Page 60 of Carry Me Home

‘Tom! You’ve got a visitor!’

There’s no point pretending we’re going anywhere else. I steer Cara towards the picnic benches that serve as the outside area overlooking the harbour, and Bill’s already pulling the table next to his over, with that energy he gets when there’s someone new to talk at. She drops onto the bench and I sit, and immediately she leans back slightly and her arm settles against mine on the table – not dramatically, just there, easy, like it’s where it lands.

‘Bill, this is Cara. Cara, Bill. He’s on the lifeboat crew and⁠—’

‘You’re on the lifeboat crew?’ Cara’s face lights up. She turns towards me first, grabbing my arm. ‘Tom, why didn’t you lead with this?’ Then she’s focused entirely on Bill, leaning forward. ‘How often do you actually get called out? Is it as dramatic as the TV programmes make it look?’

‘More dramatic,’ Bill says, already glowing, the crinkles on his face getting deeper with his smile. ‘Last winter we had a shout in force eight winds…’

Cara’s good at this. The full attention. The right question at the right moment. I watch Bill expand under it, and Frankie arrive and get drawn in, and Tilly comes out from inside the dark cool of the pub, round tray in hand, opening the umbrella that’s slotted into the hole in the table and rolling her eyes like we are all too dumb to work an umbrella and have chosen the route of heatstroke – which is ironic for a woman with a year-round tan. Then she spies Cara, and her eyebrows lift, a wicked smile darting across her face, and she sits, like she’s forgotten that the reason she came out was to collect empty glasses. Cara works the table, thoroughly charming them all with her brilliant white smile and free laughter.

At some point she laughs at something Frankie says and her hand finds my arm again – a brief press of fingers, absent almost, the way you reach for what’s familiar. She doesn’t seem to notice she’s done it. I take a long drink of my pint.

‘She’s lovely,’ Tilly tells me, leaning across the table while Cara is deep in conversation with Bill about engine maintenance. ‘Your friend. Very charming.’

‘She is.’

‘Known her long?’

‘University. Same year.’

‘And you’re just friends?’ Tilly’s expression is innocent. Tilly’s expression is never innocent.

‘We’re friends.’

‘Hmm.’ She pats my arm. ‘Well. She seems very nice. Very … suitable.’

‘Suitable for what?’

‘Nothing at all. Just an observation.’ She disappears into the crowd before I can respond.

Cara catches my eye across the table and raises an eyebrow. I shake my head. She grins – that sharp, knowing grin that I liked at twenty-one and still like now, the grin of a person who finds the world genuinely funny – and turns back to Bill.

I let myself like it. That’s allowed. Liking Cara is allowed.

It’s a different skill from Nina’s. Nina doesn’t make rooms hers. Nina is the room – woven into the fabric of this place, inseparable from the walls, the light, the air. She doesn’t charm a space; she belongs to it. Cara is a guest who makes everything better by being there. Nina is the architecture itself.

I take a drink and file that observation under things I absolutely should not be thinking while Cara is sitting three feet away being wonderful.

The flat is cooler than outside, but only just.

Cara walks through slowly, looking at everything – the bookshelves overflowing onto the floor, the veterinary journals stacked by the armchair, the kitchen that’s too clean. She stops at the window. Looks out.

‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘The café.’

I come to stand beside her. The Lavender Café is directly across the harbour – shutters open, the afternoon light hitting the windows. I can see Nina moving behind the counter, the quick sure gestures, her bangles catching the sun. Cara steps slightly closer until her arm is just touching mine, warm through my sleeve, looking where I’m looking.

‘That’s it,’ I say.

‘And that’s her.’

It isn’t a question.

‘That’s her,’ I say.

Cara is quiet for a long moment. Close enough that I can feel her breathing. She’s deciding something – I can almost hear it.

‘Tom.’ She turns from the window but doesn’t step back, and suddenly she’s closer than the conversation requires. ‘I want to ask you something.’