Lindisfarne (Project Renova Book 2)

by Terry Tyler

  I was happier than I'd been since the first days with Sarah, but I didn't know if the happiness was just on the surface; the pills stopped me becoming introspective. I tried to stop taking them, but that black hole pulled me back. I wasn't strong enough. I'm still not.

  If people knew about my before they might understand why I'm happier now than in my old life, but I don't tell anyone.

  Back then, most of us were motivated by fear. Fear of losing the stable roof over our heads, of not being liked, loved, not fitting in. We wasted our days on jobs we hated, on miserable relationships, because we were terrified of not having our safe four walls to go home to each night. Or that piece of paper saying we owned those four walls.

  We smiled at people we didn't like, submerged our real selves, didn't voice our true thoughts in case they were deemed unacceptable. I used to see evidence of this all over Sarah's idiotic social media sites: everyone telling each other how 'awesome' they were, saying stuff was great when it wasn't, because they were too scared of not being liked.

  I bought into it, too.

  Fear. It makes you untrue to yourself.

  Now, all those old ideals of imagined security and social acceptance have gone, and the road is open for us to be judged by what's inside, not superficial bullshit. When no four walls are safe, life is more simple. I no longer have to smooch up to morons to make my commission targets so my wife can have the latest over-priced garbage from some rip-off shop. I have no one telling me how long I can or can't have my hair, and no one to take my bike away.

  What happened to Sarah was a tragedy, but the real tragedy was that she wasn't able to appreciate all we had and be happy, and I would weep for her family if they hadn't all perished from bat fever, but I'm relieved I'm free of her, and the guilt that comes with that relief will never fade. I should have had the courage to leave her before, but I couldn't have left my son.

  It's my fault she's dead.

  I should have been strong enough to say 'no' to buying that first house I never wanted. If I'd stood my ground, our relationship would have run its course, ended when it should have ended.

  Self-loathing is much harder to get over than heartbreak or bereavement.

  But if I hadn't been with her, I wouldn't have Jax.

  The happiest time of my life was when I was in that house in Elmfield with Vicky and the others. I stopped hating myself, because they liked me, accepted me, and Vicky accepted me most of all.

  I think she'd have understood if I told her about Sarah. I was going to, but now, of course, I never will.

  I knew she was falling in love with me. And me with her.

  I try not to think about Sarah and Vicky, because it sends me spinning down again.

  Aria lifts me up. She has no idea how much.

  The supply run group meets in the coffee shop so Kara can give us our orders for the day; she's constantly assessing our supplies, talking to people about what they need, compiling directories of shops in each town and village for hard-to-locate items.

  Too many chemists have been cleared out, but we need antibiotics and other essential medicine that people were prescribed before bat fever. I volunteer to go, just for the ride out; I suggest going down the coast road, to the smaller towns we haven't explored yet.

  I glance at Aria; she gives me one of her sexy smiles and offers to go with me.

  Kara hands me the list, and gives us both one of her 'looks'.

  I can't wait to get off the island on this soft, dewy, spring morning. The sky is hazy blue, the air smells of salt and fresh, new grass, and I'm tempted not to bother with my crash helmet, but I've promised Jax I'll always wear one.

  John and Stefan wave us through, and we're free.

  Down at the farm I think I see Travis, so I raise my hand in a wave; I don't want him to think I'm riding off for high jinks with his girlfriend. Even though I am.

  It's a fantastic day; the sea sparkles, and I look up at the gulls; they don't know the world's ending. They're free; they'll still be here, whether we survive this or not. In fact they'll be better off, because we won't be taking all their food out of the sea and polluting what's left of it.

  Aria wraps her arms around me, pressing her body far closer than she needs to. The back roads wander inland; I slow down along a lonely, wild landscape, and she takes her gloved hand from my waist and places it on my thigh, stroking up and down, tracing circles with her fingers.

  It's going to be today, then.

  I reach back and run my fingers up and down her thigh, too, and she places her hand over mine. I slow right down, and I can feel her doing something, but I'm not sure what. Ah—she's taken off her gloves. She's undoing my jacket and it's damn cold, even at this speed, but I don't care, because she's got her warm little hands inside, and she's reaching under my jumper, pulling my t-shirt up and, yes, her hands are on my skin at last; I'm just smiling to myself, revelling in the feeling (it's been far, far, too long), when she reaches down and slowly unbuckles my belt.

  I stop. I take off my helmet, and turn round to see her shaking all that beautiful hair out of hers, too. She gives me a wicked smile, and I think how alike we are, with our hair and our hidden selves, because I think she's got a whole load of secrets going on in her head, too.

  Maybe too alike; I don't know.

  I put the bike to rest on the overgrown grass verge. She takes my hand and leads me over the long grass to the shelter of a tree, and I throw her up against the hard, knobbly trunk, our mouths pressing together like we're trying to eat each other, not kiss. I feel that warm sun on my head but I'm not really thinking about that, or how hot I am in my leather, because all I can feel is the urgency to tear off whatever clothes are stopping me from getting inside her, right now. She's somehow managing to undo my jeans and get my cock out at the same time as pushing off her boots, jeans, knickers (she's done this before), I throw off her jumper, her bra and then—yes, yes, with animal groans from me and screams from her, I'm there.

  We don't last long.

  Afterwards, lying on the damp, warm grass, she shows me the red, raw grazes on her back from the tree bark and I feel awful, but she laughs and says she loves them; every time they hurt she'll think of today. I'm still wearing my t-shirt, and half-wearing my jeans and shorts, but she's naked apart from little white socks (sexy as hell), and it's not warm enough to be lying there with nothing on, so I cover her with my body, hold her tight, and our bodies move and bend and mould together perfectly, just as I knew they would. We're a great fit. Why didn't I manage to fall in love with someone like her, instead of Sarah?

  She comes at the slightest touch, over and over, not like Sarah, who used to tell me I didn't understand her body, though I knew it was really because she didn't like sex. She used it as a bargaining tool.

  Why am I thinking of her, now?

  I think of Vicky, too, briefly, but I shut her out.

  After we've come down from the second time, Aria begins to gets dressed, because it really is quite cold, and we're laughing and kissing, warm and close. It's so, so good to be with a woman again.

  I kiss her neck and it occurs to me that Travis is going to see the marks on her back. I don't want to piss him off.

  I mean, it's not like we're in love and she's going to leave him, or anything.

  "It's obvious what they are, that's all," I say. "Like carpet burns." Maybe I shouldn't be surprised by what she does next, but I am. She tosses me a big grin, over her shoulder, jumps up, and faces the tree. She stops for a moment, blows out a couple of times, short, loud little puffs that remind me of a boxer, flexes her arms as if she's going in for a fight, then hurls herself at the tree, shoulder first, scraping her arm against it. The impact makes her howl, and I leap up, appalled; I dash towards her, but she's laughing, and holding her hurt shoulder.

  "Now I can tell Travis I fell off the bike. I took my jacket off because it was warm, and I fell off."

  Her shoulder is scraped and bleeding, and she's laughing.

&
nbsp; "Fuck, it hurts!"

  I can't work out if what she's just done makes me like her more, or feel slightly worried. Is she one of those crazy girls? Chrissie, from that house in London, was like that. She did mad stuff like jumping into fountains, or taking off her clothes in the snow; it was partly why I was attracted to her.

  It was also why she turned up drunk and naked in my bedroom in the early hours of the morning, when I no longer wanted her to.

  I pull Aria to me. That beautiful, smooth shoulder is all blood and torn skin.

  "I can't believe you did that." I hold her close; her skin is cold, and she's shaking. I bend my head and gently kiss the wound, and she winces. "Sorry." I kiss her on the lips, instead. "I was a bit taken aback."

  She smiles. "If you're going to tell a lie, you've got to make it feasible or there's no point telling it. If you don't, it's 'cause you subconsciously want to be found out."

  She's so right.

  "Should I apologise to Travis?" She looks horrified, and I laugh. "About you falling off the bike, I mean!"

  "No. I don't want to risk us being in the same room together, in front of him. He's clever." She looks deep in thought, for a moment. "He was the one at BDC who sussed out what all that data analysis was about, wasn't he? And I reckon he's one of those quiet types who could explode if he had enough provocation." She shudders. "What I'm saying is, he loves me, badly, and I wouldn't want to see how he might react to the suspicion that I'm fucking someone else."

  I can't help it; I retreat, just slightly. I don't relish the thought of Travis on my doorstep, brandishing two fistfuls of love, pain and fury. He's bigger than me. "You'll be careful, then? If we're going to carry on, I mean—"

  She puts her hand to her poor, hurt shoulder. "What do you think all this was about?"

  I take her hand. "We'd better go and do the chemists. You need something to put on that."

  Later I have her again, on a table in a deserted pub. I like this; we can do it anywhere, because there's no one around.

  Kara gives us inquisitive looks when we deliver the medical supplies. I suppose it's written all over our faces; we'll both have to be careful.

  Aria walks up off to the right when we leave the hotel, towards the cottage where she lives with Travis. Just before she turns the corner out of my sight, she stops and smiles. She's very beautiful, with that hair blowing out in the breeze, and I test myself to see if I feel jealous that she's going home to the arms of another. No, I don't mind at all. This is good.

  But as I walk down towards Sandy Lane and home, a rush of loneliness washes over me, swamping me. I walk past the old coach park at the end of the road and I see Dex talking to Eric Foster. All the jealousy I didn't feel about Aria kicks me in the gut, and it's all I can do not to storm over there and punch him.

  He's got the woman I love. I'm not over it at all.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vicky

  May

  Dex is living at the castle now. Despite my misgivings, he's pulled Stefan, Jonas and his friend, Sean, off their other duties to help him rig the place up.

  It's the latest in a line of things I'm not happy about, the main one being that I don't like Lottie being on the council. She's out of her depth.

  Community matters are discussed between the nine of them, followed by a vote on the best outcome for the good of all, with Dex given the decider if the eight council members are equally split. However, Lottie says Dex vetoes anything he doesn't agree with, regardless of how many of the others are in favour.

  Despite what I (and others) think about introducing a payment/credit system, he puts it forward.

  Lottie comes to find me afterwards. She seems upset, which is not like her. She should be enjoying herself, learning how to adapt to our new life, not having such responsibility thrust upon her.

  "It was horrible," she says. "Usually the meetings are dead positive, throwing ideas about and lots of banter, but this was just—oh, I dunno. Heavy." We're wandering out past the castle, to get away from everyone and talk. It's a breezy, mild, typical early May afternoon, pleasant down by the water's edge.

  "What sort of heavy? Tell me."

  She shoves her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. "It's just this money thing. You know."

  "Yes. We've talked about it. I don't think it's a good idea, either." I outline the arguments I presented to Dex, and she nods.

  "That's what Phil and Kara say, too. There's only Dex and Richard who are in favour, so it should be thrown out, but Dex says it's going to happen." She looks up at me. "Why have we got a council if Dex isn't going to take any notice of what we say?"

  "I don't see how he can enforce something the rest of you don't want."

  "You'd think. But he said, 'I'm the Jarl, you elected me, and I say this is the way forward'."

  I stop. "He said that? He actually said, 'I'm the Jarl'?"

  "Yeah. He did a big jokey face, but we didn't treat it like a joke." She grins. "Kara was brilliant, she said, 'Okay, but we need to moderate the idea so it suits everyone, or you won't be the fucking Jarl for very much longer'. 'Scuse my language, I'm quoting her."

  We both laugh. "So what have you come up with?"

  She puts her arm through mine. "Kara says it can't be decided just by the nine of us, it's got to be agreed upon by everyone on the island. What do you think?"

  "I agree. Absolutely. It'll change the whole way we live."

  "That's what we all thought. Even dibby Marcus. But Dex just threw his pencil down, so it, like, bounced across the table and hit Nicole in the eye, and said, 'What's the point in having an elected council if they're too weak to make decisions?' Then Kara comes back with, 'What's the point of having a council if the Jarl won't take any notice of what they advise?'."

  "Oh dear. Still, Kara won't let him get away with all this egotistical crap." Because that's what it is. I never noticed he had ego problem, before. Not to this extent.

  Lottie grins. "Kara's awesome, she always has the last word. He calmed down a bit and said, okay, he'd shelve it and they'd give it some more thought."

  "It's a seriously bad idea. Especially going forward, when things start to get harder. Which they're going to."

  She gives me a sidelong look. "Quit with the doom and gloom, Mumsie."

  "It's not doom and gloom, it's reality. We've got to face it. When there are less supplies to go round, it'll mean people going hungry if they haven't got the means to pay for what food there is."

  We crunch our way down onto the stony beach. Lottie picks up a stone and skims it across the water. It bounces four times; I'm impressed.

  "Let's not worry about going hungry yet, 'cause it isn't happening," she says. "The other thing we talked about was the bikers. Making it one big community, if they want to."

  "I don't know if that's a good idea or not."

  "That's why you're not on the council. 'Cause you're seriously indecisive."

  I flick her on the shoulder. "I don't want to be on it, you cheeky monkey. So what's the outcome?"

  Lottie stretches her arms up, yawns, and puts her face up to the weak sun. "Dex is going to talk to that bloke what's in charge of them—"

  "Who's in charge of them."

  "Yeah. That too. Dex is going to talk to him, and see if they want to, you know, join forces with us. Help defend the place. Pool supplies."

  I laugh. "I can't see Wedge agreeing to sign items out in Rowan's book, can you?"

  "You're kidding. Rowan will make mincemeat out of him."

  Later, we're sitting round the fire at our house, and Dex is there, too. The evenings are getting lighter, the days warmer. Soon, the lack of power will be less of a problem. I think back to Lottie and me sitting in the garden on summer nights in Shipden, after the power went off. And before the virus. Dex and me in the garden of the Kings Arms with our friends, barbecuing with our neighbours.

  All dead. All gone.

  I pull my thoughts back into the present, because if I think about Lawri
e and Gemma, Claire and Tony and their children, I'll think about my mum and dad, stuck in Portugal.

  Too late. They're in my head.

  Even if they're still alive, even if they manage to get back to England somehow, they won't be able to find me. I can't believe I never thought to leave a note. We were in too much of a hurry to leave.

  If only I could do so without causing a fuss, I'd take a car this very minute and drive back to Shipden to see if they've been there, down to their house in Suffolk to see if they ever returned.

  (Mummy. Mummy and Daddy).

  Stop it.

  I pull myself together. I'd never be allowed the petrol for a journey like that, anyway.

  Rowan's talking about the all-important problem of not being able to get her eyebrows waxed, Dex and Phil are doing mock yawns and snores, and Lottie pipes up that Nicole's friend, Clay, is a hairdresser; he might be able to sort out my 'horrendous' dark roots, if I put a highlighting kit on the supply run shopping list.

  "You're kidding," I say, "It's hardly a necessity, and I'm not that bothered, to be honest."

  "It wouldn't be a bad idea," says Dex, reaching forward and examining a strand. "I'm not quite sure about the two-tone effect."

  Truth is I'm starting to like being darker. But Dex thinks otherwise, evidently.

  "I didn't think it looked that bad." I jerk my head away from him. "And life's about survival now, not cosmetic frippery."

  Kara winks at me. "Wrong move, Vick. The Jarl has spoken!"

  Dex laughs, but I see a strange look in his eyes; he doesn't like Kara taking the piss out of him. Or challenging his authority, maybe.