Christmas at the Island Hotel - Jenny Colgan Page 0,47

all funny!” shouted Fintan back, cross with himself. “You think I wanted this shit to happen?” He kicked furiously at the dancing sand around his shoes. “You think I wanted any of this shit to happen? None of this! I didn’t want any of this! I don’t want any of this.”

Both of them at this time were panting from the exertion of shouting over the pouring rain and howling gale and crashing waves on the shore of the Endless Beach.

“I don’t want any of this.”

“Any of this?” echoed Gaspard suddenly, a taut, strained look on his face, his wiry body long and braced against the wind.

And the next second they were kissing fiercely, passionately, the turmoil of the storm’s hysteria reflecting their own.

Chapter 35

Saif Hussein was hurriedly eating a sandwich in his office. It was a miserable day, and he’d promised to make house calls rather than risk his older patients catching pneumonia marching over the ben to his surgery. Nevertheless, he checked his Facebook, as usual. He was not a social media user. He did not post pictures or forward inspirational memes or like other people’s pictures of their dogs. He was simply there in case.

It was ritualistic now, just going through the motions. He had his old Syrian mobile number, still paid up and available, connected to his dusty, ridiculous, old, outdated BlackBerry. It never rang. And he still had his Facebook account, with a picture of him and Amena on their wedding day as his profile pic and nothing else. He had absolutely no idea how to source the information as to how many times his profile had been viewed, which was lucky, as Lorna had clicked on and stared at that photo more times than she would ever have admitted to anyone under torture.

Today, there was something. From someone he did not know. In Arabic. That was nothing particularly unusual.

Of course it could be anything. A scam. Someone trying to rip him off, either personally or automatically: there were people who targeted clearly Arabic names in Western countries, making promises about finding relatives or tracking down bank accounts or moving money or all sorts of nefarious things. It could be any of those.

But there was something about this one, though.

Or it could be something else. The avatar of the sender was the little Saudi Arabian Temsa7LY puppet crocodile. Well, he was quite a famous crocodile. Anyone could have one of those.

But also: the favorite video of the boys when they were little. Their very favorite thing.

With shaking hands, Saif clicked on the message. His heart fell. Yup, just more spam, like it always was. GET BEST PRICE! it said. EVERYTHING HEART DESIRE PAGE! FOR NOTHING! NIZ!!! 43!!!!!

That was all. Saif looked at it. Just flotsam, floating through the internet, looking to snag the unwary—nothing out of order. The same as any other day.

But it felt different. It felt different.

Niz, he thought suddenly, rubbing his beard. That didn’t mean “nothing.” Not in any language. And why would you put “43” next to it?

Something stirred. He remembered the book of Qabbani poetry they had had in their little apartment in Damascus. Of course he did not have it now, but the internet could be a wonderful thing. He downloaded the first edition he could find, stumbled to the page he thought would be nearest to page 43 in the original text.

And, suddenly, there it was. One stanza, all alone:

Because my love for you is higher than words, I have decided to fall silent.

He started. And stared. For a long time.

He wrote a note asking if it was her and sent it.

Nothing.

The next day, he tried something else and sent a poem. Then a code.

Still, he received no reply.

Finally, in absolute desperation, he wrote to her straight out, begging and asking her when she could come and what she would do.

The next time he opened his computer, with trembling fingers, the account had gone, vanished forever, and it didn’t matter how many times he logged on, how long he lay awake torturing himself, wondering if perhaps it had indeed been a mistake—that he had been replying to spam, to some bot; that it was all a coincidence and nothing more.

Chapter 36

The papers were still bad; their social media was still a mess and everyone was looking at them suspiciously. But to the kitchen’s surprise, the following day the storm had broken, and Gaspard turned up in a ridiculously mellow mood that nobody understood in the slightest (although no one