The moon had disappeared behind the clouds by the time George and Emma made it up the steep path to the main road, with its whitewashed cottages and sandstone villas, and the air had turned from a balmy autumn dry to a distinctly damp November chill. Emma remembered how frequently she’d been caught out by the weather when she’d first moved to Lobster, often returning from walks soaked to the skin by unexpected rain.
‘Let’s start at the park,’ she said, taking a fleece out of her backpack and zipping it right to the top. ‘There’s a shelter there where the teenagers hang out.’
‘You lead the way,’ said George, and he pulled the cuffs of his thick sweater down over his hands.
Emma crossed the road and headed up the narrow wynd between the chocolate shop and the hair salon. In the daylight the wynd felt quaint and romantic; Emma often wondered what lay behind the cute little wooden doors, split vertically down the middle so that only half the door had to be opened during the worst weather. But on a dark, damp night the wynd felt menacing, as if a door might suddenly open and a hand reach out to grab you. Emma had heard stories of cottages in the village that had once belonged to undertakers, where bodies lay for weeks. She pondered now if this was where those cottages were and where the bodies had been kept. The feeling of menace was heightened by the haar, the fog that had crept in from the sea and spread silently through the village, and the Halloween pumpkins that grinned menacingly from dark doorsteps.
Though neither of them said anything, Emma sensed they were both relieved to exit the wynd onto the road across from the park.
‘I never did understand the appeal of a shelter when I was a teenager,’ said George, when they found the wooden structure empty, a solitary energy drink bottle the only evidence that kids might have been there.
‘No,’ said Emma, who thought it slightly odd herself. Given the village had several beaches, it did seem an unusual choice of hangout. ‘Maybe it gives them a sense of ownership – I doubt anybody else uses it.’
‘I wonder what it’s like, growing up somewhere so remote,’ pondered George.
‘Where did you grow up?’ Emma asked as she messaged Rhona to let her know Skye wasn’t at the shelter and that she was going to call by Zoe’s mum’s house next.
‘Newcastle. We were lucky, we had the metro which gave us the freedom to explore the whole city.’
‘Sounds good. I grew up in Northampton – possibly the most boring town in England!’
‘You don’t miss it?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ she said, leading him back across the road and on to a small 1950s estate behind the centre of the village.
‘Are your family still there?’ he asked.
‘My mum is, my sister’s in Hertfordshire.’
‘Have they been up to visit?’
‘Mum came last summer, and my sister came with my niece and nephew in the spring. It was amazing to see them. They’ve grown so much. It’s not the same seeing them on videocalls. They’re all coming for Christmas this year, so I can’t wait!’ The mere thought of it gave Emma a buzz, even though it was still a while away. ‘How about you? Have you siblings?’
‘Just a brother. He’s a bit younger than me. Still lives with my folks.’
‘You miss them?’
‘I do actually. Until I moved here, I was living at home too.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Emma, who got the distinct impression that George was a family man. ‘I bet they miss you too.’
George laughed. ‘I suspect me mam doesn’t miss doing my laundry!’
‘No, probably not,’ laughed Emma as she opened the little iron gate to Zoe’s mum’s small front garden.
Emma rang the bell and crossed her fingers. Inside, the telly blared and Zoe’s younger brother yelled, ‘Mum, there’s someone at the door.’
‘Shut that off,’ she shouted before opening the door.
‘Hi, sorry to disturb, it’s Emma, from the guesthouse . . .’
Zoe’s mum, a thinner, more wrinkled version of her daughter, squinted at her, then clocked George who was keeping his distance at the corner of the road. In the crook of her arm was a bowl of sweets for the guisers she had clearly expected instead of Emma. She stared, uncertain who Emma was.
‘Zoe works for me,’ Emma explained.
‘Right,’ she said, the penny finally dropping. ‘Has she done something?’
‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ Emma laughed a little nervously, surprised that was her immediate thought. ‘Skye hasn’t returned home. Rhona’s a bit worried. She’s not here, is she?’
‘I already told Rhona she’s not.’
‘Of course,’ Emma nodded. ‘I just thought they might have rocked up since then.’
‘Nuh, they’re probably down at Craggy Point.’ She gestured in a south westerly direction.
‘Okay, I’ll try there. Thank you.’
‘Nae bother,’ she said, and shut the door.
‘She seemed friendly,’ whispered George sarcastically, raising an eyebrow as Emma closed the garden gate.
Emma did a pretend shiver. ‘She suggested Craggy Point.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Just beyond the headland. It’s not far.’
As they continued through the houses and on through another narrow wynd which led to a beautiful, ancient church, Emma messaged both Rhona and Phil to keep them updated.
‘Has Rhona reason to be worried?’ George asked, crossing the main road through the village.
‘Skye’s never been late home before,’ said Emma, who couldn’t decide if that gave Rhona more or less cause for concern. ‘But Finn mentioned her behaviour had been a bit off recently, and I’ve noticed a couple of things too. Plus, with Rhona being pregnant and getting married, and the three other kids, she feels she’s not been giving Skye enough time.’
‘Sounds as if there’s a lot going on.’
‘Right, and to top it all off, the kids’ dad is trying to get more custody, and now Rhona’s not well, I don’t know . . . I can kind of see why Skye might want to be out of the house for a while!’
George laughed.
‘I don’t mean that,’ backtracked Emma, turning onto the small road that led to the start of the coastal path. ‘Rhona’s an amazing mother, and she and Skye are joined at the hip. Whatever the reason, they’ll sort it out.’
Slowly the two of them picked their way down the steep, slippery path towards Craggy Point, George holding his phone aloft, its torch on to enable Emma to see where she was going. It took all their concentration, and neither spoke until they reached the tiny beach. At first, they saw nothing, and Emma’s heart dropped, but then a shriek from the old brick war shelter a little way in the distance demanded their attention.
‘Skye?’ Emma called.
Nothing.
‘Skye!’ she called again, this time more firmly.
Murmured squabbling seeped through the damp air from the hut.
‘Skye, come out please.’
And at that, Skye, decked out in her Dorothy costume, complete with sparkly red shoes, appeared in the mist.
‘Oh my god, Skye,’ said Emma, when she came close. ‘You reek of booze!’
‘It was Zoe who was drinking, not me. She must have spilt some on me,’ she muttered, not meeting Emma’s eye.
‘Then you won’t mind me smelling your breath, will you?’ she said, mind whirring, hoping the behaviour on the night of Finn’s proposal and the engagement party weren’t related.
Skye looked up, eyeballing Emma to see if she was serious. Emma held her stare, though her heart was pounding.
‘Fine,’ Skye snapped, turning on her heels and heading up the path towards home.
‘And Zoe?’ Emma called after her.
Skye carried on up the path without looking back, her only concession an arm pointing in the direction of the shelter.
*
‘Please don’t tell Mum I’ve been drinking,’ Skye begged Emma once they’d seen Zoe home and left her with her mother, who they’d been able to hear shouting at Zoe even when they were a considerable distance away.
‘I can’t not tell her, Skye. What sort of a friend would that make me?’
‘A good one, who doesn’t want to raise a pregnant woman’s blood pressure any more than it already is. You need to think of the baby.’
Emma marvelled at Skye’s teenage guile.
‘You don’t think you should have thought of that before you left her to worry for the past two hours.’
Skye shrugged, knowing Emma had a point.
‘But you’re right,’ Emma conceded, ‘further stress would just make things worse, so I won’t tell her, but as soon as she’s better, I will.’
‘You don’t think she’s going to figure it out for herself when she smells you?’ said George, who’d been keeping a distance most of the way home.
Skye looked at Emma as if to say, ‘Who the fuck does this dude think he is?’
‘He has a valid point,’ said Emma.
Instantly, Skye said, ‘I can nip into the bathroom to take off my clothes and brush my teeth before she’s even out of bed.’
‘And what about when she washes your costume?’
‘I do my own washing,’ Skye sniped.
‘Of course, you do,’ said Emma, who remembered how impressed she’d been when Rhona had told her this about Skye. ‘Well . . . give it a go. I really don’t want to cause her any further stress.’
‘I’ll tell her my phone ran out of battery and we lost track of time.’
Though she didn’t like to, Emma agreed to the plan and Skye ran into the house and bathroom before Emma had had time to shout, ‘She’s home.’
‘She’s in the bathroom,’ said Emma when Rhona came to the door, looking ten years older.
‘My phone ran out of battery. I didn’t know the time,’ Skye yelled from behind the bathroom door.
Rhona looked to Emma for confirmation, and Emma smiled weakly with a little shrug that said, ‘Teenagers!’. ‘I should let Phil know,’ she remembered, waving her phone at Rhona, guiltily conscious that she was making an excuse to leave.
‘Thanks, Emma,’ said Rhona, the gratitude in her eyes so sincere that it made Emma feel twice as bad.
‘No problem. Get some rest. She’s fine.’
Leaving Rhona’s, Emma messaged Phil to call off the search.
‘Phil’s going to walk Eve back,’ said Emma, reading his text then turning off her phone, as she and George strolled past the castle wall towards home. The haar was so thick that they could barely see three feet in front of them, let alone the sea and the island beyond.
‘Are he and Eve a couple?’
Emma laughed, running her finger along the top of a small wrought-iron fence, which bordered a pretty, warm stone cottage at the start of her street. ‘They should be, right? But they’re not. They were, ages ago, for a while.’
‘What happened? They seem perfect for each other.’
‘It’s a long story. Phil and Aidan weren’t exactly the best of friends for a long time. Aidan thought Phil was using Eve as a pawn in their game, and it all came to a head one night at the harbour. After that, Aidan left town, and Eve went too. They only came back when their parents died.’
‘How did they die?’
‘An accident at sea,’ said Emma, who felt odd talking about it, given it had happened long before she arrived in Lobster. ‘I don’t think they ever got to the bottom of how, exactly. After that, Aidan came back from some work up north, and Eve gave up her place at uni. The two of them have lived in the family home ever since.’
‘And there’s no chance of Phil and Eve getting back together?’
‘I don’t think so. Eve’s in a new relationship, Phil’s still on a high from his gap year, they’re on different paths.’
‘Seems a shame,’ said George, turning to face Emma as they arrived at the gate to Aidan’s house. ‘Sometimes we have exactly what we’re looking for without knowing it, even when it’s right under our nose.’
‘True,’ she said, feeling self-conscious and faintly disloyal to Aidan as George held her gaze. ‘Well, goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ he replied, still lingering.
As Emma unlocked the front door, she was left wondering about George’s remark. She was almost a hundred per cent certain he was talking about Phil and Eve, but a tiny nagging sensation that pulled at her stomach left her questioning if he was actually talking about her.