Page 24 of One Night on the Island

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘So, as you know, I’ve come here to be on my own, and you being here makes that almost impossible.’ She pauses and I don’t interrupt. ‘But I have to at least try to make it feel authentic for work, if nothing else, and to that end I’d appreciate it if we could imagine the chalk line is more of a … well, more of a brick wall.’

‘A brick wall?’

She nods. ‘Rock solid.’

I think about it, trying to decide if she’s serious, if it matters enough for me to care.

‘So,’ she says, ‘if I’m on my side, no chatting, no “Can you pass me this?” or “Fancy a coffee?”, that kind of thing.’

And there she goes again, pushing at my patience, the look on her face somewhere between apologetic and confrontational. I wonder if it’s the case that while she doesn’t get hangovers, she does get super fucking cranky.

‘And the bathroom?’ I deadpan. ‘Would you prefer some kind of booking system?’

‘Are you poking fun at me?’

And now she sounds hurt and I feel like a dick. ‘Cleo, this is hard work with a headache,’ I sigh. ‘Just write your rules on a sheet of paper and stick it up on the fridge. I’ll give it my best shot,’ I say. ‘I’ll be out of the lodge working most of the time anyway, so you’ll get it pretty much to yourself.’

She narrows her eyes again, looking for the catch. At some point I might tell her that she wears her emotions too close to the surface, that she’d make a terrible poker player. I’m not used to it; Susie is adept at keeping me in the dark, especially lately. She’d probably say something similar about me, to be fair. We’re not exactly at the ‘talk to my lawyer’ stage yet, but we’re not enough steps away from it either. It breaks my heart just thinking about it. I mentally write the next few hours off and drag the quilt up over my shoulders, turning my back as I work out what time it is in Boston. Early hours. The kids will be sleeping; Leo spread-eagle in the full-size bed we upgraded him to a year back after a monumental growth spurt, Nate curled into a tight ball around Stripes, his beloved and bedraggled tiger from a birthday trip to Franklin Park zoo years ago. I can still see his chubby little hand reaching out from his stroller to snag it from the store display, refusing to give it up even for candy. Jeez, I’m in even worse shape than I realized if I’m having sentimental thoughts about a stuffed animal. I shove my head under my pillow to block out the storm and close my eyes, hoping for both a clearer head and clearer skies by the time I wake up.

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.

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