Chapter 11
11
After waking at the decadent hour of six-thirty, I scrolled through my phone for a few minutes until the Wi-Fi vanished, made another cup of tea and pulled up the armchair to admire the view out of the sash window. The yellow room overlooked a long lawn, dotted with fruit trees. There were two hammocks, more chairs, a complicated climbing frame and, in one corner, a chicken coop. Beyond the back wall were fields, which I guessed were part of Hawkins Farm, owned by Pip’s family. A herd of cows were meandering along a hedge, and on the horizon behind them glistened a thin, silvery ribbon that I realised, with a flush of delight, was the sea. I looked for any sign of a farmhouse, but there were trees blocking the view on one side, and a cluster of cottages on the other.
Just after seven, Malcolm ambled down the garden, a small child in a mole onesie holding his hand, a slightly older boy dressed in shorts, wellington boots and a cowboy hat walking next to them. The boy, who must have been Jack, reached up to open the door on the chicken coop, and, after a little encouragement, five black and white hens trooped out. Malcolm had a brief tussle with Beanie over whether she needed his help to scatter a carton of food (Beanie won), and they left the birds to their pecking and scratching.
Deciding it was probably breakfast for humans as well as chickens, I took a blissful shower in the en suite wet room and selected the rose sundress that Blessing assured me complemented the strawberry-blonde tones in my hair. What she hadn’t mentioned was that it had straps instead of a proper back, and only reached halfway down my thighs. For a woman who lived in cotton trousers and a T-shirt, I had to fight feeling as though I were heading to breakfast with strangers half dressed.
The scent of scrambled eggs and coffee greeted me at the kitchen door. Malcolm and the girls were sitting at the table eating, while Lily stood at the stove, supervising Jack prodding the contents of a frying pan, an apron over his bare chest.
‘How did you sleep?’ Lily asked, her face a mix of eagerness and trepidation.
‘Brilliantly.’
‘The bed was comfy?’
‘It was wonderful.’
‘Room wasn’t too hot or cold? Because I forgot to show you where the thermostat is…’
‘It was just right.’
‘What about the shower? And did you try the brownie? Because it was a newish recipe and some people find them a bit stodgy…’
‘Ma!’ Flora groaned. ‘Stop with the interrogation. Emmie’s only just got up.’
‘Well, yes, and are you sure the bed was okay? Because it’s still very early to be up when you’re on holiday. Oh, my goodness, was it us? Did we wake you thumping down the stairs like a rhinoceros stampede?’
‘Everything was perfect,’ I said, a little too loudly because this barrage of questions was making me break into a sweat. ‘It was like spending the night in a cosy corner of heaven. Honestly. And the brownie had precisely the right amount of stodge.’
‘Really?’ Lily promptly burst into tears, blotting her face with her apron while Flora came to help Jack scoop eggs onto a plate of toast.
‘Here, Mother. Sit yourself down and eat some eggs. They’re good for baby.’
Flora steered her mum over to the table, Jack following with the plate, and Beanie hopped off the bench and pulled out a chair for her.
‘Mammy gets tired because she’s getting everything ready for the grand opening and growing a baby,’ Jack told me, blue eyes solemn, cowboy hat tipped back over blond waves.
‘Sometimes, the baby makes her cry, but she’s not really sad,’ Beanie added, climbing back onto the bench.
‘Well, if there’s anything I can do, I’d be happy to help,’ I said, startling myself as the words popped out.
‘Be careful what you offer,’ Malcolm said, eyes twinkling as he helped his youngest daughter push the last bit of egg onto her fork. ‘We’re reaching the point where we might just take you up on that, and there’s a heck of a lot to do. You could end up staying longer than originally planned.’
While eating poached eggs that Jack proudly informed me had been laid by, ‘Pecky. No, Clucker. Or that one looks like maybe it was from Mrs Scratchy,’ Lily asked what I had in mind for the day.
‘Pip asked me to let you know that he’ll be in the chicken barn most of the day, but there’s a “welcome home” family meal for him this evening, and he’d love you to come.’
I briefly weighed up the embarrassment at being introduced to Pip’s whole family alongside getting to see him again. No contest.
‘Fantastic.’ Lily grinned. ‘I’m heading into the village this morning, so if you don’t have other plans then we could shop for pasty ingredients, get baking this afternoon and bring some along to the meal?’
‘Had you considered that Emmie might not want to spend the first day of her holiday making pasties?’ Malcolm asked, loading the dishwasher after reminding the children to bring him their empty plates. ‘And by that, I mean have you forgotten you’d promised to help finish painting the lilac room?’
‘Och.’ Lily dismissed that with a wave. ‘It’s only a small room; you’ll be fine without me.’
‘Will I also be fine doing both school runs, picking Beanie up from nursery and chasing up those forms for your da, as well?’
Lily furrowed her brow, looking startlingly like her youngest daughter, who was currently sitting on the floor, struggling to stuff a water bottle into a tiny bag.
‘There’s a long list of things to do in the next two weeks, my love.’
‘I know that.’ Lily sighed. ‘Okay. I suppose Emmie should spend the first day of her holiday out of a kitchen.’
‘We could buy the ingredients this morning, and then I’ll help you paint?’ I suggested. Very aware that, not only was I staying with these people I didn’t know for free, the prospect of an empty afternoon made my skin itch. ‘We could bake tomorrow.’
Malcolm gave his wife a look that clearly said there was no way their first guest was getting roped into painting.
‘How about you come with me to buy the food now, and then enjoy Port Cathan while Malc and I paint? I can pick you up when I get the kids from school.’
‘Perfect.’
We drove four miles back to the village in Lily and Malcolm’s bashed-up seven-seater car, dropping Flora and Jack off at their school and Beanie at the nursery next door, and then headed to the farmers’ market. I was slightly anxious about trying to source ingredients somewhere other than the wholesalers and butcher I was used to. Logic told me that I knew the recipes well enough to improvise if needed, but it had been drilled into me from birth that, when it came to Parsley’s Pasties, deviating from the exact formula was sacrilege.
It was easy enough to find good-quality flour and fat to make a dozen pasties. Lily then impressed me by bartering down the price for the vegetables and herbs. The first obstacle was venison.
‘We don’t have deer on the island,’ Lily explained as we scanned the meat stall.
‘We could try beef?’ I suggested, stomach clenching.
‘Not happening. I’m not having my sisters gloating over my inferior pasty-making skills. We’re doing this right.’
She had a quick back and forth with the butcher, throwing in various pointed remarks about how she’d be purchasing plenty of bacon and sausages from him soon enough, eventually agreeing on a price for him to ship some venison over from the mainland in the next few days, with a minimum order that made my eyes water.
‘That’ll make a lot of pasties.’
‘No worries, I’ve got a huge freezer. Besides, they really won’t last that long.’
The next issue was white Stilton. While the delicatessen had two of the blue varieties (impressive enough, given that official Stilton had to be manufactured in one of three East Midlands counties), there was none of the far rarer white – i.e. mould-free – Stilton.
After an extensive tasting session, I persuaded Lily to use a creamy Lancashire cheese combined with some crumbled feta as a substitute.
‘I think this combination might even be better than the Stilton,’ I said, with the growing realisation that, while Parsley’s pasties were downright delicious, food had changed a lot in the past couple of decades. I made a promise to myself that when I got home, I’d spend more time experimenting with different flavours.
We loaded the food into the car once Lily had finished haggling for everything else on her original list, and then she pointed me in the direction of the seafront, swapping numbers with the promise that, if she didn’t hear from me, I’d meet her by the school gates at three-thirty. By the time I’d strolled to the harbour, it was nearly eleven.
I watched the boats bobbing up and down for a few minutes, but found the weight of several empty hours pressing on my shoulders far more stressful than if I’d been neck-deep in food-prep, admin piling up around my laptop.
Feeling lonely was nothing new. The scary part was feeling lost. Adrift.
Not geographically – although being somewhere so different was a challenge.
I felt lost in time. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t have ideas about what to do, more that, without a clear structure, I was overwhelmed at where to even begin.
So, try what you know works, I told myself, after far too long dithering on the verge of panic. Make a schedule.
I crossed the road and headed for the nearest café with outside seating, called Toasty. The three other tables on the wide pavement were all full of people with local accents, causing a ripple of satisfaction that I’d probably found a decent place to start.
I ordered tea, a slice of gooey fudge cake for now and a panini for a later lunch, aiming for holiday-indulgence despite my stomach being full of eleven varieties of cheese, and by the time the waiter brought it out, the tension had begun to subside as I typed out a schedule on my phone notes app, including window shopping in the tourist shops and a couple of hours on the beach.
I had no idea what to do on a beach for two hours, especially with no Internet, but while browsing in a tiny charity shop, I decided to buy a book, and then stopped at a souvenir shop selling beach towels. My confidence growing by the second, I settled down to read the first few pages.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up to find the tide lapping at my ankles while a labradoodle gobbled my sandwich.
‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry,’ the dog owner cried as she ran over, although her face was contorting in a way that made me think she was trying not to laugh. ‘Pigeon can’t resist mozzarella.’
I scrabbled to my feet, rescuing one trainer from an incoming wave as she yanked the dog away by its collar and clipped on its lead.
‘Is that your book?’ the woman asked, pointing at the novel now bobbing about on the waves.
Before I could tell her that it didn’t matter, it had only cost a pound and the first chapter had sent me to sleep, she’d stripped off her maxi dress, handed me Pigeon’s lead and was wading in.
She looked stunning, thigh-deep in the water as she reached for the book, droplets shimmering on her toned arms, honey-blonde highlights cascading down her back. Somewhere around my age. I imagined she spent her days off surfing or sailing around the headland, not cleaning her already clean house and reading books about places she’d never been to and never would.
‘Here.’ She splashed back out, shaking her barely damp hair like someone in a shampoo commercial before handing me the soggy clump of paper. ‘The least I could do. I’m so sorry this naughty boy ate your lunch. Say sorry, Pigeon!’
Pigeon said nothing, the look on his face implying that he was more proud than sorry.
‘The tide comes in up to the post.’ She pointed at a wooden sign clearly stating, High Tide . ‘But mainlanders are always leaving their stuff on the beach while they go off swimming or whatever, and next thing they know, their phone and keys are halfway to Wales.’
Grabbing my towel, she started vigorously rubbing her legs. ‘I’ve never seen anyone lose their stuff while sat right next to it, though. Were you half asleep?’
‘Fully asleep, actually,’ I said, trying not to cringe. This woman was a goddess. So utterly relaxed in her own skin, which perhaps wasn’t surprising considering how gorgeous it was.
‘Ah.’ She dropped the wet towel on the sand and took Pigeon’s lead back from me. ‘You’re lucky he only got your sandwich, then. This rascal ate my dad’s wallet once, because there was a stick of chewing gum inside it. Thankfully, not the kind that’s poisonous to dogs.’
She began walking back towards the edge of the beach, her dress draped around her shoulders like a shawl. ‘Are you coming?’
In the spirit of my new, wildly spontaneous life, I decided that I was, slipping on my trainers and stuffing the towel into my bag as she chattered on about the dog needing surgery, but her dad’s bank card being ruined from the toothmarks.
After leaving the beach, we crossed over and strolled past a few shops and the Grand hotel before she ducked down a side street, stopping at a tiny hole-in-the-wall food outlet, briefly pausing in her current tale about a local who lost their wedding ring in the sea and then found it inside an oyster shell three years later, to order three lobster rolls.
‘Here,’ she said, once she’d handed one steaming bread roll to me and another to Pigeon. ‘If I’m replacing the sandwich, it might as well be with the best food in Port Cathan.’
I was halfway through my first bite – savouring a whole new burst of flavours – when she stopped nibbling hers.
‘I’m Celine, by the way.’ She grimaced. ‘Not a traditional island name, but my ma’s mad on Titanic .’
‘I’m Emmie.’
She went completely still, the edge of the roll held up against her mouth.
After what felt like an excruciatingly long second, Celine sprang back to life as if someone had un-paused a film.
‘Oh, my goodness. You’re Pasty Girl.’
‘Um, what?’
‘Iris – Pip’s sister – said you’d followed him over here.’ She resumed nibbling. ‘I mean, at first we all thought he’d brought you home to introduce you to the family. That would have caused major drama, for obvious reasons. Crushing on someone who served you a coffee is one thing, but returning with a mainlander in tow is serious business. So, big sighs of relief all round when he explained you’d invited yourself.’
‘I didn’t follow Pip,’ I mumbled. ‘Me visiting the island has nothing to do with him.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s even better, then, isn’t it?’ She dabbed at her lip with a corner of the dress still draped around her shoulders. It was a little disconcerting having this conversation with someone wearing an orange bikini. ‘It did seem a bit extreme. We were worried it might escalate into a restraining-order situation.’
I didn’t ask if it was Pip who’d told Iris that I’d invited myself here because of him. I wasn’t sure I could bear to hear the answer.
‘The thing with Pip, he’s so lovely. Always helping some needy person out. You wouldn’t be the first woman to take it the wrong way.’
‘I didn’t take it the wrong way.’
‘Of course you didn’t. I’m sorry for implying otherwise. Now I’ve met you, it’s obvious you’d never do anything so bonkers. Apart from falling asleep on the beach when the tide’s coming in. That was not a sensible move.’ She giggled, then squinted up at the sky as if searching for something. ‘Anyway, time I was going. It was fascinating to meet you, Emmie. I’ll probably see you around. Come on, Pigeon.’
Being a mainlander who can’t tell the time using the position of the sun, I dug my phone out of my bag and saw that it was probably time I started walking to the school. I’d napped for maybe an hour and a half and had managed a good few hours the night before, but it felt as though years of exhaustion had caught up with me.
I read two texts from Blessing as I started back along the seafront.
People are RAGING about no Parsley’s. Someone threatened to sue the airport for emotional distress and the food court crumbled under the pressure of more than two customers at once. Also, Gregory asked me to say you need to reply to his email, asap, and remember you can’t be closed for more than ten days without permission from the airport director.
Speaking of which – any idea yet when you’ll be back?
I paused on a bench overlooking the sea and sent her a brief reply saying that, no, I didn’t know yet, and not to worry about Gregory; I’d contact him. I then composed a draft email to Gregory telling him that I still had nine days to sign that contract, I’d do it when I was good and ready and him hassling me wasn’t helpful.
I didn’t bother to save the draft, knowing that once I’d logged into the Internet back at the B&B, I’d no longer have the guts to send it.