One Night on the Island(29)

‘Go on then,’ I say, sensing an ally.

I sit for a few moments, acclimatizing to the sound of voices around me again after ten quiet days. It’s nothing like the drama or pace of the office, more a low-level hubbub, the soft lilt of their accent music in itself. Brianne picks up the brightly painted needles jug and holds it towards me. ‘Help yourself,’ she says. ‘To the wool too.’

I falter. I can’t really recall how things go with needle sizes and the jug seems to have just about anything you could want.

‘I’m making a scarf.’ Delta holds up the sea-green-and-grey colour-blocked length on her needles. ‘Easiest not to stuff up.’ She rifles through Brianne’s jug and picks out a pair of needles, handing them to me without comment. I appreciate the unfussy help.

Carmen nods towards a bowl of grey woollen yarn. ‘Use that.’ She shoots Dolores a sly look. ‘It’s from my sheep. Best on the island.’

Dolores couldn’t look more as if she were sucking a lemon than if she was sucking an actual lemon. I slowly reach out and pick up a ball of Carmen’s wool.

‘Oh wow, it’s so soft,’ I say before I can stop myself, not even daring to look at Dolores, because the wool does genuinely feel like holding clouds in my hand. On closer inspection, it’s storm grey marled with subtle flecks of natural colours – marine greens and topaz brown. It reminds me of the colours of the Salvation landscape. ‘Thank you, it’s pretty,’ I say.

‘So you have wool and you have needles,’ Brianne says, keen to make me feel included.

‘And now you have coffee too.’ Erin returns, resting her hand on my shoulder briefly as she passes me a mug. ‘You’re all set.’

Gosh, I’m feeling a spot of performance anxiety now, I don’t know if I can even remember how to cast on. Under, over, through. Under, over, through. I can hear my gran’s voice in my ear as clear as when I was eight years old. I take a gulp of coffee, my eyes skittering around the various knitting projects the women are working on. Brianne has a complicated white shawl on the go and Erin is making a silver-grey pompom, presumably to finish off a hat. I drink slowly, using the cover of their chat as a shield while I try to remember what to do. Dolores lowers the sleeve she’s working on every so often to shoot me a watchful look. I wish she wouldn’t, she’s not helping my brain fog. Ailsa tucks her blue hair behind her ears and reaches into a bag at her feet, pulling out fresh needles and some bright yellow yarn.

‘Almost forgot,’ she says. ‘I need to make another new patch for that stool Julia insists on not chucking away.’ She looks at me. ‘My wife has this stool as old as God’s dog in her painting studio, won’t sit on anything else.’

‘Another patch?’ Brianne says, surprised. ‘Sure, it must be more patches than cloth by now.’

Ailsa shrugs, throwing me a discreet wink as she picks up the fresh needles and yarn. And then I get it, and I pick up my needles and yarn too, mirroring her movements until my hands remember the moves for themselves again. Dolores glances up and I smile, proud of the stormy-grey row of stitches that have appeared on my needles. Ailsa shoots me a smile as she ducks to shove the beginnings of the yellow patch back into her bag. I don’t think Julia’s stool needed patching at all.

‘Scarf?’ Delta nods towards my needles.

I hadn’t got that far. ‘Umm, yes,’ I say. ‘Think so.’

‘Good,’ Carmen says. ‘My wool is the warmest on the island.’

Now I’m one hundred per cent certain she’s deliberately winding Dolores up.

‘Or we have a squares basket here,’ Brianne says, pointing to a wicker basket on the floor. ‘We all make a square every now and then and throw it in, and when we have enough, we make them up into a blanket.’ She picks out a couple to show me.

‘Oh, cool idea,’ I say. And what a cool circle of women, I think, so varied in age and life experience and attitude. I hadn’t given much thought to the islanders, but I guess I’d lazily imagined that the residents would fit into a certain type. Farmer-ish. Hearty. I hadn’t expected Delta’s tattoos or Brianne’s on-point cat-eye or Ailsa’s blue-tipped hair. I hadn’t planned on knitting either.

‘Do you do yoga?’ Erin asks. ‘I run classes if you fancy coming along.’

‘I might, thank you,’ I say, warmed by the coffee and sense of inclusion.

‘Will you be staying long?’ Carmen asks, peering at me over her glasses.

My mouth twists. ‘I don’t know, really. I’m booked for a month, but it’s all a bit up in the air with Mack over at the lodge too.’

‘Must be cosy,’ Delta says, coy. ‘You and Luke Skywalker squashed up together in that tiny place.’

‘Luke Skywalker?’ I say.

‘Bree said he looks like him,’ Delta laughs, poking Brianne, who turns pink.

‘I did not,’ she says hotly.

‘You definitely did,’ Delta insists. ‘In the pub, the other night.’

‘I think you mean Han Solo,’ I say, realizing the villagers have been discussing us over a pint.

‘Do I now?’ Delta’s lively green eyes flash. ‘Then I definitely need to call over and see you guys soon.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Dolores chips in. ‘No grandchild of mine is being born on Wailing Hill.’