Chapter 16
16
ISAAC
I’m still thinking about Joe stupidly early the next morning when it turns out that Sealife School meets only a hop, skip, and a jump from the same pub where I left him. And that’s what a growing gang of kids do—they hop and skip over cobbles, making so much noise they’d wake the dead, let alone someone who must still be sleeping if the closed curtains at Joe’s window are an indicator.
My gaze flits between those drawn curtains and Lenny, who is my silent shadow. He hangs back from the game of The Ground is Lava those kids play, his own gaze darting, only not up to Joe’s window. His darts between me and his little buddies, so I answer his silent question. “I won’t leave. Go ahead and play.”
There’s that word again, one that Luke suggested for me.
Play.
Right now, I can’t help thinking he was onto something. After last night, I could fucking hop, skip, and jump like Lenny does towards his friends, only I’d do it straight back to Joe’s bedroom and get back to another type of playing.
Joe might be asleep in the bed we didn’t even make it into, could be as bare now as when water pounded both of us before he pounded me even harder. That was good—what I needed—but right now, what I want more is what came after. A repeat, and not just of sex.
Joe shut the world out for a while, and it didn’t matter if that was only for an hour. I’ve woken a different person this morning, one who doesn’t only hear a clock ticking down to a trial. I can almost see beyond all of Lenny’s black-crayoned crosses and believe in a happy ending.
With Joe.
For now, I stare up at his bedroom window with only seagulls bearing witness. Or that’s what I think until Luke speaks from behind me.
“What did I tell you?”
“About Joe coming back to Glynn Harber for longer?” My mind does some hop, skip, and jumping all of its own but not because the cobbles in this fishing village cover actual magma. “You told me to…”
Luke might have told me to play, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want the details of how we banged or how I’ve woken with volcanoes on the brain. Only I can’t forget Joe flinching when mentioning how people change their minds after seeing the long-cooled lava his clothes cover.
That isn’t what Luke asked me, either.
“You told me…” I wet dry lips and take another look up at the glass panes and fabric between me and someone I want to see so much more of. I don’t only mean more of Joe’s shower-wet skin. I want to see everything that matters to him and hear more stories across candlelit restaurant tables. Then maybe I’ll understand why the only other time I’ve seen him flinch is when he mentions his family. They should be so fucking proud of how he didn’t give up, of how he rewrote his own story, and I can’t find the words to tell Luke how welcome he should make him.
“I… Y-you…”
Luke stops me in my stuttering tracks with a murmur that shouldn’t carry over the shriek of gulls. My own internal birds swoop all over again at his quiet instruction. “Breathe.”
I do, and that shrieking lessens.
Laughter drowns it out, and I see why when Luke steers me to the waist-high wall between us and the rock pools the tide has pulled back to reveal.
Tor has caught a crab that an older man examines. He points out its claws, and Lenny copies his nipping motions, hero-worship mode engaged as he watches this Sealife School leader wind a crab line.
“Fight or flight?” Luke asks from beside me. “Freeze or…” He casts a glance back at the pub, so I finish for him.
“I’m not fawning. I looked it up, like you said. I’m not seeing good where it isn’t deserved. And I’m not clinging to someone instead of detaching enough to think clearly.”
“Good. I didn’t think so. But maybe take a minute to feel.”
“Feel?”
“That’s what my dad taught me to do here. Well, not here exactly.” Luke points further along this craggy coastline. “He did it up on those cliffs when I was having a difficult time. I wasn’t much older than Lenny when he asked me to sit with whatever I was feeling, and with him, until the sun rose. To trust that it would shine again. That it would always come up, just like he planned to always be here for me.” His shoulder nudges mine once, twice, then stays put, rock fucking solid. “I’m not going anywhere either, so you can go ahead if you want. Have yourself a good long think about why me asking you a question just spiked panic.”
“Panic? I’m not?—”
“What’s your heart doing right now?” He tilts his head as if he can hear the drumming in my ears that rivals what I last heard coming from a music practice room. Then he nods at Lenny, who looks like he can’t get enough of hearing about the sea life in each rock pool. He hangs on each of that older guy’s words like I hang on Luke’s. “Because I’m pretty sure all I told you was that Lenny would love this.”
Oh.
Of course that’s what he meant.
I nod at what else he tells me.
“It’s the weekend. I’m not the boss of you until Monday morning. Frankly, I don’t feel the boss of myself most days, let alone of other people.” He leans on the seawall and shares what sounds confidential. “Keep waiting for someone to notice and point out that I’m making up how to run a school based purely on gut instinct. I do a whole lot of feeling out of my depth, and when that happens, I remember what Dad told me. I breathe, let myself sit with whatever I’m feeling, and then I wait for the sun to come up so I can see a bit more clearly.”
I do the same while watching my brother pay close attention to a teacher who winds and unwinds a crab line several times in silence. His voiceless demonstration ends with him placing that line next to Len, which couldn’t be any clearer.
This is for you.
It’s all yours.
All you have to do is take it.
Lenny must believe him. Or almost. His hand hovers while the other kids are all busy dipping their lines into the glistening water. My brother looks up at the man beside him, and I know this expression of bone-deep hope warring with mistrust that he’ll ever get to keep something he wants. It’s the same way he used to look during video calls and prison visits that were never long enough for him to find his voice. By the time he did, Mum was gone.
You can have this, Len.
Take it.
Hadi cheers, a crab on the end of his line next, and in the periphery of my vision, I see Luke mirror his son’s grin. So does Asa, who does a happy dance for his friend that ends with a splash and their teacher hooking him out of knee-deep water.
Laughter rings around this harbour.
The whole time, Lenny doesn’t look away from that spool of crab line, that one thing he wants and that every other kid here takes for granted.
Another murmur drifts through their background chatter. “Trusting can be tough.”
Tell me about it.
I nod until I realise that comment wasn’t aimed at Len.
Luke doesn’t look at any of the children. I’m his entire focus, only it isn’t a headmaster who nudges me until I turn or a boss giving me instruction. Someone who could be a friend suggests, “Cornwall was a good place for me to practice. Could be a good place for you too.”
It’s the perfect time for a set of curtains to open at a window behind him.
Joe.
He’s bare-chested and blinking, his phone to his ear, frowning until he sees me. This smile might as well be a crab line tied between us. It winds tight when he raises a hand, then jerks when he waves it, and I wave back just as Luke says, “Oh, you brave, brave boy.”
This time, he does look towards the rock pools, and I hurry to find my own phone and capture Len digging deep to take what he’s been offered. Not only that, his first dip into glistening water comes with a prize of his own. A crab clasps the bait on the end of his line with its pincer, and Lenny shouts in surprise and triumph.
I catch that prize for Mum. Lenny’s grin fills the screen of my phone, and, just like that, I find the words I didn’t have the breath for minutes ago.
“I’m good with Joe spending more time at Glynn Harber.” I inhale deeply as if to prove how easily I can breathe around him. “You said you’d reply to him on Monday about his proposal. He told me all about it. It’s good. Really good. Can I…. Can I tell Joe you’ll speak to him about it sooner?”
Luke follows my eye line, turning to raise a hand of his own at a now clothed Joe, who must have pulled on a shirt in a hurry. Luke is more measured. “Is sooner what you really want?”
Like my brother, I can’t find words. I can only nod slowly at first, then faster.
“Go on, then. No promises, but I’m happy to talk with him while he’s here.”
If Luke says anything else, I don’t hear what. I’m already on the move.
By the time I reach Joe’s bedroom, he’s at the door, looking as rumpled as the sheets on the bed, only with worry for me. “You okay? That looked a bit tense.” And yes, I’m too late to slide under those sheets with him, but his concern is as good as being wrapped tight in them.
“I’m good.” So is snatching a kiss and then sharing news that he follows me downstairs to talk through with Luke out on the harbour.
And the harbourside is where I find Lenny looking as if a cloud has covered the sun.
He’s at the top of the steps, his crab line dropped and forgotten, worried gaze searching wildly.
For me.
“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t leave, Len. I found someone. Look.”
I step aside, and I’m not saying the sun comes out for both of us then, but what emerges means I’m glad I still hold my phone.
Mum’s gonna love to see at least one happy reunion.
We don’t head straight back after Sealife School is over. Apparently, these sessions usually end at a fisherman’s cottage, and we pass under strings of bunting on the way there. It flutters over each narrow alley and over Luke and Joe. They talk the whole way, then stand on the doorstep as that older session leader extends an invitation that clues me into the fact that he’s Luke’s father.
“If I know my son, he won’t stop yapping for ages. Come in.” He then fires at Luke, “Don’t wear out your tongue, Mr. Chatterbox. Your mother will be back soon. You know she’ll only want to talk your ear off.” He opens the front door even wider. “Kids, come on inside. I got something for each of you to borrow until next week.” He shows us through to a living room that features a wall full of family photos and a stack of books waiting. “Found this one for you.” He hands a book with a castle on the cover to Tor. “And one each for you terrible pair.” He gives Asa and Hadi books with soldiers on their covers. “Now, let’s see…”
He taps his lips as if he’s thinking, then digs into the same kind of box I keep in the back of my Transit. It’s crammed full of dog-eared books that Lenny would usually dive into. He hangs back, behind my legs again, in an action replay of when we first came to Cornwall.
Luke’s dad is no giant to be scared of—he makes himself small by sitting on the floor and placing more books on the floor between us. One shows cars. Another features football players. His last choice gets Lenny moving. He kneels closer to see and hear more about the sea life on its pages, and that’s what takes up the next ten minutes, all the kids drawn to this man who lets them lead the conversation while I hover near the door, torn between wanting to hear if Lenny joins in and straining to hear if Luke and Joe have come to an agreement.
I can’t make out what Luke is saying, and that crab line inside me winds tight until his dad says, “How about you take a look at those?” He points at that wall full of framed photos. “Guess which was my quietest boy.”
I scan photos showing gap-toothed kids as well as adults, then ask what I only realise too late could be taken as rude or nosy. “These are really all your kids?”
“After a fashion. Was a caretaker to some for a while. Dad to some forever. I’ll give you a clue: Look for the school.”
I find Glynn Harber then, or I find the initials GH, at least. They’re embroidered in gold on the pocket of a school blazer worn by a kid who looks as solemn as Len did in every photo I sent to Mum until we got here. Like my brother, this kid is wary.
Thank fuck I’ve got some happier shots to show her.
My phone burns a hole in my pocket all over again at the one I caught of Lenny with a crab on his line. The shot I caught of him with Joe is even happier. I don’t get a chance to steal another look at it before I’m joined by Luke’s dad. “Our Luke really found his voice there.”
“Luke?” I take another look. “But you just called him a chatterbox. I thought you said he was your quietest kid?” I can’t help my gaze from landing on Len. “What made him chatty?”
“No one thing. Lots of little ones, like me and his mother not pushing. That never helped. Being observant did. So did us giving him chances to follow his interests. Luke made it easy by loving nature. Couldn’t get enough of wildlife, so we got him up close to plenty of it. We filled him with so many happy moments they had to spill out.” This sounds weary. “He hasn’t shut up since, so be careful what you wish for.” He tilts his head towards Len, who has found a different book to pore over. “Looks like your quiet one isn’t too different. He likes dogs?”
He’s right about being observant—Lenny has found a book full of them. “Not lately. He always wanted one of his own until...” I blink away the memory of what changed his mind in a snapping and snarling hurry. “These days, they scare him.”
“And yet that’s the book he’s chosen to fill his head with. His heart too.” Luke’s dad can’t know that he echoes his son by murmuring, “Brave boy.” He crosses the room to crouch by Len once he turns a final page. “You finished with that book?”
Lenny shakes his head, as wary as I still can’t believe my boss ever mirrored.
“Then how about you keep it until next weekend? Bring it with you next Saturday.”
Lenny’s silently pleased about that. He might even be about to say thanks. I can almost see it coming, and I hate to burst his happy bubble by interrupting. “We might not be here.” I’m still crossing my fingers for a prison visit.
“Ah. Depending on the weather, we were planning a boat trip to do some seal spotting on Kara-Enys.”
Tor overhears. “That’s the island my daddy looks after.” Lenny’s wide-eyed look his way must speak volumes. “Yes,” Tor confirms. “The one with the castle. We’re all sleeping over. The duke said we could.”
Luke’s dad spots what I do—even without saying a word, Lenny looks so conflicted that he goes ahead and offers a solution. “If you can’t make it next week, I’ll take you another time. And you keep that book as long as you like. No need to bring it back until you’re ready to say goodbye to it.”
That stays with me when it’s time for us all to leave and for Joe to meet with Noah.
I’m not ready to say goodbye either.
I wait to make an offer until the boys skip ahead with Luke to the car park. “You need a lift?”
“To the farm? That would be great.” His arm comes around me, hand light on the small of my back, but it brings me close enough to hear this worry. “If you have any ideas of how to break the ice with him, I’m all ears.”
“With Noah? But he asked you to visit, didn’t he?”
“Yes. And no.” Joe palms his phone. “His brother just called. Said Noah is still frosty about the whole giving evidence thing. Having second thoughts. If I mess up this meeting, I’m not sure I’ll get a chance at another.”
Joe tells me what I now believe about him—what I always did but couldn’t let myself admit.
“I’ll be there for him at court regardless. Stay with him right through to the end, whatever happens. What I won’t be able to do is advocate fully for him if he won’t trust me enough to tell me what will help him get through the process.”
He makes it so easy for me to come up with a second offer.
“We could stay for a few minutes, Lenny and me. Because Noah’s got dogs and offered to show them to him, and”—I have to face this—“I haven’t helped him get over being scared. Even if Noah sits in the van while Lenny looks out the window at his dogs with him, it could be an icebreaker for both of them. Then I could drop you back at the station.”
“About that.” He fills me in on that conversation I couldn’t quite overhear. “Luke is interested.” He scrubs at the back of his neck as if being wanted is unexpected. “He asked me to meet with him and Hugo tonight.” He repeats that neck-scrubbing movement, this time without making eye contact. “I’d still need to travel back tomorrow to meet with Kwasi. But after that, I could definitely come back if that’s oka?—”
“Yes.”
He’s startled into laughter. It rings all the way along this narrow alley. It must do—Lenny turns, then darts back. Before he reaches us, Joe asks a quiet favour. “Give yourself time to think about it, yeah?” That suggestion comes with one of those flinches I’m not sure he realises I can see.
“I won’t change my mind.”
Lenny isn’t about to change his mind either. He takes a running jump, and Joe doesn’t drop my brother. He hoists him up for a ride on his shoulders all the way back to the van. Then he’s the one and only person Lenny chooses after I follow signs to Love-Land Weddings and arrive at a farm that doubles as a venue.
Dogs run out to meet us, and Joe opens his arms again, this time at my open window which Lenny almost tramples my nuts to climb through.
He sits high up on Joe’s shoulders again, safely out of reach of a snuffling greeting, and gets to learn sheepdog names. Noah puts them through their herding paces, and my brother is even brave enough to get down and hold Joe’s hand when Noah introduces him to an old dog with a white muzzle. “This is Jess. She’s a good girl. Soft as butter.”
Joe pets her. “She is, Len. So, so soft.”
I am too when Lenny copies, tentatively at first, then with a huge smile that I capture with my phone. Noah also watches, and perhaps seeing Joe helping someone else to get closer to what scares them also makes a difference.
Any ice he had left must have started to thaw—he agrees that Joe can stay for a while to talk about what is coming.
Joe walks me to the van first. Dogs bark as soon as I start the engine, but Lenny doesn’t cower. He sits beside me, paging through the book he borrowed, only stopping when he finds the same black-and-white breed on its pages.
Joe stands at my open window, the cough of the engine muffling his voice. “Luke will pick me up. Sounds like he and Hugo will keep me busy all evening. Will tomorrow be enough time to think over me coming back for longer?”
“I told you I won’t change my mind.”
“No?” He smiles, and I love to see it. Love too how his low-pitched answer tugs at that crab line between us. “Good.”
My brother pays no attention. He’s firmly in his sheepdog era, and no, he doesn’t tell me all about them, but I can’t help wanting to believe what another quiet kid’s caretaker told me.
Like me, Lenny’s filling up with happy moments.