There was absolutely no chance Mrs. Laird could have gotten Ash and Ib to bed even if there wasn’t a large commotion about the town and various people walking the streets at unfortunate hours to see what on earth was going on up the hill.
Even without that, they weren’t so relaxed they could deal with their father going off the island, particularly as he only ever did so if it absolutely couldn’t be helped.
Ash’s eyes were looking particularly wide as he ran into his dad’s arms. It hurt Saif to look at him. So like her. So like Amena. Ib too. And as if being away for just a day had made him see them anew, he noticed once again how much they had both filled out. Ib had taken a stretch; he was going to be tall like him. Ash, possibly not. Saif knew infant malnutrition could lead to growth issues. But Ib was looking tall and strong. Amena would never see him look like this, never see him so big.
How could she bear it? How could she not be desperate to see them? Or perhaps she was. But there she was, married to another man. Pregnant. His head told him of course that she might clearly have no choice.
But . . . the smile.
Of course smiles could be forced. Of course.
And then again, what if she truly believed they were dead? What if she had spent two years as wretched as he had? What if she’d known the boys were lost, assumed the worst? What if she had grabbed at any brass ring of happiness, at any morsel?
After all, wasn’t that exactly what he’d done with Lorna?
But he had his children; and if he had not, he wouldn’t have been able to . . .
Well. Would he?
But it wasn’t the same.
Wasn’t it?
He buried his tortured face in the hair of his youngest boy.
“Abba! Abba! There is a spaceship and we must go see it,” Ash said with some urgency. Agot was—madly, in Saif’s opinion—allowed to use her father’ s mobile phone and had apparently woken the entire house, ordering them all down there even though it was 9:30 on a school night and 5 degrees below zero.
Ash was already pulling on his fur-lined boots.
“Off we go to see the spaceship,” he said, in a way that showed he was pretending to be very confident about something happening in the hope that that would help it happen.
“It won’t be a spaceship, stupid,” said Ib, who absolutely had to be contrary, but it was a weak effort on his part; he was obviously as desperate to see it as Ash was, not least so he didn’t miss out on the playground conversation the next day.
Mrs. Laird rolled her eyes. “I think quite a lot of people are going out to see it,” she said.
Saif sighed. On the other hand, what was the alternative? Going to bed to lie for hours and hours absolutely fiercely awake, thinking of Amena every second of the night, letting every possibility, terrible and worse, run through his brain? Explain to the children that their mummy was alive, but she had another family now?
It hurt like a physical pain. He might as well walk it out.
IT WAS FREEZING outside, a windy night with snow bouncing around lazily and more—much more—on the forecast for coming in.
The boys were beside themselves at getting up in nighttime, long past bedtime, as if the normal rules were forgotten. And how exciting too, once they’d gotten jumpers and padded jackets and hats and scarves and socks and Wellingtons on over their pajamas, to leave the house, each with a hand in their father’s—normally Ib didn’t like being seen out and about holding hands with his dad, it absolutely wasn’t cool in primary seven, but he was making an exception for tonight and Saif was deeply and profoundly grateful for it.
Everywhere doors were opening as they walked down the street to the village from the rectory, and excited chattering—and some very disapproving chattering—could be heard here and there. There was loads of noise as overexcited child shouted to overexcited child and more and more joined the parade. Agot came charging up to Ash, and they did their usual bouncing-up-and-down dance they did when they saw each other outside of school—they were truly the best of friends.
“It me!” shouted Agot. “It an angel. Like me!”
Agot was playing the angel in the nativity play. Lorna would like to have said there was no nepotism in it, and in a way that was true. Agot was so unbelievably irritating about how much she wanted to play the angel Gabriel that it was easier just to let her—it wasn’t a big part like Mary—rather than deal with the aggro everyone would put up with if she was denied. On a very deep level Lorna knew this was a bad lesson for Agot to learn, that by being a monstrous pain in the arse she’d get whatever she wanted. On the other hand, Lorna had a full class, a mountain of paperwork, a school to run, an unhappy love affair to obsess over, and plenty of other children, as well as, it appeared, a space rocket materializing just in front of the school building, and Agot wouldn’t be her problem forever, so this one she was just letting fly.
“They built a statue of you?” said Ash wonderingly. He thought everything Agot did was marvelous.
“I think so.”
“I don’t think that’s you, mo graidh,” said Innes fondly.
“Yes, it is me,” said Agot with a happy sigh. Then she frowned. “I needs my angel costume.”
Innes rushed on ahead when he spied Flora to avoid having to get into that precise conversation.
“What the hell is it?” someone asked her.
Flora was eyeing it up and wondering why people kept asking her as if she knew everything, rather than, for example, Joel, who was standing right beside her and had actually built the damn thing.
Standing back, however, she liked it. She couldn’t deny it. It was absurdly too huge and she couldn’t imagine how much electricity it would use—thank goodness for the wind farms—and she knew some people were going to complain about it and possibly the civil aviation authority would ask them to take it down.
But it was, undeniably, a huge, bright, beautiful shining angel that had appeared in the middle of the village. And she liked it like that.
“What do you think?” said Joel.
“It’s insane,” said Flora. “But . . . in a good way.”
“Do you think?”
Flora gestured. “Look how happy the kids are!”
And sure enough there was row upon row of excited upturned faces, and a large “Oooh” went out when the wings were extended.
KONSTANTIN HAD HIS head thrown back, laughing. Someone had put some music on, and he had gone over and stuck on Christmas carols on the speaker, fiddling with Spotify until it was playing “Silent Night” in Norwegian. He bellowed it loudly, and Isla looked at him, suddenly overcome.
She had thought he was such a callow, ignorant boy, rude and snotty and unpleasant.
But to build this was such an unforced, ridiculous thing to do. He couldn’t be so up on himself after all; it was just lovely. And now he stood handing out shots from the bottle of aquavit the importer had left him; beaming broadly even if anyone made a rude remark about the Mure Angel, not minding in the slightest; pointing out the shiny bits for the smaller ones; agreeing solemnly with Agot that it was absolutely definitely a statue of her (she was wearing the angel costume now; someone must have given in).
Watching him, Isla felt her heart lurch suddenly. She realized, now that they were out of the confines of the kitchen, she was actually a little jealous. Iona was flocking around; so were lots of girls in fact. All the teasing that she had pretended not to listen to or had brushed off . . . well, suddenly she felt slightly annoyed that he was spreading it around, chatting to everyone. She was used, she realized, to having Konstantin to herself.
And as she looked at him, tall and silly and laughing in the bright light, as excited as any of the schoolchildren standing around, she realized something else.
She liked him.
She liked him a lot.
Oh God. She liked him and his stupid blond hair and his ridiculous dog and the way he couldn’t get up in the morning and the puppy-dog look he gave her when he wanted her to do something for him.
And at first she’d found him pathetic, unable to do anything.
But he had worked with a will, dealt with his failures with good grace. He was improving every day. And he had definitely done this: this was all him. An achievement that was just him. Spoiled losers couldn’t have managed this.
As if sensing what she was thinking, he glanced up and caught her eye.
She couldn’t help it, she absolutely beamed at him. His eyes lit up almost comically and a smile split his face. He gave her a querying thumbs-up, and she replied with a double thumbs-up and got rewarded by that grin again.
She looked so pretty, he thought. Not overdone and Instagram-ready like so many of the girls he met at parties, with four inches of makeup and eyebrows plucked and stupid duck lips, wearing expensive clothes and talking about how bored they were with everything.
She was pink-cheeked and clear-eyed, her skin like roses and her lovely thick dark hair blowing around her, and her long scarf and coat concealing . . . well, who knew? It would be like unwrapping a parcel.
Even as the commotion continued all around him, he didn’t drop her gaze. In response, she took a step toward him. The light was flaring out behind him; it was quite, quite dazzling.
He. He was quite, quite dazzling.
She took another step. His face had changed, was nervous now. His mouth was closed, a faint smile playing around his curled lips. God, thought Isla. He was so handsome. Had she really not noticed before? Or had she thought, Stupid handsome tosser?
Probably that one. She didn’t think he was a tosser now. Not at all. She thought of those long hands and long fingers and suddenly felt a shiver go down her. This was something . . . this was something. She was sure of it. She took another step.
Perhaps, thought Konstantin. No. He already knew she didn’t like him. She’d made it quite clear. Although . . . He licked his lips nervously.
Normally when he met women—and he met a lot of women—he had a lot of bolsters behind him. He had his money and his name. Most girls he met knew exactly who he was and absolutely fancied a shot at him.
More than that, he’d probably be drunk, and everyone else would be too, and it would just be a natural progression. The girl would do much of the chasing, and he’d be more or less happy to go along with it. For a little while at least.
This was different, and so, so new and strange.
He was standing in front of Isla with nothing—a kitchen boy, really, with no name and no money and not much except a dog who seemed to layer mud wherever he went. He hadn’t been charming with her or deliberately flirtatious. Quite the opposite.
She knew him. She hadn’t liked him . . . at first. But now . . . here she was, stepping forward, to him, with nothing at all. Could that have changed?
He felt a tug at his sleeve and glanced over, assuming it was Hamish wanting reassurance about how brilliant the statue was.
Instead, it was a blond woman with a pointed chin whom he didn’t recognize.
“Uh, hi,” he said, cross at being distracted.
“Hi there!” said the girl, exposing very white teeth. “I’ve heard this is your doing? Wow. Amazing. Candace Blunt. Daily Post.”
AS THE CHILDREN yelled and capered in front of the angel and Lorna started to massively downgrade the amount of her lesson plan she was going to get through the next day, she saw him.
Of course she’d known the boys would want to come down. It was absolutely part of the reason she was here in the first place. There was no point in lying to herself. She glanced around. Flora was looking at her in concern, which was ironic, seeing as it used to be Flora in the dodgy relationship and Lorna trying to be sympathetic. Now Flora was up in that beautiful house with a man and a baby, and she was . . .
Well. No point in feeling sorry for herself; it helped nothing. Saif edged toward her. Perfectly normal, just the village doctor having a brief conversation with the headmistress, business as usual—who could possibly suspect? If they were up to anything they certainly wouldn’t be talking out in public like this, would they? No. So.
Nonetheless, she retreated a little into the shadows out of the great light the angel cast.
“Hello, Lorna,” he said in that low gravelly voice she loved so very much.
“Uhm, hi,” she said, as usual as casual as she could make it, which wasn’t very. “Has this got anything to do with you?”
“No,” said Saif. “But it explains all the electric shock burns in the surgery.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh no, I am joking.”
Saif didn’t usually have to explain to Lorna when he was joking. Everyone else, yes.
“It’s . . . I rather like it,” said Lorna.
Saif nodded. “I saw it from the sky.”
She nodded. “How was it?” she asked, in a voice of infinite tenderness.
He stopped short, realizing suddenly he was about to burst into tears if he talked any further. They could not be casual; they could not just chat about this.
Flora came over. She sensed something was up.
“You guys okay?” she said brightly. “I can watch the boys for half an hour if you like.”
“We just . . . need to talk,” said Lorna, glancing at Saif’s stricken face.
“Sure, whatever,” said Flora blithely, pointedly looking away. But Lorna couldn’t worry about that just now. She glanced at Saif, who understood immediately—and could not, anyway, be there for any longer—and he slipped away to the entrance to her flat, just behind the museum. There were no other inhabitants of the building. Nobody saw him, and the flat was, as always, unlocked.
Lorna found him there, sitting in front of the fire, his face buried in his knees, his hands clasping them to his chest. He looked like a statue; he wasn’t rocking, or sobbing, or anything—almost anything would have made Lorna feel less nervous about him than she did.
She poured them both a little whisky and waited.
Eventually—because they never had time, never—he managed to raise his head. But he was still staring into the fire and would not look at her. She put the whisky in his hand and he took a small sip, then put it down and let out a huge sigh.
Her heart was pounding in her chest. A tiny bit of her—even now, even so—leaped at the simple fact that he was there, in her room, in front of her fire. The physical fact of him, to which she was so ridiculously and absolutely addicted. He was in front of her. Perhaps this was him telling her, telling her that he had decided—of course it would be sad—that he had made his decision, that they could be together.
The fact that this was absurd, unlikely, difficult . . .
Well. Difficult things happened all the time.
She couldn’t bear it, almost. To sit still and wait for him to speak. Finally, she gently touched his shoulder, and his flinch cut her like a knife.
“Amena,” he managed finally, and Lorna’s heart dropped like a plummeting lift. Of course it wasn’t him telling her things would be okay. Of course not. She bent over in pain. Soon, there would be nothing left of her, just a Lorna-shaped skin suit she would have to carry for the rest of her life.
“They . . . they found her?” she heard herself saying.
He nodded, tears coming to his eyes now, and still stubbornly, defiantly, he would not look at her.
She stroked his arm very gently, even as she felt as if she were being carved out by a cruel knife, to the gentle sound of nothing but the softly crackling fire and the distant oohs and ohs of more and more villagers coming to see the unearthly light.
He buried his face.
“She’s . . . alive?”
Again the nod. But why was he so . . .
“What is it, Saif?” she said gently but firmly, drawing on all her years of dealing with recalcitrant children or shy little ones. “Tell me what it is.”
CANDACE BLUNT WAS confused. She’d arrived to find no cabs, no transport, no nothing, except the airport manager had offered to give her a lift somewhere.
She’d informed him she wanted to go to the Rock without saying why, which was that she was down for the Daily Post to write an exposé on how dreadful it was, but he explained that it wasn’t open for paying guests yet and dropped her at the Harbour’s Rest instead. Which was, she had to admit, a bit peeling round the edges, and the glasses were a bit sticky, but the welcome, from a large, friendly Icelandic girl, was warm, the drinks were generous, and her bedroom was absolutely vast and overlooked the sea. There wasn’t that much to complain about.
Hearing the commotion and listening to the voices in the bar discuss the angel, including at least one blaming the whisky, she had headed down to the scene, on the sniff for a story; she needed to justify this. One hit piece might not be enough.
It was freezing up here, good God. Her smart London mackintosh wasn’t going to cut it at all. No wonder all the locals looked like they were going to join the British Antarctic Survey. The wind cut through her and she narrowed her eyes. How the hell could people live here?
It was even slightly spooky, all of them gathering around an enormous lit-up statue of an angel. At least she thought it was an angel; it was hard to tell. Modern art, she thought. Her readers absolutely hated modern art or anything that smacked of fancy concepts. If it had public funding, that would probably be another excellent take on things. “Island Wasting Taxpayers’ Money on Crazy Modern Art” was definitely an angle that would work with this.
She asked the first person she met who was responsible, who nodded toward a tall, surprisingly good-looking blond boy who was laughing and looking at something over by the foot of the statue. Her eyes narrowed. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Nonetheless, her journalistic instincts were tingling.
She marched up to him confidently. “Hi there! I’ve heard this is your doing?”
AT FIRST KONSTANTIN found it hard to break Isla’s gaze. Why, he was thinking, had he not noticed before? How lovely she was. How sweet and shy and . . . just so different from the people he knew.
“Candace Blunt? Daily Post?”
The blond girl standing next to him was looking cross. He noticed she was wearing expensive high-heeled boots that could not have been less suitable for walking up a Mure hill at midnight. She stood confidently next to him, in no doubt she was about to claim his attention.
“Yes?” he said reluctantly.
“So is this your doing?”
“Well, I had a lot of help.”
“And the council funded it?”
Konstantin wasn’t really listening; he was looking for Isla, but she’d disappeared back into the crowd. He frowned. “The council?”
“Yes, the council.”
Konstantin shrugged. He knew they’d had something to do with letting them have the space.
“Sure,” he said, and Candace smiled happily.
“Wow, amazing,” she said, jotting it down in her notebook. “You must be very proud.”
“It’s a great thing,” said Konstantin. “It needs brightening up, ja?”
He meant, of course, the Christmas lights. This was not what it sounded like to Candace.
“Well, it’s a pretty dark, cold, miserable place,” she said, looking round.
“Hmm,” said Konstantin. Isla had disappeared from his line of sight. Where on earth had she gone?
“And what’s your name? You’re Norwegian, right? What brings you here?”
“I’m just working in the hotel.”
“The new hotel?”
“Yes. Excuse me, I have to go.”
“Perhaps I can come talk to you there tomorrow? And can I just take a picture of you next to the . . . That’s right,” said Candace, bringing out her camera. She caught Konstantin mugging and sent it immediately to the pictures desk. They had people on there who were world experts at recognizing faces. If his rang a bell with anyone, they would let her know.