I wake late: Mum and Dad are already up. I can hear their voices, calm and normal, as they potter around downstairs together. For a second I let myself imagine we’ve slipped back in time: everything’s fine, we’re a normal happy family. But I can’t pretend for long.
I get up anyway and go down for breakfast with them: I’m going to make a real effort today. For Mum’s sake.
Dad’s cooking bacon, Mum’s clearing the table of books and papers so they can sit down properly. She looks pale, but fine. She’s washed her hair, she’s wearing her favourite blue skirt.
She smiles at me. ‘Want to sit down for breakfast with us?’
I nod.
‘Bacon? Toast?’ Dad asks. ‘Coffee’s nearly ready.’
‘Toast, please,’ I say. I watch him slice the loaf, put it in the toaster, pour milk into a pan to warm for Mum, the way she likes it.
It’s as if yesterday never happened.
That’s what I think at first, watching Mum and Dad talk about plans for the day, do that domestic dance round the kitchen – the way people who have known each other for years move around a small room together, close but not touching. And then I work out it’s because of what happened yesterday that it’s like this now: the air cleared, nothing secret now, the truth laid bare.
I try to imagine what happened after I left the house, yesterday. Did they talk properly and truthfully at last? Is it a relief, now it’s all out in the open?
Even so, this . . . this strange calm, the ordinary conversation . . . it’s weird.
I don’t know how to be. Like I can’t rant and stomp and fight if they are being sweet and reasonable and nice to each other . . .
But there’s so much I haven’t said, yet.
So many questions.
Dad sits down. He pours coffee for everyone, hands Mum the jug of hot milk.
‘Do Bonnie and Hannah know?’ I blurt out. ‘Have you told them?’
‘Not yet,’ Dad says. ‘We thought we should talk to them face to face, not over the phone. And there’s no hurry. I mean, nothing is going to change immediately.’
‘We will try and make things as easy and harmonious as possible for you and Bonnie and Hannah,’ Mum says. ‘We both still love you, the same as always. We still love each other, actually. Despite how it looks –’
‘Why are you splitting up, then? It doesn’t make any sense.’
Mum is unnaturally calm. ‘I know. It’s very hard to understand.’ She looks at Dad, as if she wants him to help her explain.
He puts down his mug of coffee, clears his throat. ‘I know it’s hard, Kate. But these things happen. Relationships change over time. It’s inevitable. People change. Want different things. Your mother and I . . . well, we will always be your parents, nothing can change that, and we’ll go on sharing that, even if we’re not actually living together. We both want the best for you and Hannah and Bonnie. Living in the middle of conflict and tension isn’t good for anyone, especially you, we both know that. And this way, at least things can settle down and be a bit calmer. A fresh start all round. You girls will be fine.’ He walks over to the window, stands there with his back to us, staring out.
It’s so quiet in the room I can hear the sea outside. My heart’s pounding. I don’t know if I am simply furious or just deeply, horribly sad. Both, probably. In my head I count slowly to a hundred, and another hundred. I take deep breaths.
Dad starts speaking again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘One day I hope you will understand. When you fall in love, perhaps, for the first time –’ He says something about the woman, but I put my hands over my ears.
‘I don’t want to hear anything about her, ever,’ I say. ‘I think what you have done to Mum, and all of us, is terrible. How can you possibly think anyone in the whole world is more lovely than Mum? You don’t know what love means.’
‘Kate!’ Mum says. Her hands are white, clenched fists.
‘It’s all right,’ Dad says. ‘I understand you’re angry.’
‘You understand NOTHING!’ I yell. I push the table back, run upstairs into my room.
I fling myself on to the bed.
I can hear them moving around downstairs. Mum’s sobbing. Dad’s voice, muffled. I lie on the bed, staring up at the squares of blue cloudless sky, try to wipe my mind clean so I don’t have to think about anything.
I hear the sounds of someone washing up the breakfast dishes. The click of the radio being turned on. Voices. A door opens and bangs shut again. Silence.
I turn my face into the pillow.
I don’t know how long I lie there. I must have gone back to sleep at some point. When I wake up, I assume they’ve both gone out, but eventually I hear feet padding up the stairs and Dad comes into my room.
He sits down on the end of the bed.
I keep my face pressed into the pillow. I won’t look at him.
‘I never wanted to hurt you,’ Dad says. ‘I never meant things to turn out like this. I really didn’t.’
‘Why can’t you try again?’ I ask. ‘You and Mum.’
Dad doesn’t speak.
When I turn over to look at him, he’s got tears running down his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry before. It makes me start crying all over again.
He takes my hand in his. He holds it tight.
‘It’s too late for Mum and me,’ he says. ‘But I’ll never stop loving you, Kate. You know that, don’t you?’
I nod. I do, deep down.
Something’s different, after that. A weird kind of equilibrium and peacefulness comes over the three of us. We all make a huge effort to be gentle with each other, and although it’s incredibly hard at first, it gets easier as the day goes on. It’s as if now everything is out in the open, we can all relax a little.
I go with them for a walk. We take books to read at the beach and buy picnic things from the shop. Dad brings the binoculars and I try to learn some of the names of the birds he points out. Tern. Sanderling. Curlew . . .
The wind has dropped. Tomorrow is Saturday, Tim’s birthday. The weather is perfect.
‘Can I go to a beach party tomorrow evening with Finn and his brothers and friends?’ I ask. ‘They’re taking tents so we can stay overnight.’
‘Does it involve boats?’ Dad asks. ‘Or cars?’
‘No.’
Dad looks at Mum. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘It sounds like a lovely thing to do. A perfect way to spend a midsummer night. Of course Kate should go.’
‘But no drinking alcohol,’ Dad says. ‘They’re much older than you, remember. You don’t have to join in with everything they’re getting up to.’
Mum smiles sadly. ‘Honestly, David!’ she says. ‘Listen to yourself. Try remembering what it’s like being fifteen. You were, once!’
‘That’s the trouble,’ Dad says. ‘I remember it only too well!’
Mum and I paddle in the sea: later, I actually swim. It’s freezing, of course, like last time, but it’s easier to swim when the waves aren’t breaking and crashing. It’s almost completely calm.
I let myself float on my back for a moment: the sun’s warm on my face, all I can see is blue: blue water, spangled with sunlight; blue sky arching above.
Mum watches me from the water’s edge.
‘Come in!’ I call to her.
She shakes her head. She walks slowly away along the beach, paddling in the shallow water. She walks further and further away until she’s just a dark, solitary figure silhouetted against the light.
Dad’s watching her too. But he stays put, his book open beside him on the picnic rug.
I stay in as long as I can bear to. But I’m shivering, my hands blue with cold, feet numb. I stumble out of the water; Dad comes to meet me with my towel.
‘Thanks, Dad.’ I wrap myself in the towel, walk back up the beach with him. He picks up his book, carries on reading.
Mum’s just a dot in the distance now.
‘You’re always reading,’ I say to Dad. ‘Why don’t you ever write things yourself?’
He looks up from his book. ‘I write all the time. It’s part of my job, Kate.’
‘I don’t mean reports and lesson plans; I mean your own, creative things, like poems, or stories. Or songs even, like you used to do.’
‘Do you remember that? Me writing songs?’
‘Mum told me. She said you used to take photographs too.’
‘I wasn’t much good,’ Dad says. ‘I did it for myself really.’
‘Exactly! For yourself, for fun. Isn’t that the point?’
He laughs suddenly. ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings . . .’ He notices my blank face. ‘Don’t you know that expression? About the wisdom of the young.’
‘Well, then.’
Mum and Dad decide to go back via the local pottery; I turn off towards the Manse. I’m half expecting them all to be out, but no, the cars and jeep are parked outside and I find Joy, Alex and Tim at the garden table drinking tea.
‘I came to find out about the party,’ I say.
‘I’ll collect you about seven,’ Tim says. ‘Didn’t you find the note I left at your house?’
‘No,’ I say, blushing. ‘I’ve been out all day with my parents. Thanks.’
‘Is everything all right?’ Joy asks. ‘Do you want some tea? Shall I go and find Finn for you?’
‘No, thank you,’ I say quickly. ‘I need to get back.’
‘You must bring your parents round for tea sometime,’ Joy says. ‘We’d love to meet them, wouldn’t we, Alex?’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘I understand your dad’s a bit of a naturalist himself.’
‘Fiona mentioned it,’ Joy explains. ‘Nothing stays secret for long on an island like this!’ She smiles.
What else have they heard?
‘I can cycle over here tomorrow if that makes things easier,’ I say. ‘I’ve got the bike now. Finn lent it to me.’
‘OK. That’s a good idea. Then you and Finn can make your own way to the beach. But if there’s anything heavy you want to bring, we can shove it in the back of the jeep easy enough.’
‘Just bring yourself!’ Tim says. ‘That’s all that’s needed.’
‘And some warm clothes!’ Joy smiles. ‘It’ll get chilly at night, even with a fire. We’ll bundle a whole load of sleeping bags into the jeep, just in case.’
I walk back to the village. A boat trip’s about to leave: a crowd of people are standing at the end of the old pier waiting to go on board. There’s a family with three little girls in straw sunhats. I swallow hard. That’s how we must have looked once: a happy family on holiday together.
Someone’s in the red phone box. For a second I’m thinking Dad and then I see it’s not: some man about the same age, but wearing a suit. Weird. He’ll be someone to do with the wind farm project, I guess. Someone official. Poor Finn, I think. Wanting so much to stop things changing. And you just can’t sometimes.
Mum looks up as I go inside the house. ‘Everything OK?’
I nod. ‘How was the pottery?’
‘Interesting. Lots of lovely things. See what we got?’ She shows me two coffee cups.
Blue, gold.
A hare, running.
They’re beautiful.
‘Dad bought them for me,’ she says.
He’s watching birds through the binoculars, as usual. But there’s a notebook open beside him on the windowsill, a pen beside it; something scribbled in black ink.
Something shifts inside me, seeing that: almost a click, like a key turning in a lock. Hard to say what it means: just the tiniest bubble of hope.
At bedtime, I lie awake under the open window, watching the stars. This time tomorrow, I’ll be out all night, on a beach. Anything might happen. Anything at all.
Because nothing stands still.
Nothing.
Not people, or feelings, or the world itself, turning, turning.