Chapter 8
Asmall cluster of foot passengers was waiting to board the ferry on her left side, and a teenager in walking gear smiled as Tilly approached.
A man in a high-vis vest with a flask sticking out of a rucksack raised his eyebrows, and a woman about Tilly's age with a tote bag and a takeaway coffee said hello.
Friendly at least. Joining the back of the queue, Tilly put her case down on its wheels and breathed as The Pride of Darling pulled in.
Watching a man at the front of the ferry in a white polo shirt with blue epaulettes and matching cap walking up and down the deck shouting instructions, Tilly felt a very long way from Fiji or the Maldives.
As the cars on the deck started their engines and a chain came up out of the water, a ramp clanged down, vehicles rumbled off, and activity ensued.
The man in the polo shirt waved them through one by one and clapped a hand on the bonnet of a Toyota whose driver had said something through the window that made him laugh.
Following the queue as he turned and waved the foot passengers on, Tilly's case clattered up the metal ramp behind her.
Finding a spot near the front, just behind the gate, where she could see the island properly as they crossed, Tilly felt as if someone had dropped her into a whole other world.
A few minutes later, the man in the polo shirt made his way along the gathering of foot passengers with his little machine, tapping people's phones here and there. Earwigging, Tilly tuned in.
'Afternoon, Eileen, all good with you?'
'Afternoon.'
'The leg healing, is it, my lover?'
'Bit better, yes, thanks.'
'What a turn up for the books, eh? We don’t want the likes of that again. Looks like you're walking better today.'
'I think so.'
Tilly was next. She looked up as the man approached. 'Hello.'
'Afternoon, my lover.' The man smiled, making the deep, tanned creases in his face go deeper. 'Day out, is it? That earlier fog has lifted more or less. It should be a nice day now the weather's turned.'
'I'm, umm, sort of. Err, no. Single, please.'
'Rightio.' The man started tapping the machine, stopped, looked down at Tilly's case and looked back up at her. 'Oh, sorry, I didn’t see your suitcase. Not coming back today, then?'
'No, no, I won’t be.'
'Staying for a few days with us on Darling?'
Tilly hadn't quite worked out what to say if anyone asked. To be quite honest, she was wondering what the heck she thought she was playing at. Spaced out from the journey and in a daze of the reality of what she’d done, which now felt very much in haste, she coughed. 'A bit longer than that, actually.'
The man's head snapped up. 'Resident?'
Tilly squinted and frowned. 'Sorry? Pardon? Are you asking if I live on Darling Island?'
'It's a Darling byelaw. I have to ask you if you are a resident, which I am fairly sure you’re not.'
'I, well, yes. I think as of today, I suppose I am a resident.'
The man's whole face changed: eyebrows went up, head turned to the side, and a question appeared on his lips. 'You're a Darling resident? Just to clarify, you’ll be permanently on Darling? Is that what you’re telling me?'
Tilly nodded, sighed and tried not to get annoyed.
She appeared to be getting a Spanish Inquisition prior to purchasing a ferry ticket.
Strange. Actually, not strange; the man wasn’t being rude as such, but he was irritating her.
Plus, she was now so tired and cranky that all she wanted to do was crawl into a hole somewhere and sleep.
She felt her back go up and stopped herself from tutting. 'I am, as of about a day ago.'
'Well, there we are. You won't be needing this then, my lover.' The man wiggled the payment machine.
'No?'
'Residents don't pay to cross to Darling.' The man didn't move on to the next passenger but instead stood there with the machine in his hand, looking as if he expected an explanation. 'Where would you be?'
'Where would I be?' Tilly repeated, now losing the will to live and barely able to keep her eyes open.
'Yes, staying on the island as it were, where?'
Tilly hesitated. The first rule of thumb when travelling alone was not to broadcast one's whereabouts. 'Oh, umm, over the other side there.'
The man slowly nodded his head. 'Ahh, the penny's dropping. Must be Margery and Bill's, yes? John here said he'd had a message. The Boat Shed?'
Tilly side-eyed. 'Yes.'
'Well, I never. Gosh, that old place hasn't seen anyone for a while.
Welcome, my lover. The Boat Shed, eh? That's a turn up.
We'd been wondering, and everyone's been keeping an eye on it.
Blimey, it hasn't had anyone there for a good few seasons now, years come to think of it.
Rightio, well, welcome to Darling and good luck. You'll, err, you'll need it.'
'Thank you.' Tilly stood at the rail for a moment with her case beside her and a sort of warm, slightly winded feeling in the middle of her chest. In the space of three minutes, she’d been interrogated and connected to a woman she had spoken to once from Singapore and welcomed.
The island was doing something to her already, and she hadn't even got off the ferry.
Leaning over the railing as the ferry made its way across the water, she watched as Darling Island came up slowly through a haze of blue, the buildings rows of pure white and a few masts of small boats clinking gently.
Squinting, Tilly took everything in as Darling sat shrouded in the haze.
A lighthouse on the headland to the right, a church spire further inland, an old tram trundling past.
Sighing through the tiredness of a twenty-four-hour cross-planet journey, she felt almost as if she were in a dream.
A jumble of roofs trailed up a hill, another old tram rumbled past, and a little queue of cars was waiting on the other side to load.
As the chain rattled under the ferry and water slapped softly at the side, a seagull swooped down into the water just ahead of her.
Tilly stood at the rail and watched her new home come slowly closer, and suddenly felt something through the fear that she’d made a huge mistake that she hadn't felt for ages: a little bit excited.
You know you've arrived on Darling when you step off The Pride of Darling floating bridge and take a trip up the main street on the tram.
With its beautiful sea mists, flora and fauna, and the sound of the old foghorn in the distance, Darling will hold you in her grasp and never let you go.
Darling Island ~ just off the mainland, so very far from care.