“I can’t cry on you,” I say, my voice jerky. “Look away.”
“Of course you can cry on me.” He laughs. “We’ve had sex, remember.”
“That was sex. This is far more embarrassing.” I gulp. “Look away. Go away.”
“I’m not looking anywhere,” he says steadily. “And I’m not going anywhere. Come on.”
“I can’t,” I say desperately.
“Come on, you stupid woman.” He holds out his suited arm, pearlescent with steam. And finally, gratefully, I descend on it in a volcano of sobs.
We’re there for a while—me shuddering and sobbing and coughing, and Lorcan rubbing my back. For some reason I keep remembering Noah’s delivery. It was an emergency C-section and I was terrified, but, all the way through, Daniel was beside me in green scrubs, holding my hand. I never doubted him then. Back then I never doubted anything for a minute. And that makes me want to cry all over again.
At last I look up and push my hair back off my sweaty face. I can feel that my nose is swollen and my eyes are puffy. I haven’t cried like that since I was about ten, probably.
“I’m sorry—” I begin, but Lorcan holds up a hand.
“No. No apologies.”
“But your suit!” I begin to become aware of exactly what we’re doing here. We’re sitting in a steam room, both fully dressed.
“Every divorce has casualties,” says Lorcan calmly. “Think of my suit as one of the casualties of yours. Besides which,” he adds, “steam is good for suits.”
“At least our skin will be clean,” I say.
“There you go. Loads of pluses.”
A concealed mechanism in the corner is puffing fresh steam into the tiny chamber, and the air is becoming more opaque. I pull up my feet onto the mosaic-tiled bench and hug my knees tight, feeling as though the steam is a protective barrier. It’s intimate in here. But it’s private too.
“When I got married, I knew life wouldn’t be perfect,” I say into the mist. “I didn’t expect a rose garden. And then, when I got divorced, I didn’t expect a rose garden there either. But I hoped I might at least get … I don’t know. A patio.”
“A patio?”
“You know. A little terrace. Something small with a few plants to tend. Something with a tiny bit of optimism and love. But what I have is a post-nuclear war zone.”
“That’s good.” Lorcan gives a little laugh.
“What do you have? Not a rose garden?”
“It’s kind of alien territory,” he says after a pause. “Like a moonscape.”
Our eyes meet through the murky atmosphere and we don’t need to say any more. We get it.
The steam is still puffing and wreathing around us. It feels healing. It feels as though it’s lifting troublesome thoughts up away with it, leaving behind a kind of clarity. And the longer I sit there, the clearer things are to me. There’s a growing heaviness in my stomach. Lorcan was right. Not just now, but last night. He was right. This has all been a mistake.
I have to give this mission up right now. It’s flashing through my brain like a TV headline. Give up. Give up. I can’t carry on. I can’t risk losing Lottie.
Yes, I want to protect my little sister from the same pain I had. But it’s her life. I can’t make her choices for her. If she breaks up with Ben, so be it. If she goes through a divorce, so be it. If they’re married for seventy years and have twenty grandchildren, so be it.
I feel as though a kind of madness has been propelling me down a crazy path. Was it really about Lottie, or was it about Daniel and me? Is Lorcan right? Has this been my own Unfortunate Choice? Oh God, what have I been doing?
I’m suddenly aware that I muttered those last few words aloud. “Sorry,” I add. “I just … I realized …” I raise my head, feeling abject.
“You’ve been doing your best to help your sister,” says Lorcan, almost kindly. “In a totally deluded, fuckwit, wrong-headed way.”
“What—” I clap my hand to my mouth. “Oh God. What if she found out?” The thought is so horrifying, I feel almost faint. I was so determined to succeed, I never considered the downside. I’ve been an absolute fool.
“She doesn’t need to,” says Lorcan. “Not if you turn round and go home and never say a word. I won’t tell.”
“Nico won’t tell either. He’s my guy at the hotel.” I’m breathing hard, as though I’ve had a narrow escape. “I think I’m OK. She’ll never know.”
“So the honeymoon-sabotage campaign is off?”
“As of this moment.” I nod. “I’ll call Nico. He’ll be relieved.” I look at Lorcan. “I’m never going to interfere in my sister’s life again,” I say with emphasis. “Hold me to that. Hold me to my vow.”
“It’s a deal.” He nods seriously. “And what are you going to do now?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Get to the airport. Take it from there.” I tug at my sweaty hair, remembering again that I’m sitting in a steam room in my clothes. “I must look a sight.”
“I agree,” says Lorcan seriously. “You can’t get on a plane like that. You’d better go under the cold-drench shower.”
“The cold-drench shower?” I stare at him disbelievingly.
“Closes up the pores. Invigorates the circulation. Gets rid of snotty tearstains.”
He’s teasing me. I think. Is he?
“I will if you will,” I challenge him.
“Why not?” He shrugs. I feel a rising giggle. We cannot be planning to do this.
“OK, here goes.” I push the door open and hold it politely for Lorcan. I can see the stares and nudges from hotel guests at the sight of two fully-clothed people emerging from the steam room, one in a business suit.
“After you.” Lorcan gestures politely at the cold-drench shower. “I’ll pull the lever, if you like.”
“Go on, then.” I start to laugh as I step underneath. A moment later a blast of freezing water descends on me, and I give a tiny scream.
“Mummy!” A piercing voice hails me in delight. “You had a shower with your clothes on.” Noah is watching from the table with Richard, his face bright with disbelief.
Lorcan takes his turn and lifts his face up to the drenching shower.
“There,” he says to me when it’s finished. “Isn’t that refreshing? Doesn’t life seem better?” He shakes out his wet suit sleeve.
I pause a moment, wanting to answer him honestly. “Yes,” I say at last. “Much better. Thank you.”
21
LOTTIE
I don’t quite know how to react. Here we are. Back at the guest house. And it’s just as it was. Kind of.
As soon as we descended from the water taxi, Ben took a call from Lorcan, which really annoyed me. I mean, this is our big, romantic, meaningful moment—and he takes a call. That’s like Humphrey Bogart saying, “We’ll always have— Sorry, love, just got to take this.”
Anyway. Be positive, Lottie. Relish the moment. I’ve been thinking about this place for fifteen years. And here I am.
I’m standing on the wooden jetty, waiting for waves of nostalgia and enlightenment to engulf me. I’m waiting to cry and maybe think of something poignant to say to Ben. But the weird thing is, I don’t really want to cry. I feel a bit blank.
I can just glimpse the guest house, far above, from where I’m standing. I can see the familiar dusty ochre stone and a couple of windows. It’s smaller than I remember, and one of the shutters is drooping. My gaze lowers to the cliff. There are the steps cut into the rock, forking halfway down. One set leads to the jetty where we’re standing and the other leads to the main beach. They’ve put in metal barriers, which kind of ruin the look. And a railing across the top of the cliff. And there’s a safety sign. A safety sign? We never had a safety sign. Anyway. Be positive.