One Night on the Island(54)

‘Looks like we’re doing a quiz,’ Cleo says, unzipping her jacket. ‘I don’t think food’s going to be an option, either.’

‘I think I’m going to die of hunger,’ I say, close to her ear.

‘I’m already hangry,’ she says.

‘Is that the same as horny?’ I whisper.

‘Yes,’ she laughs, picking her way through the tables with her glass held aloft. I feel a sense of camaraderie as I follow her, greeted like an old friend by locals I’ve met and photographed on my daily travels around the island. People have been almost entirely welcoming to me, maybe in part because of my family connection, but also because they’re justifiably proud of their homeland and want to contribute to the exhibition, to make sure their family and their island’s rich history is properly documented. They’ve given me the unhurried gift of their time, sharing stories and folklore that will bring my images to life when I show them to people thousands of miles away. I’ll leave here with a better sense of who I am and where I came from. I’ve always felt a strong sense of family thanks to my mother and grandmother but spending actual time here has imbued my childhood bedtime stories with the salted tang of the sea and the roughened feel of the local stone beneath my hands. I’ll bring my boys here one day, my grandkids too if I’m fortunate enough to have them. It’s grounded my soul to feel part of a place like this.

Delta squeezes along the bench seat to make space for Cleo beside her, and Raff magics a chair out of nowhere for me next to him. My legs jostle for space with Cleo’s beneath the small table, and she laughs and puts her knee between mine. It’s purely practical, but it isn’t something you’d do with someone you weren’t close to. I don’t move away, but all the same, I almost feel I should. As if I’m doing something wrong. It’s not that I’m ashamed; certainly not of Cleo, in any case. Of myself, maybe a little. I imagine what my mother would say if she looked through the steamed-up windows right now. She’s no prude, but she has a strong sense of right and wrong – where I get it from, I guess. I certainly didn’t get my moral compass from my father.

‘Hey, Mack,’ Delta says. ‘What’s your go-to karaoke choice?’

I meet Cleo’s eye quickly across the table. ‘You’re not expecting me to sing, are you?’

Delta couldn’t look more up-to-no-good if she tried. ‘The night’s young, that’s all I’m saying, right?’

‘I don’t sing, I’m afraid.’ I laugh to change the subject. I sing all the time at home but mostly because I consider it my fatherly duty to embarrass the boys.

‘Er, hello, Elvis,’ Cleo grins. ‘I beg to differ.’

‘What’s this?’ Delta leans in, glancing keenly between us. ‘Have you been serenading Cleo, Mack?’

‘I do a rousing version of “All Shook Up”,’ Raff says. ‘Got me out of more than one sticky situation, so it has.’

‘And into a fair few too,’ Delta says, more like his aunt than his niece.

The conversation moves on from singing, and I scratch my head and look down to avoid Cleo’s eye. I’m starting to feel as if coming here together was a mistake.

‘I hope there aren’t too many sports questions,’ Cleo says. ‘Swimming is the only sport I’m any good at.’

‘Have you been to the grotto?’ Raff says. ‘I’ve not been down there for a good many years.’

Cleo and I turn to look at him. ‘The grotto?’

Delta sighs. ‘I used to love it down there when I was a kid.’

‘There’s a cave at the far end of the beach around the headland from Otter Lodge,’ Raff says. ‘You can walk inside at low tide, there’s a pool in there that never empties. You’ll not find purer water anywhere in the world.’

‘Nor colder,’ Delta says. ‘I’d come and show you but, you know, the baby.’ She waves in the direction of her bump. ‘It doesn’t like the hill any more. Or freezing cold water.’

Raff shivers despite the fire in the hearth. ‘Follow the rocks round at low tide, you’ll come to it.’

I nod, my interest piqued at the idea of a new, secret place to photograph. ‘I’ll do that, man, thanks.’

‘How about it yourself, Cleo?’ Delta says. ‘Bit of skinny-dipping is roaring good for your health. No one here ever goes down there unless it’s the height of summer, you’ll be safe from prying eyes.’ She glances at me, laughing. ‘Irish ones, in any case.’

It happens again – the discomfort at any suggestion that people know there’s something happening between me and Cleo. I swallow it down but can’t help running a hand round the back of my neck and rolling my shoulders awkwardly. Cleo smiles when I glance her way and I turn quickly to Raff in the hope of rescue.

‘“Heartbreak Hotel”,’ he says. ‘And “Wooden Heart”. That man sure knew how to woo the girls, I’ll give him that.’

And we’re back to Elvis.

‘Nothing like a man in uniform,’ Delta says.

‘How’s your mom?’ I ask. I’m clutching at straws; I don’t expect Delta to have startling news to impart about Dolores. ‘I took some great photographs of her working in the library a couple of weeks ago, I hope she’ll approve.’ Of all the residents on the island, Dolores was one of the most reluctant to be caught on camera.