Chapter 14
Present
Rae was out, of course, but Siggy decided to call into the hotel anyway.
Danial would be there. Siggy picked up her pace once her friends had veered off towards the coffee shack on the sea front.
He’d been on her mind occasionally since that day they’d bumped into each other.
Actually, that wasn’t true, the truth was, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Every time she opened a book to read, when she sat in classes that might have once interested her, her attention skipped away from her, remembering things he said or the way he’d looked at her that day on the square.
They’d gone for coffee as agreed a few days earlier, but Siggy found that only made more room for him in her thoughts.
‘Hah, I timed that perfectly,’ she said when she walked into the bar and saw him wiping down the coffee machine ready for the next customer.
‘I suppose you did,’ he said then, taking down a cup and holding it up to check that he was right in thinking she would like an espresso.
She nodded and smiled, funny, but around Danial Val, she couldn’t help smiling.
There was something about him – different to anyone else she’d met, not just in the obvious way either, there was no question, he was the best-looking boy around here, that was for sure.
It turned out that despite the miles between them growing up, they’d read the same books, liked the same music and now, they laughed at the same jokes.
Somehow, she had more in common with him than the other island kids who were divided into two groups, those obsessed with staying put on the island and those who couldn’t wait to leave.
‘I finished it,’ she placed the book she’d been reading on the counter.
‘Here you go, knock yourself out,’ she said because he had told her it was his favourite book and he’d left his copy back in Mauritania.
She’d read it over the last two days, consumed it so quickly that she knew she’d have to read it again.
‘You were right,’ she said pushing it towards him.
‘I know, right? I’ve read it so many times,’ he shook his head, looked a little embarrassed at himself.
‘No, no, I can see why you loved it.’ Usually, she read fantasy, she gobbled them up – this was a change. Her mother had been over the moon to see her with a book in her hand that didn’t involve dragons or elves or alternate dimensions.
‘I can’t take your copy.’
‘Of course you can, it turns out we had a second one. My mother has a selection of books in each of the rooms.’ She stopped.
Her mother would have a thing or two to say if she knew that Siggy had met up with Danial for coffee or that he filled up her thoughts far more than her schoolwork or any of those other things her mother liked to imagine kept her occupied.
‘Rae said there’s a library here, in a van?’
‘Yes, the mobile library, it comes over on Thursdays, you can just join, Marisa will be delighted to have a new member. If you tell her what you like to read, she’ll make sure to have a selection for you the following week.
’ Siggy had grown up looking forward to going to the library van, in terms of social life as a young kid, it was the highlight of her week on the island.
‘I’ll definitely join that,’ he said, placing her cup before her. ‘We’ve been in the bookshop in Ballycove, the woman there promised to put aside a box of books for each of us to collect next time we’re on the mainland.’ He was smiling now.
‘Joy? Yeah, they’re great too,’ Siggy said. ‘So, do you have days off here? I mean, are you planning on exploring the island or…’
‘I would, but you know, I’d need a guide and…’ He was making fun of her.
‘Ha ha, well, just so you know, there’s plenty to see here, if you know where to look.’
‘Maybe you’ll show me?’ He was serious now.
‘I might…’ She tossed her hair, as if she was one of those popular girls in school with impossibly shiny hair.
‘Whoa, I thought you were my official welcoming committee.’
‘I forgot about that.’ She laughed. ‘Of course I’ll show you the sights.
’ And she fell back into the default crazy smile that she couldn’t stop when she was around him.
‘If you’re free this Saturday and the weather stays fine, I’ll bring you to the best places to swim,’ she said, thinking of the old tidal pool at the other side of the island.
Of course, the best place to swim was the still water pool at the back of her own house, but her mother would have a fit if she knew that Siggy was hanging out with Danial.
Siggy often wondered if perhaps her mother had some valid reason for her suspicion of strangers; but she couldn’t think back to one thing that might have happened to make her mother so full of misgiving.
They’d fought about it, when Siggy was too young to realise that some battles were never going to be won.
She’d been invited to a birthday party of a girl who’d just arrived on the island.
All the other girls in her class were looking forward to it.
Of course, her mother refused to let her go, her father just rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders and she knew eventually, changing her mother’s opinion was a waste of her own time and energy.
There was as much chance of undoing her mother’s firm opinions than there was of turning the ocean backwards.
‘Another cup?’ he asked, noticing she had finished her coffee.
‘I shouldn’t…’ She smiled, but he took her cup and rinsed it out, began to measure out the beans for a refill.
Her mother assumed she was here to help Rae, so she set about tidying up around the reception area.
It was a default operation, taking Rae’s scarf from the chair and leaving it in the flat.
It was as she was coming back to chat with Danial that she spotted the open letter on the floor where it had slipped from the sideboard.
She hadn’t meant to read it, not really. But it had drifted to the floor as she passed and when she picked it up, she spotted the deeply highlighted red notice at the top.
Warning Notice.
It was from the bank. Siggy scanned the letter quickly.
Reread it again, because somehow the meaning hadn’t quite sunk in.
She felt her hands shake. Rae owed the bank a lot of money and she hadn’t been keeping up the repayments.
For months. How could this happen? They were threatening to take things further. Rae could lose the hotel.
Siggy felt winded, as if someone had come along and punched her in the guts.
‘Hey,’ Danial had appeared at her side. ‘Coffee made, come on, before it gets cold.’ He was smiling at her now and despite the cold fear rising in her, she felt her stomach tumble over in a frenzy of butterflies at his proximity.
‘Thanks,’ she said, keeping her voice even, despite the confusion in her heart.
They sat next to each other, at the bar counter that only served beer at funeral parties these days, and even then, it was mainly tea and coffee, soft drinks and the occasional bottle of wine.
‘So, your family own a guest house – it’s like here?’ he asked then.
‘Still Water House? Well, yes, I suppose so…’ And she looked around, seeing the hotel differently now, somehow that letter had made it all seem a little less substantial than before.
‘They will expect you to take it over, one day?’ Somehow, he put into words that thing that Siggy tried to push from her mind when she thought about her future.
‘Probably, but…’
‘It’s not what you want?’
‘I’m not sure, maybe someday, but I want to see a bit of the world first, you know?
I don’t just want to slip into old age. I think…
’ She stopped, because it felt a betrayal to say that she felt that was what had happened to Rae.
Somehow, she knew, that even if her mother believed Rae had stolen the hotel from her, the fact was that Rae didn’t belong here.
She wasn’t happy in the hotel, maybe she’d never been happy here.
They might be sisters, but her aunt and her mother were chalk and cheese.
Her mother was the hotelier, for sure, but Rae, no, Rae should have been set free years ago.
‘See the world?’
‘Maybe.’ Although, she had a feeling her mother would do everything in her power to keep her here.
‘I’d like to see New York,’ he said a little wistfully. ‘Of course, it’s no good going like this.’ He held out his hands.
‘Oh, God, yes, me too,’ it slipped out like a relief, despite herself.
‘Well, maybe one day.’ He looked her in the eye and for a moment, it felt as if much more lay between his words – her heart missed a beat, and she felt her cheeks flush.
Silence that was as awkward as it was delicious lingered between them.
She thought he might lean forward and kiss her, but then, he smiled and looked away and she realised, she was disappointed that he had not.
‘So? New York, when?’
‘Well, right now, I have nothing to offer – unless I go as a translator, but I’m not sure that’s what I’d want to spend my life doing.’
‘So, what will you do?’
‘I don’t know. Well, I know what I’d like to do.
I’d like to finish my studies, properly qualify in a university, a good university.
Maybe get a scholarship to one of the big east coast universities in the US for postgraduate work and then who knows, go where the wind blows, but make a difference.
’ He sipped his coffee thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I’d like to make a difference. ’
‘You could, you know…’ she said softly.