Just as he was about to answer we saw headlights appear along the coast road. We were quiet as they drew closer, trying to see who it was – Greg’s truck has fog lights on the front, so we knew it wasn’t him. ‘It’ll be the bookies,’ said Mr Gaines, leaning towards Lance, ‘come to tell you your last horse has just finished its race.’ And Lance, whose mouth was full, raised his beer bottle to him, like a salute.
But it was a taxi. As it pulled up at the bottom, Auntie Kathleen got out from behind the table, muttering that there was no rest for the wicked. ‘I’ve got no food left,’ she said. ‘I hope they don’t want feeding.’
‘Well?’ said Mum, turning to Mike. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
I was waiting too, because I wanted to know. But Auntie Kathleen, who was walking back up the drive with someone’s suitcase, distracted me. Behind her was a girl, quite young with very straight blonde hair and a soft pink cardigan wrapped round her shoulders. She was wearing high-heeled shoes with sequins, like she was going to a party, and as she walked the lights from the hotel made them sparkle. Auntie K came up to him, eyebrows raised, and dropped the suitcase in front of him. ‘Someone to see you,’ she said.
‘Dad gave me the time off,’ the girl said. I felt Mike stand up beside me. I heard the sharp intake of his breath. ‘I’ve come to give you a hand. I thought we could have our honeymoon early.’
Eleven
Mike
It was weird. You think of all the ways you’re meant to greet your lover after a long separation – the slow-mo running together, the endless kisses, the desperate holding and touching. It’s like there’s an accepted protocol for big reunions, a kind of emotional outpouring, an affirmation of what you mean to each other. And all I felt when I saw Vanessa was this weird sensation I used to get when I was a kid, like when you’re at a friend’s house and your mum comes to get you before you’re ready.
I felt guilty for the absence of what I knew she’d expected – what I might have expected of myself – and she picked up on it straight away. Like I said, she’s not stupid, my girlfriend.
‘I thought you’d be glad,’ she said, as we lay next to each other later that night. That was the other weird thing: we weren’t touching.
‘I am glad,’ I said. ‘It’s just been difficult here . . . I’ve been so locked into work that I’ve deliberately not thought about anything to do with home.’
‘Evidently,’ she said drily.
I closed my eyes in the dark. ‘I’ve never been great with surprises. You know that. I was bound to disappoint you.’
Her silence told me she agreed with me on that point at least.
In truth it had probably been the most awkward twenty minutes of our entire relationship. She had stood there in front of the whalechasers, dressed like something from a fashion magazine, gazing from one person to another as she grasped the magnitude of her mistake, her carefully prepared smile fading. Kathleen had gone inside to fetch her a drink. Beside me, Hannah had taken advantage of the diversion to swig surreptitiously from someone’s beer bottle. Mr Gaines had made a show of offering her his chair, brushing the cushion ostentatiously as if she were even more of an exoticism than she was. And all the time, Lance had joked about me being a dark horse, going on about it so long that I had seen Vanessa’s confidence waver, and watched her start calculating how small a presence in my life she had been while I was in Australia.
And Liza had sat on my other side. Her face had been a Japanese mask, her eyes coolly registering this unforeseen element. I had wanted to take her aside, to explain, but it had been impossible. After about ten minutes, and a cool but cordial introduction, she shook hands with Vanessa and announced that everyone should excuse her but she and Hannah had to go in as Hannah had get ready for school the next day.
I felt her presence at the other end of that corridor like something radioactive.
So, several hours later, I felt vaguely resentful, and guilty for it. It was strange having Vanessa in that room: it had become so completely mine that she was a reminder from another life. I had become used to its spare aesthetic, and found the freedom to live without the usual accoutrements of home actually liberating. Having Vanessa there, with her matching suitcases, her endless shoes, the rows of unguents and ointments – her very presence – changed the balance of things. It reminded me of my life in London. It made me wonder whether I had been as happy there as I’d believed.
I felt mean even thinking it. I turned on to my side, and put my hand on Vanessa’s stomach, which was covered with something silky. ‘Look,’ I said, trying to reassure her, ‘it’s just been a bit odd, with them not knowing about the plans. I guess you being here makes it a little more complicated.’
‘You seem to have got yourself quite . . . involved,’ she said.
I lay very still, trying to gauge what she meant.
Then she spoke again: ‘I suppose it’s such a small place that it’s impossible not to. Get to know the people, I mean.’
‘It’s not . . .’ I faltered ‘. . . your average executive hotel.’
‘I gathered that.’
‘It’s very much a family-run thing.’
‘They seem nice.’
‘They are. It’s very different from what I’m used to – what we’re used to.’ I was glad she couldn’t see my face.
‘You looked . . . at home.’ She shifted beside me, making the bed creak. ‘It felt really weird walking up to you in the middle of all those people, with your jeans and your fisherman’s jacket or whatever it is. I felt like a real outsider. Even with you.’
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, so that her back was towards me. In the dark I could just see her outline and that her hair was messed up because she had been lying down, which made me feel oddly tender towards her. I didn’t often see Vanessa with messy hair.
‘It’s been so odd without you,’ she said.
I lay back against the pillows. ‘I wouldn’t have come out here if your dad hadn’t had his accident.’
‘It’s only been three and a half weeks, but it felt like years.’ I saw her head tilt. ‘I thought you’d ring more often.’
‘It’s night here when it’s day there – you know that.’
‘You could have rung me any time.’ Her perfume was potent. Until now the room had smelt of salt air.