Letting You Go (24 page)

Alex glared at the coffee mug in her hands. Susannah put her hands over Alex’s.

‘Your mother should have told you this, Alex, and I told her so too. But I think she was always worrying too much about bringing it all up, in case it upset your bloody dad.’ Susannah breathed in deeply and lifted her chin. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, Alex, and Finn won’t thank me for saying it. But someone who should be one hell of a lot sorrier for their part in all this is your father.’

A
lex had spent the night in one of Susannah’s simply furnished guest rooms overlooking the driveway into the Longhouse and the beginnings of Eilidh high street. Not, thankfully, the rear of the property and Finn’s bolthole. The sun was just climbing over the hills behind Godric’s gorge. Alex had already got dressed and had been planning on keeping up her surveillance of the road outside, waiting for her dad’s blue recovery truck to roll past so she could go collect her things from the house, but Susannah had knocked with a breakfast call.

Alex did the best she could with her hair and opened her room door. She needed her toothbrush before she sat down there with anyone. She checked her breath and made a grab for the second complimentary mint next to the bed, popping into her mouth as she left the room.

Alex turned and thudded into a passing guest. ‘Oh! Excuse me!’ Her voice was silvery and polite. Alex stepped back and saw the killer dark hair first.
Knockout cheekbones
flashed into her head. Alex started to apologise but something was making its way down her throat.

Don’t panic.
Alex breathed in through her nose and felt the mint tug in her windpipe. She thumped her chest.

‘Oh my God, are you OK?’

Oh my God, I’m choking!
But the woman with the cheekbones was already beside Alex banging the hell out of her back. The mint imperial shot from Alex’s mouth and spun across the polished landing floor to a pair of little naked feet. Poppy had stopped brushing her teeth in the doorway of her room to watch the trajectory of Alex’s breath freshener.

Alex’s heart was thudding.

‘Are you all right?’ the brunette asked, her worried expression peeping out from behind the long flawless layers of an obviously high-end haircut. High-end haircut and a decent killer-crab impression. Fate smiled down more on some than others.

Alex wiped the saliva from her chin.
Classy, Alex. Real classy.
‘I’m fine … thank you.’ She winced.

‘I’ve never nearly killed someone before, are you sure you’re OK?’

‘Totally fine, really.’ She was so attractive it was flustering Alex. Alex was beginning to feel more concerned about whether or not her breath smelled OK to this girl than not being able to breathe in the first place.

‘Are you … a guest here?’ the woman asked. She seemed genuinely perplexed to see Alex.

‘Um, kinda.’ She was looking at Alex like she was waiting for her to catch on to something conversation-worthy.
‘You?’ Alex asked.
You know she’s a guest here, you plank.

‘Here for the Viking Festival, I mean?’

‘Ah, yes. I am. But, ah … I don’t really know what it’s all about. I could do with a tour guide or something.’ She laughed huskily.

‘I think I saw a booklet on the reception desk downstairs. There’s probably a map or something—’

‘Oh, that’s OK. The landlady’s son said he’ll give me a quick tour of the town if I want. But thanks.’ She had a high-end smile too. It made Alex wish she’d held on better to that mint imperial.

Poppy was still watching from her room doorway, her cheeks full with toothpaste froth. The brunette was still smiling. No wonder her cheekbones were so perky. Alex smiled back. Neither of them seemed to know what to offer the conversation next. In fact, it was getting more awkward by the second and Alex was having to battle growing feelings of self-consciousness just from standing this close to someone so stunning in running Lycra.

‘Thanks for the Heimlich.’ She smiled weakly.

‘No problem. Glad to be of help.’ The brunette shot a hand out. It was an odd, uncertain movement, like offering to shake the hand of somebody interviewing her for a job.

‘I’m … Gina.’

Alex took her hand. ‘Alex.’ Alex followed the long honed arm to the silver bracelet on Gina’s wrist. Alex would’ve admired it, out of politeness, but Gina pulled her hand away and set it behind her back before Alex got a proper look.

‘Anyway, guess I’ll see you at breakfast then.’

Alex seized the opportunity. ‘See you.’ Alex watched Gina walk lithely down the stairs before she turned to collect the minty missile before it got stuck to Poppy’s foot.

‘Mummy says you shouldn’t eat sweeties while you’re walking,’ Poppy said as Alex approached.

Alex put her thumb up. ‘Your mummy’s very right.’ She smiled. ‘Are you and Mummy all right now, sweetie?’

Poppy nodded.

‘I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ Alex said. She heard the door go downstairs and peered over the banister into the lobby. Alex recognised the greying blond hair against blue work clothes immediately. Alex froze while Ted cleared his throat below her. She stepped back against the landing wall as Poppy disappeared back into her mother’s room. Alex hadn’t thought about the aftermath of her outburst at The Cavern, she didn’t have a plan in place that went much beyond collecting her things this morning.

‘Ted?’ Alex heard Susannah’s voice below the stairs. ‘Gotten lost, have we?’

Alex waited to be called down like a naughty girl hoping to be let off a punishment.

‘Is my daughter here?’

‘You’ve seen her truck in the yard, Ted. You know damn well she is. Not that you care much.’ Susannah’s tone took Alex aback.

‘Don’t tell me what I care about, Susannah. I love my daughter more than you’ll ever know,’ he hissed.

Ted’s words took Alex aback even more. Alex felt a surge of adrenalin.

‘How is Blythe? Does she know you’re chasing her daughter away?’ Susannah said under her breath.

Alex heard one of her father’s deep breaths and held on to her own. ‘The hospital called this morning. Blythe has an infection. Something in the urinary tract or something. I just wanted to let Alexandra know, her mother’s been saying some strange things lately.’

‘Yes, I heard. Quite the resemblance between your Dillon and Louisa’s grandson.’

Alex heard an accusation in Susannah’s voice she didn’t understand.

Ted fell silent at first, then ploughed on. ‘Blythe’s confused. They think this infection might be the cause. I thought Alex would feel better if she knew they were treating her for it now.’

‘I’m sure she will, Ted. That girl could do with some good news.’ Alex heard her dad moved towards the door and it snap closed again. ‘What are you playing at, Ted? Don’t you realise, you’re not the only one suffering?’

‘Don’t preach to me, Susannah. Now let me through.’

‘I will preach to you. That girl turned up here last night in a right old state. What are you trying to do?
Punish her
?’

‘Don’t be so goddamn ridiculous, Susannah. I love her. She knows that.’

‘Does she? Don’t you think you might be wise to let
her
know that then? Instead of letting her remain this invisible
non-person who’s so frightened to rock the boat, she won’t even save herself from drifting out to sea! You’re going to lose her, Ted. I am warning you now. And you are an old fool if you let that girl go.’

‘Thank you for your advice, Susannah, but I think I can manage my own relationships. Why don’t you concentrate on that angelic son of yours and leave my daughters to me?’

Susannah’s voice changed. ‘Finn’s no angel, Ted Foster. But he deserves better than you ever gave him.’

‘I let him into my home! Despite that good-for-nothing husband of yours. And how did he repay me?’

Their voices were sharpening off, gritted angst stifled by tight lips.

‘Don’t you dare. I won’t have it. Not in my house.’

‘If he hadn’t have been messing—’

‘Don’t. You. Dare. You’re forgetting! You’re not whiter than white, Ted Foster.’

Alex’s heart was thumping now. ‘You blame everyone else for what happened down at the Old Girl, but where were you that day, Ted Foster? We both know the answer to that. I’ll never forget walking past Frobisher’s. You looked like a ghost when you saw me looking in, and her there, draping herself all over you like a piece of tacky jewellery.’

Alex swallowed.

‘You don’t know as much as you think, Susannah,’ Ted said quietly. Alex could feel something jumping in her throat. She felt dizzy with it. ‘I know you weren’t supposed to be where you were when those three kids were down by
the river. So don’t you dare put any more on my boy than you already have. Because I will not stand for it.’

A name! A name, who were they talking about? Alex needed a name.

‘You think what you like, Susannah.’

Alex held her breath.

‘I think you’re an old fool, and I’d have told Blythe had she not have been heartbroken already for your little boy. But you were a damned fool for having a wife like Blythe at home and having your head turned by a woman like Louisa Sinclair. And if you keep letting that poor girl of yours go on punishing herself, if you push her away for good, then you’re a damned fool still.’

M
orning breath had toppled a place in the rankings of things Alex was currently concerned about. She’d managed to sit through breakfast with Susannah trying to feed her up, Emma Parsons battling to feed her baby and the statuesque Gina repeatedly looking at Alex over the rim of her teacup. Another guest had joined them. He’d hardly joined the conversation either, sitting quietly instead over a boiled egg with a napkin tucked into his crisply ironed shirt.

Alex had robotically risen to help tidy the things away when Susannah caught her staring out onto the lawn. ‘He’s not working today. He’s just tidying his tools up at the florist’s this morning. He’ll be finishing off his entry for the river race if you wanted something to do later, after you’ve been to see your mum.’

Alex winced. She didn’t want Gina to overhear. Not seeing as she was getting along so swimmingly with Finn. Alex smiled a reply to Susannah. She didn’t tell her that she couldn’t face Blythe like Susannah had managed to all these years, pretending she didn’t know that her father had been having an affair with the mayor’s wife. Alex had gone
back to her room briefly, to let her breathing regulate itself, but fresh air was the best tonic for nausea so she’d found herself out here in the garden, pushing Poppy on the swing instead.

Dad. And Louisa Sinclair.

Alex remembered her mother the morning of Dillon’s accident. ‘Oh Alex, please? The kids are driving me insane, Jem’s about ready to kill your brother. He’s not going to make it to his ninth birthday at this rate. Just take Dill for a while, would you, darling? Your father said he won’t be long.’

Alex pushed Poppy mechanically. Ted had told them he was going on a call out. Not to Frobisher’s Tea Rooms tucked away on one of Eilidh’s back streets.

‘Do you want to see something special?’

Alex’s trail of thought broke. Poppy’s big brown eyes were shining up at her, a few strands of wayward hair falling in front of them. Alex swept them behind Poppy’s ear. ‘What, sweetie?’

Poppy jumped up and took Alex by the hand. She had warm hands, still pudgy from toddlerhood. Poppy led them across the grass towards the side door of the annexe.

‘Oh, no, sweetie. I don’t think we should go in there.’

Poppy pulled. ‘But look. Finn’s making it for me.’

Alex peeped inside Finn’s studio doors, Poppy was yanking surprisingly hard on her hand.

Finn had several canvasses all on the go at once. Alex scanned them for something more expected, like one of the
vistas from the hills behind the plunge pools, but they were all animals, dogs mainly.
I don’t remember you being that much of a fan, Finn.
Poppy went and proudly stood beside the only workbench and Alex realised why she’d been so keen.

Alex stepped inside the studio and followed her to the doll’s house on the side. Even in its early stages Poppy was going to end up with something more spectacular than the dollhouse sitting back at her family home, probably still with a cigarette butt melded into the top of its roof terrace.

‘My mummy says that Finn is a really kind man.’

Alex rested her hand on Poppy’s head. ‘Your mummy is right about that too.’

A chirpy morning voice came from the doorway behind them. ‘Morning, ladies. So who’s going to help get my river raft onto the back of my truck?’

Alex had taken Finn up on his offer of a free, still-in-its-packaging toothbrush from his mother’s secret cache while Poppy had looked on with something disdainful in her expression. Alex knew how she felt. She’d felt pretty disdainful when she’d had a close up of Gina.

Alex thought about her dad and Louisa Sinclair. An image of them in a secret tryst at Frobisher’s circling Alex’s mind like a shark, disappearing from view for a few minutes and the
bang!
Slamming in for another bite.

Finn had hammered a peg into the bank and tethered one end of his raft to it before pushing the raft out over the water. So far, it was floating. Alex watched him skipping around on the embankment. She twirled a length of cottongrass between her fingers. Why shouldn’t Alex have come here with him? Why shouldn’t she do what the hell she damned well pleased? Everyone else did.

‘I didn’t drag you up here for nothing.’ Finn nodded at the water, a broad smile reaching across his face.

‘I’m not getting on that thing,’ Alex laughed nervously. He should’ve brought Gina up here for that. Gina was clearly diehard, she’d brought her running Lycra on a weekend away sightseeing.

‘Come on, Foster. You’re faster than me too. If it starts to go, just … run for it.’

‘I can’t run on water, Finn. Anyway, you’re the captain.’ Alex waved her hand out towards the water, daring him to test his skills.

‘You know, if this thing sinks, it’s not going to do much for my marketing campaign.’

‘Marketing campaign?’

‘Yeah, for my business.’ Finn sat his hands on his hips, looked wistfully off to the hills and pushed his chest out.

Alex tried to focus on the handyman logo on his t-shirt rather than the outline of his body underneath it. Alex tried not to laugh like a teenaged girl. ‘Nice.’

Finn exhaled, pretending the effort to look physically impressive had cost him. ‘Well, I have faith. I reckon it’ll
float.’ Finn reached down and began taking his trainers off. Then a sock.

Alex stopped twirling the cottongrass. ‘What are you doing?’

He yanked at his other sock. ‘Call it, a leap of faith.’

Alex watched as he loosened the rope from the peg. Finn took the keys and phone from his pocket, then his wallet and put them all into Alex’s hands.

‘Finn, your float … it’s floating off.’

But Finn was walking in the opposite direction, away from the bank. He made it several yards away, turned and broke into a sudden run. Alex watched him thunder past her. She sat wide-mouthed as Finn lunged from the embankment and sailed, somewhat gracefully, through the air before landing much less gracefully onto the surface of his raft. The plastic tried to bounce away out from beneath him but Finn sprawled himself over it like a pond skater.

‘Are you mad?’ Alex called.

‘You never doubted me, did you? Go on, you can admit it!’

Alex laughed while Finn scrambled to fish the three bottles that had come free of their bindings and were bobbing away from the rest of his vessel. It felt good. Not a polite laugh, a real laugh, one that made her chest feel great for it.

‘I need a first mate!’ Finn called. He slipped off the side of the raft and stiffened as the water came up to his waist. Alex shook her head and looked to the floor. Her pumps hadn’t fully recovered since the last time she’d got them
wet. Although her nerves had done surprisingly well. ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’

‘Come on in! The water’s … bloody
freezing
! Can you believe we used to swim in this?’

Alex felt the first twinge of something uncomfortable. She didn’t want to reminisce. In fact, after hearing her dad and Finn’s mum going over old times this morning, Alex didn’t want to think about anything older than half an hour ago.

Finn waded back to the edge of the plunge pool and offered Alex a hand. She could see the tiny goosebumps beneath the wet on his skin. ‘I promise, Foster, if you fall in, I’ll rescue you.’

It was such an innocuous statement. Not at all something that would normally wind a person, but it knocked all the breath out of her. She couldn’t just gallivant around because her dad had once and Alex had only just found out about it. That didn’t give her the right to act like it was all fun and games again, larking around by the river.

‘Sorry.’ She swallowed. ‘I need to go. I forgot, I’m meant to be somewhere else.’

‘Alex, I didn’t mean—’

‘No, honestly! I forgot … to do something. Honestly, everything’s fine!’ Alex saw heavy recognition behind his eyes.

Finn stepped from the water and reached for her arm. ‘Alex, please … Stop running.’

‘I’m not running.’ She laughed. She was
not
running.

‘Aren’t you? Look, I’m an idiot, I should have chosen my words better.’

‘You don’t need to do anything, say anything better than you do, Finn. OK? Don’t keep … jumping through hoops. You don’t need to.’ There was no point.

‘Then don’t keep making me.’

Alex went rigid. Finn didn’t look cold any more, he looked hard, as though the cold wouldn’t touch him. Alex turned and began to walk. This was a mistake. Coming here, together.

‘Dill would’ve been on that raft before I’d have finishing asking him,’ Finn called after her. Alex stopped dead, her back still to Finn. ‘He thought you were awesome, Alex. Eight year old lads, they’re not supposed to look up to their sisters, it’s not cool for boys to think that way. But he did. He wanted to run like you, Foster. Pitch balls like you. Skim rocks, just like you. Always you.’ Alex closed her eyes while a gaping hole yawned inside her. ‘But I don’t think he’d have looked up to the person you are now.’

Alex breathed. She looked up at the blue above her, marshmallow clouds hanging jovially in the air. ‘What kind of person am I, Finn?’

‘Afraid. I think you’re afraid.’

She faced him then. ‘Afraid? What on earth do you think I’m afraid of?’ She tried to laugh it away, but there was a bitterness in her mouth.

‘I think you’re afraid of ever having another ounce of joy in your life, Alex. Because you’re not entitled to it.’

‘What I’m not entitled to, Finn, is to swan around like I don’t care.’

‘Do you honestly think anyone thinks that you don’t care, Alex? Don’t confuse
swanning around
with celebrating the fact that you have a life to live.’

‘How can I celebrate that, Finn? When Dill can’t?’

‘You start by celebrating his life, Alex. Enjoy the things that would bring him pleasure. Laugh at the things he’d find funny. I know you’re still in there, Foster. I saw the girl I know stand up to a meathead in the Parsons’ front garden. I miss that girl. And I know Dill would’ve looked up to that girl too.’

Alex carried on walking. Finn had all the answers. He always did. Black and white. Right and wrong. He didn’t bother with all the grey there was to wade through.

Alex kicked through the grass. She didn’t even know where she was going, the track home was downhill, not up. The earth began to get wetter the closer to the first waterfall she got. Dill wouldn’t look up to her. There was nothing left to look up to. They would have all just been one disappointment after another for him, Alex, her dad, even Jem creeping around with Mal. Blythe was the only good one amongst them.

A hand reached firmly around hers and snared her from behind. ‘Alex?’

She would not cry. ‘Don’t follow me, Finn. When are you going to get it? None of us are good for you.’

Alex could feel the cold from the water cascading down
the rocks beside her, a film of wet forming over her shoulders. Finn hadn’t let go of her hand. His face was serious, resolute. Wet hair plastered haphazardly across his forehead. ‘That’s my mistake to make. Let me make it.’ His fingers were finding their way between hers. They fit as if they’d been made to.

Alex looked at their hands intertwined. ‘Finn, I can’t.’ It hurt her to look at him, the wounds she could see in guarded green eyes, the tension through his shoulders.

‘Can’t what?’ he whispered. His voice was almost lost to the sounds of water washing away behind them. Finn brought his other hand up and nestled it against her neck. Alex felt the cold press of his wet clothes against her. Her skin was alive, a million sensors relaying to her brain all at once that something wonderful and dangerous and beautiful was happening. Like lightning.

Alex closed her eyes and felt his breath over her mouth. His lips pressed over hers and she was falling again, down, down, down into her bottomless heart. She tasted him. Sweet and earthy and she knew then that she wouldn’t find her way back to the surface again. Finn’s mouth moved tenderly over Alex’s while the water fell around them. She was breathing him in, inhaling great sweet lungfuls of him after all this time holding her breath, all these empty years convincing herself it didn’t matter. That she didn’t ache for him. That she hadn’t been suffocating without him.

Alex felt Finn’s hands drop to her waist. His fingers skimmed the edge of her hip. Goosebumps rose all over her
body. He lifted her from the ground, her body instinctively wrapping around his, holding him against her with everything she could before she had to give him up again.

Finn pressed her gently against the cool rock face. He laid a kiss over her mouth, her cheeks, her eyes, nuzzling into her like a forgotten song. He’d missed her too. She was his. She’d always been his.

‘You’re shivering,’ he said quietly against her ear.

I know
, she wanted to say, but her body wasn’t her own.

Finn pulled back, just enough that she could feel his words against her lips. Alex swallowed. She didn’t want him to say anything. She just wanted to be here like this. Enveloped in him. Hidden behind a curtain of water, where the world wouldn’t find them again.

Finn laid his forehead gently against hers and whispered, ‘I used to wonder how it might have been different for us, Alex. If I’d have got to him in time. If your dad would have asked me to dinner … or to help him at the garage … or let me take you out. If he’d have been grateful, every day, that I was in love with his daughter, instead of hating me for it.’

Alex felt a heaviness pulling her way again. Finn sensed the change, his hands loosened. Alex let herself slide back to the rock beneath her. The lightning was burning out, that’s what lighting did. It disappeared leaving only the damage in its wake as any sign that it ever even existed.

Alex swallowed. They weren’t kids any more. There were consequences. They couldn’t play at this like it was all a bit of fun to be dabbled with when they felt like it. She’d felt
this way before. She’d taken her eye off the ball
because
she’d felt this way before.

Finn’s stance shifted. The water roared behind him. He was waiting for it. Waiting for her to throw him away again.

‘I’m sorry …’ she started to say.
I have to go.
She could say it. So long as she didn’t feel his skin against hers again, she could say it. ‘We’re not kids any more, Finn—’ she rasped.