‘Alright, calm doon, son.’ Jamie echoed their dad’s words and softened Sean’s nervous energy. ‘Give me five minutes to get into my short shorts, and we’re good to go.’
‘Jesus, not the short shorts. Suppose you’ll be wanting to run past the nursing home.’
‘I have had a few requests this week, but okay, I’ll wear normal shorts, and we’ll avoid the village.’
Thankfully, Jamie kept his word, and soon they were pounding along the shoreline road, the evening breeze working as nature’s air conditioning on their warming, clammy skin.
‘So,’ Jamie said, ‘how’s married life? Are things okay? I’ve been a bit worried about you. We all have.’
If there was one person Sean could tell the truth to, it was Jamie. Niall was often his closest confidante, but he and Carli were visiting her sister in Australia, and Jamie had a head that was way older and wiser than his years.
This was hard, though – admitting that his marriage was a sham to the brother who had it all. Loved up with a Hollywood star he’d met while snowed in at a Highland hotel, who’d given it all up to come to live in Kinshore. It was like Jamie was born with the script and stage directions and just needed to arrive for curtain up.
‘No need to worry; it’s all good.’ Sean upped the pace, almost too obviously, noticing as he did a solitary hare sitting in a nearby field, ears up, on high alert for predators. ‘Shall we goharder here?’
‘Thought we were still warming up?’
‘Ach, warm up, schmorm up. C’mon.’ He jogged backwards, beckoning to his brother to hurry, before turning around and running on ahead. Anything to outpace the subject hot on his heels.
Who was he kidding? All he was doing was buying time. Jamie was no idiot, and he’d known Sean his whole life – watched him slide carrots off his plate and into his school shorts pocket, seen him try to hide his heartbreak by acting like James Bond when his first girlfriend dumped him. If Sean thought he could kid him now, he was delusional.
For three miles along the coastline road, they ran in near silence, the evening sun providing encouragement, and the wide ribbon of sand and sea a familiar friend training alongside them. Sean tried to lose himself in the rhythm of their breaths, in the sound of their trainers thwacking on the tarmac, in the pointing out of kestrels, pheasants, grouse and carelessly discarded bits of litter. Anything.
‘See that Snickers wrapper?’ He pointed to the verge. ‘Every week I pick it up, and the next time I’m out, there’s another one in its place. Why can’t folk take their litter home?’
‘It’s annoying, alright,’ Jamie agreed, an edge to his voice that hinted he knew this was the symptom not the illness.
As their journey brought them back to the outskirts of Kinshore, Jamie suggested they take the pace down a bit.
‘How about we go onto the beach, get some breeze in our ears and sand in our face?’
‘Aye alright.’
‘And you can tell me what’s really going on?’
‘No idea what you mean, but sure.’ Sean wanted to talk to Jamie, but the Captain Coping persona Cherry hadrecognised was strutting about the scene, and taking off the cape was far harder than it seemed. How long had he been doing this? Helping others with their problems and shoving his own in the to-do pile? It was a strategy that showed cracks when your dad had died and your wife was leaving you.
Jamie’s voice sharpened and softened at the same time. ‘Don’t fob me off, Seany.’ He stopped shy of the path through the sand dunes, pinning Sean with his serious older-brother stare. ‘Something’s not right. Let it out.’
The nearby waves roared in Sean’s ears, like the truth he was avoiding. He was cornered, back at school, caught by the teacher with no way out. But unlike any teacher of Sean’s, Jamie didn’t push it further. It was his style. He opened his door and let you come to him.
This was hard, though. Massive. Nobody needed his self-created drama when they were all grieving their dad.
But Jamie read his face. ‘And if you’re holding back because we’re grieving dad then forget it. That is precisely why you need to share.’
Sean rested his vision on a spot far out at sea where a wave was cresting, about to break perfectly. He felt a lot like that wave, besides the perfectly bit.Thank God for Jamie.
‘My marriage is fucked.’ The wave peaked, curled and rolled towards shore. He could be riding that right now. Whatever happened, surfing was never one of his problems. ‘We’re getting it annulled.’
‘Eh?’ Jamie frowned. ‘But you guys are smitten. There’s no way that’s fake. No way.’
‘Aye, we are. It’s not that. She’s incredible, J. I’m nuts about her. Never felt like this about a woman, ever. And I know she feels the same.’
‘Alright. So what’s going on?’
‘Hee haw, that’s what. I’m living in a sham marriage.’
‘What? So, you haven’t…?’
