Mack throws his hands out. ‘Works for me,’ he says. ‘You’re a little messy, to be honest.’
‘Messy? I’m bloody not,’ I say.
We both gaze around the room, and it’s fair to say my things are unevenly distributed.
‘Fine,’ I say, getting up. ‘I can sort that in a … thingy. A jiffy.’
Gosh, whiskey. Right.
He gets up too and after a second he stands with his back braced against the door and his outstretched hands in front of him, palms together, pointing like a compass. I don’t tell him that he’s never looked more Han Solo. ‘There,’ he says. ‘There’s your line.’
I follow it with my eyes.
‘Your suitcase is in my half,’ he says.
I wheel it across the flagstones towards the sofa. ‘And your boots are in mine,’ I say, kicking them over the imaginary line.
‘I don’t think so,’ he says, looking down the line of his arm as if he’s sighting a gun.
‘Well, I know so,’ I say.
‘Border dispute,’ he says.
‘Already?’ I say. ‘Are you going to be one of those pedantic neighbours who measures the length of the grass?’
‘Are you going to be one of those inconsiderate neighbours who lets their cat pee on my perfect lawn?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m disappointed in you,’ I say. ‘I thought you were a little more … easy-going.’
‘Hey, I’m easy-going,’ he says. ‘I just like order.’
‘Order,’ I mutter, trying to visualize where the line is. ‘All right, hang on,’ I say, laughing under my breath as I cross the room.
‘Hey, you just walked through my house,’ he says. ‘And you didn’t knock.’
‘I have an idea,’ I say, rooting through the cupboard beneath the TV. ‘Here we go.’
I cross to stand beside him by the door, showing him what’s in my hand.
‘Chalk?’ he says, accepting the small blue box.
‘Draw the border,’ I say. ‘But be warned, I’m watching you like a hawk.’ I point two fingers towards my eyes and then towards his, pausing for a second because I’m struck by those different colours again. I don’t think it’s something I’d ever not notice.
He shakes a stick of chalk out of the box.
‘You can trust me, I’m a scrupulously fair man,’ he says, bending to mark the floor.
I watch as a stark white line appears down the centre of the lodge, and I don’t make any land grab attempts because, true to his word, he makes a fair job of it.
‘There.’ He straightens, leaning a hand on the dining table to steady himself. ‘Your place and my place.’
I take my seat back at the dining table, now designated common ground.
‘I like it,’ I say and, bizarrely enough, I really do. I now have space that is mine and I feel I know Mack just well enough to believe he won’t violate it. I’ll return the favour and maybe, just maybe, this coming week won’t be as mentally draining as the last one.
He clears his throat and my eyes open in the darkness, my head still slightly spinning from the whiskey.
‘I’m a cat guy, not a dog guy,’ he says. ‘I drink tequila if I need to get drunk fast and I’ll always argue the case for The Wire over The Sopranos.’
I don’t tell him that I’ve never watched either because I kind of love that he’s picked up the ‘three random things in the dark’ baton. It tells me a lot in a shorthand way.
‘My family clubbed together to buy me a second-hand lime-green iBook for my fourteenth birthday, remember the clamshell kind? It was the stuff my teenage dreams were made of. I’ve started so many novels since then. I want to finish one,’ I say. I don’t tell him about the longing to feel my book in my hands, or about my secret dreams of red-carpet screenings when my book becomes a smash-hit movie. ‘I always pick the killer beans out of chilli and Helvetica is the only sane font choice.’
‘Killer beans?’
‘Kidney beans can poison you if they’re not cooked properly. How can you not know that and still be alive? I never touch them, just in case.’
I hear him laugh as I close my eyes, and for the first time since I arrived, I don’t wish he was somewhere else.
Mack
9 October
Salvation Island
THE BOAT COMES TODAY!
SEVEN DAYS UNTIL THE BOAT COMES
‘They were right about that storm,’ I say. It’s almost eight in the morning and neither Cleo nor I have felt the inclination to leave our respective beds yet; it’s barely light thanks to the stormy skies and the wind rattling the windows of the lodge. Cleo looks up and sighs, her face illuminated by the light from her laptop screen. I don’t know how she can focus to work; last night’s whiskey has given me a pounding headache right behind my eyes.