Chapter Sixteen
Allie
‘This isn’t a prank coffee, is it?’
I’ve just emerged from getting ready for the day and Milo has greeted me outside the tent with a steaming mug of strong coffee.
We’re going to see my puffins on the other side of the island today.
We have a long drizzling hike ahead of us and although he’s barely slept, Milo has insisted on fetching me coffee.
Things have been . . . slightly different, since our moment on the cliff with the little auks, and I’m not sure what to do with it.
So I’ve been doing what I do best with things that fall into this category: keep quiet and avoid.
Because do we just pretend he didn’t say his missed me?
Do I acknowledge it, or bring it up? Do we continue obeying the bloody note?
Do I tell him I think I believe him? The ‘I didn’t. ’
‘A prank coffee?’ Milo eye-rolls. ‘Tried to make you a bootleg Bunty’s using little things of Canderel.’
I sip, almost choke on a mouthful.
He laughs. ‘And I take it I screwed it up.’
‘It’s . . . sweet,’ I manage, although the gesture of a bootleg Bunty’s warms me through more than a coffee could. This is precisely what I mean. Different. Things are different.
‘Hey, you two. You setting off?’ Iris crunches over to us, hands us each a cereal bar. ‘I am so desperate for toast and butter that I added a little salt and tried eating these with my eyes closed this morning.’
‘Did it work?’ asks Milo, turning it over in his hand, clearly already considering it.
‘Hell no. Made me feel a lot worse. Totally vile.’
‘Oh, fantastic, Iris. Happy for you.’ He laughs, and so does Iris. ‘Yes.’ He places a hand on her shoulder. ‘Look at that, my British sarcasm is coming the hell on.’
I woke to them both whispering outside the tent last night, both giggling.
I tried to listen, but couldn’t make anything out over the waves and the crackling fire and, then, the rain.
Something about it, the quiet giggling, the muted sounds of agreements, made me feel strangely proud.
My best friend chatting to the man I spent hours talking to, back then, when she would get far too excitable about it, blowing my phone up with messages asking if I fancied him, saying how ridiculous it was for me, Allie, to spend three hours talking to a man I’d never met.
Now there they were, together, and for a moment, I had closed my eyes and revelled in the comfort of both of their voices.
‘We’re leaving soon, I think,’ carries on Milo. ‘Unless, we want to wait a little. How’s the foot, Allie? From the slip?’
‘What slip?’ asks Iris quickly.
‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I say. And it is, and isn’t. It’s slightly stiff, but I’m sure walking will help it. ‘It was nothing. And yes, we’ll set off in a minute. It’ll take a good three or four to get over there, so I’d rather get going sooner rather than later—’
‘Wait, what, three or four?’ Milo splutters. ‘As in . . . four hours?’
Jameson, who has joined us, and is fiddling with his GoPro, bursts out laughing. ‘No, four cheeseburgers, mate. Four sunloungers. Of course, hours, dude. Too much for you?’
Milo clears his throat, a lopsided grin stretching into his cheeks.
He and Jameson exchange a knowing look – a look I know well; a look Iris and I usually throw each other, full of the sort of deep understanding that can only be accumulated through years of late-night talking and swapping parts of your soul, bravely.
A friend who knows you better than you know yourself and already knows what you’re thinking before you’ve said it.
‘No,’ says Milo. ‘Four hours is nothing for little puffins, dudes.’
‘And four hours back,’ I say, and Milo pulls on his hat.
‘Yup. I’m aware. Anything for puffins, Cap.’ He smiles over at me as Jameson reaches across and ruffles his head.
‘This your emotional support hat?’
Milo shakes him off, like a teasing older brother.
‘It’s a nice hat, to be fair to the guy,’ calls over Lars.
He’s stoking the fire with a big stick. ‘Is it Chanel or something? Sent from space?’ Lars keeps making jokes about Jameson and Milo’s coats.
He’s already pretended to use Jameson’s as a space hopper, and also as a life raft, and executed a skit where he pretended Milo’s coat was a newly discovered alien life form.
‘Nah.’ Milo looks down at his feet.
‘He made it,’ says Jameson, proudly. ‘Crocheted.’
‘Did you?’ I ask, and my heart warms, like it’s just been soaked in warm sugar syrup.
He always introduced things like crochet, jokingly, on our calls, as if it gave him the freedom, if I laughed or scoffed, to take it back, pretend he was kidding.
The hat is impressive too. Thick and khaki green, a neat white line around the seam.
‘Um, hello,’ says Iris. ‘That is seriously cool, Milo Ford.’
Milo gives a childlike smile. ‘I just . . . keeps my hands busy. I know it’s like . . . not exactly cool, but . . .’ He laughs – self-deprecating and self-conscious.
‘I want one,’ says Iris.
Lars calls over, ‘I hate people like you. Those people who’re just good at shit,’ and we all laugh, with Iris asking Milo if he could make her one with cat ears.
A moment later, Milo ducks inside to get his bag and a ‘handheld’.
Jameson wants him to take some footage while we’re travelling today, and I’ve of course agreed.
Mostly because Polly was staring at me with laser-beam eyes.
Also, because Milo has promised that footage of me will be at a minimum.
It’ll be the landscape, he vowed, and him taking some ‘talking selfie shots’.
‘I’d leave as soon as poss if I were you,’ Iris says to me, squirting toothpaste onto a toothbrush.
She holds a sports-capped bottle of water in her other hand.
‘The weather should hold, but I’m just thinking, later on, I’m not so sure .
. .’ She starts brushing. ‘Make hay while the sun shines and all that.’ Then she smiles a big, foamy smile.
‘Plus, if you don’t get back in time, there’s always the ccufnsns. ’
‘There’s always what?’ I ask, laughing.
She holds a finger up in the air, gargles water and spits it into her empty coffee cup.
‘I was saying, there’re a few cabins up there.’ She waggles her eyebrows. ‘The old miner places. If ya know what I mean . . .’
‘What?’
‘Cabins, Allie.’
‘No, I know there’re cabins, but I was “whatting” about your face when you said it.’
‘What?’ says Iris. ‘What about my face? I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I smile.
‘So is it maybe that you would prefer I say something then.’
‘About what exactly? About cabins?’
Iris sidles up to me. ‘About you and Milo,’ she whispers, then she hesitates and leans close to me. ‘I really like him, Allie.’
‘OK?’ I stare at her. A silent ‘and?’
‘No, I’m just saying, he’s lovely. I do really like him. And the way he looks at you and the way you are together. And today, you have this little smile . . .’
And with that, my face is on fire. I may as well be headfirst in a cauldron of soup. Handstanding in one.
‘Iris . . .’
Her face – her pretty, soft features wilt. Like a storybook princess, suddenly all romance and fluttering lashes. ‘It’s true, though. Feels like a no-brainer to me.’
‘It’s not that simple—’
‘No, I get that, amigo, I do,’ she says, softly.
She’s close to me, speaking low and hushed.
I can smell spearmint on her breath. ‘But I just . . . I don’t know what I’m saying, except maybe .
. . maybe you both just move through this whole thing and take a second to really listen to your feelings. If neither of you leaked the phones—’
Then Milo appears, poking his head through the tent entrance, bag packed and on his back, camera in his hand.
‘What’s all this then?’ he says, southern British accent totally, effortlessly perfect. ‘That’s what the Brits say right? What’s all this then?’
‘Nothing,’ we say together, which makes him laugh. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Don’t believe you, though,’ and I pretend not to see the meaningful sideways look Iris gives me.
We walk away, slipping on bags and zipping up additional layers.
‘Oh, what’s the one below a captain?’ asks Milo. ‘Because I’m happy to take that rank—’
‘Your lace,’ I say, stopping.
‘Your lace? What’s that, like “your grace” but for ships?’
‘No. Your shoelace,’ I say, laughing at the ridiculousness of ‘your grace but for ships’. ‘It’s undone.’
‘Oh.’ He laughs. ‘Right.’
And I’m not quite sure why I do it. Time probably. We need to get moving, cover ground before the rain gets too bad like it’s set to much later, plus Milo’s hands are full, still fiddling with the tiny handheld camera. But I drop to the ground and tie it for him.
‘Uh. Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I stand again, in front of him. Face to face. His eyes hold mine. ‘And I think it’s officer,’ I tell him. ‘The one below the captain is officer.’
Milo’s amused mouth twitches. ‘I see. So, I can be Officer Ford . . .’
‘You can be whatever you like,’ I shrug. ‘But you listen to me. Your captain. Understood?’
And I can’t help but smile to myself when I see his Adam’s apple bob, just a little, in his throat.