Chapter 28 #2
When the song ends, the silence is heavy but not empty. Presence, not absence.
Tom raises his pint. ‘To Peter. One of the best blokes to have walked the Cornish sands.’
‘To Peter,’ the room echoes.
We drink. We remember. We stay.
It’s past ten when people start drifting home. Maisie fell asleep an hour ago, curled in one of the window seats with Dad’s jacket as a blanket. Dad’s carrying her now, her head on his shoulder, mouth open in that completely unselfconscious way kids sleep.
‘Shall I take her to mine tonight?’ he asks.
‘No, no, it’s fine. I can manage the school run tomorrow.’ This isn’t the total truth. Might be a push, but I know I’ve got to start.
‘I wasn’t thinking about the school run, Kit.’ Dad side-eyes Isla, who is talking to Cal’s mum.
‘Oh.’ I blink. ‘Oh.’
‘Well, that’s sorted then. Mais can stay with her grandad and you can have some space.’
Do I want that though? Aren’t there layers of guilt involved in continuing with your life when your friend dies?
You can’t just carry on and go home and fuck your almost girlfriend.
It doesn’t work that way. But I’m distracted by Isla, the curve of her neck, the fair strand of shiny hair that’s fallen across her forehead, the way she tucks it back behind her hair, those moss-green eyes of hers, earnest and intense as she listens to Mrs Anders.
Yeah, guilt. I’ve earned every fucking ounce.
I get to keep that, keep her, while Peter has nothing. Is nothing.
Cal steps up and claps a hand on my shoulder.
‘How you feeling, Kit?’ I turn and look into my RNLI captain’s weathered face – the man who’s been leading this crew for twenty years, who pulled me onto that lifeboat, who made the call to stop searching when we all knew Peter was gone.
Decades of sun and sea have stamped their marks across his smile.
‘I was going to stop in, but I know what it’s like when everyone is fussing and fluffing pillows when all you want to do is stare at a wall and forget how to exist.’
‘Yeah, I know you do.’
‘It wasn’t the same when I lost my mate Brad on our research trip, but believe me when I say, I still think about it every day.’
‘I know. I’m fine, Cap.’
‘Liar. But you will be.’ Cal clears his throat as Isla slips alongside me, her fingers linking with mine.
I kiss her cheek, breathing in the scent of her hair, vanilla and salt. How does this woman even smell so perfect for me?
Cal and I shake hands and he gives Isla’s arm a gentle squeeze before heading off to round up his mum and Dot, trying to shepherd them to the door.
Ayo steps around the bar and hugs Isla, and then folds me into his meaty embrace, squishing me against his pumpkin decorated knitted jumper.
Halloween.
Fuck.
I still haven’t bought that pumpkin.
Tomorrow. I’ll sort the pumpkin tomorrow.
Dad and Jude are way ahead and Isla holds my hand as we all leave the pub.
A thousand evenings that we could have had spin around me in the dark, crisp night air. That’s not life though, is it? Nothing is perfect, nothing is set in stone, apart from the very moment that you are in.
Isla leans against the harbour wall, face tilted towards the sky. Behind us, the pub’s still lit, voices drifting through the open door – softer now, conversation instead of song.
‘You okay?’ she asks.
‘Getting there.’ I step beside her, close enough to feel her warmth. ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For being here. For stepping in with Maisie. For—’ I gesture vaguely at the pub, the village, everything.
She turns to look at me, and in the lamplight her eyes are dark and steady and home.
‘I’m not just visiting anymore, Kit.’
‘I know.’
‘I mean it. I’m staying. Here. With you. With Maisie. With all of this.’ She waves a hand at the village, the boats, the sea beyond. ‘This is where I belong. I should have realised it ten years ago, but I’m slow sometimes.’
The words I’ve been too afraid to say crack open my chest.
‘I love you, Isla Quinn.’
She goes very still. ‘Kit—’
‘I know it’s fast. I know everything’s a mess.
Peter’s dead, my head’s fucked, and I’ve got an eight-year-old who’s already attached to you in a way that scares me.
But I love you. And I want you to stay. Not just for now.
Not just until things get easier or you get bored or Hollywood calls you back. For always. I want always with you.’
‘Always,’ she repeats, testing the word like it’s foreign. Like she’s never let herself think that far ahead.
‘Too much?’
‘No.’ She reaches for my face, thumbs brushing my jaw, my beard, the scrapes that are healing.
‘Not enough. Because I love you too. I think I’ve loved you since you held my hand on the harbour wall when we were fifteen and I didn’t know what to do with it.
I’ve been in some dark places, Kit. Deeper than the sea that took Peter away, that almost stole you, but here, even with everything that’s happened the last few days, I can feel the light.
’ She stops, stares out at that treacherous sea.
The sea that can sweep you away, like love, in an instant that changes everything.
‘I think Maggie knew.’ Her voice is low against the splash of the water on the wall of the harbour. ‘She knew I’d need this place.’
‘Maybe she also knew that I’d need you too. That you’d save me.’
A small dry laugh breaks free from her throat. ‘Salt Cottage might be all I have left by the time Marcus Vale has finished with me.’
‘What do you mean?’
She rubs the end of her nose with her palm. I remember ten-year-old Isla doing the exact same thing. I yearn to always see it. Burn for it.
‘Let’s not worry about him tonight. It’s Peter’s night.’
I hesitate. She’s hasn’t told me anything about Vale and what the rumours in the press, the stories, the headlines, mean.
I know I should ask.
Then she stops me with a press of her mouth to mine, her hand sliding into my hair, the other gently cupping my jaw, and for a moment I forget about Vale and scandal, I forget about Peter and the storm and the way it felt as the current pulled me down.
I just think about her. The girl who’s always smelled of vanilla and salt.