There was nothing but silence from Nally.
“I think we both know what this is really about,” Jude went on after navigating a bit of traffic to get around a truck. “I think there’s a lot you and I need to talk about. About…us.”
Nally was still silent. Jude took it as a terrible sign.
Only, when he tore his eyes off the road long enough to look at his friend, Nally had his eyes closed and his arms crossed. He slumped against the window slightly, and his breathing was slow and even.
Jude swallowed and focused straight forward again. Whether Nally was actually asleep or whether he was just pretending to avoid the conversation they had to have, he was okay with letting things go a little longer.
They had to stop for petrol north of Manchester, and when they did, Nally offered to take the wheel for a while. Jude let him, then surprised himself by falling asleep with his face half smashed against the window. Maybe Nally really had been asleep and hadn’t heard him earlier after all.
Jude woke up as the first rays of sun peeked over the buildings of Glasgow. He had no idea whether Nally had pushed straight through or stopped for a while to rest. Either way, they stopped for breakfast and more petrol before pushing on.
“We can stop here for the day, get a hotel, and sleep in a bed for a bit, if you’d like,” Nally offered as they headed back to the car.
“No,” Jude sighed. “We’ve come this far. Let’s just go for it. Oban isn’t that far, and once we get there, Dad’s friend Connor can take us out the rest of the way. We can nap on the boat.”
That was exactly what they did. Time seemed to stop entirely once they reached Oban, and by the time the two of them, their suitcases, and a few large bags of groceries that they’d purchased in town before appealing to Connor for a ride were settled on the boat, Jude was too exhausted and wrung out to care where they were and what they were doing.
He perked up a little as Connor made the final approach to the dock on Eilean an Teaghlaich.
“I always did love coming here,” he said as he and Nally stood shoulder-to-shoulder, looking at the bleak and barren island as they approached. “It used to contain its own little society of fishermen and subsistence farmers in the nineteenthcentury and earlier, like a lot of other islands around here. But, of course, everything changed and people couldn’t make a living here anymore. The people had all gone decades before great-granddad bought the place after World War One. He needed to get away from his shell shock, as he called it, and the horrors of war, so he bought it, rowed out here with supplies, and built the original house himself out of the ruins of the earlier houses.”
Nally grunted as they looked out at the house that still existed amidst the backdrop of rocky craigs and scruffy undergrowth. “People have been escaping the realities of life by coming here for generations, I guess.”
“I guess,” Jude echoed, leaning harder into Nally. It was only early autumn, but it was already cold in the Hebrides. All he wanted to do was snuggle up close to Nally and forget that the two of them were changing faster than they could keep up with.
“I remember that summer when we came out here with your whole family,” Nally went on as Connor steered the boat in line with the dock so they could debark. “We were, like, thirteen, I think.”
Jude smiled. That had been a great summer. The island was a paradise for curious boys who liked to climb rocks, throw things at sea birds, and generally get into trouble.
“Something like that. I remember Mum was miserable for that entire trip, but the rest of us had the time of our lives.”
“I just remember how cold the shower was,” Nally said with a shiver.
Jude laughed for the first time since they’d set out from London. Maybe the island would be exactly what they needed to fix everything that was wrong between them after all.
“It’s an odd time of year to come out here,” Connor told them as he helped the two of them move their suitcases and supplies from the boat to the dock. “I’m leaving you with a radio in case you decide you’re done with the place sooner than Friday.” Hehanded Jude the heavy radio once everything else was on the dock. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Jude said, accepting the radio with a smile all the same.
“If you say so,” Connor said, looking back and forth between Jude and Nally like it was against his moral code to leave two completely defenseless young Londoners alone on a hostile island.
“We’ll manage,” Nally said, extending his hand for Connor to shake. “Thanks for your help.”
Connor climbed back onto his boat, and Jude and Nally grabbed their things and started up the narrow, damp path that led to the small, cobbled-together cottage. His grandfather had expanded the house a few decades after the original was built, and his dad had brought out the generator and wired the house up. It still looked like something out of a not particularly optimistic fairy tale, though.
They paused just outside the front door, and while Jude fished for the keys, Nally turned and waved to Connor as his boat cut away through the grey water, heading back toward the distant land.
“You know,” Nally said once Jude found the keys and unlocked the door. “It occurs to me just now that we might be making a huge mistake, isolating ourselves on an island in the middle of the…what body of water is this anyhow?”
Jude laughed, even though he didn’t think Nally was trying to be funny. In fact, there was a dark sense that they’d isolated and doomed themselves in the way he spoke.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jude said as he pushed open the door and stepped into the frigid cottage. “If we do this right, we won’t be going in the water anyhow.”
Nally snorted, then followed Jude into the house.
Jude flicked the old-fashioned light switch on, but nothing happened. There wasn’t so much as a hum or a cough from the lights or the generator outside. “Toby was supposed to leave the generator in good working order,” he sighed, then headed back outside. “I’ll go see what’s wrong with it.”
