‘Yeah, I suppose, something like that.’ Dan thought, perhaps taking time to catch his breath might be as much as he’d need.
‘Yeah, well, I suppose this place will be good for unwinding. You can sit outside, put your music on as loud as you want and watch the seagulls all day long if you feel like it,’ Niall said and there was an unexpected softness to his voice. ‘You won’t be… It’s very isolated up here.’
‘I suppose it is – maybe the quiet will send me back to London more quickly than I’m planning.’ He wouldn’t add that he had an endless selection of books and music to keep him going for at least a year if he felt like it. ‘I’ll probably hunker down with a decent movie, a good dinner – that’ll be enough to start.’
‘This whole village is a bit… out of the way, if you ask me. It’s full of auld ones and everything about it is backward, but if it’s quiet you’re after you’ll get it in spades. Probably be bored out of your brains by next week though.’
‘You’re new here, right?’ Dan remembered the conversation in the shop earlier.
‘How’d you know that?’
‘They were talking about you in the supermarket when I dropped in to pick up supplies.’ Dan smiled. ‘You could always come back and visit me, for a coffee – not vodka, mind – some days, if you fancied it.’ He had a feeling the kid didn’t have much else to keep him out of trouble.
‘Yeah, all right, maybe.’ There was a hint of enthusiasm in Niall’s answer, but not enough to give away the fact that he might actually turn up.
‘You might even help me find the best beaches about the place for swimming.’
‘I might, but you’ll be the only one getting wet, mate. I’m not likely to put myself through that torture until we hit July at least.’ Niall pulled himself up. It was time to head back to normality and maybe the coffee and the chance to sit and gather his thoughts was enough to galvanise him. Dan didn’t ask why he’d come to the cottage, or why the sergeant seemed to think that he might have thrown himself into the ocean, but he knew enough to realise that the kid needed something more than he already had in life.
*
Even in the hammering rain, the village was handsome. Perhaps the bleakness made it more striking. Dan clocked the mileage at just less than three miles from its centre – not a bad stroll if he fancied it on a bright day. He could imagine the narrow streets, come summer, filled with the scent of the ocean, flower baskets tumbling over with brightly coloured petunias and lobelia, a sea of river daisies waving from window boxes. It was a village that graduated from the simple fishing cottages, with remnants of sea-rusted chains about their doors up to a gothic church whose spires reached towards heaven, lit by strategic soft cannons of sepia golden glow.
‘I’ll probably be grounded for a month.’ Niall’s words cut into his thoughts.
‘I’d say you’ll be lucky if you’re not grounded until you’re twenty-five, at least.’ Dan laughed. ‘But still, your mum, well, she’s just going to be so relieved to have you home. If you play it kind of cool…’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, don’t go off on one. Don’t be stroppy. Put your arms around her and tell her you’re sorry for making her worry, but it wasn’t entirely your fault.’
‘Of course, it wasn’t my bloody fault,’ Niall said.
‘You see, that’s what I mean: try and chill a bit, let her do the talking.’ He nodded towards the raging sea. ‘Try to imagine what’s been going through her head.’
‘Yeah, well, if she didn’t drag me halfway across the country – who knows…’
‘Look.’ Dan stopped the car. ‘Listen to me. I don’t know what’s happened between you and your mum, but I’m telling you this: if you want to come out of tonight without paying back for the next year, you need to be smart and you need to grow up. I know, you’re a kid, but if, like you said earlier, your dad’s not about, that leaves a fairly big space to fill and it’s up to you to fill it.’
‘You don’t know my mum.’ Niall laughed. ‘Sorry, but she’s too busy working to notice who’s the man about the house.’
‘There’s one thing you learn as you get to be an old man like me.’ Dan smiled now at Niall. Old is relative, especially when you’re a teenager. ‘It’s never too late to be the man you can be, nor is it ever too soon.’