Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
JUDE
Kit calls on Friday afternoon, just as I’m finishing up on the Mary Jane.
The March wind is whipping through the harbour, and my fingers are even more useless than normal.
Corroded fuel injector – took me three hours with the manual open on the deck because Kit would’ve diagnosed it by sound and I need diagrams. Marine engines are just marine biology I can touch – the same systems, the same principles of pressure and flow and corrosion.
I understand them perfectly in theory. Kit understands them in his hands.
Story of our lives, really.
I wipe the grease off my hands and prop the phone against a crate, his face filling the screen. He’s somewhere sunny – Isla’s Brooklyn apartment, light streaming through windows that look like they’ve been designed for aesthetics rather than keeping out weather.
‘All right?’ he says, grinning. ‘You look like shit.’
‘Cheers. You look like a man who’s forgotten what real work feels like.’ I blow on my hands and stamp my feet.
‘I have. It’s glorious.’ He leans back, and I can see Isla moving around in the background, her hair piled on top of her head, wearing what looks like one of Kit’s jumpers.
Domestic. Settled. Happy in a way I’ve never thought I’d see my brother again.
The weather-beaten lines on his face are smoother, eyes bright, and nothing to do with expensive windows and natural lighting.
There’s a twist deep down in the pit of my stomach. Not jealousy exactly. Just awareness. Of what’s possible. Of what he has – again – that I can’t even contemplate.
‘How’s things?’ Kit asks. ‘Dad behaving himself?’
‘When does he ever?’
‘Fair point. Business?’
‘Ticking over. Decent catch Tuesday. Engine trouble on the Mary Jane, but I’ve sorted it.’ I pause. ‘Oh, and we’ve replaced you on the crew.’
Kit’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Replaced me? Already? I’ve been gone three weeks!’
‘Cal couldn’t wait. Found someone better. Younger. More competent.’
‘Bullshit. Who?’
‘Brynn Trelawney.’
The silence that follows is deeply satisfying. Kit had heard she was back – Dot texted him within forty-eight hours of her Land Rover pulling up at the harbour, because Dot texts everyone everything – but the crew was new information.
‘You’re joking.’
‘I’m not. She passed her assessment, she’s been training all week, and Cal says she’s the best recruit we’ve had in years.’
‘Brynn Trelawney. On the lifeboat crew. Dad must be—’
‘A scowling mountain of weather-beaten rage. Yeah.’
Kit lets out a low whistle. ‘Christ, Jude. You really know how to make my absence interesting.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Isla’s voice floats in from somewhere off-screen. ‘Maybe now you’ll stop trying to go back early.’
‘Hey!’ Kit twists around. ‘I wasn’t—’
‘You were.’ She appears over his shoulder, laughing. ‘I’ve caught you listening to the shipping forecast three times already.’
‘That was for research purposes.’ His cheeks are pinking, which just makes him scowl with Christopher Harding’s unique level of intensity. ‘And it helps me sleep. You know that.’
I snort a laugh, which beams the fiery frown in my direction.
‘Research.’ Isla gives me a wave. ‘Jude, tell your brother that the village will survive without him for another month.’
‘The village will survive without you for another month,’ I repeat obediently. ‘We’ve got a Trelawney now. We’re fine.’
Kit’s still processing. I can see the questions he wants to ask – about Dad, about the crew, about why I sound far too casual about a Trelawney joining the team I’m supposed to be deputy of.
We both know the history, even if we don’t understand it.
Know what Dad’s like. Know this is going to cause trouble.
But Isla’s already pulling him towards whatever their plans are – plans that don’t involve being stuck in a village built on secrets and salt.
‘I’ll call Sunday,’ Kit says. ‘Give Maisie a chance to show you her dance uniform. Isla signed her up for ballet while we’re here.’
‘Terrifying.’ I love Maisie, but I’d say she’s more stomping sea monster than Prima Ballerina.
‘She really is.’ He grins, and for a moment he looks like the brother I grew up with – before Jess died, before everything got hard. Happy. Actually happy.
‘How’s the home schooling?’ I ask, cutting in before he can end the call.
‘I’m a natural.’
‘I meant for Maisie.’
‘With a teacher like me, how can it not be amazing?’
I roll my eyes. Kit had to assure the local education authority that Maisie would continue her learning while away. It was either that or enrol her in an American school for six weeks.
‘We’ve nailed the six times table.’
‘You or Maisie?’
He grins. ‘Both.’
One of those lapsed pauses that signal the end of a conversation.
‘Take care of yourself, yeah? And try not to let Dad murder any Trelawneys while I’m gone.’
‘No promises.’
The call ends. I’m left standing in the harbour, phone in hand, the silence pressing in.
I should be glad for him. I am glad for him.
After everything – Jess dying, raising Maisie alone, nearly drowning in his own grief before Isla came back – he deserves this.
Deserves New York and Broadway and a life that doesn’t revolve around tide tables and fuel costs and a father who can’t let go of twenty-year grudges.
But watching them together. The ease. The way they orbit each other like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I never thought I wanted that.
That’s not quite true. I never thought I was allowed to want it. There’s a difference, and it took me twenty years to spot it.
I was nine when Mum walked out. Kit was twelve.
Kit remembers her better – her laugh, her cooking, the way she’d sing while hanging washing on the line.
I remember the door closing. I remember Dad standing in the kitchen afterwards, very still, and Kit putting his hand on my shoulder and saying, It’s all right, Jude.
It wasn’t. But Kit said it, so I believed it.
Women don’t stay. That’s the lesson I took from Mum, and every relationship since has confirmed it.
Sarah, Claire, Meg – different names, same ending.
A gradual fading, then a door. I stopped being surprised by it somewhere around twenty-five.
Started expecting it. Started making it easy for them to go, because at least then it was on my terms.
But watching Kit and Isla – the ease of them, the way she’s wearing his jumper like she’s always worn it – something nags at me. An itch I can’t reach and don’t want to look at too closely.
I pocket my phone and head for home, the thought following me like a shadow.
I’m considering giving Friday night at The Ship a miss – maybe drive up to Newquay, find a pub where no one knows my name. Newquay has waves. Not the point break at Pencarrow that I love, but rideable. I could surf, clear my head, stop thinking about—
There’s a knock at the door.
Tom’s standing on the step, still in his work clothes, mud on his boots and what might be cow shit on his sleeve. He looks tired, but he usually does.
‘You coming tonight?’ he asks without preamble.
‘Was thinking Newquay, actually.’
‘Newquay.’ He says it like I’ve suggested the moon. ‘Why the hell would you go to Newquay?’
‘Change of scenery. Different faces.’
‘Boring faces. Shit beer.’ Tom leans against the doorframe. ‘Besides, Nina’s going tonight. She’s actually coming out. First time since—’ He stops.
That stops me. Nina hasn’t been to The Ship on a Friday since Peter died. Just the café, open to close, and then home to that flat above it where she rattles around with his ghost.
‘How is she?’ I ask.
Tom’s expression shifts – assumes I’m asking about someone else. ‘Brynn? Fine, I think. I figured inviting her—’
‘I meant Nina.’
The change in his face is immediate. Pain, quickly hidden. He looks away towards the harbour, jaw tightening.
‘She’s managing.’ The word sounds like it’s dragged out of him. ‘Good days and bad days. Mostly she just works. Opens at six, closes at four, goes upstairs, does it again. Like she’s afraid that if she stops moving, she’ll—’
He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to.
Tom and I don’t do heart-to-hearts. We’ve been mates since primary school – that’s twenty-odd years of communicating through pints and silences and the occasional grunt that passes for emotional support.
But I’ve watched him watch Nina since sixth form.
Thirteen years of standing close enough to catch her if she falls and far enough away that she never has to ask him to move.
Before Peter, during Peter, and now after.
Careful. Patient. Never pushing, never asking, just … there.
It’s complicated. Whatever he feels for her – it’s complicated in ways I don’t fully understand and he’s never explained.
‘You want to talk about it?’ I ask.
He snorts. ‘No.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s not—’ He stops. Starts again. ‘She was his. Peter’s. That’s not going to change just because he’s gone.’
‘I know.’
‘And she’s not ready for anything. Might never be. I’m not waiting around hoping she’ll—’ He cuts himself off, shakes his head. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘I didn’t say it was.’
‘You were thinking it.’
‘I was thinking you look like shit and you could use a pint.’
Tom almost smiles. ‘Yeah, well. Takes one to know one.’ He pushes off the doorframe. ‘So. You coming or what?’
‘I don’t know. Is it going to be weird? With Brynn there?’
‘Why would it be weird?’
‘No reason.’
Tom grins. The bastard actually grins. ‘She and Nina are friends now, apparently. During the storm, Nina said Brynn came to the café when the alarm went off and just sat with her until it was over. Didn’t ask, didn’t fuss. Just showed up.’
I hate the fact that I know this sounds like Brynn. Competent even in kindness. Practical about it, like empathy is just another skill you learn because someone might need it.
‘Is that a problem?’ Tom asks, watching me too carefully.
‘Why would it be a problem?’
‘No idea. You tell me.’
I don’t answer. Can’t, without admitting things I’m not ready to admit.