Page 20 of One Summer

‘What is that?’ I ask him. ‘French toast?’

‘This?’ he says, looking surprised. ‘I thought you said you were a Cornish maid, or were you fibbing?’

‘I was born in Cornwall, but I live in London now. Well, until very recently.’

‘Too bad,’ he says. ‘So many people have to move away for work. Crying shame if you ask me. Who wants to live in a city and get black bogeys from all the smog?’

He takes a big bite of his breakfast.

‘That smells very… sweet,’ I say.

‘This,’ he says, with momentous gravity, ‘is thunder and lightning. Clotted cream thunder clouds and the finest golden syrup lightning over toast. Food of the gods.’

I feel queasy looking at it, but mostly because the sweetness is undercut by the fishy stench of the dock.

He takes an unfeasibly long time to chew each mouthful and hums happily as he does so. Finally, when he’s washed it all down with Irn-Bru, which he calls ‘a good Celtic drink’, he stands up. ‘You ready?’ he asks me.

Am I?

No, not remotely.

I nod. ‘Definitely.’

Nineteen

Bump

If I thought the smell of the dock was bad, the smell of Billy Bound’s fishing boat is infinitely worse. It’s somewhere between rotting haddock and a blocked toilet. I’ve never been the type to get seasick, but with this stench in my nostrils, it’s unavoidable.

I lean over the side of the boat, waiting for the rush of vomit to come, but it doesn’t, and somehow that’s worse. If I could just get it out of me, I know I’d feel better, but it just sits there threatening to appear with every bump of a wave that we hit.

I am in hell.

The only good thing is that with the loud noise of the waves and the boat engine, I can’t hear the miaows coming from Nemo’s carrier. He’s protested so much about this trip that his voice has gone croaky. Am I doing the right thing for him? Should I have let him get admitted to Battersea and get adopted by a quality shelter-approved person? Someone with a big garden and a cat parkour course set up on the wall of their lounge?

‘You’re okay,’ I’ve been telling him in my best soothing voice, but he’s not okay, clearly, and neither am I.

This was a mistake. It is so obviously a mistake that I want to crawl into a padded basket just like Nemo’s and zip up the door behind me.

I wouldn’t ever come out; I’d just stay there until dehydration took me.

I see Billy glance over at me, clearly noting my green complexion.

A smile quirks the corner of his mouth and I know what he’s thinking. Stupid out-of-towner can’t even read a ferry timetable, but deluded herself into believing she’s going to make a life for herself on Loor Island. Won’t last a fortnight. Probably not a week.

Twenty

Micro

We’re just approaching Loor’s small harbour when the sun comes out from behind a bank of cloud and is so dazzling that I have to shield my eyes. The heat is instantly unbearable. This was not what I expected, and I feel a bit short-changed. I wanted weather, I wanted pathetic fallacy. Give me the appropriate meteorological conditions to match the tumult of my soul.

‘It was due to rain,’ I say to Billy, trying not to sound too huffy about it. It’s not his fault, after all, but it feels like his fault. I could believe he’s some sort of ancient Loor god dressed in a bald tank-driver disguise.

‘Very distinct micro-climate, this island,’ he says. ‘You can never go by the official forecast. It’s always wrong when it comes to Loor.’

‘Really?’

‘Yep. They’ve stopped labelling it on the map of the British Isles during the BBC weather forecast. They don’t even mention Loor on the broadcast now. Too many complaints.’

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