46
S ure enough, all of Carso suddenly descends on the Seagate cottages, taking direction from Wee Jim, showing up with an unfortunate number of unnecessary carpet oddments and strange cushions and of course – of course – everything knitted for a house that can conceivably be knitted for a house.
Antimacassars and curtains – curtains! – blankets, cushions, throws, a lampshade which looks point-blank dangerous.
Essie’s eyes are wide. Verity shows up, armed with a new set of knitting needles and looking ready to get stuck into the fun.
Gradually the oil rig boys take over with the hammering, and, as the afternoon creeps on, Essie, utterly exhausted – she barely slept – looks around to see where Dwight has got to.
He’s out, on the other side of the street, looking out over the sea.
‘Hey,’ she says, joining him.
He glances up, nods. He’s holding up a stick; Smokey can already jump up past his thighs.
She stands in front of him. ‘You okay?’
He shrugs. ‘I was an idiot.’
‘So was I. I was worse. And you still lost the bank loan.’
‘I’d have lost it all if it wasn’t for you. I’d have lost everything.’
‘My mum said . . . ’ begins Essie.
‘She’s alright, your mum,’ says Dwight.
‘She really is,’ says Essie.
She thinks back to the trip to the hospital in the car, dashing across the hills in the tiny red car she had disdained.
‘I’m so sorry . . . ’ she had begun, and Janey had turned to her.
‘You never, ever have to apologise to me. I’m so sorry it was so hard on you.’
Essie had thought of the missed calls; of the fact that her father hadn’t come to see her even once.
‘No,’ she had said. ‘I get it. I do. I’m sorry.’
She had watched the little pretty town in the side mirror, vanishing behind them, nestled between the sea and the soft rolling hills. How had she never noticed how beautiful it was, how lovely; that it was home.
‘She said . . . it’s good to get your mistakes out of your system while you’re still young. She said it quite a few times, in fact,’ says Essie.
They look out over the bright blue water, the tips just bobbing white in the northern breeze.
‘What were you thinking now?’ says Dwight, and for the first time since she met him again he seems slightly nervous.
‘What are you going to do?’ she counters. ‘With your properties. That are now full of...’ Former Essie would have said ‘absolute tat,’ but new Essie says, ‘ . . . a lot of eclectic things.’
‘Well, I thought . . . I thought I might take one of the cottages myself. And then the other ones . . . well, your mum’s friend Lish – her husband needs somewhere he can walk to work . . . ’
‘That’s a good idea,’ says Essie neutrally.
He looks at her.
‘Maybe . . . I could come and stay for a little?’ Essie says.
Dwight shrugs, but suddenly the cocky twinkle is back in his eyes.
‘That sure depends,’ he says.
He pulls her close, until they are hip to hip. She fits him perfectly. She finds, immediately, that she is trembling. The effect on her is extraordinary. He leans his lips to her ear, and she feels him hard against her. He whispers in her ear.
‘A man has needs, you know. Reckon that’s something you can handle? Because I am planning on being in the business of not really letting you go.’
‘That,’ says Essie, ‘is probably the only business we should be in for a while.’
And she puts her hands in the back pocket of his tight jeans, and, as the houses are still full of people, they go and take a very long walk, along the great crashing empty beaches, into the wide, glorious white sand dunes, utterly deserted, where they can make as much noise as they like, underneath a sky blown white and clean and new.