Page 40 of One Night on the Island

‘You read my mind,’ I say.

‘It’s beef or beef,’ Raff says. ‘Or there’s beef if you prefer.’

A bubble of laughter slides up my windpipe. ‘Beef sounds good.’

Raff catches the eye of the girl behind the bar. ‘Bring Mack a plate of food over, Tara, will you?’

I appreciate the simplicity of not having a choice, the way he’s drawn me in and made a place for me among the locals. He makes it look effortless but beneath his natural bonhomie I sense a person who’s spent his life putting others at ease. It’s not a skill you can learn.

A pint of Guinness and a plate of good roast beef arrives in short order, and I find myself relaxing into the ebb and flow of chatter as people speak across tables to each other and Raff introduces me to people I haven’t yet met on my travels around the island.

‘So you’re a photographer, then?’ Julia says, eyeing my camera. ‘I take a few pictures myself. You’ll have to call in.’

‘I’d like that,’ I say. I warm to Julia straight away, just as I did to Ailsa. She has a splatter of pale-green paint in her dark hair and traces of different colours on her hands, as if she just put down her brushes and wandered over to the pub for food. I like that kind of casual.

‘Watch her, she’ll have you on her home-made wine,’ Ailsa warns.

‘Hell, I’d like that too,’ I grin.

‘You won’t,’ Raff says. ‘It’s like boiled goat’s piss.’

Julia doesn’t look particularly offended. ‘It all goes down the same way, eh?’

‘Careful, Mack. I only had her stuff once. I couldn’t feel my legs for two days afterwards.’ Delta leans in from the far end of the table, a feat given the size of her bump. ‘And I was only sixteen or so, I don’t know what they were thinking giving that kind of rocket fuel to a kid.’

‘You helped yourself, as I recall. My niece was the most badly behaved teenager this island has ever seen,’ Raff says to me, nodding towards Delta. ‘Julia’s moonshine was the least of your stunts, child. You ran poor Dolores ragged.’

The look on his face tells me that he didn’t actually feel the slightest bit sorry for his sister, and the laughter in Delta’s eye suggests that she and Raff are probably even more trouble together than apart. I’ve only met Dolores in passing, but Cleo tells me she’s a tough nut to crack. I’m reserving judgement. I know from experience that there needs to be a few straight men around, the designated driver, the safe pair of hands. It’s not always a choice to be cast in that role. It’s much easier to be the one who skips through life responsibility free, right? My father strolls into my head and I wilfully shove him to the back because he’s getting way too much airtime lately.

‘Do you do headshots, Mack?’ Raff taps my camera, rakish. ‘I need some new ones for my agent.’

‘You’re an actor?’

He frowns and lays a hand on his heart, suddenly serious. ‘You don’t recognize me?’

Everyone falls silent for a second and stares at me, and darts of panic shoot behind my ribs. I don’t want to offend these people just when I was starting to feel accepted.

‘I …’

And then they burst out laughing, and I realize the joke is on me. ‘You had me there for a minute,’ I say, shaking my head.

An old guy a couple of stools away eyes my plate. ‘You want that Yorkshire, lad?’

I look at it too. I do kind of want it. ‘I tried them for the first time last week,’ I say. ‘Cleo made some.’ The one on my plate doesn’t look anywhere near as good, so I nod for my neighbour to help himself.

‘Where is she?’ Delta asks. ‘She needs to wriggle her bum up here, I told her so.’

‘Back at the lodge, I think,’ I say, aiming for nonchalance. ‘We do our own thing.’

I don’t miss the way people flick glances at each other and not at me.

‘Pretty lass,’ Julia says.

‘Great hair.’ Delta slides me a look. ‘Bit Princess Leia.’

I frown a little, confused by the comparison.

My empty plate is whisked away and my empty glass replaced with a fresh pint even though I haven’t ordered one. Guinness is the island lifeblood. I tried to order a bottle of beer my first time in here, and Raff ignored my request and slid a pint of the black stuff across the bar at me. ‘It’s Guinness, Guinness or Guinness in here, fella,’ he’d said, and a quick glance around the other drinkers proved his point.

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