Turning away so Mr Thomas didn’t see her tears, she took the first step towards Clove Lore – the first intentional step of her life.
Ben was out of the car, gaping and gesturing his disbelief. His father cautioned him to give it up and get in the passenger seat. They were leaving without her. ‘She could at least put her boots on,’ she heard him whine before he pulled the car door closed.
Alex’s fluffy pink slippers pointed her in the direction where a piece of her heart lay, and she strode through the wind and rain, not knowing what tempests awaited but determined to get back in that warm spot by Magnús’s side in his bookshop where she’d been so happy last night.
That would have to do, for now. When he left for Iceland in a week’s time she’d have no regrets about wasting another minute of the hours afforded to them. She was going to have a happy Christmas with him and then, after that, even though she couldn’t imagine how her future might look, she’d at least be steering her own course, and if it went wrong she would only have herself to blame. The determination and excitement drowned out so much of her old apprehension and grief, and she marched on.
Chapter Twenty-One
I Am Here For You
This had to be it: rock bottom. Magnús was officially abandoning his holiday mid-way through, walking away from a phoney bookshop he simply couldn’t make a go of, and now he was crying in a rain storm in an empty car park on a dreary winter afternoon while hugging an increasingly damp woolly jumper to his body like a person with zero self-control and no pride whatsoever.
He could honestly say he missed his old pre-Alex self; the one who kept himself locked away safe and sound, taking no risks, doing nothing special. Even if he exasperated his family and his sullen nature drew some funny looks from people, it was far and away better than feeling like this, all exposed and vulnerable and incredibly,incrediblystupid.
He tried to picture himself on the flight, high above the North Atlantic, a vodka over ice in his glass, looking down through clouds at the tiny world below. He needed some height, he felt. From a distance this holiday might not look quite so humiliating. With miles between him and Clove Lore he might be able to think straight again.
Right now, all he could see was his failure, interspersed with intrusive flashes of Alex smiling in that way she did, all unsure of herself and so generous with her kindness at the same time.
The traitorous, loving little bit at the back of his brain wanted to cause him even more pain, and so it played on a loop a memory of the song Alex had sung, and in her sweet voice too, the song that she hadn’t even been aware he could overhear, the one about the mermaid and the boy from the shore who she enticed into the sea and no doubt promptly drowned.
That was what had happened to Magnús. He’d been tempted out of his natural element (his safe dark box of brooding, regretful solitude) into a world of dreams and hopefulness, and no sooner was he up to his neck in it and thinking he might just float, Alex had swum off back to where she came from and here he was, a man half drowned in inconvenient, unwanted feelings. Yes, the quicker he was on that flight home, the better.
Yet, when the text notification buzzed on the phone in his pocket, he grabbed for it. There were two phones in there, one his own, and one Alex’s. Jowan had given it to him, saying she’d left it behind in the hurry to get away. For a second, he thought it might be her trying to reach out to him through her mobile, but its screen was blank, so he checked his own and there it was. A siren call from Alex on some unknown number? He gazed at the words, his heart swelling.
I am here for you.
‘Jesus, Alex!’ He read it once more, trying to contain the pang of hope in his chest. He turned to look down the slope but it was impossible to see in this whipping wind and with his eyes somehow streaming. Was she Down-along waiting for him? He typed a reply, stumbling over the words, messing it up, but hitting send in seconds.
You’re back? I knew you would be! I’ve been frantic here. Listen, I don’t just like you. I’m not some robot. I’m a man and I want you. I am crazy for you and I should have told you when I had the chance. Where are you? Don’t go anywhere! I’ll come to you.
How had she found him? They hadn’t even swapped numbers, to his knowledge. All he knew was that he had to have her in his arms right away. The wait for a reply physically pained him, and he brought the phone close to his face and watched the rippling bubbles showing she was typing something back.
This is Tony. Your Uber driver on the airport run. I’m here for you. At the visitor centre car park but the gate’s locked.
‘Oh Christ!’ Magnús sank down onto his haunches and gripped his knees as the humiliation hit him with full force. ‘Idiot!’ Sure enough, at the other side of the car park, through the wide gate, was the glow of a car’s headlights.
Another message appeared and he cringed, looking at it in trepidation.
You OK? Want the car or not?
Magnús typed his reply.
Not.
Then thinking how this guy had probably left a warm home for him, and knowing how much English people loved to apologise, he sent another.
Sorry.
Another message appeared. This guy was fast.
Have to charge you, buddy. But the radio’s saying flights are being grounded anyway. You’re stuck here, mate. If you want my opinion, which you probably don’t, I’m no expert, but if you like someone that much, tell them. Cheers, Tony
Magnús shoved the phone in his pocket as the car blinked its headlights and made a U-turn on the empty road.
Here he was, with a ticket to Iceland on his phone and an over-invested Uber driver on the edge of his seat, and he had no idea where Alex was now. Tell her how he felt? Impossible. Wasn’t it? And yet, when he’d thought she was getting in touch hadn’t his heart leapt, and then crashed when he’d found it wasn’t her? That meant something.
Magnús stayed crouched in the rain, his brain whirring. Had he come this far only to accept failure now? Just because she’d left to be with those people for Christmas didn’t mean that was what she wanted deep in her heart. She longed for family, craved it, he understood that, sure. She wanted peace and security, comfort and love, just like everybody else did. Why couldn’t he be the one to give her that? Those men had laid claim to her, but the feeling bursting in his chest now wasn’t going to be denied. If Tony the Uber driver could spark that kind of passionate hope in him, what could finding her and telling her how he felt do?
