Martha laughed at that, giggling as she took a second hit on the joint. Kite asked if he should open a window, but Martha said no, it was too cold, and anyway she didn’t want her neighbours smelling the hash.
‘We’ll have to go there one day, drive up,’ said Kite, bending over and kissing the inside of her thigh as he took the joint. ‘It’s such a beautiful place. There’s new owners now; apparently they’re doing up all the rooms. The nearest village is Portpatrick – nothing but a harbour and a crazy golf course where I’d go a lot after Dad died just to be on my own or hang out with a friend who worked at the hotel.’
‘Gary the waiter,’ said Martha, remembering that Kite had mentioned him in the summer. She seemed to be able to recall everything he told her: every name, every anecdote, every detail.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Gary.’
He took a long draw on the joint, held the smoke deep in his lungs and passed it back. Martha set it in a scallop shell ashtray by the bed and stared at him, huge eyes drawing in Kite’s words.
‘The hotel is called Killantringan. It’s a beautiful old country house with a lawn in front running down to the sea. Surrounded on all sides by steep hills at the end of a long, isolated road. There’s a cliff walk to the north which eventually takes you into Portpatrick. One night, in 1982, Mum and Dad had an argument about his drinking and Dad took off into the garden, ended up walking along the beach with a bottle and then somehow up over the rocks in the darkness and onto the path leading to the cliffs. He fell. Lost his footing at the top. Somebody found his body the next morning. And that was that.’
‘I’m so sorry, Lockie.’
‘Mum closed the hotel for three weeks, took me out of school and we went to stay with my granny in Sligo. When we got back, everything changed. I was expected to be the man of the house from then on, to work behind the scenes, helping out in the kitchen, turning down the beds at night, unloading deliveries with the other kitchen staff, chatting up the guests. I hadn’t even turned twelve. I feel as though I went from being a child to a grown-up in the space of six months, you know? Then one day Mum announced that I was going to boarding school. No discussion. It wasn’t anything either of us had ever talked about or mentioned – it would never have occurred to Dad. Not one of the big Scottish schools, either: Glenalmond or Fettes or Gordonstoun. No, she was sending me to Alford College, the most famous school in the world, five hundred miles away in the south of England. Turned out the head of admissions was an old boyfriend of hers. He arranged for a bursary, the rest of the fees would be paid by Dad’s life insurance. I’d be starting in September ’84, which was less than a year away. She said I was too clever to go to one of the local schools and she didn’t want me to feel trapped by the hotel, by how provincial things were up there. She said it would mean I’d have more of a life, more opportunities, play sport, meet interesting people …’
‘Interesting people like Xav,’ said Martha. Kite couldn’t tell how serious she was being.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Like Xav.’ He took another hit on the joint and passed it back.
‘Were you upset?’
‘Don’t think so, no.’ It hadn’t occurred to Kite that he might have been. ‘Actually, I remember being quite excited. Alford sounded a bit of an adventure. Being stuck in Scotland reminded me of Dad all the time and I was sick of feeling that way. If I was on the beach, just going for a walk, I’d think of him on the cliff or remember making dams with him in the stream that ran into the sea from the hills. We’d build these huge sand walls, massive blockades strengthened with rocks and driftwood and bottles. Great lakes of water would build up behind them. Dad would hum the Dambusters tune and say in his thick Irish accent: ‘It’s like the fockin’ Aswan, Lockie!’ Then we’d throw stones at the top until the dam started to break, bit by bit, until finally it gave out and a torrent of water would rush down to the sea carrying all the sand and seaweed and beach crap we’d used to build it up.’
Kite could feel the joint working through him. Martha took another hit and sat up against the headboard.
‘It was the same if I was in Portpatrick or Stranraer or up in the hills behind the hotel. Dad was everywhere. He’d given me an air rifle for my birthday. We used to go shooting together, looking for rabbits. Just Dad and me, walking for hours. The first one I shot had myxomatosis. Usually the rabbits would run away as soon as they heard us coming, but this one was so ill it just sat there, stock-still, waiting for me to kill it. I was ten. Dad lay beside me in the heather, showed me how to load the pellet into the rifle and line up the telescopic sight. When I hit it, he reacted like I was the Sundance Kid. He was so happy for me! For days afterwards he would refer to me in front of the guests as “the Red Baron”. I didn’t know what he was talking about. So that’s what it was like once he was gone. Just this big absence, this hole where his gigantic personality used to be. I was so confused and angry with him for dying, you know? I felt like he’d let me
