2. Caleb
Caleb
“ S o how long are you staying for?” Amelie passed Zoey a glass of wine and sat down next to her. “Caleb hasn’t said.”
Zoey pulled her hair back and tied it up in what she called a messy bun. We were wind swept and cold, the day not the warmest which wasn’t surprising given it was early October.
“A couple of months. Maybe more.” She shot me a grin, knowing that was what I wanted to hear.
I knew more than what she thought, mainly because I’d stored nuggets of information that she’d dropped over the last few months when we’d spoken. Her contract with her record company was up for renewal, she wasn’t settled with the direction they wanted her to take and she’d seemed at a crossroads for a while. Years of phone calls and texting, meeting up at least a couple of times a year, meant I knew her, maybe better than I knew anyone else.
“Maybe you can teach Caleb how to use a washing machine while you’re here.” Amelie shot me a grin that’d been sautéed in evil.
I shook my head at my step-mother, which I only called her when I really wanted to piss her off. Amelie wasn’t your average step-mum; she’d acquired me when I was sixteen and old enough to work in her pub collecting glasses. But she’d parented me nonetheless, although in a different way to my mum and dad.
“I can use a washing machine. Clothes just sometimes come out different sizes to how they went in.” It was true.
Zoey was laughing at me, which I didn’t mind. In fact, I was glad of it. She had always been one of the most free spirited people I knew, reminding me of the wind on the seas, only now she was here, I could see something or someone had sucked that right out of her.
“Will you be here for Christmas and your birthday, sugar?” Amelie fiddled with a beer mat.
Zoey glanced at me again. “Maybe. I don’t have any other plans and I’ve agreed with my manager that I’m taking a few months off from publicity things. This year has been a lot.”
“Just this year?” I raised my brows, sitting down next to her. “You sure about that?”
“Maybe a bit longer then. But yeah, I need some time to myself. I’ve filled the flat with song writing equipment so I can basically make a portable studio and I can get this last album written and recorded on time and that’s it.” She sipped at the wine, closing her eyes which I knew meant she was enjoying the taste.
I knew that she didn’t drink when she was touring. I knew she didn’t sleep well on tour with a different bed every night, and that she was a light sleeper, waking at the sound of every little noise. I knew she hated the travelling and the point when towns and cities blurred into the same place.
“What are your plans for after this album?” Trust Amelie to go straight for the Jugular. “Or don’t you have those plans yet?”
“No plans. My contract with the recording company’s ended after the tour and this last album. There’s a new one on the table, but I’m not going to sign it, which they’ve been told.”
“Any reason why? Or do you just need a break?” My father’s wife and the love of his life did not shy away from cutting questions. They were even sharper when they were directed at me.
“I don’t know yet. I have ideas about what I’d like to do and stepping out of the limelight is one of them. I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than fifteen months between tours and the publicity before tours and for albums. I need to step off that treadmill.” She toyed with the stem of the wine glass. “Have a break. Write some songs because I enjoy doing that.”
“Sounds sensible.” Amelie gave a nod, still watching Zoey. “You have the world at your feet – financially sound and healthy, with no commitments.”
Zoey laughed, but it was tinged with sarcasm. “So I’m completely out of my comfort zone. I’ve had commitments since I was seventeen. An empty diary makes me angsty. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
Amelie shrugged and looked at me. “Sit yourself down, Caleb. You could be useful here.”
I did as I was told because I wasn’t stupid enough not to. Even my dad had learned to pick his battles with the pixie.
“So fix your diary,” Amelie picked up one of the menus. “I imagine there’s loads of stuff you missed out on, so fill some of your days with things you haven’t been able to do. Take a holiday, visit cities as a tourist or have days where you marathon box sets.”
Zoey glanced at me, unsure, I supposed.
“I think Zoey wants to be in one place for a while rather than travel more.” I pulled the menu away from her to check if Amelie had her lasagne on as a special still as I was hungry. We’d been out at sea for longer than I’d expected.
“There’s plenty to do here too.” Amelie nodded, then shook her head at me. “I saved you two portions of the lasagne before you ask.”
“Two for me?” I was just checking.
“Two for you. I’ll bring it out in half an hour.” Amelie took the menu away from me. “Do you not want to spend any time at home, Zoey?”
“I’m in the process of selling the house. I haven’t decided where I want to live yet.” Zoey looked around the pub, the pictures and photos telling some of the stories of Puffin Bay. “Maybe I’ll buy a pub and run that.”
“You can always do a few shifts here,” Amelie said. “I can give Alys a couple of days off.”
“Cay-Cay!”
I twisted round at my name, knowing exactly who that was. Three children, two big and one that was toddling at best, ran through the pub doors and I turned around quickly enough to catch the first one that threw themselves at me.
“Rory, hang on.” I managed to catch her because a bit like her father, her sense of fear was questionable. Somehow she ended up on my shoulders, one of her brothers, Ash, wrapping himself around my legs.
Gulliver Holland strode in, picking up his youngest, Jasper, his expression brightening when he saw Zoey.
“You’re back! Excellent. Another babysitter.” He transferred his gaze to Alys who was behind the bar, watching the kids with a combination of amusement and fear. “Can I have a pint and three cartons of juice for the animals.”
“We’re not animals, Daddy.” Rory, otherwise known as Aurora, crawled down my back and over to Gully. “Mama said I can have wine when I’m grown up.”
“Did Mama say how old you had to be to be grown up?” He fussed with her hair with his free hand.
Aurora looked up, her seven-year-old self full of confidence that was definitely the stuff of Hollands. “Eighteen.”
“Eleven more years of drinking carton juice. Better start to enjoy it.”
She pulled her tongue at him and then headed to the little bookcase near the fire and pulled out a book, she and Ash starting an argument about who got to read it.
“Where’s Iris?” Amelie frowned, staring like she expected Gully’s wife to appear from nowhere. “I needed to see her about Ash’s party.”
“She had a meeting with Cass.” Gully mentioned the head teacher at the primary school and one of our friends. “Ash punched another kid in the face at lunch time break.”
“Why?” Amelie narrowed her eyes.
“A boy was picking on one of the kids in the year below, so Ash apparently stood up to him and lamped him one. Cass phoned me this afternoon to say he needed to see one of us. It was ‘Ris’ turn. I did the Rory meeting last week.” He stretched and yawned.
“What was that about?” Zoey drained her glass.
She knew the kids and most of the Puffin Bay residents, having been here often enough over the years, and when we spoke on the phone when she was away, she always demanded a full low down on everything that was happening,
“Rory doesn’t stop talking and she thinks she’s the teacher. None of it was a surprise and my mam said she had the same issues with me. God help the school when he starts.” He pressed a kiss against Jasper’s hair and ruffled it with his hands. Jasper was fiddling with Gully’s wallet, quite content. “Anyway, how’re you, Zoey? How’s life treating you?”
I shifted away from the table, leaving Zoey to catch up with Gully, getting the juices for the kids. I’d babysat them from when they were tiny, giving Gully and Iris a break. Aurora had lived with me for a week when Ash was tiny, and he’d been in hospital for a few days.
I then headed into the kitchen to order food, finding Amelie following me.
“What else is going on with Zoey?” Her hand grabbed my shoulder before I could get there. “Why’s she selling her house?”
Amelie had visited Zoey there a couple of times when she’d been to London to see friends. She’d stayed there once or twice too, and I knew she kept in touch with Zoey.
“There was a break in there and it’s spooked her.” I folded my arms. “I think she needs to be somewhere she feels safe and she can escape.”
“And that place has always been Puffin Bay. Not just for her either.” Amelie nodded and then sighed. “Caleb, sugar, is that flat going to be big enough? You’re used to having your own space and - ”
“We’ll be fine.” Although I knew that wasn’t what she was asking. “We always are.”
“Then is it clean enough? I’d classify it at hazard level five when I went in there. I wish you’d said you hadn’t had time to stay on top of it – I could’ve had it deep cleaned while you were away.”
“I might’ve seen a mouse in there last night.”
The look of horror on her face was similar to mine when I’d seen the wee beastie.
“You are joking?”
“It’s only a mouse. We get loads on the boats.” I shrugged, knowing she wasn’t going to take this quite as well.
“Okay. We’re going to need to do something about this. Don’t say anything to Zoey.” She headed off, a plan already made.
We stayed in the pub until closing time, several of the locals coming by to say hi when they found out that Zoey was back. She was cheerier by the time we headed back up the stairs to the flat, her smile back in place and one that made her eyes light up, full of gossip from the town and opinions on the new café that’d been opened up as a rival to Amelie’s Cakery in the community centre which had been established for years.
“Does the town need two cafés?” She sat down on the sofa, stretching out her legs, her blonde hair still windswept.
“Amelie isn’t bothered by it. She said it hasn’t made any difference to the takings at the cakery.” I squished down into a chair that’d seen better days. I still had Amelie’s old furniture from when she’d lived here, twelve years ago. When she moved in with my dad, she’d kept the flat as her bolthole in case she got cold feet. Her feet had stayed warm and it’d been me who escaped here instead. More than a decade later I really needed to think about getting my own place and maybe growing up and buying house shit.
“Hmmm.” Zoey stretched out some more, looking around the room. “I love how little things change here. Every time I come back, there’s something different but most things are the same. It’s nice.”
I nodded, watching her, hoping she didn’t notice the small creature looking at us from a corner. Zoey hadn’t changed much from when we’d first met, just before the community centre opened and I’d been delivering flyers about it with my dad. Her face was sharper, her hair lighter and she was tiny and toned and probably several pounds lighter even after demolishing the lasagne and another portion of cottage pie for supper.
I still thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever met, but I wasn’t tongue-tied over her anymore, because that pretty girl was one of my best friends.
“There’s a reason I didn’t move away.” Which begged the question about why I was thirty and still living in Amelie’s flat.
“I know. I get really jealous when you phone me because you’re on your way back from some research thing and you’re excited about coming home to this.” She looked around the living room again. “Maybe not this flat exactly, but Puffin Bay.”
“It’s a good place to live. I should probably have a house by now though.” I’d managed to get a huge TV and a really decent sound system. They hadn’t been a problem.
“Why haven’t you? Even I managed that and I’ve been away for nine months out of every year, pretty much.” She sat up, tucking her feet under her. “How much time are you away now?”
“Maybe twelve weeks a year total. I’m away again just after Christmas for six weeks. After that my next project is here, and it’s a twenty-four month thing.” Which I was looking forward to. The excitement of living on research vessels or stations in the middle of nowhere or university accommodation had waned the last few years.
“Where are you after Christmas?”
I’d kept quiet about this one. “Antarctica. I’m managing a team out there looking at the effects of climate change on – yeah, I’ll skip the details.” It’d taken her two years to tell me that her interest in marine biology didn’t require details.
“Antarctica? Drastic.”
“What? You’ve never toured there?”
She laughed. “The only continent, I think, I haven’t played on. Oh, fuck, I’m so glad I don’t have to get up on stage tonight or tomorrow.”
“Do you need a break from it? Is it burn out?”
She was thoughtful for a minute. “Partly. But you know I’ve never liked being on stage all that much. I know some musicians get a high from performing to a crowd and hearing them shout their name, and that’s never been me. I still like making music, but the thought of doing another tour makes me want to hide away in Thane’s lighthouse.”
“So don’t do it anymore. You don’t need the money, unless there’s something you’ve not told me.” I knew I was too black and white sometimes, finding solutions that were straightforward and sometimes missing the complexity.
“I don’t need the money. I’m set – the royalty payments will keep coming in for my songs and the ones I’ve written for other people. It’s a whole change of lifestyle though and remember, this is all I’ve known as an adult.” She shifted round in her seat and frowned. “What’s this – Caleb!”
I stared at her hand that emerged from under a cushion.
“Yeah. I probably need to clean in the morning.”
She studied the condom wrapper. “Caleb, this expired two years ago. Either you need to be more careful, or you need to stop living like a student.”
“It was in date when I used it. Shit. Sorry.” I stood up and took it from her. “I might just buy a new sofa.”
“Good idea. Which woman was this?”
I pulled a face.
“You have no idea, do you? Which woman did you have sex with on your sofa?” Her expression was becoming more serious.
“I don’t remember. Not for that specific condom.” My hole was getting deeper.
“Is this where you usually seduce your women?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes.” I was hardly a monk. Tourist season was full of hen parties and girls’ weekends, and the women were often out for a fling. “You’re not exactly celibate.”
“I doubt I’ve got my freak on as much as you.” The teasing tone was lost from her voice. “It isn’t as easy as you think.”
“Meeting someone?” I knew she wasn’t a fan of one-night stands.
“Got it in one. I haven’t had sex in twelve months.” She rearranged herself on the sofa. “Been too busy to and weeding out the dickheads from the potential boyfriends is time consuming.”
I stood up, because I didn’t want to carry on this conversation about her love life. No one would be good enough for Zoey. I’d seen her get messed around by boyfriends both famous and everyday Joes. She’d last dated an investment banker who was ten years older than her; he’d dicked around behind her back, and she’d found out he was sleeping with one of his colleagues. I knew she’d thought he might be the one and when it was over she’d been devastated. Then there’d been the actor a couple of years before the twatty banker. He’d been the perfect boyfriend until he ghosted her, next seen with another actress on his arm, probably one who could enhance his career better because that was what her industry was like.
“What do you want to do tomorrow? Apart from come sofa shopping with me.” Not a smooth segue at all.
The smile came back. “I have to speak to my manager. The label has sent an improved contract over – less touring, more money and I’m still saying no. Maybe just a walk on the beach. Go to the café near the boatyard. Don’t you have to work?”
I nodded. “I need to call in and have a quick word with one of the lecturers, but I don’t have a teaching load this year, just supervision of PhD students which means speaking to them online every couple of weeks. I’m research based at the moment.”
“Hence you’re away for six weeks.”
I nodded. “So if after Christmas you want to hang out here for longer, you can. Beach tomorrow. I’ll go into the office when you’re speaking to your manager.”
“We have a plan. I’ve got something in my diary.”
“You have. I’ll use the bathroom first. You’ll take ages.”
“I do not!”
“Want to prove it?”
She looked sheepish. “Not really. You go first. Is it clean?”
“Cleaner than the sofa.”
March, Twelve Years Ago
We were in her house, watching the sun go down over the sea, the sky a myriad of yellows and oranges. Spring was almost here, and it was the Easter holidays from college, so I had days of not having to do anything apart from a few shifts at the cakery and the Puffin Inn.
“Are you still seeing that girl?” Zoey put down the guitar she’d been strumming, humming the same few bars over and over while she perfected something that sounded pretty good already.
“Which one?” It was a fair question.
“Gwynnie.”
“I stopped seeing her ages ago. It wasn’t serious.” I didn’t do serious. I was seventeen and that was enough of a reason to not do serious. A couple of months had been the longest I’d dated the same person, going to the cinema or out for food, the odd bar if she looked good enough or was old enough. I could pass for over eighteen if I wasn’t in Puffin Bay or the nearby towns where everyone knew who I was and my age.
“Who did you think I meant?” Zoey folded her arms.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“How many girls have you been out with this year?”
I might’ve blushed. It was a thing I’d done since I was a kid. “Just Gwyn properly.”
“Okay, how many people have you slept with this year? Since Christmas?” Zoey folded her arms and looked a bit scary.
“Four. You mean that I’ve had sex with, don’t you? By slept with?”
“Yes. Four. Four girls.” She looked kind of upset.
“I didn’t cheat on Gwyn.” I felt I needed to defend myself.
“So who were the other three?”
I stared out of the window and felt uncomfortable. “Why does it matter?”
“Because I’m being nosey. When did you lose your virginity?”
“Last summer.” In a tent with a girl from Manchester who was eighteen and had just split with her boyfriend. I’d been a thirty second wonder and I was proud of all thirty of those seconds. The second time had been better.
“So are you like going through every girl at college?”
“No. One girl was at a party. She’s the year above me. Another was a woman who was at the Puffin Inn for the weekend, and she asked me up to her room.”
“How old was she?”
“About twenty something.” And that had been a highlight. She knew how old I was and guessed at my inexperience, so I’d had the best two nights of lessons ever.
“Twenty something. Who was the fourth?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I want to know. I’m being nosey.” She hugged a cushion.
I swallowed. “The other was a student at the university. I met her at the open day. She gave me a tour of the halls of residence.” I practiced some of my new skills on her and now she wouldn’t stop texting me. “That’s it. I’m seventeen, Zoey, I’ve just found out how to use my dick. Don’t dick shame me.”
She burst out laughing. “Dick shame? Where’ve you got that from? Wanker!” The cushion was launched at me.
I caught it before it hit me in the face. “Don’t tell me you’re not hooking up with rock stars or famous people at parties.”
She laughed, shaking her head so her blonde messy curls bounced around. “There’s no time for parties and I’m not hooking up with anyone. It’s work, work, work.”
“You’re liking it though, aren’t you?” I wasn’t sure she was. When I spoke to her on the phone last week, she’d sounded like she’d been crying.
“It’s okay. I’m living a lot of people’s dream. I appreciate that.” She lay down on the sofa. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“You can tell me anything.”
“Come and sit here so I can’t see your face.”
I moved so I was sitting on the floor against the sofa, my back to her. Her fingers played with my hair which felt nicer than it should. “What’s wrong with my face?”
“Nothing’s wrong with your face. I just need to tell you something and it’s embarrassing.”
“Did you fart and then shit yourself?”
“No. I have never done that. Have you?”
“Not since I was about four. My mum still laughs about it. So whatever you say, it can’t be that embarrassing.”
“It is.”
“Go on then.”
“I feel like I should be drunk or stoned or something to tell you this.”
“Get on with it, Zo, before I die of old age.” I caught hold of her hand and held on to it. Whatever she wanted to say she was nervous about it.
I was nervous about it.
“I’ve never slept with anyone. Don’t laugh.”
I wanted to swing around to see her, to check that she was okay but I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her vulnerable. I knew her too well by now, and well enough to know that the thin facade she had built in front of her was fragile. I wasn’t going to push it down.
“Why would I laugh about that?” It was true. Why would I, or anyone?
She was quiet for a moment. “Because I’m eighteen and I’ve never had sex with anyone. It’s weird.”
“Can I turn round now?” I couldn’t carry on this conversation without looking at her. “I’m not going to laugh and I don’t think it’s weird.”
“Okay. I’ll hit you with a cushion if you laugh at me.”
I got up and sat on the edge of the sofa, making her move. “You shouldn’t sleep with anyone unless you really want to, and if you’ve not met someone that you really want to with, then don’t waste your first time.”
She propped herself up on the arm of the chair, giving me more space. I shifted her legs and sat back, putting her legs back on top of my lap.
“I think I’m going to die a virgin.” She covered her face with her hands. “I really worry it’ll never happen.”
“Why won’t it happen? It’s not like no one wants you? I don’t think you need to be worried about that.” Zoey was still the prettiest girl I’d ever met. It was part of the reason Gwyn had finished with me – she hated that I was friends with Zoey and she said she couldn’t compete. I figured it was an excuse because the boy she’d gone out with before me had just broken up with his new girlfriend, but I wasn’t that bothered anyway.
“So say I meet someone. He’ll probably be older than me because I don’t meet men my own age. We go out a few times and we get to that stage where he expects sex is going to happen. How’s he going to react when I tell him it’s going to be the first time? And I’d be so self-conscious about doing everything wrong that I’m terrible at it and I get dumped and he tells everyone. It’d be mortifying.” She covered her eyes. “Maybe I should join a convent.”
“For fuck’s sake, Zo, stop being dramatic. If the bloke’s into you, he’s not going to think it’s weird and if he does, walk out of there fast.” I reached over and pulled her hands away from her face.
She didn’t look reassured.
“There’s no one I’m interested in at the moment anyway. So it’s not a problem.” She looked out of the window. The sky and the sea were almost the same shade of grey, nothing visible at the other side of the Strait, a cloak of fine rain dowsing everything.
My shoulders had relaxed and I wasn’t sure why. I knew I didn’t like the idea of Zoey meeting someone, probably because I was worried she wouldn’t want us to be friends like we were now because she’d have someone else.
Maybe it was something else.
Her phone rang, tearing through the silence that hung between us.
“Hi Carissa,” Zoey said, rolling her eyes at me. “I’m just relaxing with Caleb. It’s raining here.”
There was a pause. I couldn’t work out what Carissa was saying down the phone but I could tell from how tense Zoey had gone that she didn’t like what she was hearing.
“I don’t see why me being there is necessary. It’s lovely that they’ve invited me, but I was planning on spending the week here.” More silence. “So who’s really said they want me there? They do know they don’t own me, don’t they?”
I rubbed my hand up and down her calf, over the tight denim jeans she was wearing. This week was meant to be an escape from all the appearances she was making with her debut album due out. I knew she was exhausted and peopled-out.
“Compromise. I’ll get there tomorrow evening. Let me at least have today and tomorrow morning.” She sat up, crawling onto my lap.
I wrapped my arms around her, liking how she felt against my chest, hoping to fuck that my dick didn’t decide to start standing to attention.
“Fine. They can pick me up at nine. But I want another week off instead – or I come back here the day after.” Another silence.
I wrapped my arms around her waist, remembering how this felt because it wasn’t the first time we’d cuddled without there being anything in it.
Only that was a lie. I wanted something more, because she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, but why would she be interested in me, and it wouldn’t work anyway. I wasn’t famous or talented, not like she was. I’d lose my friend and I wasn’t going to do that.
“Agreed. I’ll be ready for midday. See you tomorrow, Car.” She put her phone down and snuggled into me more. “I’m needed at a private function in London. The head honcho at my record company’s having a dinner for someone on the board and wants to showcase my amazing talents.” Her words were sautéed in sarcasm.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I felt her relax now. “And you can come back. Did Carissa say that was alright?”
“She did. But I wanted the whole week.”
“There’ll be other weeks. What do you want to do tonight then?” I loosened my grip and nudged her off my lap, standing up and stretching because I was getting a bit too close to kissing her.
Zoey got up too, putting her arms around my neck and hugging me. “You’re such an amazing friend.”
“What do you want to do?” I semi hugged her back, needing a bit of distance.
“Go and watch a film. Or play cards at Puffin Inn.” She looked like these two things would be the pinnacle of high entertainment.
“We can do either. Pick.”
That got me a laugh. “Something I have a choice about.”
“What a choice too.”
She didn’t come back that week. There was another event, an interview too where she talked about a boyfriend whose identity she wouldn’t reveal, and a last-minute TV appearance because someone else couldn’t make it.
In fact, it would be another six months before Zoey came back to Puffin Bay, smiling more, a record setting album having been released. Six months of talking on the phone or on video calls, a whole summer of her teasing me about the girls I went on dates with and asking for the local gossip.
It was a long six months.