Page 29 of One Night on the Island

My mouth twists. ‘I don’t know, really. I’m booked for a month, but it’s all a bit up in the air with Mack over at the lodge too.’

‘Must be cosy,’ Delta says, coy. ‘You and Luke Skywalker squashed up together in that tiny place.’

‘Luke Skywalker?’ I say.

‘Bree said he looks like him,’ Delta laughs, poking Brianne, who turns pink.

‘I did not,’ she says hotly.

‘You definitely did,’ Delta insists. ‘In the pub, the other night.’

‘I think you mean Han Solo,’ I say, realizing the villagers have been discussing us over a pint.

‘Do I now?’ Delta’s lively green eyes flash. ‘Then I definitely need to call over and see you guys soon.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Dolores chips in. ‘No grandchild of mine is being born on Wailing Hill.’

‘Is that the name of the hill by Otter Lodge?’ I say. I glance at Delta, remembering the first time we met.

Erin, the doctor’s wife, looks up from counting stitches. ‘There used to be a woman here called Clara, who’d shout herself hoarse up there every morning, some kind of wailing therapy she’d been taught in the Middle East.’

‘She died a while back,’ Delta says, mildly. ‘She was pretty ancient though, so maybe there was something in all that wailing after all.’ I get the feeling that she keeps her own visits to the hill to herself.

‘Not as old as me,’ Carmen sniffs. ‘And I’ve never felt inclined to wail in my life.’

‘Yes, but your books keep you young, Carmen,’ Erin says.

‘Carmen writes erotic thrillers,’ Ailsa fake-whispers, lifting her eyebrows. ‘I’ve learned a thing or two reading them.’

I glance at Carmen, surprised to hear she’s a novelist.

‘Cleo’s a writer too,’ Delta says. ‘Romance books.’

I open my mouth to correct her but different words emerge. ‘More general fiction than romance, really. That’s what I’m working on, anyhow. Amongst other things.’ Even to my own ears I sound flaky.

Brianne sighs. ‘I love a good romance.’

‘Not enough murder for me.’ Carmen curls her lip. ‘I prefer a man with an axe buried in the back of his skull.’

‘Explains why you’ve always been single,’ Dolores says under her breath.

I look down and pretend to count my stitches to hide my laugh. Farmer-ish and hearty? These women refuse to fit in boxes. Good for them. We all fall silent and concentrate on our work for a couple of minutes, lost in thought.

‘Just so I’m clear – you’re not married to Han Solo, then?’ Brianne says eventually, and they all start laughing. And I do too, adding stitches to my needles rather than be drawn further on the subject.

Mack

12 October

Salvation Island

CAN YOU STAND ON ONE LEG WITHOUT FALLING OVER?

I hold my breath, waiting for the phone to connect. ‘Nate?’

‘Dad!’ Nate shouts so loud it’s as if he’s sitting beside me on the boulder. ‘Leo! It’s Dad! Come on!’

‘Hey, buddy,’ I say, laughing though the sound of his voice so far away breaks me. He sounds even younger than his eight years, high-pitched and exuberant.

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