“You can’t read? Well, take it from this dyslexic, you’re a beautiful communicator.” He rubs his chest. “Don’t stop now. Keep going. Talk to Harry. He was the very first person I added to the group chat for a reason. Tell him what will make you feel better.”
Charles is asking me to trust his judgement about the Ex who now faces me head-on, braced as if for impact.
I hold out the letter Harry said is addressed to me. “Help me read this?”
Harry comes back then, and yeah, I could ask my phone to read this letter out to me. It’s printed, not handwritten by a drunk spider. I watch him rip into an envelope, and again, I got no trouble reading Harry’s reactions.
He’s uncomfortable at first, and I get it—what he’s about to read could be private. Nobody’s business but mine. I’m making it his, and he braces himself again before reading.
Then he’s confused.
“It’s from an auction house about a sale relating to...” He reads out the address of this townhouse. “They need your bank details for...”
Harry next shows me what surprise looks like on him. Hope follows, and Dair was the last person to show me that when he suggested I pay him a visit. Harry tells me why he shares that expression. “Flynn always meant to come through for you. He must have. This letter says he gave these instructions before he left Britain. The auction house muddled the date to clear the house. He’s been in touch with them about it. They apologise for their mistake and ask for your bank details, like he instructed, for your cut of the auction proceeds.”
Harry reads out a total that doesn’t just make a one-off Scottish visit possible. It could change my future.
Struggle bus?
I get off that fucker in a hurry and have no problem saying, “Now help me find the fastest way to the Isle of Harris.”
Charles is still on my phone screen, his chin in his hands while earwigging, as nosy as any of his Exes. “Isle of Harris? Beautiful place, but why on earth would you go all the way up there?”
Because there’s only one person I want to share what feels like the boss of all solutions with, and I need to do that sharing in person. “That’s where home is for Dair.”
“No, it isn’t.”
My phone screen blurs. Pixelates. Freezes before reanimating, and Charles shows me the view from an upstairs window.
“Dair’s home is across the road from the Rectory.”
The building he shows me looks substantial. Granite built. Strong and sturdy. A manor house that could belong in a portrait if not for the bright blue tarpaulin hiding half of its roof.
“It’s right here in Cornwall.”
I don’t needto stay on a train to the very end of the line to confirm that for myself. Or spend a whole day or more on travel. Turns out all I need to do is share the cab of a boat transporter with a man on a mission.
Harry gets me to an airport lickety-split and walks me into a terminal where I might get turned around without his guidance. He steers me to a ticket desk where Cash’s air miles come in clutch, because yeah, more money than I ever had in one go will soon boost my bank balance. For now, I’m as broke as ever.
Harry can’t come all the way to Cornwall with me. He has a boat show to get back to. “Charles will meet you at the other end.”
I nod.
“Security is that way.”
I nod again. I also give him back his pen. I can’t read English, let alone Latin, but I can’t help thinking that thefamily first and alwaysmotto engraved in gold is true. It must be. Harry has found me some brothers to fly with.
“Ah, there they are.”
I head towards a pair of travel partners who dropped everything to make sure I didn’t end up in Timbuktu instead of Cornwall’s Newquay Airport. That doesn’t stop me from turning around to see that Harry still watches. I walk backwards and call out, “Thanks, mate,” because that’s what he is. A real mate, who I hope gets his own happy ending.
As for the flight?
I spend all of an hour and twenty minutes hoping for a happy ending of my own. That’s how long it takes to fly south. Eighty minutes. No time at all. Just long enough to learn that Adey is a nervous flyer. Nervous too about this last-minute decision to visit the Cornish school where he might give teaching a second chance.
At least he has a hand to hold tight during our bumpy takeoff.
Not mine.
