‘Yes, but—’
‘Then that’s all I need right now,’ he said grimly. ‘Go take a shower. We’re going to a funeral.’
‘Ben...’
‘If you think I’m letting you lock yourself away all over again, you have another think coming,’ he snapped. ‘I shouldn’t be here. I’m incapable of driving. I’m walking wounded standing in your driveway and I promised Squid that I’d speak at his funeral.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘In forty minutes from now. So Hannah’s meeting us at the church to take care of Button and you’re going to get yourself into something a wee bit cleaner and then you’re driving me to the funeral. And then you’re coming in with me, Ginny, like it or not. You’re part of this island. I need you, Ginny.’
And then he softened as he saw her face. She looked like a deer trapped in headlights, but he wouldn’t—he couldn’t—let her walk away.
‘I can’t do this alone, Ginny,’ he said, and he held out his hand. ‘One step at a time. I won’t talk marriage. I won’t even push the love bit, but I will push belonging. Squid knew you as an islander, as do I. You were with us when we needed you most. This is to say farewell to one of us. Ginny, come with me, just for now.’
‘You mean you come with me,’ she said with an attempt at humour. ‘I appear to have the only set of wheels here.’
‘That’s why I need you, Ginny, love,’ he said. ‘That and about fifty other reasons and a lot more besides. Come on, love, it’s a date you can’t refuse. Let’s go and say goodbye to Squid.’
* * *
She sat in a pew at the back of the crowded church. Ailsa squashed in with her and gave her a swift hug.
‘Ben’s been asked to do the eulogy,’ she said. ‘He and Squid were friends. He’s feeling it.’
And she fell silent as if she was feeling it, too, and Ginny was left with her own thoughts.
Love? Marriage?
She’d just hurt him, as she’d hurt him already.
That had been her cowardice talking. That had been the shades of her parents and James.
But to hurt someone else...to expose Ben to mistakes she’d inevitably make? How could she do that?
Ailsa’s hand gripped hers.
‘He loves you with all his heart,’ she whispered. ‘Go on, Ginny, love, jump.’
Was she so obvious? She dredged up a half-hearted smile as they rose for the first hymn.
Jump? And that was all she had to do. Jump, dragging Ben with her. And what was at the base of that leap?
The hymn ended. Ben was in front of the congregation, in front of the plain, wooden coffin, holding a sheet of paper before him. ‘Squid asked me to speak today,’ he said, and her heart turned over. ‘And everyone here knows Squid. He liked to predict what would happen so he made sure. He wrote this just before the earthquake, just in case, telling me exactly what to say.’
There was a ripple of laughter, and then the room fell silent. Squid had been an ancient fisherman, a constant presence on the waterfront since childhood, and the island would be the poorer for his going. Besides, who would predict disaster now?
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
Ben’s first words—Squid’s first words—hauled Ginny from nostalgia and regret. They were her words, she thought in confusion—or maybe they weren’t.
She’d spent a childhood trying to desperately defend herself with those words—it wasn’t my fault—only to learn it was easier to appease and accept.
It was my fault.
‘“Me heart’s been giving me trouble for a couple of years now”,’ Ben read, following faithfully the script on the page. Unconsciously, his voice even sounded a little like Squid’s. ‘“Doc’s been telling me I ought to go to mainland to get one of those valve replacement thingies but, sheesh, I’m ninety-seven—I might be even older when you hear this—and who wants stuff inside you that don’t belong.
‘“So I’m sitting on the wharf enjoying me last days in the sun and I’m starting to tell all you fellas there’s a big ’un coming. An earthquake. Be good if it did, I’m thinking, only to prove me right, but I sort of hope I’m wrong. Only then I’m reading in the papers there’s two scientist fellas somewhere who are in jail because they didn’t predict an earthquake and I reckon the world’s gone mad. If I’m wrong then it’s my fault? If I’m right is it my fault ’cos I didn’t yell at you louder? Fault. Like Doc telling me I need a new valve. Is it his fault I’m lying in this damned coffin?”’
There was a ripple of uneasy laughter through the church. Ginny had heard the island whispers, and sometimes the voices had risen higher than whispers. ‘Someone should have warned us. Who can we sue?’
She thought of James, apoplectic with fury because she’d tried to inject a drug he’d needed and had had trouble finding a vein. Lashing out at her. ‘It’s your fault I’m in this mess.’
It was totally irrational, but blame was a powerful tool. When all else failed, find someone to blame.
‘“You want me to cop it so you’ll all feel better?”’ Squid—Ben—said from the pulpit. ‘“No way. That’s what I want to say here. That’s the reason I didn’t ask to get wrapped in a tarp and tipped over the side of me fishing boat out at sea before I’d had this nice little ceremony. I reckon if I’m right about the quake and it sets me ticker off—and I know it might—you might be sitting here shaking your fist at me coffin, saying the mad old coot caused this mess.
‘“So I just wanted to say stuff it, no one causes earthquakes so don’t dare stop drinking beer at me wake if it’s happened. I want a decent wake and I want you to pour a bit of beer over me coffin and then toss me out to sea with no regrets and say I’m done. Great life. Great times. Great island. Merv Larkin, notes on me snapper spot are written on the back of the calendar of me dunny. That’s it, then. There’s me legacy. See you.”’
Ben paused then. There were more ripples of laughter but Ginny still heard the odd murmur. There had been blame. Ben was watching calmly as islanders elbowed each other.
She knew the mutterings. ‘If Squid knew, why didn’t he say just how bad it’d be? Why didn’t he talk to the mainland scientists, shove it down their throats, get official warnings out?’
‘He really didn’t know.’ It was Ben now, Ben speaking his own words, and suddenly he was looking at Ginny. Straight at Ginny. He was smiling faintly, and suddenly she knew that his smile was meant only for her.
‘A hundred years of living, and you know what Squid knew for sure?’ Ben said. ‘That no one knows a sausage. We can make guesses and we make them all the time. I’ll cross this road because chances are a meteor’s not going to drop on my head. That’s a guess. It’s a pretty good guess, and Squid’s earthquake prediction was a pretty good guess, too, backed up by a hundred years of Squid’s grandpa telling him the signs. But, still, unless Squid got underground and heaved, it wasn’t his fault.
‘Meteors are sitting over everyone’s head and one day they’ll drop, nothing surer, and we just need to accept it. Anyway that’s all I need to say except we were blessed to have Squid. We should have no regrets except that even though he’s left his snapper spots, his best crayfish spots die with him. We loved him, he drove us nuts and we’ll miss him. That’s pretty much all we need to say, except he left enough money for everyone to have a beer or a whisky on him. Bless him.’
There was laughter, but this time it wasn’t uncomfortable. There was the odd sniff and the organist belted out a mighty rendition of what must surely be the island’s favourite hymn by the strength of the island voices raised in farewell.
And then six weathered fishermen led by a limping Ben carried the coffin from the church, the hearse carried the coffin down to the wharf because after all this he would be buried at sea—and then the island proceeded to the pub.
‘Shall we join them?’ Ailsa asked, and Ginny realis
ed Ailsa had been holding her hand all the time. Even while singing.
As if Ginny was her daughter?
She wasn’t this woman’s daughter.
She could be.
Courage.
‘I’m a wimp,’ she said softly, and Ailsa followed her gaze to where Ben was talking to the pallbearers while they watched the hearse drive slowly through the still rubble-strewn streets down to the harbour.
‘You trusted,’ Ailsa said. ‘You trusted your father and you trusted your husband. It’s no fault to trust, child. But you know Ben would never hurt you.’
‘It’s not that. I just...mess things up.’
‘Like Squid messed the island up,’ Ailsa said briskly. ‘Nonsense. You want to take that attitude, then you are a wimp. Get a grip, girl, go for what you want and stand up for yourself. Now, you want to head for the pub for a bit of Dutch courage? Squid’s prepaid for the very best beer—and whisky all round.’
‘I need to think,’ Ginny said, and Ailsa shook her head and tugged her forward.
‘Nonsense, girl. You need to belong.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BEN AND THE pallbearers accompanied the coffin out to sea. Ginny headed to the pub and ordered a glass of Squid’s excellent whisky but only one, she told herself, because she really did have some thinking to do.
Serious thinking.
She was an accepted part of the island, she thought. No one looked askance at her; in fact, she was being treated with affection.
‘Word is you’ve had a rough time of it,’ one of the farmers who lived beyond her vineyard said. ‘Doc says we’re to leave you be, no pressure, but don’t you bury yourself too long, girl. We need you.’
‘I know the island needs a doctor...’
‘Not just that,’ the man said. ‘I know this sounds dumb but you’re an islander. You always seemed one, not like your mum and dad, but even when you were a little tacker it was like you were coming home every time you came here. And we don’t like losing islanders.’
He stared into his beer and gave a rueful smile. ‘We don’t even like losing ninety-seven-year-olds who smell like smoked mackerel and prophesy doom. We’ll miss him, like we’re missing you, girl. Doctor or not, this is your home.’
There wasn’t a lot she could say after a speech like that. She hadn’t brought enough tissues. Dratted funerals. Dratted islanders.
Dratted Ben.
She took her whisky and escaped out through the beer garden, through the back gate she and Ben had sneaked through when they had been under age, then out along the path that led to the island’s best swimming beach.
It had barely been damaged by the quake. A few rocks had rolled down the gentle slope but the path was fine. She headed down, slipped off her shoes and went and sat on a rock and stared out to sea. Towards the mainland.
You’re an islander.
She was crying good and proper now. There weren’t enough tissues in the world for how she was crying, and she didn’t care.
She didn’t cry. Until she’d come back to the island she’d never cried. Not once, not at her father’s funeral, not once when James had been diagnosed and died. So why was crying now?
Who knew? She didn’t. She was so out of control she felt like she was falling, and when Ben sat down beside her and put his arm around her and pulled her into him, she had no strength to pull away.
She was falling and he was the only thing stopping her.
He took the whisky glass carefully out of her hand—the thing was half-full and one part of her still acknowledged it was excellent whisky and Squid would probably haunt her if she spilled it. Ben set it on the rock beside them, and then he carefully turned her towards him and tugged her into his arms.
‘I...I’m soggy,’ she managed, and it was almost impossible to get that much out.
‘You’re allowed to cry at funerals.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Because you’re not allowed to?’
‘I don’t cry. I won’t cry,’ she said, and cried some more, and the front of his shirt was soaked and she was being ridiculous and she couldn’t stop.
‘I’m...I’m sorry...’
‘Ginny...’ He hauled back from her then, held her at arm’s length, and his face was suddenly as grim as death. ‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t...’
‘Don’t you dare apologise,’ he snapped. ‘Not once. You know what you did when I sank your bathtub?’
‘I threw...I threw mud at you.’ How did people speak through tears? It looked so elegant in the movies—here it felt like she was talking through a snorkel.
‘And very appropriate it was, too,’ Ben said, the sternness replaced by the glimmer of a smile. ‘And then?’
‘And then you said if I didn’t tell your mum what you’d done, you’d give me your best taddy—the one that looked like it’d be a bullfrog to beat all bullfrogs.’
‘A supreme sacrifice,’ he said nobly. ‘And I watched you care for him and skite about him to the other kids...’
‘I did not skite!’
‘You skited. And then I watched you let him go—my bullfrog—and I swear he or his descendants are around here still, thinking they owe their whole family lineage to you. That pond was full of ducks. He’d have been a goner but you were his lifesaver and not me. You know what? I should have just said sorry and kept the bullfrog for myself. But I didn’t feel sorry. I felt...’ He smiled at her then, a killer smile that had wobbled her heart when at eight years old and was wobbling her heart still.
‘I felt like it was the way things were,’ he said. ‘I covered you with mud so you got to raise my bullfrog. But you know what? I loved watching you raise my bullfrog. There wasn’t a single bit of sorry left in there.’
‘Ben...’
‘If we married,’ he said, and the smile had gone again. ‘That’s what I’d want. Not one single bit of sorry.’
‘You can’t want to marry me,’ she whispered. ‘To take me on with all my baggage. To help raise another man’s child...’
‘It’s like the bullfrog,’ he said softly. ‘You’d give your baggage to me and I’d take it on and you’d watch me care for it and it’d be like caring for it yourself. That’s the way I see it. That’s the way it’s always been for us, Ginny. Not a single sorry between us, now and for ever.’
‘But I hurt you.’
‘And I pressured you. Pushing a seventeen-year-old to marry me... We both needed a life before we settled down. It seems like I’ve had a happier one—I’ve had some very nice girlfriends, thank you very much, all of whom sound nicer than your creepier James, but I’d prefer if you don’t ask me about them, and you can tell me as much or as little about James as you want. All I’ll tell you about my girlfriends is that not a single one of them would have raised my tadpole into the fine specimen of a bullfrog he turned out to be. So no sorry, Ginny. Get every tear you need to shed, shed them now and then move forward.’
She couldn’t talk. What was it with tears? If she was Audrey Hepburn she’d have whisked away the last teardrop from her beautiful eyelashes and would now be fluttering said eyelashes up at her love.
Where were tissues?
‘Here,’ Ben said, and handed over a man-sized handkerchief.
‘A handkerchief,’ she said, sidetracked. ‘A handkerchief?’
‘I never go to a funeral without one,’ he said. ‘You’ll note the left-hand corner is already a little doggy.’
She choked and he tugged her close again and then he simply held her; he held her and held her until finally she sort of dried up and she sort of pulled herself together and she sort of thought...that this was okay.
That this was where she belonged.
That this was home.
But to let go of the baggag
e of years? To let go of sorry?
‘If you’re still harping on sorry, then I see your duty is to catch me a very big tadpole for a wedding gift,’ Ben said, putting her away from him again.
And she choked again. ‘How did you know what I was thinking?’
‘I just do. I always did. Like you know me, my love. You know we fit. Maybe it’s time we acknowledged it.’
‘Button...Button might like to be a flower girl,’ she said, and his face stilled.
‘I didn’t know you were thinking that.’
‘I’m thinking all sorts of things,’ she admitted. ‘So many things you can’t possibly keep up.’
‘So one of them might be that you’d marry me?’
‘Only if I can get braver.’
‘You’re brave already,’ he said steadily. ‘You took Button on without a backward look. You didn’t walk away from James, no matter how he treated you. It’s not bravery that’s missing, my love. It’s the ability to stand over a smashed vase or a broken leg or a patient we lost no matter how we worked to save him and say, “This is life.” That’s all it is, life. It’ll throw bad things at us, you and I both know that, but it’ll also throw joy. Joy, joy and more joy if you’ll marry me.’
‘Ben—’
‘You weren’t responsible for James’ death. You know that,’ he said. ‘Say it.’
‘I wasn’t responsible.’
‘Or for your father’s death or for his disappointment that you didn’t win the Nobel Prize before he died.’
‘I guess...’
‘And your mother’s appalling disappointment that you turned out not to be blonde.’
‘Hey, I wouldn’t go that far,’ she said, suddenly realising her tears had gone. She wasn’t sure what was taking their place—some emotion she’d never felt before. Liberation?
MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO Page 16
