‘Of course not. You know me better than that,’ I say, quiet. ‘It’s over now.’
She frowns. ‘So what, you’re telling me just to hurt me?’ she says. ‘Revenge for Robert?’
Now I’m frowning too. ‘This has nothing to do with Robert,’ I say, keeping my voice down so the kids don’t hear. ‘This is me being honest because I don’t want it to sit between us as a secret. Because we all know where that gets us, don’t we?’ It’s spiteful and I’m not proud of myself, but all I can remember is that night on Wailing Hill, Leo’s pain, Susie’s panicked confession. I’ve tried to make this easier on her than she made it on me, and still she’s throwing it back in my face.
‘Forget the coffee,’ I say, standing up. I need to get out of here before this erupts into a fight the boys don’t need to hear. ‘I’m gonna go.’
‘You know where the door is,’ she says. And then she turns her back on me and stands at the kitchen sink, gripping the edge. For a second, I want to cross the room and hold her, but I don’t. I walk out, feeling as if I’ve just pulled the pin from a grenade and lobbed it over my shoulder into the hallway.
One of the only good things about the condo is the bar a couple of blocks away. I find myself in there, half an hour later, rubbing shoulders with serious morning drinkers and a barman wearing a ‘been there done that’ expression. It takes two beers to get the fire in my gut under control; the third has me reaching for my phone.
One – The weather tower downtown is steady red today, incoming storm and the bedroom window in the condo lets the rain in.
Two – I looked at the stars for a while last night and thought of you.
Three – Everything is messed up. I miss you. I don’t know what the right thing to do is any more.
Three A – I didn’t drunk-text you last time. This time I’m three beers down, but I still know what I’m doing and I still don’t regret you. I don’t regret telling Susie about us either but, man, being an adult is hard work.
Three B – The photos. My God, Cleo, looking at the photos of Salvation breaks my fucking heart.
I send the message without reading it back or giving myself a chance to think better of it. I don’t know if she’s still in Salvation or if she’s been swallowed up by London again, if she’ll read and delete, or if she’ll reply.
‘Don’t send it, fella,’ the guy on the next stool says, bleary-eyed as he nods towards my phone.
‘Too late.’ I shrug.
He throws his hands up. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
I settle my tab and walk out on to the blustery street. I can’t stomach listening to some stranger’s woes, I’ve got enough of my own. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said looking at the photographs is hellish. Objectively, they’re my best work by a mile. The Salvation exhibition will be my strongest yet, if I can just find the way to work on it without falling into a self-indulgent pit of longing and reaching for the Irish whiskey I brought home with me.
Cleo
13 November
Salvation Island
DIAMONDS IN, FOOL’S GOLD OUT
I go home exactly one week from today – weather-permitting, as always. I don’t want to leave, especially not now I’m galvanized by the need to write. I feel unstoppered, as if someone popped a cork and words are spilling from my fingers. It’s a huge release of energy, therapy of a kind to pour everything from my head to my fingers, to the page. I didn’t pause to outline a plot or toss ideas around. There wasn’t time. My jumbled emotions spiralled about me, a tornado hovering over the roof of Otter Lodge, and I am sitting cross-legged in the eye of the storm trying to harness it on to paper before it blows away. It’s a love story, but not a ‘girl meets boy’ kind. I mean, she does, and it’s all kinds of spectacular, but that’s not the essence of her story. She’s me but she isn’t, he’s Mack but he isn’t, it’s Salvation Island but it isn’t. It’s an expression of womanhood and an exploration of sisterhood, and yes, I know I sound like an absolute twat but oh my GOD, this book is consuming me. I tell the dolphins the latest plot twists at dawn, confide my heroine’s secrets up on Wailing Hill boulder at lunchtime, and Jupiter awaits my midnight word-count update. I jump in the bath and then climb straight out again because I need to record something before I forget it, and I fall asleep on the sofa beneath the patchwork blanket with my laptop balanced on my thighs. I eat for fuel and I drink for inspiration, and when I look in the mirror this dazed, crazy-eyed person chucks me the ‘keep going’ thumbs-up. I don’t care that I’m talking to myself as I work, I’ll take manic euphoria over last week’s misery any day. I don’t even know if this thing I’m writing has any form or structure or beauty, if anyone will ever read it besides me, but I’m bleeding out into this manuscript in a way that feels so wholly transformative that I have no choice but to continue.