“Mr. Kendrick tells me that your pony has quite a set of legs on her,” Holly says conversationally. I hear someone behind the counter say bright red hat.
“Horse.”
“Hmm?”
“She’s fifteen-two hands. Horse. He said that?”
“Oh, excuse me, madam,” Holly says. This is because Mary Finch has just squeezed between him and a shelf to get to the window, and her hand went somewhere untoward on his person, a most fortunate accident on her part. Holly moves toward the counter and gathers his dignity back up to himself before he turns back to me. “Word on the beach is he said that if your pony – horse – goes straight while the capaill uisce go right, you might get somewhere.”
I wonder if Sean really believes this. I wonder if I really believe that. I must, or else why am I doing this? “I reckon that’s the plan. If we’re being familiar, how well is it you know Sean Kendrick?”
Mary Finch squeezes back by George Holly and his eyes go round for a moment as he receives some more Skarmouth hospitality. I try not to laugh.
“Oh,” he says. “Oh. Well, I was here to look at Malvern horses and we met. He’s a strange old bird, which is to say that I like him quite a bit.”
Finn taps on the counter to draw Holly’s attention to the cakes they’ve just set out under the glass. For a brief moment, their faces wear the same boyish, wistful longing, longing that’s not tempered by the knowledge that the line until they get to the cakes is only six feet long.
“In the interests of familiarity,” Holly says, “how well do you know him?”
My cheeks redden, which infuriates me. Curse this ginger hair and everything that comes with it. My father said once that if I didn’t have my mother’s ginger hair, I wouldn’t blush or curse as easily. Which I thought was unfair. I hardly ever curse or blush, even though I’ve had plenty of days that required both. I’m a quite level person, I think, given the circumstances.
Finn’s eyeballing me, too curious about the answer to Holly’s question. I say, “A little. We’re friendly.”
“Like you and your aunt?” Holly asks. When I scowl at him, he suggests, “Like cousins? Like siblings?”
“I don’t know him as well as Mary Finch knows you,” I tell him. When he looks perplexed, I make a little pinching motion and he winces as if his underparts feel her attentions once more.
“Fair enough,” Holly says.
We stand at the counter and Bev Palsson swaps money for cakes. Finn buys an obscene number of cinnamon twists with Dory Maud’s money. Once we actually have them in our hands and stand outside the door where Dove is tied, Finn makes George Holly unwrap one of the cakes so that Finn can observe his reaction. Holly takes a bite, honey slipping over his lip, and closes his eyes in pleasure so pronounced that it’s hard to tell if it’s exaggerated for Finn’s benefit.
“I’m told,” Holly says, “that food tastes better in your memories. I don’t see how I can improve on this in a memory.”
Finn is pleased by this. It’s as if he made them himself. I see something bittersweet in Holly’s expression, though; I think, possibly, that this island has begun to get its hooks into him, and this makes me like him even more. Anyone Thisby chooses to seduce can’t be half-bad.
Holly asks, “Finn, would you be so kind as to ask them for another bag so we can separate these into two parcels? And if I give you this, would you fetch me another twist to take back to my room? Get another one for yourself, too, so your other hand doesn’t feel empty.”
Once Finn is dispatched, Holly says, “Puck, I’m stepping so badly over the line here that I might never return. But there’s quite a few people who don’t care to have you on the beach. I’m not sure if you’ve heard.”
I think of Peg Gratton telling me not to let anyone else tighten my girth. I lose my appetite for my sticky breakfast. “I’ve an inkling.”
There’s genuine worry on George Holly’s face. “You’re the first, aren’t you? The first woman?”
It’s strange to be called a woman, but I nod.
“It just sounds quite bad down there,” he says. “I wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t think it seemed dangerous.”
How quickly George Holly’s become one of us – that I should be riding in a race against a few dozen capaill uisce and he thinks it’s the men I should be worried about.
“I know not to trust anyone,” I say. “Except…”
Holly studies my face. “You do fancy him, don’t you? What a strange, wonderful, repressed place this is.”
I glare at him, relieved that I seem to be out of blushes, or perhaps I’m still blushing and can’t get any redder. “I’m not the one letting myself be played by three sisters with four and a half eyes between them.”
Holly laughs delightedly. “Very true.”
Dove strives for my November cake and I push her away with my elbow. “Annie’s all right,” I say. “Do you think she’s pretty?”
“I do.”
“I reckon she finds you agreeable, too,” I say. I glance at him sideways with a sly smile. “Since she can’t see any farther than her arm. I wouldn’t count on her baking you any of these cakes, though. There’s a reason Palsson’s is full of women. Thisby women are lazy.”
“Lazy as you?”
“Just about.”
“I think I could bear that.” He glances up; Finn has just broached the door of Palsson’s, bearing two bags, and he approaches us looking cheerful. Holly says to me, “I sure do wish you the best of luck, Miss Connolly. And I hope you won’t wait for Sean Kendrick to realize that he’s lonely.”
I want to ask him, Wait for what? but Finn’s come up then and it’s not a question I want to ask in front of one of my brothers.
So we merely exchange pleasantries, and Holly goes on his way to watch the training on the beach, I go my way to get Dove to the cliff top, and Finn gets ready to go back to Dory Maud’s to do odd jobs.
“Did you hear his accent?” Finn asks.
“I wasn’t born deaf.”
“If I were Gabe, I’d go to America instead of the mainland.”
This statement ruins any good mood I had germinating in my soul. “If you were Gabe, I’d slap you.”
Finn is unperturbed. He gives Dove’s rump a friendly pat before starting away.
“Hey.” I stop him and remove another two cakes from the bag. “Now go.”
He trots gleefully off, so easily pleased by the arrival of food. I balance my cakes in one hand and take Dove’s reins with the other, leading her toward the cliffs. I think about George Holly’s comment about food tasting better in memories. It strikes me as a strange, luxurious statement. It assumes you’ll have not only that moment when you take the first bite but then enough moments in front of it for that mouthful to become a memory. My future’s not that certain that I can afford to wonder what will become of the taste later. And in any case, the November cake tastes plenty sweet to me now.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
I’m already waiting when Puck gets to the top of the cliffs. I’m not the only one; about two dozen race tourists have made perches out of rocks, watching Corr and me as closely as they dare. Puck glares at them all, searing enough that some of them flinch in surprise. I’m not certain what to expect from her after last night. I don’t know how to address her. I don’t know what she expects from me or what I expect from me.
What I get is a wordless hello and a November cake in my hand. We each silently eat one under the attentive audience of the tourists and then scrub our sticky palms on the grass.
Puck grimaces at the onlookers. “Dove is timid around the water horses.”