‘Well perhaps I should’ve left when you all did,’ he huffed. ‘Changed things for myself.’
‘You don’t mean that surely?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t I?’
She put her head in her hands. ‘This is all my fault, I’ve ruined everything, again.’
He felt her upset as though it were his own. ‘I don’t want to have him badger me once you sell and I’m still here.’
‘But you can’t let this drive you away.’
Silence.
‘Leo, I worry that if I don’t take this offer another one won’t come along for ages, if at all. And I know it won’t be for as much.’
‘Probably not, no.’
‘I have to get back to my job soon and I really don’t want to leave all this with Grandad. A sum like this guy is offering would see Grandad through. Even if he went downhill quickly, which doesn’t bear thinking about to be honest, he’d never have to move out of his home. If he needed looking after I’d be able to employ someone to be with him every day if I had to. Do you know Walt scattered Grandma’s ashes beside the oak tree they planted when they moved in? It was her favourite place to sit in the summer, in the shade, letting the heat bother everyone else but her.’ She was smiling at the fond memory.
He could well imagine Elsie sitting there beneath the stunning tree. He’d never realised it was Walt and Elsie who’d planted it, he wasn’t sure Nina had ever told him that.
‘I can no more imagine Walt leaving his bungalow than I can you leaving this place behind, Leo.’
‘It’s different.’
‘Is it?’
Her heart was in the right place with this. She was trying to do her best for Walt, a man who’d been there for her her whole life. But it didn’t make it any easier to know not only could the cabin be exchanging hands quicker than he’d ever expected, knowing it had gone to that man filled him with dread. The bay would change yet again and this time he had a feeling it would bring with it a permanency he felt in his soul. He didn’t think he’d be able to carry on the way he had until now. It wouldn’t feel like home. And would the life he’d built for himself all alone really feel like it was enough?
‘I’m sorry, I’ve ruined your supper…I’ll leave you to it,’ she said.
A part of him desperately wanted to be with her for longer, while away the evening in her company. But she’d rocked his world with the announcement that she had a buyer already.
All he wanted for now was to be left alone.
‘I think I preferred the whistling,’ Jonah complained at the boathouse the next day.
If Leo wasn’t careful Jonah wouldn’t want to spend time down at the boathouse – he was beyond miserable. So far today nothing had gone right – because of the rain, Leo had run from his cabin to the boathouse, something he’d done countless times before, but slipped at the edge of the parking area and went down with a crash. He wasn’t hurt apart from a grazed elbow and injured pride, as well as a wet top that he’d changed the minute he got inside. His day hadn’t got any better though. Mid-morning he’dclosed the till on his fingers when a customer had the audacity to pay cash – I mean who did that nowadays? – then he’d slopped his coffee down his t-shirt and had to change a second time, he’d chased up an order for a new paddleboard for a customer only to find the order hadn’t even been processed, and his afternoon kayaking session had been scuppered as the winds picked up and the girl he was teaching got too scared to stay on the water. He didn’t blame her; the only reason he hadn’t bailed was because handling his confusion and distress over the latest developments out on the water as the waves began to get meaner and meaner seemed easier than coping any other way.
‘Did you get out of the wrong side of your bed or something?’ Jonah asked.
‘Sorry, mate. I’ve got things on my mind, that’s all.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Jonah groaned, ‘adult stuff.’ He’d popped a ring pull on a can of cola, because with a quiet afternoon and no lessons lined up Leo pretty much had the whole place in order without much left to do. ‘Mum always says it’s adult business if I ask her what’s bothering her.’
‘Do yourself a favour,’ Leo softened, ‘make the most of being a kid, it’s the best time.’
‘My nan says her twenties were her favourite years, then her sixties. Sixty is way old.’
‘Not that old these days.’ Leo pulled open a can of fizz too and they took them over to the viewing point. Jonah took the high stool and Leo went back to the counter to grab the other one. ‘It’s not great out there today,’ he observed as they looked out at the water.
‘You ever been out in a storm?’
Leo’s eyes flashed at the memory. But then he settled, he’d been out in storms before that day and a couple of times since, just never on a boat with a group of people who weren’t quite as used to it as his family were. ‘Of course, but I don’t advise it.’
‘How do you get back if you’re out in a kayak?’
‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘Weather can change just like that,’ he added with a click of his fingers for emphasis, ‘but most people who hire from me only utilise Stepping Stone Bay. Some of the more experienced go around to Salthaven too, but usually they’ve checked the weather first, they see it coming in, they have time to get back.’ Not always, but there was a fine line between educating Jonah about the sea and scaring him half to death.
