Page 44 of Carry Me Home

The heat arrives on a Tuesday and doesn’t leave.

By Thursday, the village has surrendered. Shop doors propped open, dogs sprawled in patches of shade, the harbour shimmering like something out of a fever dream. The surgery waiting room has two fans running and it’s still not enough – Mrs Carmichael’s spaniel is panting dramatically in the corner, and I’ve already seen three cases of heatstroke this week, all of them entirely preventable if people would just keep their dogs inside during the hottest part of the day.

‘It’s not natural,’ Jude says, appearing in the doorway with two bottles of water. He’s in his marine services polo, salt-stiff and sweating. ‘This heat. It’s not right.’

‘It’s May.’

‘It’s Cornwall. May in Cornwall is supposed to be grey and disappointing. This is Mediterranean. This is wrong.’

‘Take it up with the weather.’

‘I would if the weather had a complaints department.’ He tosses me a bottle. ‘Kit says the drill’s at four. He says if you’re late again he’s making you buy the first round for a month.’

‘I was late once.’

‘Three times.’

‘The first two were emergencies.’

‘The first one was a constipated hamster, Tom. You spent forty-five minutes on a constipated hamster while we waited on the slipway in the rain.’

‘The hamster recovered. You’re welcome.’

I finish the water and check the clock. Half one. Afternoon appointments start at two, which gives me just enough time.

‘Are you going to the café?’ Jude asks, too casually.

‘I was going to grab lunch.’

‘At the café.’

‘It’s the only place that does decent sandwiches.’

‘The Ship does sandwiches.’

‘The Ship does sandwiches that taste like cardboard wrapped in regret.’

‘You’re going to the café because Nina’s there.’

‘I’m going to the café because I’m hungry.’

Jude’s expression does something I’m choosing not to acknowledge.

‘Four o’clock,’ he says. ‘Don’t be late.’

The walk to the café takes four minutes.

The heat is thick and heavy; it’s sitting on my skin and won’t let go. The harbour is busy with tourists – families with buckets, couples with ice-creams, a group of teenagers jumping off the sea wall with reckless disregard of the will of the sea waiting for them below.

The café door is propped open, a fan whirring uselessly in the corner. Nina’s behind the counter, hair piled up off her neck, a smudge of flour on her cheek, and she’s talking to someone.

A man. Tall. Tanned. Effortlessly good-looking. He’s leaning on the counter – her counter – with the easy confidence of someone who’s used to being looked at, and he’s saying something that makes her laugh.

I stop in the doorway, slide my hands into the pockets of the blue scrubs I didn’t bother changing.

‘Tom!’ Nina spots me over the man’s shoulder, and her face brightens, opens, pivots towards me like I’ve solved a problem she didn’t know she had. She does this every time. Every single time, and it means nothing, because this is how Nina greets everyone she’s happy to see, and she’s happy to see most people. It’s not personal. I have to keep reminding myself it’s not personal. ‘Perfect timing. The machine’s doing the thing again.’

‘The grinding thing or the hissing thing?’