One Night on the Island(53)

‘My father didn’t come to my wedding,’ he says. ‘He was speaking at a dental conference.’

‘I don’t like your dad very much,’ I say.

‘He’s a difficult man to like.’

‘And yet his son is pretty damn cool,’ I say, bumping my shoulder against his.

‘My mother raised me,’ he says. ‘She’s the cool one.’

I know that feeling well. ‘My mum made every single costume for my class’s nativity play when I was five. Mary, Joseph, wise men, shepherds. She even made the donkey, took her weeks.’

‘She does sound pretty cool,’ he says. ‘What part did you play?’

I sigh. ‘The innkeeper. My mother is a great seamstress, but I’m a terrible actress.’

‘Yeah, maybe so. But I’ll bet you’re an incredible writer.’

Mack has a way of flipping from kidding to serious that makes me catch my breath every time. I stop laughing and swallow hard, watching the firelight on his face, burning him into my memory so he never fades.

‘Remind me. Was “Have wild sex on the beach” on your to-do list?’ he asks, sliding his hand inside the back of my jumper.

‘No,’ I say, wriggling my arms out of it awkwardly under the blanket. ‘But it is now.’

Sometime after one in the morning, Mack presses his lips against my forehead. The bed has reached that optimum comfort level, you know, when the bedding is the same temperature as your body and you’re totally blissed out? We’re there, cocooned, my leg over his thigh, his hand on my hip, the mists of sleep gathering us in. It doesn’t feel as if we’ve only been this close for three days. Or three weeks or three months, even. It feels as if we’ve been this close forever, as if we know everything there is to know about each other. How can that be? We stayed in this lodge without touching each other for several weeks, but perhaps even then we were touching each other in a different way – with shared secrets in the dark and shared glances across the room. Mack and I have connected in a way I’ve never known before, a way I don’t know what to do with if I’m honest.

‘One – my first car was a used Chevy Camaro, a silver dream machine with white leatherette seats,’ he says. ‘Which, not coincidentally, is where I lost my virginity. A pact with Alison Green – we were both sixteen and wanted it over with. That car was my portal to manhood.’

‘Boys and their cars,’ I murmur.

‘Two,’ he says, ‘I’ve seen Springsteen seven times. Never gets old. My mom is a diehard fan, rocked me to sleep every night listening to “Thunder Road”.’

‘Could you be any more American?’

‘And three,’ he sighs, ‘I still don’t regret you.’

There’s something about the late-night gravel of his voice that sends a shudder of awareness through my body. We’re too tired and too near sleep for sex again tonight, but I enjoy our closeness, the brush of his fingertips over my skin. Sex has always been an act that begins with a kiss and ends with a loo dash, a cigarette or a turned shoulder. But it’s endless with Mack, a fire that burns down to embers but never goes out. ‘Just so you know,’ I say, ‘I don’t plan on ever regretting you.’

His arms close around me and he breathes me in deeply.

‘Is that number one?’ He rolls me on top of him under the covers.

‘It’s one, two and three tonight,’ I say.

And just like that, we go from embers to burn-the-lodge-down inferno.





Mack





22 October


Salvation Island


TEMPORARILY PERFECT


‘Well, it’s definitely open,’ I say, looking at the lit pub windows farther down the main street. Cleo and I have taken advantage of today’s dry weather and spent the afternoon out and about on the island, a failed attempt at foraging on her part, a spectacular afternoon of photography on mine. I found myself turning my lens towards her often; she lights up my viewfinder like fireworks on the fourth of July. I don’t know yet if I’ll look fondly at shots of her when I’m back in Boston or if it’ll feel like a book I shouldn’t open, a sealed chapter that only we will ever know was written. It’d be a shame, creatively: the pictures I’ve taken of her are some of my very best. She turns to me now, clapping her gloved hands together for warmth.

‘Thank bloody God,’ she says. ‘I’m starving.’

We’ve made our slow way across the island with the intention of dinner in the pub, but when I push the door open I see that we might have been overly optimistic. It’s New-Year’s-Eve packed.

‘Standing room only,’ Cleo murmurs, pulling her red beanie off as she squeezes in behind me and closes the door.

‘Cleo.’ The girl behind the bar raises her hand to greet us, a checked bar towel over her shoulder. ‘You two in for the quiz, are you?’

I turn to look at Cleo and we share a ‘how do we get out of this one?’ glance.

‘Cleo, Mack, we’re saved,’ someone else calls. Delta waves her arms above her head as if she’s landing a plane from her seat. ‘Join our team will you, give us a fighting chance? Ailsa and Julia can’t make it.’

Raff puts his thumbs up and a large glass of red wine and a pint of Guinness are passed our way even though we haven’t ordered anything yet.