose, the stifling summer heat, the sagging mattress in the corner surrounded by empty shot glasses. ‘He turned from a self-centred kid into a narcissistic man. Always jealous of other people’s success, taking the edge off his resentment with vodka.’

Mack doesn’t say anything when I stop and take a breath, just waits for the rest of the story.

‘I fancied myself as bohemian artist’s muse and budding writer, furiously subbing to magazines and papers. Gosh, did I take myself seriously,’ I say. ‘Any flicker of interest made George spiral.’ I pause. ‘To give him his dues, his paintings were incredible. It must be hard having such talent and no one take notice.’ I mentally close the door on the unsettling memories, not wanting to think about it any more. ‘Long story short, my brother turned up early one Sunday morning after I’d called him especially upset at George’s behaviour. He put all of my belongings in the back of his Mini and told me enough was enough. An intervention, really, because I hadn’t realized quite how toxic things had become until my brother repeated my words back to me. “I’m worried what he might do,” I’d said. He left an envelope for George, money to get himself cleaned up.’

‘Did he?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I really hope so. He moved up north not long after and lost touch with his family. And I moved to London. Letting go of him was painful but the push I needed to finally pursue my dreams, I guess. Such as they were then. I always hope I’ll spot his paintings in an exhibition one day, see his name in the paper maybe.’ I shrug. ‘But I haven’t.’

‘Letting go isn’t easy,’ Mack says quietly, and for a couple of minutes we just drink in the silence and watch the water.

As we sit there, I let all thoughts of the past roll back where they belong and focus on the here and now. I slowly become aware of the heat of Mack’s neck against the top of my head, the security of his arm across my shoulders, the clean moss and citrus scent of his skin.

‘Did you manage to get through to your kids today?’

I feel his sigh slide across my hair. ‘Yeah. Man, seeing their faces and hearing their voices …’ He falters. ‘Makes me want to climb inside the screen to get to them, you know?’

I don’t, and I can only hope that my father would have felt the same kind of love for me.

‘You’re a really good dad,’ I say. ‘Your kids are lucky.’

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