One Night on the Island(25)

I think I might have been too hasty when I said just stick the rules to the fridge. It seemed like the fastest way out of the conversation at the time, but I’m standing here now reading through Cleo’s list and it feels as if I’ve handed the cards over to someone else again. I’ve been following Susie’s rules for the last year; I didn’t come here to play someone else’s games. One, no idle chatting. Two, no possessions across the line. Three, no judging. Judging? What’s she planning on doing that I might have cause to get judgemental about? I see from the list that I can at least use the bathroom as required without cause for a booking system, and that chatting is permitted as long as we’re both in the shared kitchen space. Well, whoopdee-fucking-do, Cleo. I pull a thermos out of the cupboard and fill it with coffee, swallow a couple of ibuprofen. It’s stopped raining at least. I’ll head out for a walk, see if the wind can blow the cobwebs away.

‘Is talking allowed outside?’

Cleo looks up from her perch on the wooden porch steps as I exit the lodge. She’s bundled up in a huge blue-and-green plaid blanket. She ignores my spiked question, and there’s something vulnerable in her eyes that makes me wish I’d been a little kinder.

‘It feels like the last outpost of civilization, doesn’t it?’ she says, turning her face back towards the beach.

I follow her gaze out to sea, nothing on the horizon but blackened clouds and a heaving body of water, blowing in a chill wind across the Atlantic. ‘Mind if I sit?’

She nods at the empty space alongside her, silent as I pour coffee into the thermos cup. I hold the thermos out towards the mug she’s cradling between her hands. She hesitates, then throws the dregs of her drink away and accepts a refill.

‘Keep swimming in that direction and you’ll hit New York,’ I say.

She nods, reflective as she sips her coffee, and then shudders. ‘No sugar?’

‘I like it bitter,’ I say.

‘I like it sweet,’ she says.

We fall silent, and I wonder if that’s a reflection of how different we are.

She slants a look at me. ‘You saw the rules, then?’

‘Yeah, I saw.’

‘Are you okay with it?’

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Of course you do.’ She turns to look at me. ‘I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Mack, just that I really need to do the things I’ve come here for. Say if it’s too much.’

I sigh and take a swig of strong, scalding coffee. She isn’t insisting or deliberately throwing roadblocks in my way to spite me – this is about her work and her personal needs. Besides, I have stuff to get on with too; it might even help me concentrate.

‘No, it’s cool,’ I say, the heat taken out of my annoyance. She’s just trying to salvage the best from this crazy situation we’ve found ourselves in. ‘You do you, I’ll do me.’

She smiles at me and I feel a flush of satisfaction at how easily resolved it was. No drama. It’s refreshing.

‘Cheers,’ she says, holding her mug out.

I touch my plastic cup against it.

She takes a sip of coffee and then flings the rest of it on the ground at the base of the steps.

‘I can’t drink that,’ she says, sucking her cheeks in with distaste. ‘Tastes like cat piss.’

I laugh under my breath and make a mental note that she takes sugar in her coffee.

We didn’t eat together this evening. I think we both wanted space after last night. Neither of us needs a nightly whiskey-and-confidences habit.

‘I could use a whiskey,’ she says, joining me at the kitchen table just after ten. ‘Want one?’

Well, okay. That went out of the window fast. I close my work down and shut the laptop. ‘Sure. As long as it’s within the rules and all.’

She doesn’t take offence, running her finger down the list on the fridge as she reaches a couple of glasses down from the cupboard. ‘Nope, I think we’re good. We’re in the common space.’

‘Cool.’

I watch her set the glasses on the table and pull the whiskey from among the bottles on the countertop. I feel familiar with her already and, truth be told, I kind of like the idea of an evening drinking partner. It’s less lonely.

‘Common space, huh?’

‘Like at uni,’ she says. ‘Work all day and then let loose in the kitchen in the evening.’

‘What did you study?’

She pours decent measures into both glasses. ‘English.’

‘Figures.’

‘Does it?’ she says, sliding into the chair opposite mine. ‘Am I so predictable?’

‘God, no,’ I laugh. ‘Women are a particular mystery to me, Cleo. I’m just going on your work and the fact that you … well, you just kind of scream English major.’

She rocks back on her chair and looks at me, amused. ‘I’m not sure how to take that.’

I look at her, unsure what I even mean myself. ‘You have this … I don’t know, this English thing going on.’

‘English thing?’ she says. ‘Just so you know, I’m leaving the table if you use the word “waif” in your next sentence, so tread carefully.’

‘You get that a lot then?’ I can’t say it’s a word I’d apply to her. Sure, she’s slight in build but she takes up a lot of physical space with her extravagant arm gestures and she crackles with emotion like one of those plasma spheres you see at science exhibitions. You sure know when she’s in the room.