Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
TOM
The sky here is enormous.
That’s the first thing I noticed when I arrived, and it hasn’t stopped being true. In Cornwall, the sky is caught in glimpses – between cottages, above the harbour, framed by cliffs. Here, it stretches from horizon to horizon, an endless grey dome pressing down on the land.
Today it’s the colour of wet slate. It’s been the colour of wet slate for three days.
The surgery is quiet. Tuesday afternoon lull. I’m updating patient files when my phone buzzes.
Jude.
‘Mate.’ His voice is bright, excited. ‘You sitting down?’
‘I’m at work. What’s happened?’
‘Baby’s here. Arrived yesterday. Boy. Peter William Harding. Seven pounds four ounces. Everyone’s healthy.’
Peter.
The name lands in my chest and sits there, heavy.
‘That’s great,’ I say. ‘That’s really great. How’s Isla?’
‘Exhausted. Happy. Kit’s walking around like someone hit him over the head with a frying pan – you know that look he gets. Total shock. But good shock.’
‘And the baby?’
‘Perfect. Loud. Already got Kit wrapped around his tiny finger.’ Jude laughs. ‘You should have seen it, Tom. The whole village went mental. Dot was directing traffic. Bill abandoned his fish. The ice-cream van was playing “Greensleeves” in the background like some kind of weird soundtrack.’
‘Sounds about right.’
‘Nina was there. At the hospital, I mean. Isla wanted her in the room.’
My hand tightens on the phone. ‘Yeah?’
‘She was amazing, mate. Held it together the whole time. She’s strong, that one.’
‘She is.’
‘She’s doing well, actually. You should see what she’s doing with Jenny’s Dream.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s converting it into a floating coffee shack.
Got Emmett from Newquay doing the carpentry.
The whole village is involved – Bill and Frankie offered to help, Brynn’s done about forty sketches of the layout.
She’s calling it Lavender Dreams.’ He pauses.
‘It’s going to be brilliant, Tom. She’s got this whole vision – fairy lights, cushions, coffee on the water. It’s so … her.’
‘That’s great.’ My voice sounds far away. ‘That’s really great.’
‘She’s turned a corner, mate. You can see it in her face.’
‘Good. That’s good.’
Jude hesitates. ‘You okay? You sound weird.’
‘I’m fine. Just busy. Work stuff.’
‘Right. Yeah. Course.’ Another pause. ‘How’s Scotland?’
‘Good. The practice is good. Cara’s good. Everything’s … good.’
‘That’s a lot of good.’
‘Because it is. Good.’
‘Okay.’ His tone is pitched with a question. ‘Well. Just wanted to let you know about the baby. Thought you’d want to hear it.’
‘I did. Thanks for calling.’
‘Take care of yourself, mate.’
‘You too.’
I hang up. Set the phone down on the desk. Stare at the wall.
Lavender Dreams. Floating coffee shack. The whole village involved.
She’s thriving now that I’m gone.
The thought should make me happy. It does make me happy – somewhere underneath the hollow feeling, the slow excavation that’s been happening since I crossed the border. She’s building. She’s moving forward. She’s doing the thing I always wanted her to do.
She just didn’t need me here for it.
Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I was the thing holding her back – the constant reminder of Peter, of grief, of everything she couldn’t move past. Maybe leaving was the kindest thing I could have done for her.
Maybe Scotland is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
The flat is fine.
Two bedrooms, which Cara and I have been sticking to, sharing the main living areas, but sleeping separately.
A bit like uni digs again I suppose. Clean.
Modern. A view of the car park from the kitchen window and the distant suggestion of hills if I lean at the right angle.
The letting agent called it ‘compact and efficient’, which is estate agent for small but not terrible.
It’s nothing like the surgery flat in Sea Salt Bay. No creaking floorboards. No harbour through the glass. The windows seal properly, which means no draught, which means no salt smell, which means I sleep in a silence so complete it wakes me at three in the morning wondering what’s wrong.
I’ve been here three weeks and it still doesn’t feel like home.
The practice, at least, is impressive.
Modern facilities. Digital X-ray. A proper surgical suite with decent lighting and equipment Dad would have wept over.
Cara’s built well here – the client list is solid, the systems are clean, and the referral network is better than anything I had in Cornwall.
Mixed practice, like she promised. Dogs and cats in the morning, farm calls in the afternoon.
And the farm calls are good. I’ll give Scotland that.
Yesterday I drove twenty minutes to a hill farm to check on a pregnant Highland cow and the view from the yard – the loch, the mountains, the cloud shadows moving across the bracken – stopped me for a moment.
Just a moment. I stood there with my arm in a cow and thought: This could work.
Then I got back in the car and drove past a lavender field and the colour hit me like a fist.
‘You’re settling in,’ Cara says over coffee. We’re in the staff room – clean, bright, nothing like the cramped back office at Dad’s surgery. ‘The Hendersons specifically requested you for their next appointment. Said you had a good way with Monty.’
‘Monty’s a Labrador. Labradors love everyone.’
‘Monty bit the last locum.’
‘Then maybe I’m just less edible.’
She laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Easy. Uncomplicated.
‘Do you fancy going out for dinner tonight?’ she asks. ‘Some vet friends of mine, Dean and Ellie, are driving up from Inverness, and there’s a couple from the village, Layla and Ross. He’s a solicitor. She runs the bookshop. You’ll like them.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Leave at half seven?’
‘I’ll be ready.’
The restaurant is in the village – one of those gastropub conversions with exposed beams and a menu that uses words like ‘jus’ and ‘reduction’. The hills roll away outside the windows, grey-green under the grey sky, stretching towards mountains I still can’t name.
Dean and Ellie are already there when we arrive. Ellie hugs me like we’re old friends, even though I’ve never met her in my life. Dean shakes my hand, asks about the practice, tells a long story about a horse he treated last week that ends with him covered in something he refuses to identify.
Layla and Ross arrive ten minutes later. She’s small, dark-haired, talks with her hands. He’s tall and quiet and watches everything with a solicitor’s careful attention.
‘So you’re the famous Tom,’ Layla says, sliding into her seat. ‘Cara’s told us all about you.’
‘Has she?’
‘All good things.’ She grins. ‘Mostly. There was that story about the goat—’
‘We agreed never to mention the goat,’ Cara says quickly.
‘Did we? I don’t remember agreeing to that.’
They bicker like old friends. I watch, smile in the right places, try to track the references I don’t have context for.
‘How are you finding it up here?’ Ross asks. He’s got the gruff Scottish burr that I haven’t quite tuned in to yet, and I am slightly concerned I never will. ‘Quite a change from Cornwall, I imagine.’
‘It’s different.’
‘Good different or bad different?’
‘Just different.’ I take a sip of wine. ‘The sky’s bigger.’
‘The sky’s bigger,’ Layla repeats. ‘That’s very poetic. Are you a poet, Tom?’
‘He’s a vet,’ Cara says. ‘Poets don’t do rectal exams on cattle.’
‘That you know of.’
The food arrives. A Moroccan dish with lamb. And potatoes that are trying too hard with truffle oil that smells like feet. I eat without tasting much, answering questions when they’re directed at me, laugh when everyone else laughs.
It’s fine. It’s all fine.
But there’s a wrongness underneath that I can’t shake.
The way Ellie keeps glancing between me and Cara, like she’s waiting for a signal.
The way Dean claps me on the shoulder and calls me ‘mate’ in a way that assumes more familiarity than we have, or that they will be driving from Inverness to do this exact same evening with us, over and over again, for the entire future of my existence.
The way Layla says ‘you two’ like it’s already settled, already decided.
They think we’re a couple.
Cara hasn’t corrected them. I haven’t either.
Maybe this is just what moving on looks like. You go through the motions until they become real. You pretend until the pretending stops feeling like pretending.
‘You’re quiet tonight,’ Cara says softly, under the noise of Layla and Ellie debating something about a book club.
‘Just tired. Long day.’
‘Tired tired, or something else?’
‘Just tired.’
She watches me for a moment. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Let me know if you need to leave early.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I know you’re fine. I’m just saying.’
Her hand brushes mine under the table. Brief. Light. An offer, not a demand.
I don’t pull away. I don’t lean in either.
We stay in the middle ground. The place where nothing is decided and everything is possible and nobody has to name the thing that isn’t working.
The drive back is quiet.
Cara’s had a couple of glasses of wine – she’s not drunk, just soft around the edges, a warmth in her cheeks. She’s humming under her breath, something slow I can’t place.
The headlights cut through the dark. No streetlights out here – just the road and the hills and the enormous black sky pressing down.
‘Thanks for tonight,’ she says. ‘I know it’s a lot, meeting everyone. But they liked you.’
‘They’re nice.’
‘They are nice. Layla’s insane, but in a good way. And Dean, well, he likes the sound of his own voice.’
She snorts at that, and the tight knot inside me unravels an inch.
I pull up outside the flat.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asks. ‘Still tired?’
The invitation hangs in the air. Clear. Unmistakable.
‘Come on, let’s get in, it’s getting chilly.’ I pull on the handle of the door and push it open, stepping out and closing it before swiftly making my way to her side and helping her out. Her hair is silver under the starlight. She’s close enough that I can smell her perfume – warm, floral.
‘Cara—’
‘Come on.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘You’re right, it’s bloody freezing out here.’
I follow her up the stairs to the second-level flat, and as we do I take in the curve of her arse, the slight sway. Is there a response there? In the pit of my stomach? Can I step between this and what we could be if I could just get out of my own way?
She opens the front door and I swallow hard as the light flicks on, encasing our shared home, my new home, in a golden light.
The keys rattle onto the small dining-room table and then she turns, the brilliant blue of her gaze sweeping my face.
Her weight shifts forward, closer into my space, filling my senses with the warmth of her perfume again.
It would be so easy. Hell, it was only a few months ago that I had no issues ripping off that body-skimming floral dress she wore to Sophie and Stewart’s wedding. But then I’d been fuelled by a hideous cocktail of alcohol, and right now I’m only fuelled by some Diet Coke and mild indigestion.
I take a breath.
Then another.
And it is easy, leaning forward and glancing my mouth across hers, feeling the soft sigh that escapes between her lips.
It’s easy to run my fingers through her silky hair, watching her eyes shutter close in pleasure as I lean down to kiss her again, firmer this time, with more intention and less question.
Her mouth opens under mine, letting me steal inside, and heat floods through my system, curling in my stomach, tightening my balls.
My free hand slips under the edge of her top, palming the smooth skin of her stomach.
‘Tom,’ she whispers, and I jolt. Eyes flying open.
I blink.
Because for one awful moment, I was kissing Nina in my head.
Cara’s forehead crinkles with a frown. ‘Tom?’
Automatically, I take a step back. Space rushes between us – cool, much needed space.
‘Tom, if you’re not ready—’ Her voice is husky. Her breath is ragged.
‘It’s not about ready.’
‘Then what is it about?’
I don’t know how to answer that. How do I explain that everything here is right – the practice, the people, the woman standing right in front of me – but it still feels wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I just… I can’t. Not yet.’
Cara nods. The hope drains from her face slowly, replaced by resignation, held with dignity.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘That’s okay.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Stop apologising.’ She turns for her room, and I wish to fuck I could ask her to stop, to come back, and I could pick it up where we stopped. But I can’t, because I kissed her and I closed my eyes, and behind those closed eyes it was Nina I was seeing.
Still Nina.
‘Cara—’
‘Goodnight, Tom.’ She pauses at her door and turns back. ‘Just so you know – I’m not going to wait forever. I like you, but I’m not going to spend my life hoping someone learns to love me back. I’ve done that before. It doesn’t end well.’
I’m not sure if she’s talking about herself, or if it’s a lesson for me.