Chapter 31
Sean
It wasn’t the first time Sean had surfed in conditions like this. But it was the first time he’d done it with a storm going on inside him to match the weather.
The first time with a helicopter rising up in the distance possibly carrying his wife and her movie star ex.
She hadn’t cheated on him and wouldn’t. He knew she wasn’t interested in Campbell. But Cherry had betrayed him in a different way. She had told Campbell about their private life. The man knew way more than he should.
All these weeks of mining his soul for strength to deal with Cherry’s trauma on top of the grief over his dad, of grafting to show her that she was all that mattered, that he would be her concrete foundation when she felt like she was standing on sand.
Apparently, it meant nothing. Sean was just a slot machine that kept on spitting out the jackpot.
He was done. Done with suppressing his own needs for her to have her act like he was an emotional blow-up doll who would bounce back up again with a stupid grin on his face.
He’d respected her every inch of the way. And not been granted anything of the sort in return.
Sean paddled hard. The rain was battering the sea, battering his skin. Doing this without a wetsuit was the stupidest idea, but straight thinking wasn’t on the table anymore.
What was on the table? Forgetting Cherry, that was what.
Paddling harder. Away from her, away from Kinshore, away from the grief and the pain of everything he’d lost and was about to lose.
The waves were wild. Huge, seven-foot bastards. You didn’t mess with waves like these.
But Sean wasn’t here to mess about. He was here to surf. To do the only thing that reliably gave him unabated satisfaction.
In only board shorts and a rash vest, his skin was already raw from the cold water and the pounding rain. There was a strange pleasure in the pain. He realised that this was what he did. Put himself in stupid positions like this, laid himself open to the danger in the hope of an adrenaline payoff.
It was exactly what he’d done with Cherry.
Except, with her, the adrenaline had come first. And he’d been stupid enough not to realise how hard the pain was going to hit when it did.
Marrying someone on a whim wasn’t like moving to London or buying a house.
It was so much more. Why was he arrogant enough to think that it would work out?
She was a professional emotional athlete.
He was a giant blazing heart on a humongous fucking sleeve.
All his life, he’d been warned about getting ahead of himself.
Like his teachers had told him at school, and like his dad had said every second day during Sean’s teenage years, he only had himself to blame.
‘Calm doon, son.’
After this surf, Dad. I need this one to calm me down.
One more wave, and he was out the back, ready to pivot that board, to paddle until his arms burned and use every muscle he had to keep himself standing while he rode that wave to wherever it went.
It wasn’t a death wish, but Sean was happy to be taken on a ride where he didn’t have to think about anything anymore.
Didn’t have to think about Cherry.
About how much he loved her.
Wild, untameable Paradise.
He saw it when it was two hundred metres away. The swell. It was his. No one else was out here. His wave. His ride home. Or to nowhere. Who cared?
Sean paddled like the devil was on his back, emptied his mind of anything but getting onto the enormous dark belter rising behind him. Growling at him to get going.
And then Mother Nature was cresting beneath his board and hammering down from above.
You didn’t take anything for granted out here.
She was a punishing matriarch, and you worked for every second you were on that board, earned every ounce of exhilaration storming through your bloodstream.
If you wanted the headlong rush of surfing waves like this, you’d better take it seriously, because if you went down, you would know who was in charge and it wouldn’t be you.
Sean respected the fickle nature of Mother Nature, especially the Scottish version. You didn’t pick a fight with a Scottish maw.
The cold of the water was bracing, the recent hot temperatures a far-off memory. That version of Kinshore was a different world. Gone were garden sprinklers, sun-scorched roses and clear blue skies. Today was an iron sea, steel grey clouds and a mood like a torn-up Ace of Spades.
Knee deep in the shallows, the first ride over, Sean turned his back to the village and waded out to sea, primed to go again – the gargantuan breakers beckoning him back with their curled fists, saying, ‘Come and have another go, Seany. We promise it’ll be worth it.’
He didn’t doubt them for a second. It was always worth it. Since he’d first stood up on a surfboard, his dad and older brothers cheering him on, Sean had lived for the rush of it. Surfing wasn’t easy, but nothing good ever was.
Like his wife.
Out the back again, rain hammering like nails onto the petrol blue surface of the sea, so dark and deep, he identified the next wave from its incipient swell and, turning his board, paddled again.
‘Come on, Sean. Paddle, paddle, paddle.’ His dad’s voice was right by his side, straight out of his eight-year-old’s memory bank.
‘I got it, Dad. I’m good, I’m good… I’m the fucking wave master.’ Except he hadn’t sworn in front of his dad because that would have landed him in serious trouble.
Like they understood one another perfectly, in completely synchronicity as if it were all choreographed beforehand, Sean’s board caught the peak of the wave, he jumped up and wave and man were as one, tearing away from the deep, dark waters of the sound and into shore.
Into Kinshore.
And, as it happened, to Cherry waiting on the sand with a face so distressed that he wondered if someone had died. Was it him? Had he drowned out there and was watching all this from the afterlife? Watching her grieving his loss?
He slapped his face.
Cherry, shivering in the rain in a Butler’s Whisky cagoule she must have got from the distillery shop, shot him an expression that said, ‘Have you lost the plot?’
Okay, he was alive. He didn’t bother to explain, didn’t owe her anything.
‘Sean, what’re you doing out there? There’s a mad-arse storm.’
Ah, she was worried about him.
‘Aye, I know. I’ve been surfing it. Fucking incredible. Why aren’t you in the helicopter?’ He motioned to the sky with his chin.
She ignored the question. ‘I didn’t know where you’d gone. We were worried about you.’
‘We?’ Surely not her and Campbell fucking Duff.
‘Yes, me and Jamie. And the others.’ She glanced back up the beach to where Jamie was standing, giving them space but no doubt wondering if everything was okay. Sean gave his brother a salute that told him he was good to leave, before Cherry drew him back.
‘Jamie said you’re fucking mental to go out there in weather like this.’
Sean shrugged. ‘Jamie’s right.’ He considered for a moment. How honest did he want to be with Cherry? How much more of his energy should he give her? Hadn’t she already stolen enough?
‘So Jamie’s right, but you do it anyway?’
‘Aye, of course. I thought you, of all people, would get that. The high. Dopamine hit. Whatever. All the good chemicals shooting around in your veins. Today’s been a wee bit of a fucker, and out there is the only place where I don’t think about you all the time, where my brain stops the storm and focuses on the waves. ’
These words seemed to reach her, to strike somewhere within. ‘And here?’ she asked, eyes glassy, voice raised to compete with the rush of the rain and roar of the sea. ‘On shore? What happens?’
‘Here, on shore, you’re all I think about. It’s relentless. It’s incessant. It’s killing me, Cher.’ Now that he was face to face with her, all he could do was hit her with honesty. It seemed to be the way they worked. She brought out the least dilute version of him.
‘I’m sorry, Sean.’ She took a step closer, lips bearing a mild stain of peachy lipstick now, eyes smudged with remnants of smoky make-up only accentuating her beauty.
She was fucking radiant like this, rainwater dampening her face.
‘You know, I have no escape at all. Poker isn’t even cutting it.
I can’t think straight; my body is a cocktail of hormones and insanity for you all the time. ’
‘Really? Even when you’re having dinner with Duff?’
‘I’m not having dinner with Duff. How could I after today?’
‘You’re missing out. The Balmoral is the finest dining in Edinburgh.’
Cherry shrugged. ‘My husband is the finest dining in Scotland.’
‘That doesn’t even make sense.’
‘The taste of you is always on my tongue.’
Fuck.
‘Anyway, I’m sorry, Sean. I know you think I’ve been spilling my guts to him about babies and stuff, but I haven’t.
The truth is, when I dated him, I had what may have been a very early miscarriage, and I was trying to get out of him about whether that had happened with him and anyone else.
To see if the problem was him. He read between the lines.
I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have put you in that position. ’
Sean dug the tail of his board into the sand. ‘Jesus, okay. It might have helped to know all this before we went in today.’
‘I know. Sorry. He is still donating to charity, though.’
‘He is? The ￡150k?’
‘No, the number you quoted him.’
‘Fuck!’
‘And that was after a serious ticking off from me. I told him never to put us in that position again. Said this was a really important event for you and that it surprised me such a sensitive actor was so unable to read the room. And that the donation would enhance his profile. I think he fancies himself as the next face of Butlers’ whisky when Connor moves on. ’
‘Like hell that is happening. But thanks for getting the money out of him. I’m glad you’re still in touch with his weak spots.
’ Sean looked down the beach where sea sprayed onto sharp, jutting rocks.
‘Maybe you guys are a good match. A confirmed bachelor and all that. Funsies in the city. Travelling across the world.’ He looked at Cherry to see her gut response.
She shook her head, moved in closer towards him, tinges of sweet summer honeysuckle mingling with the tang of seaweed and saltwater, and placed her palm to his cheek. So warm and dry, a contrast to his cold wet skin. He held his nerve and tried not to shiver.
‘I’m a good match for my husband. I’m so in love with you, Sean.’
Sean nearly staggered back into the sea. That he was not expecting. Blinking, he stared at her in wonder. ‘Jesus, Cherry.’ How was it he was so in love with her, too? The ride he’d been on with her was more tumultuous than the waves he’d almost drowned in.
‘But I need to head away for a bit to sort some things,’ she said.
‘What things?’ She’d told him she loved him, and now she was talking about leaving. Why was this not a shock?
‘I need to see my mum, talk to her about some stuff, think about things somewhere that isn’t here, play some live poker, see some friends.
Get some perspective on who I am. Where I fit in.
I was grasping at straws with Campbell, and I can’t keep doing things like that.
Because, invariably, I end up hurting you, and that’s the last thing I want. ’
Sean wedged his board further into the sand. ‘I thought we’d moved forward with this stuff, were making a go of things.’
‘I know, but the thing is, Sean, grief isn’t linear.
You should know that. And I don’t even know what I’m grieving half the time.
The babies I’ve already lost? The ones I might never have?
The mother I may never be, the poker queen I once was, my identity as a woman, the wife I wanted to be to a man I thought was made for me?
You. Every precious moment of you. All those tangled strands of grief at once.
What happens if I have none of those things at all?
Who am I? I’m confused and I’m aching, and I need a break to see it all from a different perspective.
And I so truly hope that you’ll be here for me, as my husband, when I come back. ’
Sean dug at the wax on his board. ‘If you’re leaving, I’m going to go to Tennessee.’
She searched his face, maybe hoping he was joking. ‘I have to go, but I will be back. I just need some time.’
Sean sighed heavily. ‘Cher, I get that things are difficult for you, but the past few years haven’t been a stroll by the seaside for me either.
My dad died, and I’m trying to get myself through that whilst supporting my family and battling to show you how much you mean to me.
But that seems to get forgotten half the time.
I’m fucking terrified of losing another person I care about, but you’re wrecking my heart.
The thing that makes me so alive is also the thing that’s killing me. ’
She wiped her eyes. ‘What are you saying? I’m not welcome back?’
‘I’m saying I’ve given you space and time and patience and love. But for once in my life, I need to put myself first, otherwise I’m going to break and be no use to anyone. And you have no idea what it takes for me to realise, never mind admit, that.’
Sean fixed on her, letting the words sink in. He wasn’t exaggerating when he said that admitting this was huge. Coping had always been the name of his game.
‘Believe it or not, I need you as much as you need me.’ He took a step closer. ‘If you’re sure you’ll be back then why go? You belong here. With me. You know you do.’
She half nodded, half shook her head, seemingly torn, her mascara more smudged than before from the rain and her tears. She swiped at her cheek with the heel of her hand. ‘I can’t lose you, Sean, but I have to do this. For me, for us, to make us stronger.’
‘Trust me, Cherry, you don’t have to do anything for us except stay.’ Sean searched her face, hoping desperately to find even a fragment of hope. ‘I can give you so much, but after everything, I can’t hang on here wondering if you’ll come home.’
‘I… I can’t. Not yet. But I am always here for you, Sean.’
‘Nope, you aren’t.’ Sean slung his board under his arm and started walking up the beach. ‘When exactly are you leaving?’
She followed alongside, matching him pace for pace. ‘I’ll get the bus in the morning.’
Sean didn’t say anything else. What more could he say? This was it. Game over. They’d ridden their wave, come tanking down the side of it, caught another belter for a while, but that had crashed down into itself, and now they were sinking to the ocean floor.
And, like the Titanic, it was time to let it rest.