It must be lonely back there on the island. When eventually it got dark in the early hours and the wind picked up along the Forth, he would need a blanket to keep warm. Stupid thoughts, chewing her up.
She trailed a hand in the water, cold against her fingers, and shivered as a breeze stirred around her.
Too quiet, too much time to think. She needed to be moving, active.
She started the engine and pointed the boat towards shore, opened the throttle and picked up speed, flecks of spray in her face. She opened her mouth and tasted the salt.
She was at the east end of Portobello beach in ten minutes. She angled the prow alongside the last groyne and drove the boat as close as she could, then cut the engine, flipped off her shoes and jumped out, pulling the boat in on the towrope. She heaved it onto the trailer she’d left sitting in the wash and fastened it, then hauled the whole thing up the sand to the gap in the low seawall, then onto the prom.
Her muscles burned as she pulled the boat and trailer round the back of Esplanade Terrace onto the cobbles of Joppa Park. She stopped at the back of her house and opened the boatshed doors, wheeled the trailer inside. She was panting as she dropped the trailer handle, hands on her knees, bent over to get her breath back. Eventually she stood up. From the small, cobwebbed window of the shed she could see into the kitchen at the back of the house. Halima was there, drinking and cooking, just as she had pictured.
Surtsey grabbed a towel off a nail stuck in the wall and dried her face, hair and arms, then dabbed at the front of her dress. She left the shed and went back out into the street, closing the door as quietly as she could.
She stood breathing for a few moments, trying to get her heart to slow, then lifted the latch on the back gate and walked through, clattering it shut behind her. When she turned round Halima was smiling from the kitchen, already pouring a glass of red wine for her.
4
‘Hey, babes, you’re back early.’ Halima handed the wine to Surtsey before she was even through the sliding doors. Surtsey tried to keep her hand steady as she took it, then had three gulps, almost finishing the glass.
Halima smiled. ‘Date didn’t go well, huh?’
Surtsey shook her head. To cover for her and Tom over the last few months she’d sold Halima a line about trying online dating behind Brendan’s back. Since she and Halima lived and worked together, she needed something to explain her absences, and that was the perfect cover story. It made Halima into a co-conspirator with Surtsey, gave them a secret they shared, and made sure she wouldn’t ever blurt it out to anyone. Plus she knew Halima wouldn’t judge her.
‘So who was this dick?’
‘Just a hipster in a folk band. Loved himself.’
‘His loss.’
Halima wandered over to the stove where a pot of something was simmering. It smelt spicy and sweet and Surtsey felt hungry, then disgusted with her body for carrying on regardless.
‘Ready in ten minutes,’ Halima said. ‘Get yourself settled and we can have a boozy night in.’ She waved her glass, the wine almost spilling over the side. ‘Drink our troubles away.’
Surtsey finished her wine then filled both of them up from the bottle.
‘Sounds great,’ she said.
*
The stainless steel hash pipe seemed to glow as Halima handed it to her. It was the size of a credit card, small bowl at one end, fern leaf engraved along the edge. It was Halima’s twenty-first birthday present from her mum and dad. The Maliks didn’t conform to the strict Muslim parent stereotype, second-generation Scots-Pakistani hippies who ran a drop-in centre for troubled teens in Glasgow and grew asparagus and courgettes on their allotment.
The warmth of the pipe in Surtsey’s hand sent a tingle along her fingers. She sparked the lighter, held the flame to the grass in the bowl and took a hit. The crackle of burning grass and the gas fizzing in the Zippo filled her brain. She felt thirsty and took a careful gulp of Shiraz, then placed her glass down and handed the pipe back.
‘I’m wrecked,’ Halima giggled.
‘Yep.’
The news was on television in the corner of the living room. Surtsey blinked and looked round. All her mum’s stuff still here, despite the fact she didn’t live here any more. The whitewashed wooden bookshelves full of geophysics and earth science books, the saggy brown leather sofas, the worn Indonesian rug on the floorboards, the out-of-tune piano against the back wall. And the Celestron telescope set up in the bay window, pointing at the Inch. Surtsey had used it earlier today before she left for her rendezvous. She stared at it now.
She turned and tried to focus on the photographs lining the mantelpiece. Her graduation picture in that stupid gown next to a snapshot of Iona taken when she didn’t realise, the only way Louise could catch her younger daughter on camera in the last few years. Then a holiday photo of the three of them squinting into the sun at Pompeii, Louise’s idea of a fun family trip, traipsing around hundreds of mummified people killed by a volcanic explosion.
She tried not to think about Tom on the island. She should’ve found a blanket for him, taken the bedding from the hut, kept him cosy against the wind.
‘What you thinking about?’ Halima said.
Her voice seemed to come from the bottom of a well.
Surtsey took in Halima’s glossy black hair, dark eyes, sly smile. They’d been best friends since freshers’ week six years ago, meeting on a dumb Geosoc pub crawl down Cowgate and immediately clicking, bunking off halfway and pitching up at a shitty dive on Niddrie Street, an old man’s pub with bright strip lights, stuffed animals on the gantry and empty ashtrays still on
