Page 78 of One Night on the Island

He throws his hands up. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

I settle my tab and walk out on to the blustery street. I can’t stomach listening to some stranger’s woes, I’ve got enough of my own. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said looking at the photographs is hellish. Objectively, they’re my best work by a mile. The Salvation exhibition will be my strongest yet, if I can just find the way to work on it without falling into a self-indulgent pit of longing and reaching for the Irish whiskey I brought home with me.

Cleo

13 November

Salvation Island

DIAMONDS IN, FOOL’S GOLD OUT

I go home exactly one week from today – weather-permitting, as always. I don’t want to leave, especially not now I’m galvanized by the need to write. I feel unstoppered, as if someone popped a cork and words are spilling from my fingers. It’s a huge release of energy, therapy of a kind to pour everything from my head to my fingers, to the page. I didn’t pause to outline a plot or toss ideas around. There wasn’t time. My jumbled emotions spiralled about me, a tornado hovering over the roof of Otter Lodge, and I am sitting cross-legged in the eye of the storm trying to harness it on to paper before it blows away. It’s a love story, but not a ‘girl meets boy’ kind. I mean, she does, and it’s all kinds of spectacular, but that’s not the essence of her story. She’s me but she isn’t, he’s Mack but he isn’t, it’s Salvation Island but it isn’t. It’s an expression of womanhood and an exploration of sisterhood, and yes, I know I sound like an absolute twat but oh my GOD, this book is consuming me. I tell the dolphins the latest plot twists at dawn, confide my heroine’s secrets up on Wailing Hill boulder at lunchtime, and Jupiter awaits my midnight word-count update. I jump in the bath and then climb straight out again because I need to record something before I forget it, and I fall asleep on the sofa beneath the patchwork blanket with my laptop balanced on my thighs. I eat for fuel and I drink for inspiration, and when I look in the mirror this dazed, crazy-eyed person chucks me the ‘keep going’ thumbs-up. I don’t care that I’m talking to myself as I work, I’ll take manic euphoria over last week’s misery any day. I don’t even know if this thing I’m writing has any form or structure or beauty, if anyone will ever read it besides me, but I’m bleeding out into this manuscript in a way that feels so wholly transformative that I have no choice but to continue.

Mack texted me again today; it came through as I ate my sandwich on the boulder on Wailing Hill. I go up there most days now, sandwich and a flask of coffee in hand. I guess you could say I’m communing with the island, grounding myself in a way that feels, I don’t know, spiritual? I make noises too, deep exhales that turn into moans or chants, and I get louder until I eventually stand up and scream. And you know what? It feels amazing. Like a purge. I mean, I always double- and triple-check there’s no one else around because I’m self-aware enough to know I look as if I’ve completely lost the plot, but I haven’t. I’ve found it.

He did the three things again. Or five, in actual fact, which I’m taking as an indication of how rubbish he’s feeling. I texted him back, hoping it would be a bright spot, even though his days are so different to mine it’s as if he skipped planets rather than countries.

One – I saw the dolphins at dawn this morning, the sea was a proper witches’ cauldron.

Two – I’m writing like a crazy woman. Words are seeping out of me as if I’m one of those pink sea sponges in the rock pools down on the beach.

Three – I’m sitting on Wailing Hill (of course!). Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve started to actually wail when I’m up here. I’m turning into a regular old hippie, Mack.

Three A (don’t blame me, you went over too) – I don’t regret you. How could I? You unlocked something in me, or maybe something in me unlocked because of you. Either way, you were the key, and I’m a freer woman because of it. Told you – hippie. Take care of you, and special care of that sliver of my heart x

I thought more about what I’d said after pressing send. What I actually think is that he unlocked something around me, an invisible cage constructed of all the props I thought necessary in my life. London. My job. My friend Ruby, even. Sitting on top of Wailing Hill this afternoon, I breathed in fresh air all the way to the pit of my stomach. Diamonds in, fool’s gold out.

Mack

16 November

Boston

THE DAD WHO WASN’T THERE

The too-small wooden school chairs force Susie and me to sit closer than we’ve been in months, sardines in the middle of a sea of smiling parents at Nate’s class assembly. Everyone knows we’re not together any more. We’re last year’s gossip, no doubt superseded by some other poor souls whose life took an unexpected nosedive. Susie knows them all by name whereas I’m such an infrequent visitor that the teacher almost handed me the wrong kid a couple of months back. I laughed it off, but it’s the kind of incident that perfectly illustrates Susie’s point, I guess. Thank God she wasn’t there to witness it and record it for future reference. Things between us are a little glacial right now, to say the least. We haven’t spoken properly since I told her about Cleo. She’s ramrod straight beside me, making herself as small as possible in an attempt to not touch me.

‘Good morning, parents!’

Nate’s teacher is sing-song happy as she greets us, the kids cross-legged on the floor behind her in various costumes and states of fidgety anticipation. They each got to pick what they wanted to be today; for reasons known only to himself, Nate’s inside a full fish suit, a lurid blue-padded all-in-one, with just his blue painted face and skinny arms poking out the sides. He catches sight of us and leans around the teacher to wave, his fin poking the kid beside him in the eye. There’s something different about his face, besides the fact it’s blue.

I lean in and whisper to Susie. ‘Did he lose a tooth?’

She sighs without looking at me, her hands tight in her lap. ‘Last night. He’s a kid, Mack, it happens.’

‘Right.’

I get that. He is a kid, it does happen and I don’t expect Susie to let me know every little thing. It’s just hard to get used to not being there to put the dollar under his pillow.

‘You missed a lot of teeth over the years,’ she hisses out of the side of her mouth.

A woman in front throws us a look over her shoulder, probably doesn’t want our argument as the backdrop to the recording of her Harry Potter son.

‘I guess it didn’t cut so deep when I knew there’d be a next time,’ I say, trying to explain, probably making it worse. Definitely worse for the snarky woman in front of us.

We’re saved from making any more of a scene by Nate standing up, a wriggly blue fish, trying to hold a piece of paper between his too-far-apart hands. My heart melts for this kid, even more so when he shoots us a quick, nervous glance before he reads his speech.

‘I’m a fish today because I caught the biggest fish at the lake this year. My grandpa, Walt, was very proud, although I think he was mad too because he always catches the biggest one. Except for last year when my dad did, but he wasn’t there this year, which made me sad. My brother hurt his ankle too, but he’s all right now.’

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