Font Size
Line Height

Page 33 of The Next Chapter

‘How was the session with Lola?’

Noah finds me in the garden, hunched over my laptop, typing hard. Harper had left at about the same time as the Pringles I’d bought had run out.

Despite what I said about my brain dying off in the afternoons, today it’s working overtime. And even though, as per my timetable, I should be prioritizing Mr Vandergilden’s cover design, it’s Lola’s memoirs that I’m desperate to write.

‘Really good, thanks. Lola’s a great storyteller, it just writes itself.’

It strikes me, then; I don’t know how much Noah knows about Lola’s past. I mean, he must know that she’s the Lola Starr, but I can’t ask him about it, not until Lola tells me.

My chest tightens at the reminder that I’m basically lying to everyone here.

I hit the full stop key with more force than I need to.

‘Right, I’m done for the day,’ I tell Noah. ‘I think I’ll go for a run.’

I need to do something to escape the jittery feeling.

‘Mind if I join you?’ he asks quietly.

‘Be my guest.’

Over the next few days, my weekly time plan really comes into its own. It goes some way to calming me the fuck down.

Early mornings, I sit outside and do some work, forcing myself to make a little more headway with Mr Vandergilden’s memoirs.

I owe him a draft this summer and something tells me that informing him that it’ll be late while I gallivant around the Isle of Skye and reconnect with my long-lost mother will not go down well.

He has a whole chapter dedicated to the anti-woke movement, after all.

After the first day, Noah had come to sit outside too. He works at his little white picnic table; I work at mine. It’s all highly civilized.

On Friday, I do yoga with Lola on the pier. Happily, my yoga-thon for charity means that I excel at this activity at least. I notice that once more, Lola is running the session herself. I wonder if she’s one of those people who doesn’t sleep. Like Maggie Thatcher. Or vampires.

The last few evenings have been tricky. I hadn’t thought to plan for the evenings. So, I don’t know what to do when Noah appears. Harper too, under the guise that she wants to use my laptop. She mainly ignores us, but she does eat an inordinate amount of Pringles each night.

I’d checked with her foster mum that it was okay that she’d been demolishing so many, only to be told that so long as Harper’s eating, that’s all that matters. I couldn’t help but notice that Blake, Harper’s brother, was sat with his foster dad, being read to under the shade of a tree.

I’d gone and cleared the hotel shop of Pringles after that.

Nothing else has happened with Noah, not since that Tuesday night. For the past three nights, we’ve kept it strictly professional, working on his piece on Skye. I’m equal parts relieved and bereft at this.

It’s for the best, I remind myself for the millionth time.

Absolutely, it’s for my own good.

I don’t know why, then, I’m re-reading his books on Skye. Why I read them late at night when I’m on my own.

Or why I feel so sad that I only got that one-night with him.

The Fairy Pools are a must-see on Skye. Known for their crystal blue waters and set at the foot of the Black Cuillin range, the pools make for the perfect place for a swim.

The history of the pools is entwined with no small amount of magic.

Local legend holds that the pools were once the preserve of a fairy princess, forbade by her father from marrying the mortal man she had been handfasted to.

I have to stop reading Noah’s book, even though I don’t want to, because I’m meant to be meeting him in the car park for our next scouting trip right about… now.

I grab my rucksack and tighten my shoelaces and rush through the gardens to find Noah waiting by the motorbike. His motorbike. Because obviously the motorbike in the hotel car park belongs to him. Why should it be that the man who writes beautiful prose is also into motorbikes I’ll never know.

‘All ready?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, but just to be clear here. You want me to get on the back of that while it’s in motion. I mean, moving.’

‘I’ll drive carefully,’ is all he says in reply.

I peer again at the motorbike. It’s just, there’s nothing over you, is there? No roof. If something goes wrong, you’re very exposed. It’s not exactly like the emergency services are going to be on hand out here. Not when it’s a half-hour round trip for a loaf of bread.

‘I can ask Lola if we can borrow her van?’ Noah offers. Obviously, I’m not doing a very good job at hiding my alarm, which just will not do. I’m meant to be wild and free Lily, that’s the deal here. Not Lily who is frozen with abject terror.

‘No, don’t worry, this looks great. I’ve actually always wanted to go on a motorbike.

’ I take the helmet Noah is holding out and pull it over my head (my hair will make me regret this later).

Noah swings a leg over with ease and I clamber on behind him with much less ease.

My knuckles are white where they grip the seat behind me.

I want to message Seb, to tell him that if I die, he can have the house so long as he looks after Elton, but I also don’t want to let go of the seat. Even not moving, the bike feels precarious. There are only two wheels!

I grip onto Noah’s sides through his T-shirt. He at least is solid and warm. It’s calming. He puts his hand over mine where I’m clinging on to him so hard several G forces couldn’t dislodge me. Noah squeezes. ‘I’ve got you.’

I try to match my breathing to his. In, out. In, out. How bad can this be?

The engine revs to life and I scream. We haven’t even set off.

‘We should get the van,’ Noah calls. We’re stationary in the car park. I’ve screwed my eyes shut.

‘No, just go.’ I cling on even harder. ‘I want to try.’

‘Okay?’ Noah calls back to me. ‘It isn’t far, try to relax.’

Fat chance of that.

We turn around in the car park and I don’t fall off. Excellent.

‘Here goes.’

I scream again as we set off properly. This one muffled into the back of Noah’s T-shirt.

I’m sure we’re going faster than the speed of sound. We zip through the lanes, Noah completely at ease, me the very opposite of that. Is it normal for your life to flash before your eyes while you’re still alive?

I’ve glued myself to Noah’s back. My arms are wrapped so tightly around him, it’s a miracle that he can draw breath.

‘Almost there!’ I hear him say above the noise of the wind we’re creating. My eyes are still screwed tightly shut. Because if I’m about to go careering to my death, I don’t want to watch it play out.

Finally, we slow down. We’ve been stopped for quite some time before I chance opening my eyes to see Noah standing at the side of the bike, looking down at me. That at least makes my heart cease and desist its efforts to batter its way out of my own chest. It settles on a nice simple swoon instead.

I smile, even though my mouth is super dry from the ride. It’s a strange sensation, that of your own lips being pulled back across your teeth.

‘We could have taken the van.’ Noah helps me off with my helmet and tucks some hair behind my ear, where it stays for approximately a nanosecond before springing right back out. He has another go and then gives it up as the lost cause that it is.

‘You know what, I think I enjoyed that actually.’ I hop down, my sentiments undermined somewhat by the fact that my legs are like jelly and I have to prop myself up with a hand on the motorbike seat.

Noah looks suspicious. His frown has lessened, but it’s still there.

‘So where are we?’ I ask, looking around. As per, we seem to be in the middle of fucking nowhere. Just the usual fields and mountains. I’m a bit over fields and mountains.

‘Camas Mor,’ Noah answers, pulling his rucksack out of the bags over the back of the bike. ‘Come on, it’s about a twenty-minute walk. This way.’

I catch up to Noah as he sets the pace across a field, pleased to see that we seem to be walking across as opposed to up today. Zero elevation and the beautiful clifftop walk towards the ocean is exactly what today needs.

We walk quietly for a little while, still heading towards the edge of the cliffs.

The landscape here, a mere ten minutes away from the hotel, is different.

It’s expansive and bare, full of open fields.

We’re mid-field when I say, ‘Wherever we’re going is definitely a hidden gem.

’ I’m pleased that I opted for my walking shoes today.

The sole is so cushioned, it’s like walking on air.

‘There wasn’t even a car park!’ We’d left the bike at a small indent in the road, next to a fence.

Imagine a land where you’re not paying £2.

50 an hour to park a car. It’s like Narnia.

‘We’re going down there.’ Noah has his sunglasses on again. Those things should be illegal. He nods his head towards the cliff edge.

And oh no, is he going to make me scale a cliff? It looks steep. So very steep.

‘It’s something I didn’t consider when I pitched for the commission, how maybe it would be better if these things remained hidden. I wonder if one day there’ll be nowhere left for us to discover. Especially with climate change, you know.’

As someone with zero wanderlust in their body, not a single dose of the stuff, nowhere left to discover doesn’t seem quite the tragedy to me as it does to poor Noah.

Not that I want the planet to burn or anything.

I wash out my glass jars like we’re meant to.

But for Noah, it sounds like it would be a disaster.

I guess because the man does have a compass tattooed on his shoulder.

He’s obviously a very committed explorer.

‘I get what you mean,’ I say, trying to look to the edge of the cliff for a path down. ‘It’s like you say in your book, it’s all a lot more fragile than we hope it might be.’

He groans and goes red, and I’m delighted with myself.

‘I still can’t believe you’re reading that.’

‘Why not? That’s the whole point of writing a book, Noah, for people to read it.’