Christmas on the Island

by Jenny Colgan

  ‘I love you,’ he said, for the first time in a very long time. ‘And I love the baby. I love you, and I love the baby. Or another baby. Our baby. We will have a baby.’

  ‘But I wanted this one,’ said Flora, her tears bubbling over.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘This is nobody’s fault,’ said Saif.

  Joel looked up at him, eyes burning. He knew that wasn’t true. If Flora had had a little more sleep. If she hadn’t been emotionally unsettled. If she’d had a home of her own to come back to at night. This was his fault.

  He buried his face in her shoulder again.

  ‘I will make it up to you,’ he swore. ‘I will. I promise.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Flora.

  * * *

  Saif had to put a quick stitch into Flora’s head. At first, she was going to refuse the local to protect the baby; then she remembered. And so she accepted the drugs but snuffled throughout. The anaesthetic made her a little sleepy, but Saif told her in no uncertain terms she wasn’t to go to sleep: she had to keep awake to make sure she wasn’t concussed, and to make sure she didn’t bleed more. There was a possibility of ectopic pregnancy and a possibility of haemorrhage, and if either of those two things happened she needed to be on a helicopter straightaway.

  Joel insisted loudly they should get the helicopter now and Saif responded quietly that on a crazy stormy night like this there would be trees blown over and car accidents and exposure injuries, and nobody was going to allow a helicopter to take off in dreadful conditions for a suspected miscarriage, however serious it felt to them.

  Innes came in, hugged his sister tight, tried to take in the information that she had been having a baby and now she probably wasn’t and went to report back at the farmhouse.

  Lorna busied herself in the kitchen, making soup for everyone. Saif’s phone went off again.

  ‘My life is not my own tonight.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Joel crossly. ‘We need you here.’

  Saif swallowed.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s the Manse,’ said Saif. ‘I need to go back.’

  Flora bit her lip. Outside the wind was shrieking. It really was a dreadful night.

  ‘Oh Christ. What a night.’

  ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can.’

  Flora swallowed hard.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please go. I’ll . . . I’ll be fine.’

  She half hiccupped, half laughed.

  ‘I don’t know how. But I will. I always have been before.’

  ‘And I’m here,’ said Joel, but Flora ignored him.

  Saif picked up his bag reluctantly.

  ‘I will call you,’ he said to Flora. ‘Keep your phone on please. And charged please, and answer it please. You –’ He turned to Joel. ‘ – if she changes, if she gets feverish, you call immediately. If there is a lot of blood, you call 999. If she passes out again, you call 999. Do you understand?’

  Joel nodded.

  ‘Do not leave her side.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Lorna met Saif as he was leaving. She held up a flask of fresh vegetable soup.

  Suddenly, as he always felt with Lorna, everything weighing on his mind and everything he had to do that evening melted away, and they stared at each other as he reached out to take the flask and inadvertently found the back of his hand running gently down her smooth cheeks, even though he knew it was not fair. His heart was heavy with a deep and profound sadness even though they both knew there was nothing more to be said, that prolonging the inevitable helped nobody.

  ‘You’re . . . you’re definitely leaving?’ said Lorna, a tremor in her voice. ‘After all this?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Saif. ‘I am. I think it will be for the best. Don’t you?’

  Lorna didn’t trust her voice.

  ‘I don’t . . .’

  She swallowed hard.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘I hope you find her.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Saif. ‘Thank you for . . . for everything you have done for the boys.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Call me if you need me,’ said Saif, and he meant Flora of course, but Lorna so, so wished he meant more.

  ‘But maybe they need some time together, yes?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the bedroom and Lorna nodded. They stood there a moment longer.

  ‘Well. Take the damn soup,’ said Lorna finally. And Saif did.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Saif didn’t rush to the Manse. It didn’t feel appropriate. There was nothing to be gained by him making a lightning dash that would only get there in the nick of time to save the day.

  He still hadn’t heard from Glasgow, but with Christmas upon them now it was entirely possible this would be the last medical call he would make on Mure. That felt very strange.

  There had been no light that day, not really. The storm had been building; the wind absolutely howled in his ears now. Snowflakes danced and circled the sky without settling; or if they did, then a huge gust would appear as if from nowhere and melt them away, and then the whole cycle would start again.

  Now it was freezing. Clouds in various shades of grey bounced through the skies, tumbling, chasing one another. Ash had been fascinated with them and had stared when he was meant to be putting his shoes on for school and so had had to be chivvied. Saif wondered how he would spin the move. A room of their own, perhaps. A chance to meet other Arabic-speaking children, definitely. Ib would love it. Ash would settle, for sure. Well. They all would. Eventually.

  It saddened him greatly that this could be his last call out to the Manse. He hadn’t known Colton particularly well, but he had respected him, and the way he had planned and faced up to his own death was utterly courageous in Saif’s opinion. Refusing to go to hospital was absolutely right as far as Saif was concerned: if you could ever possibly stay out of hospital, you absolutely should.

  Refusing any extra treatment had left him in two minds though. Part of him theoretically could see the sense of this. Part of him thought that if he were Fintan, he would fight and fight and make him try absolutely anything. But the outcome was always going to be the same, he knew. And he had never once lied to Colton about that.

  To die in a beautiful house, at peace with your ancestors, with the person he loved, overlooking the ocean.

  Yes. He could see it . . . he supposed. He checked his locked bag; he had everything he needed if the time had come.

  * * *

  Fintan’s face was grave. Colton’s breathing was shallow; Saif barely need to take his pulse to know how thready it would be. He was sweating and was in so much pain he couldn’t speak.

  Any dose now, Saif knew. Any dose now.

  That was what it boiled down to in the end: palliative care. The balance was to keep the patient alive and pain-free. But sometimes those ends conflicted. You couldn’t do both. And you had a choice.

  You could let the patient spend their last hours – possibly more than twenty-four – in the unconscionable agony of a disease as vicious as cancer, which ate you up from the inside out, crawling and thrashing on the floor.

  Or you could give blessed relief even if you knew it would – no, it might, Saif told himself strictly – it might let them drift into a sleep in which there was no agony, no pain – and no return.

  Saif had seen enough in the war; he had witnessed things which meant he knew there was no such thing as a glorious death. That there was no honour in agony; no dignity in a human abased to a tortured animal.

  Nonetheless.

  ‘Mr MacKenzie,’ he said in his gentle voice, taking off his long coat, placing his black leather bag on the bed, as charming, Fintan thought later, as death paying his final visit could be.

  ‘Mr Rogers. Good evening.’

  * * *

  ‘Stop this.’ Colton was hacking. ‘For the love of God. Christ. Stop it.’

  Spittle dropped onto his grey bristled chin.

  ‘I’m done, I
’m done, I’m done.’

  The tone was begging. It was hard to hear, even to someone as relatively experienced as Saif.

  Saif turned to look at Fintan, who was staring mutinously out of the window at the passing ships; he would not turn around. From downstairs, weirdly, Christmas music was playing.

  He walked over to Fintan, who wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  ‘I am going to give him another sedative now,’ said Saif quietly. ‘It is the appropriate dose. But I need to have your consent – both of you – that in Colton’s weakened state it may . . . it may make him sleep.’

  Fintan blinked.

  ‘Will it kill him?’

  Saif shook his head.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘The cancer is going to kill him. Very soon now. But it will ensure he is not in pain as it does. This is end, Fintan, whatever we do. And this will help him sleep.’

  Fintan turned to him, his face a mask of misery.

  ‘Will he wake up again?’

  ‘It is out of our hands,’ said Saif quietly.

  Fintan nodded. He looked over to the bed where Colton was coiled up.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  ‘Is there anyone else he needs to say goodbye to?’ said Saif in a low voice. Fintan half smiled. ‘He’s been doing nothing else since the summer. One long party.’

  Saif nodded.

  ‘I’ll just fetch . . .’

  He didn’t need anything but he just felt the need to be out of the way for a little bit. Fintan nodded. Saif left the room, and the two of them were alone.

  Chapter Fifty

  Fintan sat next to Colton and put his arm around him.

  ‘Please,’ said Colton.

  Fintan had a speech prepared. He had a lot of things he wanted to say. How Colton had been the first – the only – man he had ever been in love with. How he had believed it was never going to happen for him. And then it had. And the wonder and the glory of all of it. And every single moment they had spent together and everything they remembered . . .

  But he saw now how selfish it would be to make the person he loved most in the world endure another single moment.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and two great tears rolled down Colton’s cheeks. Fintan went and found Saif, hovering in the hallway, barely having reached the stairs.

  Fintan held Colton’s shaking body in his arms as Saif skilfully inserted the morphine into the syringe driver already set up over the bed.

  Outside, the winter geese swirled around the house, caught up in the burling snow, almost indistinguishable from it.

  Inside the room, everything was quiet, except for Fintan, Colton in his arms, whispering fiercely, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ over and over again in his ears, their fingers tightly knotted together, and Colton briefly lifted his other hand, but he did not speak again, and gradually, his breathing slowed, and the pain left his face and his body started to relax.

  ‘He’s sleeping,’ said Saif.

  ‘What happens if he wakes up?’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Saif, glancing at his phone. Nothing from Flora and Joel, which was good news, he supposed.

  Fintan gently disentangled himself and kissed Colton on the forehead. Then he went to the door and beckoned the other person who was sitting waiting patiently outside: Tripp.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Flora’s headache had started to abate, but strangely, now that the drama of passing out and needing stitches had passed, she had more time to reflect, and she felt worse and worse with every passing moment.

  Joel was sitting on the floor, holding her hand like a courtly knight at a grave. Finally, she turned to him. ‘You’re being ridiculous down there,’ she said stiffly. ‘Can you get me some more tea?’

  Lorna had gone out after checking on Flora, giving her the biggest hug and whispering she’d see her tomorrow and not to worry about Christmas dinner, she’d bring some sausages and that’s all anyone wanted.

  Joel and Flora needed privacy; that much was clear. Except it was odd, seeing everyone in there. She thought she’d have been quite happy to rent the place to Joel and Flora; move out and on with her life.

  Somehow though, even though she and Saif couldn’t be together now, it felt like their place. Their special place, at least once upon a time. She didn’t want to move. She wasn’t sure how she’d break it to them.

  She definitely needed a drink. A stiff one. She headed to the Harbour’s Rest. She’d have to deal once more with the fact that very soon she’d be seeing Saif for the last time – watch him step onto the ferry and head for the mainland, never to return – and that was the kind of image only a whisky was going to put a stop to.

  She had thought the Harbour’s Rest would be jolly on Christmas Eve, and she was right, even through the sadness. Tripp was sitting, crying in a corner while people were being incredibly kind to him and buying him drinks and whispering things about it all being for the best and hadn’t he done the right thing, and Tripp was saying they were all the best people on God’s green earth, and he was going to move there, goddammit, and fulfil his brother’s legacy, so that was something even if it wasn’t entirely clear that he’d remember it in the morning, but she realised, then, that Colton was dead, and was sad for it: two deaths on the island in one day.

  She ordered a large whisky and sat at the bar and Inge-Britt smiled sadly and said she could have whatever she liked – Colton had ordered all drinks on him – and Lorna reflected and decided to stick to the whisky on balance and Inge-Britt said suit yourself but she had two bottles of Bolly stashed away for later and Lorna gasped and said that was hardly in the spirit of the thing and Inge-Britt winked and said Colton wouldn’t have minded in the slightest and Lorna reflected that no, he probably wouldn’t have.

  ‘How’s Flora?’

  Hamish and Innes were immediately at her elbow.

  ‘Can we go over?’

  ‘Seriously, I wouldn’t,’ said Lorna. ‘I think they have some stuff to sort out.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Innes. ‘How to kick his arse from here back to the States. I’ll help with that.’

  ‘It might not be that simple,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Very simple,’ said Innes. ‘Hamish’s boot; Joel’s arse. Simple.’

  ‘Will Flora be okay?’ said Hamish, looking worried.

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ said Lorna gently. ‘Sad, but all right. You’ll have to be very nice to her.’

  ‘Nice to her and Fintan,’ groaned Innes. ‘For God’s sake.’

  And then all the lights went out.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  The red warning for snow and storms had been in place for so long that everyone had kind of ignored it. The ferries were off, but everyone was well stocked up with food and flour and the milk and eggs were local anyway, so as long as you weren’t in absolutely desperate need of, for example, a sudden pineapple, you could cope all right.

  Neighbours were checking in on neighbours; cows were warm and safe in their barns. Hamish was one of the local volunteer gritters and adored going out in Gritty Gritty Bang Bang and making sure the roads were safe, so mostly life continued as normal.

  However, a freak gust of wind had overturned the Land Rover of the man charged with checking the convector coils, which led to a circuit break, and as the wind heightened and everything seemed to get more ferocious, the entire island – that tiny beacon of light and warmth in the North Atlantic – suddenly went black. The cold battering waves rendered the scene dense and dark for endless miles and miles across the sea; only the lighthouses, with their back-up generators, could send a signal to lonely, tempest-tossed boats that there was now danger here.

  * * *

  Everything went black in the room at the Manse.

  Fintan didn’t even notice.

  He was sitting by the window, staring out to sea. The undertaker was on his way, even in this weather. There would be a sea burial, which was as close as they could get to the full Viking burial Colton
had actually wanted. This would have to do instead. Saif had signed all sorts of papers to say he wouldn’t require an autopsy, which meant, unusually, that the body wouldn’t have to be transferred to the mainland at all. But it also meant that Hector, who ran four fishing boats and also acted as the town’s undertaker when required, that the body wouldn’t be kept in particularly fancy conditions.

  Fintan didn’t care about any of that. He just knew that Colton had died exactly as he had wanted to in the end: surrounded by people who loved him. Even if some of that love had taken a lifetime to show itself.

  So it took him a while to hear the commotion and for someone to come upstairs with a clutch of lit candles, and in fact in the room they made a rather soothing vigil – a place to sit and contemplate in utter silence, and Fintan was glad.

  * * *

  In the Harbour’s Rest, there were whoops and cheers and candles and torches immediately lit – they got cut off all the time, Inge-Britt was always forgetting to pay the bill – and more logs thrown on the fire and more whisky taken out and more toasts made to Colton, for as everyone knows there is nothing more enjoyable on a stormy night than to be somewhere cosy and comfortable which suddenly doesn’t have to shut for legal closing hours (as if it ever did).

  All except for Lorna, who snuck out of the door unnoticed to check that Joel and Flora were okay.

  * * *

  At Lorna’s little flat, Flora blinked in the darkness and half smiled.

  ‘What is it?’ said Joel.

  ‘It must be the weather,’ said Flora, stretching.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ said Joel fiercely, pulling gently on her arm. ‘Please.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Are you still bleeding?’

  ‘I can’t tell,’ said Flora. ‘It’s too dark. And . . . I don’t want to check.’

  ‘Does your stomach still hurt?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Do you want more tea?’

  ‘That’s kind of what a “power cut” means. No more tea.’

  In the darkness, Joel risked putting his head next to her stomach, and in the darkness she let him.