Page 105 of Carry Me Home

‘What do you want from me?’

‘I want—’ The words stick. ‘I want to understand what happened. One day we were fine, and the next you couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me. I know I hurt you. I know I should have told you about the ring. But I don’t understand how that erases eleven years of⁠—’

‘It doesn’t erase anything.’ Her voice is sharp. ‘But it changes things. You kept something from me. The one thing that mattered most, and you carried it around for eight months. How do I know what else you haven’t told me? You were there on the boat, the night’—she swallows—‘the night he…’

‘There’s nothing else.’ I run a hand through my hair, barely noticing the tangles that catch around my fingers.

‘How would I know that?’

‘Because I’m telling you. Because it’s me. Because— Christ, Nina. It’s me. Tom. The person who’s been there for everything. Who held your hand at the funeral. Who brought you a dog because I thought it might help. I made one mistake – one – and suddenly I’m the enemy?’

‘You’re not the enemy.’

‘Then what am I?’

She doesn’t answer. Just stands there, cloth in hand, jaw tight.

Dot clears her throat loudly in the corner. I’d forgotten she was there.

‘Don’t mind me,’ she says, not looking up from her crossword. ‘Eleven across is giving me trouble. Seven letters, starts with D. “Wilful blindness”.’

‘Dot.’ Nina’s voice carries a warning.

‘I’m just doing my crossword. Completely unrelated to anything happening in this room.’ Dot fills in a word with great concentration. ‘Although if I were going to comment – which I’m not – I might observe that two stubborn people who refuse to say what they mean deserve everything they get.’

‘Nobody asked you.’

‘Nobody ever does. And yet.’ Dot turns the page. ‘Carry on. Pretend I’m not here.’

I look at Nina. She looks at me. The tourists by the window have stopped arguing about the map and are now watching us with open interest.

‘Can we talk somewhere private?’ I ask.

‘I’m working.’

‘Nina—’

‘I said I’m working.’ She turns back to the coffee machine. Starts adjusting the grinder settings – the ones she reset yesterday, the ones that don’t need touching, and I know this because I’ve watched her do it more times than I can count. ‘Have a safe trip, Tom. I hope Scotland is everything you want it to be.’

The dismissal is clear. Final.

I should say the thing. The real thing, the one I’ve been carrying for years, the one that’s sitting in my chest right now like a fist. But saying it here – in front of Dot and two tourists and a coffee machine she’s pretending needs attention – would be cruel. Not to me. To her. Because she’d have to stand in her own café and deal with it after I’ve gone.

So I don’t. My jaw clenches. I breathe through my nose. But there is one thing I want to say. Need to say and have been wanting to for months now. ‘I’m sorry that I’m the one who came back out of the water and not Peter. I guess that’s the real way I’ve failed our friendship. If it had been the other way around, you’d be happy now.’

I’m standing right there, watching her shoulders stiffen, watching her back straighten, but she still won’t turn around.

‘Goodbye, Nina.’

She doesn’t answer. Her back is to me, shoulders rigid, hands busy with nothing.

I walk out. The bell chimes behind me. I don’t look back.

I can’t.

The morning is grey and soft, mist rolling in from the sea.

Fitting, really. The village shrouded in fog, everything slightly blurred, like a photograph that didn’t develop properly. Like a memory already fading.