High Island Blues Read Free

a good choir.’
    And costs me a fortune, he thought with resignation, with her car and her dresses and her position in the village to keep up.
    ‘I’m surprised she found time to come with you on this trip,’ Rob said. Oliver looked at him steadily, recognizing the sarcasm, failing to rise to the bait.
    ‘Oh, well,’ he replied. ‘ She deserves a break, you know.’
    The margaritas were served in glasses like goldfish bowls. After a month of abstinence in the Middle East and a long flight, Rob felt the alcohol kick into his system. It was like being a student again, pissed for the first time. He felt suddenly emotional. He wanted to tell Oliver he was a stupid bastard. It wasn’t too late to leave Julia. He’d given her twenty years of his life and he could walk out at any time. Rob would stand by him. But he said nothing and they sat for a moment in silence.
    ‘Do you guys see much of each other?’ Mick asked at last. He had a peculiar hybrid accent, West Country English crossed with Texan twang, still hesitant. ‘ I mean, perhaps it’s strange to have a reunion at all if you two spend every weekend birding together. I mean, I hope you’re not here just because of me …’ His voice tailed off. Perhaps he realized that it sounded as if he were soliciting some declaration of friendship. He’d never been able to take that for granted.
    ‘No,’ Rob said. ‘We don’t meet. I live in Bristol now. That’s where the travel agent I work for is based. And I’m abroad a lot, leading trips.’
    He looked at Oliver, challenging him to give another explanation for their failure to keep in touch, but they were called through the tannoy system to eat: ‘Brownscombe. Table for Brownscombe.’
    They pushed past the crowd on the porch towards a waiter who led them into the building. Inside it was noisy and even hotter. Fans whirred on the ceiling but had little effect, except to add to the background sound. A teenage girl was celebrating her birthday. As they took their seats all the waiters and kitchen staff paraded to her table, banging pots and pans, singing and whooping.
    Outside it started to rain. There was a crack of lightning. The lamps flickered then a white light shone briefly on the manic procession dancing back to the kitchen. The three men sat at a small table next to a window now streaming with rain water. They ordered fajitas because that was what Mick recommended, and while they waited they pulled tortilla chips covered in melted cheese from a pile and covered them in salsa. Rob asked for a Corona beer. Then there was a silence as they stared at each other again, saw each other for the first time as middle-aged men.
    ‘And business is doing well for you, Mick?’ Oliver asked politely. He might have been at one of Julia’s charity cocktail parties. ‘ I must say you seem to have settled down out here. Environmental consultancy, is that it? That seems to be taking off in the UK, too. We’re representing a firm involved in a wind farm in Northumberland. They’ve been hired to do the environmental impact assessment. Quite a lucrative contract actually.’
    ‘We have some business in the UK,’ Mick said. ‘But Laurie looks after that. She’s the driving force in the relationship.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I’m just her gofer.’
    ‘Laurie should be here.’ Rob spoke so sharply that they all looked up at him. ‘She was there, at Oaklands, when we discussed it, wasn’t she? It might even have been her idea. “A reunion in twenty years time,” we said. “ High Island in the spring with the migrants going through.”’
    Mick looked uncomfortable. ‘I guess when we discussed it we never thought one of us would end up marrying her,’ he said. ‘ Not really. She’ll be at High Island tomorrow.’
    I never imagined Mick would end up marrying Laurie, Rob thought. Mick, short and squat, dark as a tinker, and about as articulate. He pictured her the first time they’d seen her, walking down the