Page 87 of One Night on the Island

‘Thanks,’ I say, my eyes lingering on it, wondering what’s inside. Mack and I haven’t been in touch since before Christmas. I sat for a while on Wailing Hill on Christmas Eve in case he was lonely and sent me a message, but nothing. I wonder if he sat alone and waited to see if I would make contact too, or if he’s making a good fist of putting us behind him. Maybe he felt obliged to send me something because I sent the scarf. I hope not. I’m glad Brianne had the sensitivity to go low key, I know Delta would be gagging to know what’s inside. I am too, in all honesty. I have another Old Cuban and a hold of the baby, but all the time my hand keeps sliding back to touch the package I’ve shoved into my bag. Did he take something of mine back to Boston by mistake? I haven’t missed anything, except for the sliver of my heart. I have a little rum-induced laugh to myself at the idea of opening the gift to find a pulsing piece of flesh inside it.

‘God, these cocktails are strong,’ I say, finishing my second.

Delta sighs into her cup of tea. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘At least you won’t have a headache in the morning.’

‘Yes I will, from lack of sleep. And sore boobs and a butchered lady garden.’

I hug her, patting her back. ‘You wouldn’t have it any other way.’

She rolls her eyes because I’m right. She might be battling the physical effects of being a new mum but she’s head-over-heels in love with the Elvis-haired child.

‘Time for me to go home,’ I say. ‘I need to get back over the hill before dark.’

She squeezes me hard. ‘Happy New Year, Clee,’ she says. ‘I’m so glad you stayed.’

‘Thank God I can knit,’ I say. ‘Your mother wouldn’t have let me otherwise.’

‘Don’t big yourself up too much there now,’ she says. ‘I saw that scarf, remember.’

We laugh, and I kiss and Happy-New-Year-hug my way slowly out of the busy pub, shrugging into my coat, meeting Brianne’s eyes last. She gives me the briefest of nods, her job done.

‘Hello, beautiful lodge,’ I say, pleased to see the glow of the fire still alive in the hearth. I’ve a Christmas tree too; Ailsa and Julia lugged it over the hill as a surprise a couple of days before Christmas, along with a box they’d put on the bar in the Salvation Arms for people to donate a decoration or so. I cried, of course. Being decent human beings seems to come easy to these islanders. Dolores sent a spare string of lights and Carmen wrapped a vintage silver star in newspaper to go on the top.

I haven’t missed London at all. The idea of rammed shopping streets and packed bars does nothing for me these days. I missed seeing my folks over Christmas, my mum especially, but on the whole it’s cathartic spending my days and nights alone here.

I make coffee, standing at the kitchen sink to watch the beach as I wait for the kettle to boil. I add a slosh of New Year’s Eve whiskey to my coffee and take it to the sofa with my squares blanket and the brown paper package from America.

I haven’t moved a muscle for the last hour. My coffee has gone cold and my face is damp with tears. Mack has sent me an album of our time together, an intimate record of us. The table set for breakfast for two, a jar of wild flowers beside the milk jug. Empty whiskey glasses on the coffee table by the dwindling fire. Our boots lined up beside the door. The infamous chalk line, his holdall on one side, my suitcase on the other. The roofline of the porch picked out by borrowed vintage rainbow bulbs on my birthday. My white dress hung ready to wear. And me. Image after image of me, some of them too personal to ever show anyone else. On the porch steps with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, coffee cradled between my hands. A black-and-white shot sitting up naked in bed, the sheet around my hips. I don’t think of myself as beautiful, but he’s made me beautiful in these photos. I linger over them all, taking the time to remember the circumstance of each one, the things we said to each other. He turned his lens on me so often I grew used to it, unselfconscious. I knew, probably, that I’d get to see the pictures one day, that I’d look back and remember him, remember us. It’s the most precious gift anyone has ever given me.

There are only two pictures of us together. Mack turned his lens towards us once in bed, his arm outstretched. My head is resting on his shoulder, the white sheet tucked under my armpit, his fingers curved around my upper arm. In one shot we’re both looking directly into the lens, sex-drenched, and in the other my eyes are closed, his head turned away from the lens to press a kiss against my forehead. Love-drenched. I put the album back in its padded envelope. I don’t know when I’ll ever feel able to look at it again.

There’s an invitation tucked into the back to his exhibition at the end of February. I trace the bold black letters of his name slowly with my fingertip, thinking.

It’s five minutes to midnight on the last day of what has turned out to be the defining year of my life. I’m sitting on the boulder at the top of Wailing Hill, layered up because it’s freezing, a hip flask of whiskey in my pocket, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. I’ve come to sit up here with my thoughts, to let the year that’s gone by blow away on the wind and to catch the scent of the new one as it arrives from the east.

I whisper hello to Jupiter, wondering if Mack can see it too. He’s been heavy on my mind this evening. Looking through those photographs has brought him so near I can almost see the outline of him walking along the shoreline, his camera loose around his neck.

‘You know what?’ I speak out loud because I’m someone who talks to Jupiter now, clearly. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay to say it. I loved Mack Sullivan in the most sudden, spectacular, sexual, spiritual, protective, primal way imaginable, and for a little while he loved me back in all the same ways. It was proper human magic.’ I take a slug of whiskey, shuddering as it goes down.

‘Oh, I know what this island does,’ I say, conversational in that way whiskey makes you. ‘I’m on to it. Salvation has its own forcefield, spinning people in from across the globe to this tiny spit of rock at will. Barney came because Raff left. I arrived on the very same boat as Mack. I mean, come on! What are the odds of that?’ I sip again from the hip flask, shaking my head. ‘It’s the universe meddling on a grand scale. Audacious.’ I fall silent, thinking about the unexpected life I’ve found myself living here as I watch the rise and fall of the sea. One minute to midnight.

It occurs to me that I could end up living on this island for ever. I’ll be Carmen to Delta’s Dolores. It’s not the worst scenario I can imagine for myself. I mean, I probably won’t, but I’m happy here for now, which is big news. My mum’s coming over for a few days in February; I’m hoping some other visitors might make the journey at some point too. It’s an intentionally short-term plan; I’ll stay until spring and then see how I feel. How freeing, really, not to feel as if I’m striving for the next thing.

I check the time on my phone and as I stare at the screen it clicks over to midnight. London will be a riot of drunken kisses, the sky a blitz of fireworks. Here, nothing happens. It’s just me, Jupiter and the sea, and I’m okay with that. I don’t want to be my own flamingo for ever because I kind of liked loving someone else, but I’m content to be my own best friend and staunchest cheerleader for now. I’m my own temporary flamingo. I bump shoulders with the imaginary Emma Watson sitting beside me; I think she’d be proud of how far I’ve come. Out on the horizon, moonlight picks out the billowing ghost sails of the Pioneer.

‘Happy New Year!’ I didn’t plan on shouting, but my words come out at volume when I stand up and raise my arms, flask in one hand, phone in the other. ‘Here’s to you, Salvation, you’ve made a woman of me!’ I thought I might cry nostalgic tears tonight, but I laugh at my own keen sense of the melodramatic instead.

Sliding the flask into my coat pocket, I click open a message to Mack.

One – The photo album arrived today. Thank you! It made me cry, it’s so beautiful. I’m incredibly proud of you. Good luck with the exhibition.

Two – Happy New Year! I mean it. Do whatever it takes to be happy, Mack, you deserve it.

Three – X

I don’t type that I don’t regret him because, every now and then, I do. He’s set the bar unrealistically high, and I need to believe there are other people out there who can reach it. Maybe in time the universe will cast its love net wide for me again, bring a for ever love my way, but I can’t see how yet.

---