Wild Blue Yonder (The Ceruleans: Book 3) (10 page)

‘Well, I suppose so,’ Jude conceded. ‘But actually, I was
thinking she should pick Joey because of his friend Maurice. I mean, Ross grew
up dressing as a girl and composing really weird keyboard tracks. But
Joey
grew up with an imaginary space cowboy as his best mate. Awesome. That’s the
guy you want at your side and bringing up your kid…’

I looked at him long and hard, but the grey eyes that looked
back were full of humour and innocence, and I couldn’t find any agenda in them.
Then, abruptly, he broke off the lingering eye contact and stood up.

‘It’s getting late. I should leave you to get some sleep. Big
day tomorrow.’

‘It is?’

‘It is.’

That was surprising. Life on the island was quiet. Since
January my daily routine had consisted entirely of doing domestic chores,
taking long walks outside, spending time with the others at mealtimes and on
the occasional evening, and holing up with Jude in our rooms – chatting,
watching TV, listening to music. The furthest we’d deviated from the norm was
playing Scrabble one night, which had descended into a lengthy discussion on
whether ‘blobwit’ was a word.

‘Something’s happening tomorrow?’ I clarified.

‘Two things. For one, dinner chez Adam and Estelle. Mexican
night, I believe.’

‘Oh. Estelle never mentioned that.’

‘Baby brain?’ Jude suggested.

Come to think of it, Estelle had been rather absent-minded
recently. Only this afternoon, when she’d come downstairs to meet me for our
milking session, I’d had to point out that she was wearing odd shoes, one
clonky black boot with silver studs, one clonky black boot with silver zips.
‘So that’s why I’m lolloping,’ she’d said. Bless her.

‘Dinner is fine. What’s the other thing?’

‘Ah,’ said Jude, tapping his nose. ‘That’s a surprise.’

I thought about all the surprises I’d had when awakening
here: you’re near home, but you can’t leave; you’re here to bear babies; you’re
meant to be with Jude… What was next? You’re part-alien?

‘I don’t like surprises here, Jude,’ I said worriedly.

‘Hey.’ He reached down and gave my leg a poke. ‘Don’t worry.
You’ll like this, I promise.’

‘O-kay.’

He gave me a warm smile and then said goodnight and returned
to his room, closing the door softly behind him.

I sat for a while on the sofa, and then I started the
bedtime ritual: brush teeth, gargle mouthwash, turn off lamps, lock doors. But
when I reached the connecting door between my room and Jude’s, my hand stilled
on the cold metal lock that I’d turned every night since the very first one in
this room.

Lights out, I lay in bed. And I wondered whether Jude had
noticed the absence of the audible click that indicated I didn’t trust him.

‘Come here, little sous-chef. Now that is a very naughty
little apron.’

‘This old thing? Oh, it’s just something I threw on.’

‘Mmm, doesn’t leave much to the imagination, does it?
Oops, look at that: I appear to have undone the tie…’

‘Luke, you know when Jamie Oliver wrote
The Naked
Chef
I’m not sure this is quite what he had in mind.’

‘But you like it.’

‘But I like it.’

‘Scarlett, this meal you’ve cooked is amazing. So
amazing, in fact, I’d like to smear you in it.’

‘Umm. It’d make a change from whipped cream and chocolate
sauce.’

‘Get on the table, then.’

‘I like your thinking, but can you actually smear a
person with cheese on toast?’

‘Oh, Scarlett. Scarlett…’

‘… Scarlett? Um, hello? Earth to Scarlett.’

‘Luke,’ I breathed dreamily. But the next words pulled me
rudely from my half-sleep:

‘No, Jude, actually.’

I shot up. Jude was standing at the edge of my bed, looking
highly embarrassed.

‘Sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I did knock. Many times.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I ran a hand over my head. My cheeks were hot
to touch, my hair was a mess and I was breathing heavily. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I
was, um, dreaming.’

‘I gathered,’ said Jude dryly.

Tell me I hadn’t been talking in my sleep.

‘What do you want?’ I said brusquely. ‘Why are you waking me
up at’ – I peered at the digital display on the TV – ‘five? Five a.m.! Jude,
what the
hell
? Is it even light yet?’

‘Getting there,’ he said. ‘Now, up you get – it’s surprise
time.’

He seemed to have moved past his embarrassment and now he
was shifting his weight from foot to foot and surveying me with sparkling eyes.

‘Seriously,’ I grumbled, ‘this surprise couldn’t have waited
until a decent hour?’

‘Nope,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Now hurry!’

There seemed little else to do but shake off the fog of
sleep and the tingling of a Luke dream and get on with the day, so I swung my
legs out of bed and stood. And staggered. Jude caught me.

‘You okay?’

‘Fine!’ I said breezily. ‘Head rush, that’s all.’

I shook him off and there was an awkward moment while we
both stood a little too close to each other. Then, swiftly, I marched over to
the wardrobe. ‘So, what do I wear for this surprise?’

‘Anything,’ said Jude. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Right.’

He stood watching me expectantly.

‘So, are you going to…’

‘Oh, sorry! I’ll leave you to change.’

He scooted back to his room, leaving me in peace.

Five minutes later, dressed in my usual jeans, tee and
cardie ensemble, I knocked on the connecting door and Jude emerged from his room,
swinging a bulging backpack onto his shoulder. The hotel was quiet and empty as
we made our way downstairs. At the front door Jude bundled me into my coat and
slipped on his, and then we were outside. The sun hadn’t yet appeared on the
horizon, but the moon was up and full, bathing the grounds in cool light. Jude
took me around the hotel to the south, where a white-gravel path led away from
the hotel.

‘Where are we…?’

But Jude shook his head. ‘You’ll see.’

We followed the path until the gravel gave way to
hard-packed earth and we were skirting along a cliff. Jude stopped and swapped
positions with me, so he was at the cliff-side and I was brushing against ferns
and grasses.

‘Don’t want another Scarlett disaster,’ he said. ‘I’m sure
you’ve had quite enough of dangling off cliffs.’

I smiled but said nothing, because the thought of the cliff
I’d fallen off in Twycombe, the cliff near my home and overlooking the cove
where I’d spent so many happy hours with my friends, with Luke – it made my tear
ducts burn.

We walked until we reached a set of wooden sleepers driven
into the hillside to form steps leading down onto a wide beach. This was Shell
Beach, so named for the millions of tiny shells mixed in with the sand. I came
here often, to daydream and pick through the mollusc remnants. Usually, I
brought a bucket that Jude had given me and, like a small child, I collected
the finest specimens, taking them home to wash in the bath and then scattering
them all round my room as ornaments. Sometimes, among the shells, I found
little jewels – green and blue and red pieces of glass that the ocean had
rubbed into soft shapes. I kept all of those, because they reminded me of home.

‘Down?’ I asked Jude.

‘Yes,’ he said.

He went first, and I followed.

On the beach, we walked to the water’s edge. The tide was in
and the waves were breaking fast at our feet. The first rays of the sun were
edging above the waves, indicating that dawn was imminent. The sight was
familiar, comfortingly familiar. All those mornings in Twycombe last summer,
when I’d been up with larks and on the water. I gazed out to sea with longing.

Finally, I turned to Jude. But he wasn’t there.

‘Jude?’

‘Behind you,’ he called.

I turned further and saw him, kneeling beside a heap of
rocks at the back of the beach. I began walking towards him and as I did I noted
two large gleaming-white shapes beside him, like enormous cuttlefish leaning
against the rocks.

By the time I reached Jude my sluggish brain had snapped to.

‘Surfboards!’

Jude was grinning.

‘Surfboards! We can surf, here?’ I looked around the bay.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘Spring’s here. Weather’s
warmer. Waves are decent.’

‘But…’

‘I cleared it with Evangeline. Don’t worry. Just… well, make
sure you don’t have a Scarlett moment out there. I don’t doubt she’ll change
her mind if I end up carrying you back to the hotel half-drowned.’

I stared at him. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a wetsuit.
‘Don’t say anything,’ he said. ‘Change and get out there!’

I knew what he was doing. This wasn’t just him doing
something nice for me. This was him saying, ‘See, you can have some of your old
life here. See, you can enjoy life here. See, we can surf together now, just
like you and Luke once did. See, you stay here with me, and I’ll make you
happy.
I
can make you happy.’

I knew what he was doing. And I reached out and took that
wetsuit, and I changed into it quickly, and I grabbed a board, and I ran into
the sea. And for the first time in months,
months
, I felt that amazing,
addictive rush of being alive.

I’d never surfed with Jude before, only Luke. It was
different.

But it was good, almost as good as it had once been.

Come seven o’clock that evening, I was still feeling the
effects of the early-morning surf. Aching, heavy muscles that were unaccustomed
to activity, sure – but at the same time a lightness in me that I’d missed so
much. Across the table I caught Jude watching me, smiling at me, and I smiled
back.

Dining ‘chez Estelle and Adam’, it turned out, meant eating
in the snug, away from the others in the dining room. Since their only private
space was a bedroom, which wasn’t suitable for a dinner party, Adam had
commandeered this room. He’d pushed the sofa back and brought the round wooden
table with four chairs into the centre of the room. Estelle had gone to some
effort to create ‘atmos’, as she called it – fresh flowers on the windowsill, a
crisp white tablecloth on the table, a centerpiece shabby-chic candelabra
holding five blue candles and John Legend playing from an iPod docking station
in the corner. Clearly, Estelle and Adam were making a big effort to back up
Jude’s ‘life on the island can be fun’ initiative, but the couples-only aspect
of the evening made me squirm. That and the heart-shaped confetti littering the
table.

Happily, though, Estelle’s cooking was doing a great job of
diffusing the romantic mood.

‘Holy cow, Stell – this is spicy!’ exclaimed Adam, dropping
his fajita and fanning his mouth.

Jude, meanwhile, was alternating between coughing and
gulping water, having taken a large spoonful of vegetarian chilli.

I eyed the enchilada on my plate dubiously, and looked back
at the spread of plates laid out in the middle of the table, searching for
something that might be mild.

‘Really, you guys are pathetic,’ said Estelle through a
mouthful of fajita. ‘I tasted everything myself as I cooked it. It’s barely a
two on the hotometer.’

I took a nibble of enchilada.
Mother of –

‘See, Scarlett’s not making a fuss. It’s good, right?’

Jude and Adam eyed me sceptically, but Estelle looked so
earnest I didn’t have the heart to admit my tongue was burning.

‘It’s great,’ I said, taking a delicate sip of my orange
juice.

‘Delicious,’ added Jude, gamely taking another mouthful of
chilli. His eyes instantly began watering.

‘Out of interest,’ said Adam, who was rather red in the
face, ‘how much chilli powder did you add?’

‘Oh, pretty much a bottle,’ she said. ‘And some green
chillis. And red ones. Baby likes chilli,’ she added, rubbing her bump.

Adam smiled at her lovingly, but I’d had a terrible thought…

‘Doesn’t spicy food bring on labour? You’re not trying to
coax your baby along, are you?’

Estelle laughed. ‘Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t
eager to deliver now. Look at me. It is
not
comfortable being this size,
and I have to pee every hour, on the hour. But no, I’ve always eaten spicy
food. Has no effect on me.’

‘Right. Good,’ I said.

‘Good?’

‘Um, I mean…’

Estelle leaned forward. ‘You’re not anxious about the birth,
are you, Scarlett?’

I looked at Jude. He was watching me closely.

‘No, of course not. I’m… looking forward to it. But I may
not be here for it.’

Adam and Estelle stared at me. They didn’t know about our
plan to find Sienna. Other than Evangeline, no one did. I wasn’t quite sure why
that was a secret, but Evangeline had asked me not to chitchat about it, and
naturally I’d done as I was asked.

Adam said, ‘But of course you’ll be here. Where else would
you be?’

‘Er…’

I looked at Jude and he shook his head just a little.

Estelle smiled. ‘Hiding in the barn with Milly and Moomin –
that’s what you mean, isn’t it? Look, Scarlett, don’t worry about it. Birth is
a beautiful thing. You won’t even mind the mess. Why, when I had my first, the
placenta –’

Jude dropped his fork with a clatter, spraying rice and
chilli all over the tablecloth. ‘Sorry!’ he said and began picking up grains of
rice one by one and returning them to his plate.

‘You men!’ Estelle rolled her eyes. ‘So squeamish. Isn’t it
a good job you don’t have to be there, that
we
deal with the messy bit?’

Estelle beamed at me, and I managed a wobbly smile back. I
looked at Jude; he was busy rice-collecting still. I looked at Adam; he was
looking at Estelle’s bump, a little sadly, I thought. I looked back at my
plate, trying not to think about placentas as I forked off another chunk of
enchilada.

‘So,’ said Jude brightly, ‘Scarlett and I went surfing this
morning.’

‘You did?’

‘No reason why not, Adam,’ said Jude firmly. Subtext:
It’s
not like she’s pregnant…
‘It was great, wasn’t it, Scarlett?’

I nodded through a mouthful of food.

‘I didn’t know you were a surfer, Scarlett,’ said Estelle.

There was a pause while I glugged some juice, then I said,
‘I’m not sure you’d call me a surfer, exactly.’

‘Don’t sell yourself short, Scarlett,’ said Jude. ‘You’re no
wobbly beginner now. And you have that lives-and-breathes-surf way about you.’

‘I’ve always been a float-about-on-a-lilo kind of guy,’ said
Adam.

‘How about you, Estelle?’ I asked. ‘I mean, clearly right
now you can’t be too active, but were you sporty before?’

‘Football,’ she said. ‘Goalie. I was pretty good at school.
Our team won the county cup. I thought once, maybe, I’d take it further…’ She
left the sentence hanging.

‘Well, you could play here, maybe,’ I suggested. ‘When
you’re a little less…’

‘Elephantine?’

We all looked embarrassed, but her laugh cleared the air.

‘It’s a nice idea,’ said Estelle. ‘But aside from the
obvious lack of pitch and goal posts, and a ball, even, there’s no team. A
footie team has eleven people in it. There are only nine women on the island,
and I can’t quite imagine any of them but you playing, Scarlett. Imagine
Evangeline!’

Now we were all sniggering.

‘In her heels, probably,’ said Adam. He shot a look at the
door as he said it, as if Evangeline was standing there, frowning at him.

‘Yeah, she likes her fashion,’ said Estelle.

‘It doesn’t seem quite in keeping with the wholesome,
organic lifestyle here,’ I commented. ‘Shouldn’t she be wearing home-knitted
smocks and sandals woven from wicker?’

Jude guffawed at the mental image, but Adam said seriously:

‘She wasn’t always on the island, you know. Back in the day,
before she was Claimed, I think she was something of a lady.’

‘Really? Where’s she from?’

Jude reached over and covered my hand with his and squeezed
hard:
not here, not now
. I nodded a fraction and looked across at
Estelle. She was happily working her way through her third plate of
blisteringly hot Mexican fare while Jude and Adam and I were still struggling
with our first.

‘So,’ I said, ‘back to the football. Surely we could put
together a couple of mixed teams?’

Adam looked horrified. ‘Blokes tackling women?’

‘As long as there are no dirty tackles, I don’t see why
not.’

‘Surely it should be women-only,’ said Adam.

‘But there aren’t enough women here,’ snapped Estelle.

Jude and Adam and I stopped pushing food around our plates
and stared at her. In all the time I’d known Estelle, I’d never heard her raise
her voice. Her face was pink and her eyes were glittering. Adam reached a hand
across to her but she stood suddenly.

‘You ready for dessert?’ she said sharply, gesturing at our
plates, and as one we nodded.

She swept out of the room, bound for the kitchen, leaving us
sitting in awkward silence.

‘Um, sorry if I upset things,’ I said tentatively. ‘I was
only thinking it would be nice for Estelle to have something else here she
loved, like my surfing.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Adam, eying the door.
‘Hormones. Tiredness. That’s all.’

He began stacking up the dirty plates and transferring them
to Nathaniel’s hostess trolley, waiting in the corner, and I rose to help him.
As we worked, I wondered what had set Estelle off, and I thought about her last
words:
‘There aren’t enough women here.’

‘What Estelle said, about how few women there are,’ I said
carefully. ‘It seems to me everything would be different here, and everyone
would have more freedom, if there were just more of us. So can’t you guys Claim
some more?’

I looked at Adam, and then Jude. For once I saw no answers
in their eyes – concealed or otherwise.

‘Why can’t you Claim more women?’ I repeated.

Jude shrugged. ‘We don’t know how it works.’

‘Huh?’

Adam shot a look at the door, and when he spoke it was in a
low voice. ‘All I knew of Claiming was Evangeline telling me that Estelle was
the girl, and where to find her. She just said Estelle had the potential to be
Cerulean. I don’t know why she had that potential. I don’t know how Evangeline
knew she had that potential.’

‘Is that how it was for you too?’ I asked Jude.

He nodded. ‘Only in my case, there were two of you –
sisters.’

‘So you don’t know? There could be hundreds of girls out
there dropping dead at eighteen, nineteen, who could be Claimed!’

Jude looked uncomfortable. ‘I never got that impression.
Claiming is rare; we’re taught that as kids.’

Adam nodded. ‘Didn’t Saul – he’s the history teacher at
Kikorangi, Scarlett – didn’t he tell us it was something to do with natural
selection?’

‘What does that mean?’ I asked, but both Jude and Adam
looked equally lost.

‘Did it never occur to you to ask Evangeline how it works?’

‘It’s not for us to ask,’ said Adam. ‘It’s for us to serve.’
He held up his forearm and touched a finger to his tattoo.
Serviam
.

I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘That sounds exactly like an
Evangeline line.’

Adam looked a little shocked and Jude cleared his throat,
and then the door swung open and the three of us jumped guiltily.

‘Ice-cream,’ sang Estelle as she strode in with a tray
balanced on her bump. She smiled at us all but I noticed smudges at the corners
of her eyes where she’d tissued off running eye makeup.

‘Great!’ said Adam enthusiastically and, taking the tray
from Estelle, he planted a big kiss on her lips and then crossed to the table.

Jude gave me a
Watch it!
look, and after a final
glance at Estelle, which she answered with a ‘Go on then. Tuck in!’, we all sat
down to resume the meal.

Having only eaten a few bites of my main course, I was
pretty ravenous still, and I took a large spoonful of the ice-cream from the
sundae dish in front of me. Unfortunately, I’d already put it in my mouth when
Jude started coughing again and Adam grabbed his throat and emitted a muffled
moan.

Hot. It was hot.
How can ice-cream be hot?
I thought
frantically as the cold-but-hot mouthful seared my mouth.

‘Best thing about being pregnant is eating for two,’ said
Estelle blissfully, savouring her mouthful. ‘I
love
chocolate
ice-cream.’

‘Chocolate?’ managed Adam.

‘Well, and a little spice, of course. Chocolate and chilli.
It’s gourmet. Get with it.’

At that moment Adam looked more likely to pass out than get
with it, but in love with his partner as he was, he smiled and said, ‘Divine,
babe. It’s divine.’

‘Thanks. Oh, Jude, are you okay down there?’

Jude was under the table.

‘Just dropped my napkin!’ he called.

Estelle looked puzzled. ‘And your dessert?’

‘Yes… silly me.’ Jude emerged, red-faced and sweaty, with
his napkin (which was, I noticed, balled up and dripping something brown at the
bottom) and his sundae dish. Empty. He shoved his napkin into the dish and
rubbed his stomach with exaggerated strokes. ‘I’m stuffed. Thanks, Estelle.
Lovely spread.’

She smiled at him and then turned to me. ‘You enjoying
yours, Scarlett?’

‘Yes!’ I said, and spooned in another mouthful. This time, I
tried swallowing it straight down, which gave me an instant brain freeze. I
grabbed my head.

‘Headache, Scarlett?’ asked Jude innocently. ‘Is the
ice-cream a little
cold
for you?’

I glared at Jude. ‘Not at all,’ I said through gritted
teeth.

He started laughing.

‘Hey, you guys – this has been fun, huh?’ said Estelle. ‘It’s
so great to have another couple our age to spend time with. Shall we do it
again soon? There’s this curry recipe I’ve been dying to try out…’

‘I’ll cook!’ I offered quickly.

Estelle looked a little startled, and then pleased. ‘Oh,
well, that’s kind. What’s your forte, Scarlett? Italian? French? Classic
British – I do love a toad in the hole.’

‘Oh no,’ said Jude. ‘Scarlett has quite a specific dish
she’s expert at making.’

Colour flooded my cheeks. This morning. The steamy dream.
Luke slathering me in cheese on toast…

‘Garlic bread,’ he finished, and when I looked at him, he
winked at me and mouthed,
Whole bulb.

I couldn’t help laughing at that, and he reached over and
dropped a light kiss onto my forehead. For the benefit of Adam and Estelle, of
course.

‘Your ice-cream’s melting,’ pointed out Estelle.

‘Yes, right.’

I picked up the spoon, took another mouthful and braced
myself for the burn, but it never came – all I felt was a warmth flowing from a
point on my knee through all of me. I glanced down and caught a glimmer of blue
beneath the tablecloth. Jude. He was chatting seriously to Adam even as he
covertly used his light to ease my pain. Grinning, I went back to my ice-cream,
and as I ate I found myself thinking that while Luke’s catchphrase for Jude had
been ‘I don’t like that guy’, mine was fast becoming the opposite.