‘Does it feel good to be back here?’
She took her time answering, but with a small smile that came naturally she said, ‘It feels better than I thought it would.’
He leaned against the bow of the boat. ‘You always did appreciate the hidden parts of the island.’
It was a long time since anyone had made her blush, but she felt her cheeks colour now. Coyly, she looked down at her feet and went back to what he’d said about their aunt. ‘Did Gayle actually tell you that she missed us?’
‘Not in those exact words, but she’d drop your names into conversation. Often. She’d share things. She told me you were training as a solicitor, she told me Addie had graduated, when Addie had a kid, when you got married.’ The wordmarriedhovered in the air between them. ‘Sometimes I’d go up to the Sweet Life Café and she’d be standing on the balcony, looking into the distance. I always wondered whether she was thinking about you both.’
They carried on chatting about the island, what had changed and what was exactly the same, including the owners of the marina and his job, as well as some of the shops on Bay Street. All the while they talked, Alex kept popping into her mind. He knew all about Mateo. Not long after she and Alex met, conversation had turned to first loves. She’d told Alex how she and Mateo had been inseparable for a while, how the only reason they split up was because her aunt had interfered. As she and Alex became more serious, he’d brought Mateo up once more and asked if she thought they’d still be together had she stayed on the island. Her only answer had been that she’d left that world behind and she’d fallen head over heels with somebody else. Him.
Mateo waved over to a guy on the deck of a big white boat that looked more expensive than some houses. ‘Duty calls,’ he said. ‘I should get on.’
‘Well, it was good to see you again,’ she said as they walked back down the path.
‘Really good to see you too. You haven’t changed.’
She laughed. ‘I’m totally different.’
‘Not really, not deep down.’ He said it as if he could see all the layers of her, as if all the years that had gone by had fallen away altogether.
‘I’ll see you around,’ she said.
But he made her turn back when he called out, ‘So are you staying? For the living funeral?’
‘Maybe.’ She left it at that.
And as she turned and walked away and up the hill towards Bay Street, her smile faded. She felt terrible. She was married, and here she was enjoying another man’s company and finding herself wanting more of it. She wondered whether her agreement to stay for the living funeral was for her sister, for Gayle, or was it a desire to see more of Mateo that she hadn’t even admitted to herself? It took the edge off her confusion when she saw Addie at the end of Evergreen Close.
Addie held up a hand to wave as she crossed over to meet her sister. ‘Walk some more with me?’
‘I can do that,’ said Susanna. The good thing with Addie was that if you ever had words, she let it go pretty quickly and didn’t hold grudges. Susanna was always relieved for that.
They made their way to the coastal path and stopped to take in the view and the first vantage point that Susanna had already enjoyed once today.
‘I’m really getting my steps up,’ said Susanna. ‘My body feels better than when I spend a day at my desk.’
‘Mine too. And the fresh air helps. I can see why Gayle moved here.’ She waited a beat. ‘You know, I thought I remembered how pretty this island was, but being here is something else.’
Susanna stood next to her. She couldn’t disagree. ‘We can just about make out France. Look.’ She pointed.
‘I remember when we first realised we could see it. We were fascinated. We never did go over there like we said we would.’
‘I suppose life happened.’
‘Life, work, the daily treadmill.’
Treadmill wasn’t the word she’d used exactly. ‘Have you thought any more about buying a place?’ she ventured. It was a sensitive topic ever since she’d offered to lend Addie some money to help her get on the property ladder, and Addie had flatly refused.
‘I think about it all the time. And I’ve got a good amount saved for a deposit.’
‘That’s good. Although I feel like there’s a “but” coming.’
‘But… I live in London, and you don’t get much for your money. My job is there but I don’t know that I want to buy a tiny flat, even if I could.’
‘You’ll work something out.’
Addie smiled and Susanna knew she appreciated her big sister not trying to leap in and save the day. She’d done that for so long that even now, with Addie in her late thirties, Susanna found it hard to stop.
