‘One – my first car was a used Chevy Camaro, a silver dream machine with white leatherette seats,’ he says. ‘Which, not coincidentally, is where I lost my virginity. A pact with Alison Green – we were both sixteen and wanted it over with. That car was my portal to manhood.’
‘Boys and their cars,’ I murmur.
‘Two,’ he says, ‘I’ve seen Springsteen seven times. Never gets old. My mom is a diehard fan, rocked me to sleep every night listening to “Thunder Road”。’
‘Could you be any more American?’
‘And three,’ he sighs, ‘I still don’t regret you.’
There’s something about the late-night gravel of his voice that sends a shudder of awareness through my body. We’re too tired and too near sleep for sex again tonight, but I enjoy our closeness, the brush of his fingertips over my skin. Sex has always been an act that begins with a kiss and ends with a loo dash, a cigarette or a turned shoulder. But it’s endless with Mack, a fire that burns down to embers but never goes out. ‘Just so you know,’ I say, ‘I don’t plan on ever regretting you.’
His arms close around me and he breathes me in deeply.
‘Is that number one?’ He rolls me on top of him under the covers.
‘It’s one, two and three tonight,’ I say.
And just like that, we go from embers to burn-the-lodge-down inferno.
Mack
22 October
Salvation Island
TEMPORARILY PERFECT
‘Well, it’s definitely open,’ I say, looking at the lit pub windows farther down the main street. Cleo and I have taken advantage of today’s dry weather and spent the afternoon out and about on the island, a failed attempt at foraging on her part, a spectacular afternoon of photography on mine. I found myself turning my lens towards her often; she lights up my viewfinder like fireworks on the fourth of July. I don’t know yet if I’ll look fondly at shots of her when I’m back in Boston or if it’ll feel like a book I shouldn’t open, a sealed chapter that only we will ever know was written. It’d be a shame, creatively: the pictures I’ve taken of her are some of my very best. She turns to me now, clapping her gloved hands together for warmth.
‘Thank bloody God,’ she says. ‘I’m starving.’
We’ve made our slow way across the island with the intention of dinner in the pub, but when I push the door open I see that we might have been overly optimistic. It’s New-Year’s-Eve packed.
‘Standing room only,’ Cleo murmurs, pulling her red beanie off as she squeezes in behind me and closes the door.
‘Cleo.’ The girl behind the bar raises her hand to greet us, a checked bar towel over her shoulder. ‘You two in for the quiz, are you?’
I turn to look at Cleo and we share a ‘how do we get out of this one?’ glance.
‘Cleo, Mack, we’re saved,’ someone else calls. Delta waves her arms above her head as if she’s landing a plane from her seat. ‘Join our team will you, give us a fighting chance? Ailsa and Julia can’t make it.’
Raff puts his thumbs up and a large glass of red wine and a pint of Guinness are passed our way even though we haven’t ordered anything yet.
‘Looks like we’re doing a quiz,’ Cleo says, unzipping her jacket. ‘I don’t think food’s going to be an option, either.’
‘I think I’m going to die of hunger,’ I say, close to her ear.
‘I’m already hangry,’ she says.
‘Is that the same as horny?’ I whisper.
‘Yes,’ she laughs, picking her way through the tables with her glass held aloft. I feel a sense of camaraderie as I follow her, greeted like an old friend by locals I’ve met and photographed on my daily travels around the island. People have been almost entirely welcoming to me, maybe in part because of my family connection, but also because they’re justifiably proud of their homeland and want to contribute to the exhibition, to make sure their family and their island’s rich history is properly documented. They’ve given me the unhurried gift of their time, sharing stories and folklore that will bring my images to life when I show them to people thousands of miles away. I’ll leave here with a better sense of who I am and where I came from. I’ve always felt a strong sense of family thanks to my mother and grandmother but spending actual time here has imbued my childhood bedtime stories with the salted tang of the sea and the roughened feel of the local stone beneath my hands. I’ll bring my boys here one day, my grandkids too if I’m fortunate enough to have them. It’s grounded my soul to feel part of a place like this.