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Anguished grey eyes turned up to mine again. I couldn’t bear to think of the terror going on behind them. “Have you brought any salt with you?”
Edging on hysteria, I almost laughed. “What?”
“Salt,” he repeated, his voice urgent. “Your special salt. Have you brought any?”
Answering in the affirmative felt dreadfully important. I patted my free hand down my body, checking my pockets. Most days, I had little baggies of salt stashed all over the place; I gave them to friends, dished them out to passing tourists, took a handful home to sprinkle on my dinner. Delving into my coat inner pocket, my fingers landed on my passport, a packet of gum, and some loose change. Then skimmed across crinkly plastic, and, sending up a prayer of thanks, I withdrew a tiny clear sachet of fleur de sel. Under any other circumstance, I’d be amused I’d managed to get through customs without being stopped.
“Yes, here.”
I held it out. His anxious picking calmed a little, although he made no move to take it from me. My movements slow and deliberate, I made a space next to him and sat. Tentatively, I slid an arm around his bony back, wrapping him up in the last of my hope. I pulled him close until his head rested on my shoulder.
“Better?”
“Better.”
I offered again and he took the tiny salt packet from me. He turned it over and over, studying the wafer-thin flakes as if deciphering their purpose, mesmerised by the play of the dim streetlight reflected across the glittering crystals. Then, in a swift movement, he palmed it.
I couldn’t resist asking. “Why do you want my salt?”
Tipping his head up, his expression softened into a pitying smile as though I was the mad one. As if I was dumb as shit because the answer was so fucking obvious. And despite the crud on his face and the stink of fear and the knowledge that in a minute I’d phone Marcus and he’d whisk Charles away and deliver him to professionals who knew how to care for him, I dropped my mouth to his and kissed him. Because I fucking loved him so much.
“Because it’s silver,” he said simply. “Like you. And salt kills slugs, non?
CHAPTER 28
FLORIAN
Laden with a physical and emotional exhaustion no amount of sleep could fix, I pushed open my front door. Helter-skeltering from one disintegrating brain to another. My frayed nerves hung by a thread; I’d have given anything, at that moment, to have lived alone.
Papi, Jerome, and Nico greeted me, immersed in a rowdy game of dominoes. Each had a pile of coins in front of them, Papi’s being the largest.
“Here’s my boy.”
As everyone looked up, Papi swept most of Jerome’s coins over to his side of the table. I’d read somewhere that board games and quizzes were good for stimulating fading brainpower. Seemed that part of Papi’s brain worked just fine. “Just in time, Florian! Are you going to join in so I can take some money off you too?”
Not wanting Papi to fret or ask too many questions, I hadn’t told him I was travelling to England. I’d made an excuse about visiting the salt cooperative on the neighbouring island. There was every likelihood he wouldn’t remember anyhow.
“Give a man a second to walk through the door, Papi.” Even my voice was weary. “It’s been a long day.”
And night. With a mixture of back-rubbing and hushed promises, a strung-out Charles had eventually nodded off, clutching the salt as if it were the one thing keeping him safe. I’d eased his phone out of his trouser pocket to call Marcus, only to be blindsided by Charles’s screensaver, a snap of our laughing painted faces squashed together. Spliced underneath was a picture of my shimmering salt marsh at sunset, the very last photo I’d sent him. Pulling myself together after that had taken an age, and then I’d spoken to Marcus, whose French turned out to be a smidge better than my English. And after that, everything happened in an efficient, clinical blur. As a cold dawn crept over the city rooftops, I suddenly found myself alone and shivering on the pavement outside Charles’s apartment with tears streaming down my face and wishing I was back home.
And now I was here, and wishing I was back there. Not that I’d be able to help. My head pounded and a gritty dryness, that no amount of rubbing would diminish, lodged behind my eyes. Churning nausea accompanying too much travel and not enough sleep had me swaying in the doorway. Nico’s eyes bored into mine, asking questions, and I gave him a minute shake of my head.
“These two here have got a lot to learn,” Papi prattled on. “When I was a lad, we spent every Sunday evening playing dominoes. We had tournaments at school, too.”
Because I really needed to hear a story about the glorious past right now.
“Isn’t that right Florian? Your grandma Beatrice is a demon. She beats everyone. Don’t you remember, Florian, when you were small, how we used to… ”
I gritted my teeth against the tide of irritation flooding through me. “Yes. Papi. If you don’t mind, I might just… I think I might…“
“I was only laughing with your grandmother earlier today about the time that your mother and sisters....”
I couldn’t stand it another second. “Non. Sorry, Papi, but you weren’t.”
A domino clattered to the floor as his merry smile faltered.
“You weren’t,” I repeated, like the unfeeling bastard I was. Already hating myself for spoiling his little story but doing it anyhow. “You weren’t laughing with her, and you weren’t talking to her. Because, you know, Papi? Sometimes things just aren’t as we want them to be, and sometimes we just have to accept the truth of how they really are. And for you, that means…”
