One Night on the Island(27)

I’ve set my bucket list aside today in favour of striking out and following my nose. I’ve been here for ten days now and I’ve yet to see much beyond the island shop. It isn’t that I’m uninterested in my surroundings; for the first few days I was too wound up by the unexpected complication (aka Mack), and since then I’ve felt like a diver decompressing slowly through the fathoms in order to not get the bends. London is breakneck; here you move to a different beat. I think I’m finally ready now, acclimatized and keen to see what the rest of the island has to offer. A village, I know, and a church, quiet paths and views across the ocean. I’ve never lived in close proximity to the sea. Back home it’s easy to forget that we’re an island nation, especially living in London, but the ebb and flow of the tide is intrinsic to life here. It sets the island rhythm, dictates who leaves and who stays. We’re beholden and dependent on it, and I find that reliance on something so out of our control very soothing.

Even the mountain feels less of an obstacle today. The wind has dropped and I’m not soaked to the skin, and it’s really not all that awful now I’m taking it at my own pace. All the same, I’m glad to reach the boulder at the summit. I park my bum for a few minutes to take stock. God, the air here tastes clean. It’s like drinking diamonds. I gulp it down, imagining the purity party happening in my lungs right now.

My phone pips in my pocket, reminding me I’ve reached the only decent reception spot. Ruby’s voice blares out unnaturally loud when I autopilot click the screen. ‘Seriously, girl, no messages? No how you doin’, Rubes, don’t forget your keys because I’m not around to buzz you in?’ She pauses, and then starts again, fast and laughing. ‘I borrowed your blue top from your wardrobe, you know, the one with the red buttons down the back? I have a date tonight. Well, not a date. More of a hook-up, but you get the picture. It’s Damien, so, you know. Other news – your yucca died. I forgot to water it, it’s beyond saving, soz. Oh, and get this! You know Haley, that girl from –’

I click the message off without listening to the rest. I don’t know who Haley is. Rubes has a social circle bigger than the Arctic Circle, I can’t retain all the names. I’ve had that yucca plant for bloody yonks, it was in the flat when I got there, all parched and sorry for itself. I know it was only a plant, but I’d grown to enjoy the ritual of wiping its glossy leaves after I revived it. Besides, she knows perfectly well I love that top, it’s vintage from a market we stumbled through a few summers ago. I don’t like the idea of it crumpled on Ruby’s bedroom floor. I’ve met Damien a couple of times, usually when I’m running out to work and he’s ambling out of Ruby’s to do whatever he does with his days. He seems all right, a tall, angular man with unruly Harry Styles hair and half-buttoned shirts that cling to his body. They have a relationship that involves few words and a lot of action.

I loosen my grip on my phone. My emails are undoubtedly stacking up, but I’m not in the mood for further intrusion. I’m not as addicted to my phone as a lot of people I know, but I’ve certainly allowed it to become a necessary part of my life. My morning alarm, my distraction on the loo, music for the shower, my train journey companion. It keeps me up to date with my family too; a ‘like’ for the gold star Sadie’s eldest received for her project last week, heart-eyes for the tooth fairy’s visit to my youngest nephew. TV stars and celeb gossip. Colleagues and my mum. It drops me momentarily into their lives, a ‘like’ or quick comment so they won’t feel offended if we haven’t spoken in a while. I turn it over in my hands, my portal to the rest of the world. To Ali, chasing my words. To Ruby, wearing my clothes. To scads of email marketing shots I won’t read. I hold my finger down on the side button until it switches off.

You know on The Truman Show, that movie with Jim Carrey where he discovers his world isn’t the whole world after all? I’m walking through the main street of Salvation village experiencing one of those moments. Otter Lodge feels as if it’s floating in a bubble at one end of the island, detached and unaware of the village barely an hour’s walk away. There are a handful of shops, a bakery, a butcher, even a vet surgery. The buildings are built from the same weather-beaten grey stone as Otter Lodge, curls of smoke from chimneys, low, sturdy places made to withstand the tempers of even the fiercest storm. Should I go and buy a loaf, introduce myself? A few splats of rain land on my face as I stand and ruminate. Honestly, this island must be the wettest place on the bloody planet, it rains every five minutes. Glancing up now, the sky is black as a bag. I think of the basket full of umbrellas back at the lodge and wish I’d had the forethought to bring one with me. Island woman fail.

There’s a long, hunkered-in building on my left with SLáNú VILLAGE HALL etched into the stone lintel over its faded yellow wooden doors. One stands slightly ajar, a few notices on the board fixed to the wall beside it. Yoga classes on Friday mornings, coffee and craft on Wednesdays, knitting circle every Monday. Someone in the Truman control room turns the rain dial up and it’s enough to push me through the daffodil-yellow doors in search of shelter.

Several pairs of eyes swivel towards me as I stand there dripping rainwater. I’d expected a deserted village hall, the kind with a bouncy wooden floor worn by skidding kids’ knees, old red-velvet floor-to-ceiling curtains with dust creases because they’re never closed, stacks of chairs dragged around the edges. I was a long way off the mark. Floral wall lights cast a welcome glow across the boarded wood ceiling. It isn’t overly big, and in place of piled-up plastic chairs there’s a loose circle of mismatched armchairs: rosy chintz, buttercup-yellow cotton, faded blue linen. There’s a sofa too and a huge low coffee table covered in knitting paraphernalia. A jug of tall knitting needles, various yarns, patterns and scraps of material. The room smells of coffee and it’s toast warm, making me realize how cold I am. I take in all these details in an abstract way as I blink rainwater from my lashes and pull my red bobble hat off.