But who . . . who is she married to?”
Saif shrugged.
“And they think he’s . . . a jihadi? A terrorist?”
“Perhaps.”
The silence sat between them. This was absolutely ridiculous, thought Lorna. She was a primary school teacher in a tiny village in the Scottish islands. She didn’t get mixed up with horrific political situations in the Middle East.
She looked at Saif’s head, still bowed. Nobody did, she thought. Nobody asked to get mixed up in this. But war could come and burst through the gates of peace; it could crawl in any window, sneak under the cracks of any door, just when you thought you were safe.
And they were safe. They were.
But oh: Amena.
“Will they let her come?”
Saif shrugged again.
“Do you want her to come?” she asked, more quietly this time.
He let out a muffled sound that was more howl than anything else.
Lorna drew closer to him and encircled his waist with her arms, sitting behind him, her knees on either side of him.
“There, there,” she said.
“I have to get back to the boys.”
“Not yet, my love,” said Lorna, so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Stay awhile.”
He took hold of her hands, lifted them to his face, which was wet with tears, and kissed her hand gently.
She shifted round to face him, so now she was crouching between his knees. Looking into his face, she felt suddenly, overwhelmingly filled with desire, desperate to feel his strong arms around her, his long body jolting against hers.
She moved closer toward him, gazing into his dark brown eyes.
“Stay awhile,” she said again, and he closed his eyes and rested his entire face in her hair, breathing her in, trying to surround himself with her, the only thing that made him feel better. She moved even closer toward him, until he entirely engulfed her in front of the flickering firelight.
“Darling,” she whispered, and moved in to kiss those sad, soft lips.
He pulled away, furious with himself, with the world, with everything. Shaking his head forcefully, he stood up. She stood up too, looking at him, their two bodies still touching.
“You can be angry,” she said, barely recognizing herself, her voice cracked and hoarse. She had never been so desperate for someone, never in her life. It was absolutely crazy what he did to her, what he did to her body. “You can be angry. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re with me.” She looked straight at him, full of desire, and said what she wanted out loud. “You can take it out on me.”
He understood her meaning in a moment and grasped her on either side of her arms, staring fiercely down into her eyes and suddenly pushing her hard against the wall. He kissed her passionately, and she felt his long, lean body tightly pressed against her, every inch of him, and she felt herself melt into his hardness, pushed herself frantically against him, felt her breathing quicken and the blood rush to her head.
Then:
“Al’ama,” he swore at himself, shaking his head, tearing himself away, breathing heavily, clearly aroused.
This was not the kind of man he was. This was not the kind of man he wanted to be.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He half walked, half stumbled out of the flat, leaving Lorna breathing hard, furious, desolate, behind him.
Isla’s mum was waiting up for her when she got back.
“What’s all that nonsense going on there?” she said accusingly.
“It’s the Christmas lights,” said Isla happily, even though she had taken flight when Konstantin had been distracted—of course he had, she told herself. Of course he’d wanted to go talk to someone else. Some gorgeous blonde she’d never seen before. She had scared herself and bolted.
But also, the intensity of it. The sheer hugeness of it had startled her, made her run off like a rabbit. This wasn’t like getting drunk and pulling a Russian sailor. Or getting off with Nobby Parsons at every school disco for long enough that eventually they were kind of technically going out anyway, even if they didn’t have much to say to each other and Nobby spent most of his life playing FIFA, talking about FIFA, and trying to explain FIFA to her.
This was completely different. He was so handsome, so fun, so full of life and ideas and nonsense. And tonight . . .
She wanted to clasp the idea to her heart, turn it over, enjoy thinking about it.
Her mother was looking out the window sourly. “Bloody waste of money if you ask me.”
“Well, I think it was Colton’s money,” said Isla gingerly, which only made her mother sniff harder.
“You’d think he’d have something better to do with it than wasting it on that nonsense.”
“I think he’s done lots of other good things too,” suggested Isla nervously, but that only got another sniff. “I’m going to bed.”
“Nobody will get any sleep with that thing buzzing and giving off electricity,” predicted Vera, who was half right: people got no sleep for many different reasons.
LORNA SOBBED HER heart out on her empty bed, once again feeling as if she was born to be ridiculous, to suffer. That love was meant to be something that people simply found—they found people they liked and they settled down. Look at Ealasaid and Anndra, the bank teller and her husband, who mended dry stone walls. They just seemed to rub on okay, have a bun together every so often, watch their children grown.
Had they ever collapsed fully forward onto the floor in despair of their love for each other? Had they spilled a river of tears? Had they yearned so hard that they were driven half mad with a confused and furious lust?
Perhaps they had.
SAIF GRABBED THE boys by the hands. They were cold and ready for cozy beds, a kiss on the head, and the absolute peace and security that they, he thought bitterly, had had to wait so long for, that had been so hard-won.
And now what? He stood for a long time at Ib’s bed, watched the stern little face relax and untangle in the sweetness of a child’s dream. Could he bring in more disruption—another man even? Another man.
His blood ran cold. What if she wanted to take them away? To live with her new family.
But no. Not his sweet Amena. Not his wife.
But she was not his wife anymore. And could anyone truly still be sweet after a war? After believing she had lost her own children?
Puzzled, he clicked on his Facebook once again. He had left it there, after he stopped checking it pathologically, religiously, all the time. Why, why had she never looked for him? Never found him? Was she being held, married against her will? The message was still there. But nothing more. He pulled down the poetry book, looked for answers, found none.
But she had looked happy. She looked happy in the photograph. She looked happy. How could she be happy?
KONSTANTIN COULDN’T HELP it, he was excited. For the first time he missed his phone. He’d have liked to look up some pictures of her. Remind himself. But what should he do? The problem was it was near impossible to ask her to something, given they had to stand next to each other at the sink all day long. What if she said no? Why had she run away?
He was so used to just having women show up, like taxis. Whereas with Isla . . . she was so quiet and shy, he was going to have to tempt her out. He wasn’t even sure she liked him.
Although, that smile . . .
FINTAN LAY AWAKE, still worried about his betrayal of Colton, which had happened again—even if Colton wouldn’t have minded, not in the slightest, had told him a million times that he was still young, that he had to get back out there.
Even so, it felt wrong. It felt like cheating, even if it was cheating on a dead person.
Fintan glanced downward. Under his arm, Gaspard slept the sleep of the dead, a heavily tattooed arm pulled over his eyes, his legs kicked out in front of him; fast asleep and utterly content in his own inked skin.
This was comforting in itself. Fintan thought back to their conversation earlier. He had tentatively asked Gaspard what he was getting out of this, and Gaspard had looked at him, incredulous at the question, then launched into a very complicated discussion about salmon heading upstream, which Fintan hadn’t entirely understood.
“Ze feesh, he ees home, yes? But the water, eet ees always moving.”
“So, is this a good thing?” Fintan had ventured.
“Bien sur, of course! Day by day this is good, this is fresh, this has clear eyes.”
“Do you mean me or the fish?”
“Today, you.”
And just watching him, feeling his warm body, Fintan gradually drifted off.