Page 56 of The Island in Bramble Bay
He cast off and headed towards Bramble Island. It might be too soon to talk to Maggie but he couldn’t imagine going home, let alone being able to sleep, before he had spoken to her. Jessica could easily have been sending the photo when he caught her in his study which would explain Maggie’s reaction in Sandbanks. He just had to know.
When he reached Bramble Island, he moored the yacht on the Bramble Bay Ferry berth. It was the only part of the quay big enough to take it and as long as he didn’t stay past 9 am the next day, it should be fine. There was no sign of Maggie or the volunteers so he headed straight for Maggie’s cottage. As he walked across the shingle, he felt a wave of exhaustion hit him. It had been a tough day, emotionally; it was a long time since he’d had to deal with any of this stuff. He stopped and realising he didn’t have the energy left for arguments and explanations, turned back to the quayside.
He reached the yacht, taking a few minutes to bring his motorboat around and tether it to the stern to tow it home. The next time he saw Maggie, he wanted to be ready and if she had no boat, the timing of that would be down to him. He needed to feel some control over his life again.
53
WHEN MAGGIE GOT back from Sandbanks she headed straight for the kitchen and opened the bottle of wine that Ben had left. Whatever his faults, at least Ben wasn’t some psycho ex who couldn’t leave her alone. She sat on the sofa, pulled the throw over her legs and put the television on hoping to find something distracting to watch.
She couldn’t believe that Charlie was going to spend the night in his house with Jessica. It made her blood boil. He was so bloody useless around that woman. If Jessica threw herself at him, Maggie honestly wondered what might happen. They’d had two days left together and now that was ruined. He might as well be back in America because she was not going to set foot back on his island while that woman was there. What made it even worse was that he was taking her out for the evening. He’d never taken Maggie to Sandbanks. They were probably going to Rick Stein’s restaurant. Maggie bet Jessica couldn’t eat anywhere that wasn’t expensive.
After a couple of glasses of wine, she began to feel better. ‘Sleepless in Seattle’, one of her top ten films, was on and she’d only missed the first half an hour. But the story seemed to mirror the way her own life was going; Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks never quite met in the same place, they kept missing each other for the whole movie right until the very end. That was just like her and Charlie but now she was wondering if they’d ever have the ending they’d both wanted in the beginning.
By the end of the film and the bottle of red, Maggie had streaks down her face from crying and had exhausted herself. She burrowed into bed and slipped into a deep sleep.
When Maggie woke the next morning, her head felt foggy, much like the view from the window. It was drizzling to match her mood. She’d probably drunk one too many glasses of wine the night before, but at least in this weather the only visitors would be hardened bird watchers who probably wouldn’t be interested in Trust Treks.
She got up and headed to the kitchen. Sweet tea would make her feel better. Sleeping on things had made her realise that she needed to leave the next move to Charlie. As long as Jessica was there she didn’t want to visit him at home. She had no idea whether he was still planning to leave in a couple of days or whether he and Jessica were just temporarily shacking up together while he finished the project. Maggie had no idea how much longer his project was going to take but she honestly would have preferred him to have stayed in America rather than for Jessica to be staying here. Until now, she had quite successfully managed to operate on an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ basis so that she didn’t miss Charlie too much to bear. Now, he was all she could think about. Him and Jessica.
Once she’d showered, she felt better. It was the first time she’d battled with the tap-shower for a few weeks and she fleetingly yearned for Charlie’s power shower but this was homely, she told herself. She had fallen too easily into treating Charlie’s house as her own and it wasn’t. If it was her house too, she would have been able to insist that Jessica should leave. Charlie would have cared what she thought.
Maggie pulled on her waterproofs for the walk to the office. She strolled, in the rain, via the quay to check on Charlie’s boat but it wasn’t there. Maybe Megan had borrowed it?
When she arrived at the office everyone was there.
‘Does anyone know what happened to Charlie’s boat? It’s not where we left it last night.’
‘Maybe it’s been stolen,’ said Alice, looking stricken.
‘It’s unlikely. Someone would have had to come here specially, or they were already on the island,’ said Eric. ‘Maybe Charlie picked it up?’
‘Yes, maybe. I’ll email him,’ said Maggie, thinking that she ought to do that anyway. She had no idea whether he was still leaving tomorrow and it would be good to know what was going on, for her own peace of mind. ‘Actually, would you mind emailing him, Megan?’
‘No, that’s fine,’ said Megan, firing up the computer and tapping out an email while Maggie went over the priorities for the day with the others. With few visitors expected, they could get on with some routine maintenance like cutting back overgrown paths.
Maggie felt her mobile vibrating in her pocket and pulled it out. It was Charlie. He rarely called her because he had no signal at his house.
‘Hey, Charlie,’ she said, ducking outside for a bit of privacy.
‘Maggie, I’m so sorry, I just got the email from Megan. I picked up the boat last night after I’d dropped Jessica off.’
He’d dropped Jessica off! She hadn’t stayed the night after all and given how intent she’d been on staying, Maggie wondered whether Charlie had finally put his foot down.
‘Oh, okay. That’s fine. We just wanted to make sure it hadn’t been stolen. Where are you?’’
‘I’m on my way to the airport. I had a call from Ed, there’s been a major hack of High 5. I’ve got to go back and help them out. It’ll probably be in hand by the time I can get there but, you know. I was going back tomorrow anyway and Ed’s freaking out.’ He paused. Maggie had the sense that there was something he was waiting for her to say. Was she supposed to beg him to stay? Offer to go with him? Ask about Jessica? She didn’t know. There was so much to say but it wasn’t the time.
‘I hope it turns out okay. Let me know how you’re getting on.’
‘Bye, Maggie. I love you.’
She hung up. It had been a chaotic couple of days, added to a few weeks of not having seen each other properly; Maggie wasn’t so sure how things were going to end up. If she’d said she loved him, they would have been empty words because she didn’t feel the same now as she had before their trip to America. She had been so sure then. Nothing could touch them, they’d been solid. But the first time they’d ventured out of their Dorset bubble, it had almost broken them.
54
CHARLIE HAD TAKEN a direct flight from London to San Jose so that he could go straight to the High 5 offices. It was a hive of activity when he arrived, with even a couple of TV news crews filming on the sidewalk.
Ed looked terrible, ashen-faced and exhausted. There were a few other Cumulus.com executives in the conference room looking very serious, having seemingly endless meetings with specialist teams, trying to find out what had happened.
