Both still breathing heavily, Joel tucked his shirt back into his trousers, Flora’s hand went to her burning face and they tried to half-walk, half-run as normally as possible down the corridor.
Joel fumbled with the electronic key in the door of the guest cottage, and looked incredibly close to kicking it in before the green light finally showed, and they collapsed through it, without words, letting it slam loudly behind them. Joel immediately turned to Flora and pushed her hard against the wall, as she found herself absolutely frantic: ripping the expensive shirt buttons when she couldn’t unfasten them; tearing at them to get through to the smooth chest; pulling off her own top so he could bury his face in her breasts. All the sadness, all the anger and grief and frustration needed to be swept away, the only way they knew how. He stopped briefly, looked at her with furious lust in his eyes and dragged her over, throwing her on the high bed. As she pulled back the crisp white sheets, he was already on her, pushing down her jeans, and she responded with equal fervour, grabbing him as if she wanted her body to swallow him up, to rip through her skin, to become a part of her and she didn’t want him to stop. She didn’t recognise the noises they were making; she was screaming at him and he was responding, furiously, tumultuously, as it burned through them like a purifying fire. Flora wasn’t sure if it was love or rage or both, and they shouted, both of them, as he collapsed finally on top of her, a maelstrom of sweat, breathless, with items of clothing they hadn’t managed to remove from the bed all round them. Joel swore, uncharacteristically, and rolled off and lay facing the wall. Flora tried to get her breath back and felt her heart rate slow, very gradually, and stared at the ceiling, trying to come back down to earth – trying not to think, What now …?
Eventually, Flora had to get up and go to the bathroom. Joel still hadn’t moved. She hadn’t touched him or spoken to him; his broad back was motionless beside her on the bed. She moved, slowly, her muscles aching. As she got out of bed, he flinched beside her. She turned her head.
‘Come back to bed.’
His voice was low, almost imperceptible. The mood had changed completely, like all the fight had gone out of him. Flora blinked. He was still lying facing the wall.
There was a pause. Outside, somewhere, a lost lamb baaed loudly, repeatedly, looking for its mother.
Joel still wouldn’t turn around.
‘Well,’ he said. She stared at the back of his head.
He heaved a great sigh. When he spoke, his voice was very low and calm.
‘When I was four years old. My father,’ he said finally. ‘When I was four years old, my father killed my mother. In front of me. He would have killed me too, but my mother … My mother screamed and ran to the doorframe and there was a lot of blood and noise everywhere and he tried to run away.’
Flora was utterly winded.
She found herself kneeling on the bed, but didn’t want to go any closer.
‘I remember everything. I remember being there very clearly. My father killed my mother. The police took him away. He died in jail. I never saw him again. I didn’t speak at all for two years. The government tried to foster me out but none of the placements ever worked out for me. I did well at school, got a scholarship and the government paid for me to live there until I got a full scholarship to college. Dr Philippoussis was the guidance counsellor connected to the school.’
‘He is,’ said Joel very slowly, ‘the only person who knows.’
Inside, the snakes were writhing, coiling themselves more tightly around his brain. Sex had stopped them, shut them up for long enough, allowed him to break through and speak out. But now, he could feel them moving again.
‘Did you love your mum?’ Flora’s soft voice was like balm.
‘I don’t know,’ said Joel, his voice faltering. He had to, he knew. He had to push on through, defeat the things in his head. ‘I don’t remember. I found out later she and my father … They took a lot of drugs. They got in a lot of trouble. She was a dropout.’
‘Their families?’
‘I didn’t ever know my father’s family. I don’t know if he even did. He was just feral, through and through. My mother … she was from a wealthy family. Gave up everything for him. They cut her off completely.’
‘But what about you? What about when you were left all alone?’
‘They didn’t want to know. Didn’t care. I was some mistake by the daughter who’d gone bad. She had a lot of siblings, I know. Maybe they were worried about their own kids’ inheritance, that kind of thing. Who knows? I don’t, and I don’t care.’
‘But … your grandmother?’
‘That’s right,’ said Joel. ‘I come from a long line of absolute bastards on both sides.’
The snakes in his head tightened their grip, as Flora shook her head in disbelief, but he was too far in to stop now.
‘That’s …’
‘It happens all the time,’ said Joel. ‘Four times a week in your country, did you know? A man kills his partner. Leaving God knows what chaos behind.’
Flora blinked. ‘Jesus …’
‘So,’ said Joel. ‘Now you know.’
‘Now I know,’ said Flora. ‘And I don’t care a bit.’
And then she pulled up the bedsheets and she dived right underneath them and crawled over and found him in the dark and held him – pinned herself to him from behind – held him fiercely tightly and neither of them wanted to talk any more, not then, and so Joel turned around and once more took her fiercely on the large bed. They turned off their phones, and made love, and slept, and held each other, and ordered room service and said as little as possible, to let the detonation and the dust settle – to see if they could deal with the new reality now that it was out there, now it was a part of their existence, now Joel had brought the wolf through the door, the violence unleashed; the boy become man, and the damage it had wrought.
Chapter Sixty
‘No more secrets,’ Flora had whispered lying next to him on the bed, and she had never been so happy in her entire life.
‘You say that while I can’t see your selkie tail.’
‘Stop talking like that,’ she said, kissing him in a warning fashion. Then she got up, groaning. ‘Argh, wedding planning day.’
‘Did you give any thought to the finances?’
Flora didn’t want to confess that she had found his email almost incomprehensible and grimaced. ‘One nightmare at a time.’
‘Quite,’ said Joel, who was dreading the wedding more than Flora could possibly have imagined.
Flora sat in the Rock with Colton, looking at her ring binder. Fintan and Colton were going big. Really, really big. She wasn’t a hundred per cent sure she was up to it, not after the Jan controversy, but she was doing her best – the barbecue had been a success after all, although a lot of that had had to do with the farmers’ cask of ale and their incredible luck with the weather.
Colton was flying in champagne from a small vineyard, which would be completely wasted on the local residents but presumably not on the investors and rich Americans she assumed must be coming. But she’d assumed wrong, it turned out. Apart from a handful of friends – both his parents were dead – from college there was almost nobody coming for Colton at all. He’d shrugged it off cheerfully.
‘Billionaires don’t have friends,’ he said. ‘Or else they have to buy them. And my family are a bunch of tightass Republican birther homophobic bastards.’
‘All of them?’ said Flora.
‘Every single last one. I just want people I love. Actual people I really love.’
‘And all the drunks from the Harbour’s Rest who’ll want to come,’ pointed out Flora.
‘Collateral damage,’ said Colton.
Flora looked at him critically. ‘Stop losing weight for the wedding. You’re not trying to get into a Kate Middleton dress. Are you? Are you?’
Colton shook his head. ‘Neh. It’s just being fed properly by your brother.’
‘Well, that’s odd,’ said Flora. ‘Because every time I eat Fintan’s latest batch of cheese, I put on half a stone.’
Colton smiled weakly and changed the subject. ‘Okay, so, anyway, the cloudbusters.’