“Should you be smoking weed and climbing ladders?” Annie asked.
Paul laughed. “It’s strictly recreational,” said Paul. “I like a smoke, like you probably like a glass of wine.”
He was smiling wryly at her. Annie felt suddenly very uncool. She imagined her eighteen-year-old self, drawing a square in the air with her fingers and then pointing at Annie, a look of disappointment on her young face.
“Oh God, yeah, sure, of course,” said Annie. “I’ve smoked weed before. Loads of times.”
She had no idea why she’d said that. Paul was looking at her with an expression that exuded both amusement and pity, like one might give a Chihuahua in a tutu. She inwardly slapped her forehead. Paul’s grin widened to a smirk.
“Are you laughing at me?” she asked with mock chagrin.
“I’m trying really hard not to,” said Paul.
Annie gave him a playful nudge. It’s all becoming rather flirty, she thought, with no small pleasure.
“I didn’t have time for drugs,” said Annie. “I was a parent at eighteen!”
“Well,” said Paul, leading her away from the churchyard’s path to a wooded area. “You’re a big girl now.” He pulled a pouch of tobacco out of his jeans pocket and, to Annie’s horrified delight, began to roll a joint.
“It’s the middle of the day,” she whispered. “In public!”
Paul laughed softly and guided her to a fallen tree, motioning for her to sit down. Annie sat on the prostrate trunk and craned her neck to look around, but she saw nothing but trees.
“It’s a Saturday afternoon,” said Paul in a soothing voice. “We’re not working. To my knowledge, neither of us is planning to handle heavy machinery anytime soon, and we are nowhere near any of the public.”
He lit the joint. The pointed end curled and blackened and drifted to the ground. Paul sucked hard; the tip glowed orange and crackled. He breathed in, held it for a long moment, and then exhaled slowly. The creamy smoke plumed into the air, thick and pungently fragrant. He held it out to Annie.
“It’s not strong,” he said. “Think of it as an aperitif.”
Annie hesitated and then took the spliff from Paul. She tentatively sucked, pulling the fragrant smoke down into her lungs and trying to suppress the spasms that urged her to cough. She held her breath for a moment and let it go. Her head swam a little but not unpleasantly. She passed it back to him and let the sensation wash over her.
“Woah,” she said, feeling kind of spongy, as though she might melt into the tree trunk like candle wax.
Paul grinned as Annie took another drag.
“I feel so . . . funky,” she said.
Paul chuckled. “Funky?”
“Yeah,” said Annie. “And smooth like a peach only wobblier like a goo.”
“Man, I wish I was in your head right now,” said Paul.
By the time they left, having shared the joint sixty/forty in Paul’s favor, Annie’s limbs felt deliciously soft, the grass beneath her feet a thick bouncy underlay that cushioned her every step. She found it impossible to stop giggling in a high-pitched “Squeee,” especially when everything around her seemed so hilarious; that squirrel was definitely strutting like Mick Jagger and she was pretty certain the herring gull on the church roof had just screeched “Fuck off, Melvin!” to the gull on the flagpole.
Paul decided it would be best to do a couple of laps around the village before reintroducing Annie to society, so by the time she entered the pub, she was relaxed and rampantly peckish.
Chapter 28
Hi, Raye,” Annie called over the bar.
If Annie had had to guess what the Captain’s Bounty’s interior would look like, it would have been exactly this. Strings of multicolored fabric birds with tiny bells between them hung down the black wooden joists that punctuated the long, dark pub. The uneven plaster on the walls was painted a deep Moroccan orange, which burst like a warm sunset between the wonky crisscross of beams. A visual anthology of Willow Bay’s nautical history decorated the walls; black-and-white photographs of fishermen past with their boats sat beside paintings of clipper ships, coastal maps, and cottages—some of which Annie recognized from her hazy village tour.
A band was setting up in a cleared space opposite the bar. Raye gave a cheery wave, and Annie saw her nudge Aiden conspiratorially. Paul rested his hand in the small of Annie’s back and guided her toward the far end of the pub, to a table for two by the fire. For Annie, a woman sex-starved and mildly stoned, a hand in the small of the back was practically foreplay.