One Night on the Island(9)

He finishes his food and reaches for his mug. ‘Yeah, about that.’

I don’t say a word, trying out Ali’s trick of using silence to make other people do what you want them to.

‘I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I’m not going anywhere.’ He pulls his phone out of his pocket and flips it towards me. ‘My emails.’ I don’t take the phone, but I can make out recent dates and headers like ‘Stay as long as you like’ and ‘You’re going to love Salvation’ and ‘Say hi to Raff for me’.

I swallow. ‘It’s not exactly the same thing as a reservation, though, is it? I’ve paid actual money to be here.’

‘Barney, the owner, my cousin, personally offered it to me.’

‘That would be the same owner who’s taken my money?’

‘Via this Brianne woman, who clearly made a mistake. I’ll make sure you get every cent back.’

‘Penny,’ I correct. ‘I don’t want the money back. I’m here now and I want what I’ve paid for.’

We stare at each other.

‘Can you get this Barney on the phone and see what he has to say for himself?’ I spit.

‘I can’t find any reception.’ It’s the first genuine note of angst I’ve heard in his voice.

‘My phone got some at the top of the hill yesterday,’ I say. I know this because as I was sobbing on the boulder like a baby, I got a ‘call me soon and tell me everything’ message from Ruby – a cosmic nudge to pull myself together.

He widens his eyes and I see that he has two different-coloured irises, one warm hazel, one translucent green. It catches me out, and he notices me staring.

‘Heterochromia,’ he says, obviously used to people asking.

‘I’ve only ever seen that once before, on a dog.’ I speak without thinking as I fold away my makeshift bed. ‘Our neighbour when I was a kid had a husky with odd eyes. One sky blue, one brown. And it was vicious too, took a chunk out of my brother’s shin when it escaped into our garden one summer. He got a tattoo to cover the scar as soon as he was old enough, a howling husky. He thought it was ironic. My mum went nuts.’

The American stares at me with those odd eyes, taken aback, and then he half laughs, incredulous.

‘Fine, I’ll try up on the hill in a while.’ His gaze shifts towards the sofa. ‘Mind if I sit on your bed?’

‘Knock yourself out,’ I say, standing up to reach for my coat. ‘I’m going to go and have a nose outside.’ I shove my feet into a pair of yellow-and-white-striped wellies beside the door. There are hats, scarves and umbrellas in a basket too. I drag a blue woollen hat down over my ears and leave him to it.

London has a particular smell. Diesel fumes choked out by early-morning bin lorries and late-night buses, office workers’ shirts damp with sweat, anticipation, dread and ambition. It throbs and twists, the heat of the Underground beneath your feet, the symphony of sirens, a sense of confidence and threat, a pulse, a rush, a beating drum.

Salvation Island is not at all like London. I pick my way along the uneven shoreline and listen to the sound of the ocean rushing over pebbles as I gulp down air as clean as a cold glass of spring water. Yesterday, the sand appeared like a grey, solid mass, but the morning light reveals it now as silver-pale and powdery as it dries. A seabird wheels across the sky and lands on a nearby rock to observe me, grey with a black feathered cap, its bright-orange beak pointed towards me, a guest in its living room. ‘Morning,’ I say, feeling slightly foolish.

I shouldn’t think I look up to the job of wintering here, pale and fragile as I am. Waif-like, one of my sisters once said; like a Bront? heroine, my other sister replied. Both older than me and blonde-haired to my blue-black, they’ve always looked upon me as their beloved doll-child, someone to indulge and coddle. But unlike doll babies, this one grew up into someone who felt suffocated by her position as the baby of the family. Don’t get me wrong, it was a wholly pleasant tenure; I was indulged and loved. And I loved my siblings equally in return, but I can still recall the sensation of their cocoon pressing my teenage wings too close against my sides, of the pressure building inside me to be released. I meet the bird’s eye and respectfully ask that it reserve its judgement; it doesn’t know me yet.

I’ve spent my life being underestimated, and I’ve learned for the most part to either ignore it or use it to my advantage. One of the many reasons I appreciate working for Ali is that she has never once made assumptions about me based on my enjoyment of a romantic dress or the pleasure I take from a well-applied smoky eye. She doesn’t find me waif-like or imagine me roaming the moors in search of my Heathcliff. I was a blank page and she has allowed me to write myself on to it.

I’ll admit it – it might not be the Maldives, but it’s its own kind of eye-wateringly beautiful here. I can only imagine how spectacular it would be on a brighter day. Maybe I’ll even love my time here so much that I’ll return to see it bathed in mid-summer sunlight. First things first though. I need to secure my tenancy at Otter Lodge.





Mack





3 October


Salvation Island


WHAT TIME IS THE NEXT BOAT?


‘I couldn’t get a hold of Barney.’