Read This Northern Sky for Free Online Page B

a crab shell, the V-shaped marks made by a bird’s feet. I think, briefly, of Dad. Finn, like a younger version of Dad, or what Dad might have been like when he was sixteen, seventeen.
    ‘Stop there!’ Finn says. ‘Shut your eyes and hold out your hand.’
    I do as he says. I feel something cool, damp in my palm. For a brief second, Finn’s warm hand closes around my cold one.
    ‘Now look.’
    It’s just a pebble. A pretty pebble, still wet and shiny from the sea.
    ‘Thank you,’ I say. I slip it into my pocket for safe keeping.
     
    Joy and Alex come down to the beach just as the fire is at the white-hot charcoal stage and the sausages are almost cooked: Finn’s laying the gutted fish side by side on the grill over the fire. The meat and fish spit hot fat into the fire and it smells amazing. Alex is carrying two camping chairs and a bottle of whisky; Joy’s brought rugs and glasses and plates. They’ve obviously done this a hundred times before; it’s nothing special to them, but for me it’s all new.
    Joy wraps me in a big tartan rug. Alex offers me a glass of whisky. ‘For medicinal purposes. Your lips are blue with the cold.’
    I take one sip to try it. It’s totally disgusting. I hand the glass back, spluttering. ‘No thanks! Too strong.’
    ‘Food always tastes better outside,’ Joy says, laughing and settling back into her chair with her plate on her lap.
    ‘You always say that!’ Piers opens another bottle of beer and passes one to Thea.
    ‘And it’s always true.’ Joy smiles. ‘Tuck in, everyone.’
    Alex surveys the beach with binoculars. ‘Sanderlings,’ he says, ‘and a curlew sandpiper.’ He passes the binoculars to Finn.
    I eat my food. Joy’s right: everything does taste delicious. I’m the happiest I have been for ages, wrapped in a tartan rug on a rock at the top of a huge sandy beach, watching the waves roll in. I join in the conversation when I can think of something sensible to say, but mostly I’m just quiet, taking it all in. No one bothers me, or pesters me with stupid questions, or makes a fuss.
     
    ‘We’ll give you a lift back, Kate,’ Piers says, when we’re packing everything up to take back to the house. ‘Just say when you want to go.’
    ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
    Alex pulls an old-fashioned watch out of his jacket pocket. ‘Ten minutes to seven.’
    I’ve been here for hours. I’d no idea. ‘I’d better go back straight away,’ I say. ‘But I don’t mind walking, honestly.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Piers says. ‘Of course I’ll drive you back. We’ll dump the stuff at home and then I’m all yours.’
    Everyone walks back together to the Manse. Joy chats to me as we climb up over the grassy bank to the house. ‘You must come round whenever you want to,’ she says. ‘We keep an open house. The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned.’
    ‘Absolutely,’ Piers says.
    ‘It must be a bit lonely by yourself, with both your sisters away,’ Joy says. She thinks she possibly remembers them, but it was a long time ago, and there have been so many friends, over the years: people on their holidays, children on the beach . . .
     
    I don’t want to leave without thanking Finn, but the kitchen’s full of people and Piers is grabbing the keys for the jeep and when I look round to say goodbye, he’s disappeared.
    Thea grabs her coat. ‘I’ll come for the ride too.’ She goes to the kitchen door and calls up the stairs. ‘Finn? You coming to take Kate home?’ But he doesn’t answer, and Piers is already walking out of the back door.
    I scurry after him.
    Piers drives fast. But you can see for miles that there’s nothing coming: just a few cows and sheep grazing on the grass either side of the single-track road, and he knows every pothole and bump by heart. We rattle over the cattle grid at the beginning of the village. Piers pulls over at a passing place to let a van go by, and then we’re passing the