One Night on the Island(26)

‘It’s my sisters’ go-to way to describe me,’ she says.

‘Are you the youngest?’

She nods. ‘Of four. I have a brother too, Tom. He’s the eldest, not that you’d know it, he’s the biggest kid of all of us. Our parents had three babies in three years and then I came along four years later.’

‘Ah, so you’re very much the baby of the family.’

She sighs, resigned. ‘Even now, when I’m about to turn thirty.’

She doesn’t look thirty tonight. She could pass for one of those college students she talked about, sitting in our communal kitchen with her dark hair twisted up on top of her head and no make-up.

‘I was married with two kids by the time I turned thirty.’ We’d just moved out of the apartment into a real house, somewhere for our family to grow, a for ever roots kind of place for the boys. I try to push aside the memory of staggering over the threshold carrying Susie, pretending she was too heavy when in fact I’d never held anyone who fit so perfectly in my arms, or my life.

Cleo’s mouth twists and I realize I’ve said the wrong thing.

‘Isn’t everyone?’ She takes too big a slug of whiskey, coughing when it hits her windpipe.

‘Not everyone,’ I reason. ‘I wasn’t saying it’s better or worse, just that it was my life.’ I stare at the table, following the grain of the wood for something to concentrate on. ‘Is my life.’

We sit at the table in the quiet of the lodge, nursing whiskey, lost in our own thoughts. I could ask what she’s thinking about, but I don’t. I’m too caught up in my own melancholy.

‘I think I might call it a night,’ I say because the whiskey has turned bitter on my tongue.

‘Yeah,’ she says, downing the last of hers as she stands up and glances towards the sofa. ‘Time for me to head home.’

‘Night, neighbour.’ I raise my almost-empty glass in salute.

‘Goodnight, Mack,’ she says, rearranging the cushions on the sofa. There’s an unexpected intimacy to how she says my name in her tired, late-night whiskey voice.

I drop our glasses in the sink. ‘It sounds different when you say it.’ I glance her way. ‘My name, I mean.’

She pauses, a cushion in her hands. ‘Mine sounds different when you say it too.’

‘Cleo,’ I say.

Her mouth curves, soft, and her eyes linger on mine for a few seconds. Man. It’s late and I’ve had too much whiskey. We spent the first few days under the same roof picking fights with each other. Not fighting any more is better for both of us, obviously, but without anger we have to find a way to be around each other, twenty-four seven. I pick up the whiskey bottle and turn away, placing it back with the bottles on the kitchen counter.

It’s been silent in the lodge for a while and the weather outside has calmed enough now that I can hear the sea. It’s a soothing noise to fall asleep to.

‘One – I can eat a bigger burger than any man I know. Two – I collected snow globes as a kid.’ She pauses. ‘Thirty-seven of them in all, no doubt still in a box somewhere in my mum’s loft.’

In my head, I see a slight, dark-haired child turning the globes over in her hands.

‘And my dad died when I was just a baby,’ Cleo says. ‘I don’t have any real memories of him.’

My heart cracks for her. I see my own father next to never, but there’s some comfort in knowing he’s out there in California with his fourth or maybe fifth wife. He’s a flaky kind of guy who dyes his hair rather than let anyone know he’s going grey and he finds it impossible to put anything above his own personal happiness. He sends Christmas cards and he FaceTimes my boys on their birthdays. He seems to find being a grandfather, albeit a mostly absent one, a whole lot easier than being a father. No responsibilities, I guess. Anyway, I have all of those things, and Cleo’s revelation that she doesn’t makes me appreciate them in a way I don’t generally take the time to.

‘I’m so sorry, Cleo.’

‘Tell me yours?’ she says, quiet.

I stare at the ceiling and dig through my memories to pull out three things that might send her to sleep smiling.

‘I had a Maine Coon called Blink as a little kid, pure white with one blue eye and the other orange,’ I say. ‘My mom found her at a shelter and brought her home because her odd eyes matched mine.’

Cleo doesn’t say anything, just listens for the rest of my list.

‘I got my ass wedged in a bucket when I was five, almost ended up in the emergency room … and I always wanted a brother.’

I don’t know where that last one even came from. All her talk about her siblings maybe? And thinking about the loneliness of being an only child caught between warring parents. I close my eyes and think about my sons, glad they’ll always have each other.





Cleo





12 October


Salvation Island


REMEMBER THE TRUMAN SHOW?


When I made my bucket list of things to do while I’m here, it didn’t include ‘refresh the chalk line down the middle of the lodge’ but that’s what I’ve just done as I wait for the kettle to boil.

Mack left early. I heard him get up, trying to be quiet as he moved around and gathered his camera gear. How can anyone need so much clunky equipment when the cameras on our phones are so damn sophisticated? My sister, Sadie, sends me pictures of her kids all the time, you’d think she has a professional photographer following her around twenty-four seven. I’ve taken loads of shots since I arrived here too, and I know it sounds like I’m blowing my own trumpet but some of them look good enough to be published. I might just send them to Ali along with the next piece.