Chapter 19 #2
‘I can.’ He looked at his watch. They both knew, it was the one morning he couldn’t be late, he’d promised to bring one of the residents in the nearby retirement home to get his hair done first thing. ‘No problem, I can ring them.’
‘Ah, Dad, I’m alright, really, already I’m beginning to feel a lot better,’ she said, keeping her gaze firmly away from the van because she had this irrational fear that if she looked again, Fiona Dixon might be sitting there, perched in the passenger seat smirking back at her.
‘Let’s just sit here for a few minutes together. It’d be good to have a little rest after…’ He leaned against the van’s bonnet, tapping the space next to him for her to rest too.
‘Really, I’m fine. Go on. You’re going to be late. If I feel unwell – which I won’t, I can always ring Mum or Rae, either of them will come and pick me up.’
‘Promise me you will ring them?’
‘I promise,’ she said, and she felt his light kiss to the top of her head after he took one last look at her before heading off to work in his van.
It was typical, of course, just as soon as one part of life seemed to be taking off, another tumbled away from her, and she fully expected it to crash into a thousand smithereens.
Well, like for like, and if she was weighing up the way she felt for Danial against something to balance it out on the other side of the scales – it would take something humongous to tip things over evenly.
Danial.
She was in love with Danial. Or at least she thought it must be love, certainly she’d never felt such an overwhelming attraction for anyone in her life before this.
Oh, there had been boyfriends, of course, she’d gone out with Jason Commerford for a whole three months last year. But it was nothing like this.
Not that she could tell anyone.
She might have told Rae. But, what with losing Marcus and all the other worries Rae had now, well, it seemed almost disloyal to feel so happy by comparison.
She definitely couldn’t tell her mother either, not after this morning’s showdown.
Danial Val was everything her mother did not want for Siggy.
So, Danial was her secret and she held it to her like a prized treasure she couldn’t quite believe was hers. It was such early days, they’d only just met, really, well, they’d only kissed a week ago.
It was magic. Better than she could have dreamed, and she had dreamed of it, constantly, waking and sleeping, Danial Val had filled up her thoughts since that first day they’d met.
She hadn’t for a moment expected anything more than friendship to come of it, she was just helping him to settle into a new life in a new place.
And then, last week, he’d asked her if she’d like to join him on a run along the beach after he’d finished in the hotel. Siggy was no runner, but she’d have offered to swim with sharks just to be near him for a while.
It was the most perfect evening. They’d met at the coffee shack which was just closing for the day.
‘I haven’t been running in years.’ She’d laughed, but she’d pulled out her best shorts, they were short enough to make her legs look as if they went on forever, but at the same time, they fanned out perfectly to accentuate her bottom.
She’d tied her hair up in a ponytail and pulled it through an old baseball cap – knowing it would sway gently as she moved.
‘I won’t go too hard on you, don’t worry.’ His running gear looked as if it had been worn for years and when she saw his lithe body glisten in the evening sun, she had a wobble of worry – did she really want him to see her collapsing in a sweaty heap on the sand?
‘Good, I’ve been meaning to get back into it, but you know, somehow…’ Until this moment, she’d never been bitten by the running bug, but here now, with Danial, she’d run to the moon if it was next to him.
They didn’t make it as far as that, but they did manage a slow jog to the end of the beach where the three sisters, a formation of enormous rocks, stood against the cliff face.
They sat for a while, in the shade of the rocks, looking out to the horizon in the distance.
It was one of those evenings when the shore was dotted with sea birds, prancing along and pecking in the sand.
Occasional walkers passed them by, hardly noticing them, lost in the sounds of podcasts or music, missing out, in Siggy’s opinion, on the gently foaming roll of the waves and calls of the birds in the distance.
‘I can see why people come here and never leave,’ Danial said.
‘You’ve only seen the summer yet.’ Siggy laughed.
‘It’s maybe the best season.’ Although she wasn’t sure about that, either, because she for one loved the winter on Pin Hill.
She could sit and watch the clouds, a thousand shades of grey spool in from the sea and there was nothing like tramping across the land with mist shrouding you and cleansing you of every worry.
‘Maybe, but I think I will love every season just as much.’ He stopped, took in a lungful of salty sea air. ‘It’s the peace I love, not the climate, remember, I’ve already had a lifetime of sun.’
‘I really think you should experience forty days of rain, or more likely, forty weeks of grey skies, before you make any great declarations.’
‘Perhaps, but I won’t change my mind about the peace,’ he said, and she wondered what his home place was like.
She imagined that the sunlight painted everything a continuous orange tint, the air was dry and sandy against the skin, maybe one day, she’d see it for herself.
She smiled then because somehow, just being near Danial Val made her feel like experiencing a bigger world was a real possibility.
‘It was warm enough to last me a lifetime.’
‘I hope it’s not just the weather you like.’
‘The people are lovely too… some of them are really lovely…’ He turned to look at her then and she felt as if the air had suddenly shifted around them.
‘Mostly, I suppose, except my mother, the things she said in the hotel…’ She was babbling, because she was nervous.
The tension between them was electrifying, it threw her off balance, so somehow, what she most wanted to happen, she managed to fracture, and her heart sank as he looked towards the water then.
‘Not your fault. Actually, she’s one of the reasons I love this place so much.’
‘Oh?’ She looked at him as steadily as she could muster, but her heart was beating so rapidly it felt like thunder; she was sure he would hear it above the ocean roar.
‘Because without her, there would be no you…’ he laughed then, looked down at the sand beneath their feet, as if he was suddenly too shy to say any more.
And they sat there for a while, wordlessly, but with a lifetime’s worth of words flanking them, it felt as if everything of value in the universe was hanging on a thin thread between them.
‘I feel it too.’ She whispered, and she wasn’t sure if he heard her, so she turned to look at him.
He was already watching her, and then he pulled her towards him, took her face between his long slender hands and kissed her mouth with a tenderness so real, it made her want to cry with a relief she never knew she needed.
Those first kisses turned quickly to something much more urgent, seeking, hungry.
And Siggy, for the first time in her life, was completely consumed by it all.
They stayed there for ages, until darkness drew in and the sea swept up too close to be ignored.
Later, they raced back up the beach, holding onto each other, laughing, drunk on this connection that had simmered since the first day they’d met.
It was, indeed, she thought then and since – love.
Had her parents once felt the same about each other?
It was hard to imagine it. They were so different.
Her mother so driven to make the guest house the very best in the country.
Her father, content to live a life where enough was enough, and more concerned with doing for others than he was with getting paid or making anything for himself.
But her father having an affair? No, she didn’t want to believe it. Surely, he’d never do that. And yet, the evidence was stacking up against him and Siggy had no idea what she should do about it.
As she walked into Muffeen Mòr that morning, she thought about Danial and the fact that before he came, all she’d wanted to do was to get away.
Now, it wasn’t so simple. And yet, when she thought of her parents and the idea that her life might be planned out to run along the same tracks as her mother’s or Rae’s, she wanted to run as far away from Pin Hill Island as she could get.