Page 39 of One Night on the Island

‘You’re not a fool, Cleo, far from it.’

‘I’m disappointed with myself,’ she cuts in. ‘Disappointed that I lowered my guard enough to make yet another short-sighted decision as far as men are concerned. I sat there and told you how I have a knack for letting the wrong guys close and it’s depressing that even when I’m fully aware that I’m stuck in a cycle, I let it happen again tonight. Just keep your sodding shirt on in future, will you? It was too much to come at me with all that … skin and muscle and heat.’

I don’t know what to say. Do I tell her that I couldn’t help myself, that the warmth of her body next to mine reminded me how damn lonely I am, that something about the scent of her skin slides beneath my defences, that the intimate gleam in her eyes out there on the porch tonight unravelled me?

‘Most importantly – and listen to me very carefully, Mack – I won’t shoulder misplaced guilt over kissing a married man. You’ve been separated for almost a year now and I’m sorry that your heart didn’t get the fucking memo, but cheating is a choice, not a genetic disposition. You’re not your father.’ She jostles on the sofa, aggravated. ‘Fuck, that was harsh. Too much wine. No, I’m not going to apologize because maybe you need to hear it. I’m definitely going to shut up now though.’

‘Goodnight, Cleo,’ I say. She’s damn right that was harsh. Did I deserve it? Does she have a point? I close my eyes and try not to remember how her lips tasted.

‘And one more thing,’ she says. My eyes snap open. ‘There’s a damn good reason that kind of heat doesn’t generally occur. It’s dangerous. People get burnt, then they have to walk around for the rest of their lives feeling as if their internal organs have been sizzled.’

I let the analogy sink into my tired, spinning-out brain for a while. ‘So we’re basically a couple of burgers. Is that what you’re saying?’

She sighs loudly. ‘You stay on your side of the barbecue and I’ll stay on mine. That’s all I’m saying.’

It’s late and we’ve strayed a long way off track here. I try to reel us back in, do a little damage control.

‘For the record, the only fool out there tonight was me, okay? You were upset, I was lonely, and we both mistook that for something it isn’t. Can we just agree to wipe the slate clean and never mention it again? We make the rules in this place. If we want to press the rewind button and erase what happened, then we can.’

It’s an appealing thought to be able to pick and choose which parts of your story get to stay.

‘Fine.’ She sounds bone-tired and I’m dead beat. ‘Let’s do that then.’

Cleo

15 October

Salvation Island

SORRY

Fragments of last night parade themselves behind my eyelids as I surface through the layers from sleep to awake. When I risk a glance over the back of the sofa, I’m relieved to find the bed neatly made and empty. Glad of the chance to sink a bucket of coffee alone and re-order my thoughts, I brew up and head out to let the chilled sea wind blow away the remnants of last night. Birds wheel overhead as if in greeting; I like to think they’re growing accustomed to my presence here. I walk the beach, scouring the waves in search of the pod of dolphins I’ve come to think of as belonging to the lodge. Some days they churn the sea silver but they’ve evidently found somewhere else to be this morning. The otters have abandoned me too, their cluster of rocks damp and empty in the morning bluster. Gosh, it’s really bracing out here this morning. I dip my head against the wind as it buffets me. There’s an ancient, mystical feeling to Salvation, as if the island gives something back to those who give themselves to it. The ground feels like a living, breathing thing under my feet; I’m convinced there’s a beating heart somewhere deep beneath the bedrock. If you tune your ear in you can almost hear the thrum backed by the music of the ocean.

I take a warming slug of coffee and let my eyes rove across the beach, and that’s when I notice something different about the swathe of damp sand. I squint and then huff quietly under my breath, trying to decide if I’m impressed by the five large capital letters etched deeply in the sand. SORRY. I look away, wrapping my blanket closer around my shoulders.

Mack

18 October

Salvation Island

I DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING

I feel as if Salvation Island has permeated my bones. I’d heard so much about this place as a kid that I thought I had a good idea of how it was going to look, but all of the photos and folk tales in the world hadn’t prepared me for the reality of actually being here. The land undulates beneath the soles of my boots, rolling green hills sliced through by low, stark, hand-built walls, earthy peat bogs and the occasional frill of salt-crystal sand. It’s an unforgiving place but wildly beautiful too, somewhere that feels entirely separate from the rest of the world. It must be something else to see it bathed in summer light. My head is full of its scents, of salt and damp earth and purity. Cleo said the air tastes of diamonds; it’s an accurate description. Exclusive and rare. I’ve never been anywhere that made my fingers itch for the shutter of my camera quite so much as here, the remarkable lights and moods as weather fronts roll in. It would make a perfect movie backdrop for a tense whodunnit or a bluesy gothic. Things at Otter Lodge are a little tense and bluesy too. It was a massive mistake to let things get so out of hand Wednesday night; it’s Sunday now and the atmosphere between us is wearing on me. I behaved like a dick, but the things Cleo said afterwards about me not getting the memo that my marriage has ended felt like a knife tip pressed against a taut balloon. I’m furious that she felt she had the right to pass judgement on my personal life. She doesn’t know me well enough, or Susie at all, or what we have together back in Boston. What we had together. I don’t need anyone else to tell me that it’s time to let go. I might be in the waiting room of my life, but I decide when it’s time to walk out of that door. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t give up on family. Ever.

Welcoming lights from village windows loom in the distance. It’s only just past noon, but it’s one of those dark-grey days that never seem to get properly light, a ‘close the doors and build up the fire’ kind of day. Not that I could do that at Otter Lodge; Cleo and I have taken to prowling around each other like wary animals since the other night. It’s a relief to be out of there.

I lost track of time filling my eyes and my camera with countless shots around the village, my imagination caught by foundation stones with dates running back hundreds of years, by the sureness that my ancestors walked these same streets, touched these same stones. But now I’m suddenly aware that it’s two in the afternoon and I haven’t eaten, and the illuminated windows of the Salvation Arms beckon to me like a sea siren to a sailor. I don’t try to resist. The warm welcome of strangers beats a frosty reception from Cleo. Sometimes a man needs a drink.

I nudge the pub’s heavy old black door open and find it packed, as if most of the island’s residents have taken refuge from the weather here too. I’ve already been in once or twice for a beer on quiet weekday afternoons, lucky enough both times to take a stool at the bar and bend the ear of Rafferty, the owner – Raff, as everyone calls him – about the island’s history. He’s a man of indeterminate age; the lines on his features suggest seventies, but he’s quick to laugh and has a jaunty glint in his eye that lends him an air of youth.

‘Mack, my man! Come on in and take a load off, why don’t you?’ Raff stands up from a table in the corner by the fire and gestures his hand towards me. ‘Over here. Budge up, people, we’ve a guest.’

‘Leave your stuff by the door, Mack, you’ll have someone’s eye out if you don’t.’

I follow the voice and find its source: Ailsa with her wife, Julia, working their way through heaped roast beef dinners. Ailsa raises her glass at me as I unzip my admittedly massive jacket. She’s right; there isn’t room to navigate the pub in it without sending pints flying. I leave everything but my camera by the door and thread my way across to Raff.

‘Hungry?’ Raff says, his hand on my shoulder as I sit down. Out of nowhere it touches me, a more fatherly gesture than I can ever recall from my own dad.

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