Two weeks later
The Fingle Bar, Melbourne
‘Patrick? Patrick McKinnon? What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? Are you determined to destroy yourself again?’
Patrick tried to open his eyes and failed. Evil elves had crept up on him in the night and superglued the lids together.
‘Come on. Get out. Jesus. This place stinks like a turps factory. It’s past noon and it’s a lovely day. Look.’
Patrick prised his eyelids apart. The rattle of the blinds opening was like a load of barrels thundering past his head and the light blinded him like a nuclear flash.
‘Jesus, Judy. Leave me alone.’
‘No, I won’t. You bloody idiot. I’ve put up with you hanging around the place making everyone miserable and carrying your own personal storm cloud with you. I’ve heard you whingeing about how sorry you are, and how bloody guilty, and I’ve held my tongue but I won’t have you killing yourself.’
A red face framed with a shock of platinum blonde curls loomed inches from Patrick’s.
‘Get up!’ she shouted, making Patrick’s ear drums throb and his head pulse like his own personal metal band had set up inside his skull.
‘What’s the point?’ he muttered, then immediately regretted it.
The sheet was whipped from his body and he looked down in horror.
‘Fucking hell. I’ve no clothes on, Judy!’
‘No. Because you stank and me and some of the bar team stripped you last night before we threw you on the bed. You were making a nuisance of yourself in every bar in the city. It’s a wonder the coppers didn’t throw you in the cells. Now, I’ve got a pot of black coffee on and there’s plenty of hot water. Get yourself into that shower, Mr High and Mighty.’
Judy threw the sheet back on him, covering his dignity.
Patrick pushed himself up on his elbows while his stomach did a triple Salchow. His head felt like it had been used for kicking practice by the Wallabies.
‘I’m not back in prison, you know!’ he called as Judy bustled out of the door.
‘No. This is worse. I’m your boss so present yourself in that bloody bar within twenty minutes or you’re out on your arse, mate.’
Under the steam of the shower, with a couple of paracetamol swishing round his stomach, Patrick gradually came to something like life. The bender had obliterated his pain for a while but it came back to him now in all its horrible glory. He was lost. He’d been lost and alone before. After his parents died, at school, in prison, and again after Greg had gone. No one had died this time but this loneliness was worse.
Since he’d left Maisie, and all the way home on the plane, he’d asked himself the same questions time and again. What if he’d marched into the Driftwood and the moment he’d spotted Maisie, said: ‘I’m your Prince Charming and can solve all your problems. Jump on my white horse and we’ll live happily ever after.’
He could have done that, but he’d walked onto Gull swearing on his life that he didn’t want the place, not a stone or grain of it and definitely not one of its residents.
Once he’d started lying – or rather, not telling the truth – it had become harder to unpick the web he’d woven and he was enjoying being Patrick McKinnon. For God’s sake he was Patrick McKinnon. He’d never been Henry Scorrier. Just like his dad and mum had never truly been Scorriers. They’d wanted to escape the life set out for them and so had he, but they wouldn’t have wanted him to do what he’d done to Maisie.
Judy was sitting under an umbrella on the terrace when he finally made it down. She was leafing through a newspaper but glanced up when she spotted him.
‘You’re two minutes late but I’ll let it pass this time. Your coffee’s here.’
He walked gingerly to the table, wincing at the bright sunlight bouncing off the Yarra despite his dark glasses and the heat pounding down, searing his skin.
‘I’m sorry,’ he began.
Judy shoved a mug at him. ‘For the love of God, will you stop saying that and do something to put things right with this woman?’
‘I’ve tried. I’ve tried calling her, emailing her and she doesn’t want to know.’
‘And are you selling the bloody island?’
‘I don’t know. After I’ve sorted a few things, probably. How can I go back after what I’ve done?’
Patrick took a slurp of his coffee and almost gagged but Judy was as sympathetic as a croc about to swallow a fluffy duck.
‘Probably? That’s pathetic and, more importantly, it’s not the Patrick I know.’
‘Which one is that?’
‘The one who lost his parents and turned his life around. Who stopped drinking and destroying himself. Who came here and made himself one of the family. Who loved Greg and me and supported us through the darkest, shittiest times of our lives. Who loves this Maisie and wants her more than I’ve ever seen him want anything. The poor little rich boy who knows it’s time to grow a pair and do what’s right, even if it means I lose him to some strange bunch of Poms on the other side of the world.’
Patrick couldn’t speak or drink or move. There were tears in his eyes and he couldn’t see the river any more. Judy patted his arm and spoke to him gently.
‘What I want to know is – and what my Greg would want to know, Paddy boy, is – are you really going to give up that easily or are you going to fight?’