‘No?’
I shake my head. ‘Part of not drowning is swimming. I guess you could say you’re proof I should keep kicking.’
She’s quiet as she absorbs my clunky attempt to explain what’s happening in my head and my heart. That for the next week, she is what’s happening in my head and my heart. My system reset.
‘I’m a strong swimmer,’ she says, leaning her head on my shoulder. ‘I’ve got you.’
I’m accustomed to needing to be the strong one in life – for the boys, for my mother, for Susie. There is extraordinary comfort in someone saying ‘I’ve got you’。 It brings a lump to my throat, so we sit for a while and watch the dolphins out in the bay.
Cleo
21 October
Salvation Island
THEY DON’T DO IT LIKE THAT IN STARBUCKS
I’ve been to more than my fair share of wedding ceremonies in recent years – a good handful every summer since I turned twenty-five – so you’d think I’d have an idea where to start with the vows for my own. And I probably would if it was a regular ceremony, but it’s tricky to know what to say when there’s no one else to say it to. The usual ‘in sickness and in health’ and ‘for richer, for poorer’ don’t apply. Do I even need vows, really? Maybe not, but I do rather like the idea of making myself some promises. I’ve written a list to whittle down. Some sit firmly towards the frivolous end of the scale: I promise not to watch more than three back-to-back episodes of Say Yes to the Dress while eating ice cream from the tub and yelling ‘It looks like net curtains!’ at the screen. Others hover around the middle serious: I promise not to make myself finish books if I’m not invested by page fifty-nine. Don’t ask me why page fifty-nine, it just feels far enough in to know. And then there’s the big, top-line promises, the ones that will be the most meaningful, and probably the hardest not to break. This one, for instance: I promise to rethink my working life, to take the idea of leaving London seriously. I’m giving myself until Christmas to make the break. It’s the right thing to do. I know it is, because even just writing the intention down felt like someone had given me a really great massage, that feeling of sweet relief when knots unravel and you can finally unclench your teeth.
‘Coffee?’
Mack slides a mug on the table beside my laptop, his hand warm on my shoulder as he stands behind me. I close my eyes and lean into him, sighing when he moves my hair aside to trace his lips slowly over the back of my neck. It’s shockingly sensual; intimate, a prelude. His fingers curl around my upper arms and I dip my head forward, blown away by how easily he can steal my breath. He laughs low against my ear, holding me still in my seat, knowing full well what he’s doing to me when my shirt slips down my shoulder and he follows the material with the graze of his teeth. He brushes my breast when he slides his hand up to hold my jaw, turning my face to his. We kiss, open-mouthed and breathless, and then he pulls away and smiles down at me.
‘Get on with your work,’ he says.
‘You distracted me,’ I say.
‘I only brought you coffee.’ He shrugs.
‘They don’t do it like that in Starbucks.’
‘They better not,’ he says.
I roll my shoulders. ‘Have you ever been foraging?’
If my sudden change of subject surprises him, he doesn’t say. ‘Nothing beyond picking blackberries with the kids. What are you thinking of?’
‘I have this list,’ I say. ‘Of things to achieve while I’m here. Foraging is on it.’
‘What else is on there?’
I click the list up on my screen. ‘Build a fire on the beach. Write a poem.’
‘Spend twenty-four hours naked,’ he reads over my shoulder, raising his eyebrows.
‘That was when I thought I was going to be alone,’ I say quickly.
He grins. ‘I’m totally into that idea.’
‘Do you think there’s anything to forage on the island?’
He frowns. ‘You’d rather forage than get naked?’
‘I don’t think they go together very well,’ I say. ‘Because, you know, thorns.’
He pulls a face. ‘You just totally killed that for me.’
I reach for my coffee as he scans my list.
‘I think you can check swim in the sea off after your dip the other night.’
I shudder at the memory.
‘I don’t think I’ve seen too much edible stuff around, it’s too wet here for most things,’ he says. ‘Seaweed?’