Page 27 of One Night on the Island

My phone pips in my pocket, reminding me I’ve reached the only decent reception spot. Ruby’s voice blares out unnaturally loud when I autopilot click the screen. ‘Seriously, girl, no messages? No how you doin’, Rubes, don’t forget your keys because I’m not around to buzz you in?’ She pauses, and then starts again, fast and laughing. ‘I borrowed your blue top from your wardrobe, you know, the one with the red buttons down the back? I have a date tonight. Well, not a date. More of a hook-up, but you get the picture. It’s Damien, so, you know. Other news – your yucca died. I forgot to water it, it’s beyond saving, soz. Oh, and get this! You know Haley, that girl from –’

I click the message off without listening to the rest. I don’t know who Haley is. Rubes has a social circle bigger than the Arctic Circle, I can’t retain all the names. I’ve had that yucca plant for bloody yonks, it was in the flat when I got there, all parched and sorry for itself. I know it was only a plant, but I’d grown to enjoy the ritual of wiping its glossy leaves after I revived it. Besides, she knows perfectly well I love that top, it’s vintage from a market we stumbled through a few summers ago. I don’t like the idea of it crumpled on Ruby’s bedroom floor. I’ve met Damien a couple of times, usually when I’m running out to work and he’s ambling out of Ruby’s to do whatever he does with his days. He seems all right, a tall, angular man with unruly Harry Styles hair and half-buttoned shirts that cling to his body. They have a relationship that involves few words and a lot of action.

I loosen my grip on my phone. My emails are undoubtedly stacking up, but I’m not in the mood for further intrusion. I’m not as addicted to my phone as a lot of people I know, but I’ve certainly allowed it to become a necessary part of my life. My morning alarm, my distraction on the loo, music for the shower, my train journey companion. It keeps me up to date with my family too; a ‘like’ for the gold star Sadie’s eldest received for her project last week, heart-eyes for the tooth fairy’s visit to my youngest nephew. TV stars and celeb gossip. Colleagues and my mum. It drops me momentarily into their lives, a ‘like’ or quick comment so they won’t feel offended if we haven’t spoken in a while. I turn it over in my hands, my portal to the rest of the world. To Ali, chasing my words. To Ruby, wearing my clothes. To scads of email marketing shots I won’t read. I hold my finger down on the side button until it switches off.

You know on The Truman Show, that movie with Jim Carrey where he discovers his world isn’t the whole world after all? I’m walking through the main street of Salvation village experiencing one of those moments. Otter Lodge feels as if it’s floating in a bubble at one end of the island, detached and unaware of the village barely an hour’s walk away. There are a handful of shops, a bakery, a butcher, even a vet surgery. The buildings are built from the same weather-beaten grey stone as Otter Lodge, curls of smoke from chimneys, low, sturdy places made to withstand the tempers of even the fiercest storm. Should I go and buy a loaf, introduce myself? A few splats of rain land on my face as I stand and ruminate. Honestly, this island must be the wettest place on the bloody planet, it rains every five minutes. Glancing up now, the sky is black as a bag. I think of the basket full of umbrellas back at the lodge and wish I’d had the forethought to bring one with me. Island woman fail.

There’s a long, hunkered-in building on my left with SLÁNÚ VILLAGE HALL etched into the stone lintel over its faded yellow wooden doors. One stands slightly ajar, a few notices on the board fixed to the wall beside it. Yoga classes on Friday mornings, coffee and craft on Wednesdays, knitting circle every Monday. Someone in the Truman control room turns the rain dial up and it’s enough to push me through the daffodil-yellow doors in search of shelter.

Several pairs of eyes swivel towards me as I stand there dripping rainwater. I’d expected a deserted village hall, the kind with a bouncy wooden floor worn by skidding kids’ knees, old red-velvet floor-to-ceiling curtains with dust creases because they’re never closed, stacks of chairs dragged around the edges. I was a long way off the mark. Floral wall lights cast a welcome glow across the boarded wood ceiling. It isn’t overly big, and in place of piled-up plastic chairs there’s a loose circle of mismatched armchairs: rosy chintz, buttercup-yellow cotton, faded blue linen. There’s a sofa too and a huge low coffee table covered in knitting paraphernalia. A jug of tall knitting needles, various yarns, patterns and scraps of material. The room smells of coffee and it’s toast warm, making me realize how cold I am. I take in all these details in an abstract way as I blink rainwater from my lashes and pull my red bobble hat off.

‘Umm … hello.’ I aim for confident and end up half shouting. ‘Hello,’ I say again, a little quieter to show I understand the concept of inside voices.

‘Cleo, hi! Come in!’

Brianne bounces up out of an armchair and across to me, and I smile, relieved to see a familiar face.

‘It was raining and I …’ I glance back towards the exit.

She takes my damp hat from my hands. ‘I’ll put it on the radiator to dry,’ she says. ‘Here, give me your coat too.’

I do as I’m told, glad not to be thrown back out in the rain.

‘Ladies, we have a visitor.’ Brianne draws me across the room towards a group of women like I’m a prize specimen. ‘This is Cleo – remember I told you she’s staying down at Otter?’

A slight woman with jet-black Jackie Kennedy hair looks up from her knitting. ‘The honeymooner?’

Brianne steers me into an empty corner of the sofa, before dropping back into her own armchair alongside me. ‘No, Dolores, the non-honeymooner, remember?’ she says. ‘The mix-up we talked about at the lodge?’

Dolores is mid-sixties, and I’d say from the look in her eye she remembers perfectly well about the mix-up. The gold buttons on her tweed Chanel-style jacket gleam like a soldier’s coat when she fixes her gaze on me.

‘Let me introduce you round,’ Brianne says. ‘This is Erin.’ The woman to Brianne’s other side smiles at me and reaches across to squeeze my knee. Her pale-blue eyes are welcoming, the smatter of freckles across her nose reassuringly similar to my eldest sister’s.

‘I’m Doctor Lowry’s wife,’ she says, ‘so you know whose door to knock if you need anything medical.’

The small, elderly woman beside Erin clears her throat. ‘And I’m Carmen, officially the oldest resident on Slánú.’

I notice Dolores’s slight nostril flare; whether it’s because Carmen always trots out the same line or because she disputes it, I don’t know. No one else missed it either.

‘Ailsa.’ The next woman in the circle raises her mug in my direction. I’d say she’s late-fifties or so and her tie-dye top and blue-tipped hair lends her a festival vibe. ‘I met that man you’re not married to a few days back. If I wasn’t a lesbian I’d take him off your hands, let me tell you that for nothing. A fine piece of arse and the kind of face that could get you into all kinds of trouble.’

She catches me off guard and a snort of laughter escapes my throat. The other women around the table all try not to laugh too, except for Dolores who looks pained.

‘I think I need to see this man I’ve heard so much about for myself,’ says the only woman left to speak. We’ve already met – it’s Delta, the pregnant girl I spoke to on top of the hill. She raises her glass of water to me in greeting, and I notice the delicate floral tattoo dancing across the back of her hand and around her forearm. I notice other things about her too, now she isn’t bundled up in rainbow stripes. Like how outrageously pretty she is with luminous green eyes and slightly out-of-control jet-black curls pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head.

‘I don’t think you need any more trouble in your life,’ Dolores says, earning herself a sharp look from Brianne.

‘Thank you, Mam,’ Delta laughs, unfazed. Looking between the two women, I see a strong family resemblance, despite their opposite styles. Same dark hair, same startlingly green eyes. Delta looks back at me. ‘I won’t get up in case I give birth.’

I’m instantly drawn to her, I like her couldn’t-give-a-damn attitude. I could use some of that.

‘Do you knit?’ Dolores tips her head to one side and stares at me. Everyone falls quiet.

‘Actually, yes. Not for a while now, but yes, I do. My gran taught me.’ Thank you, Gran, I think.

I almost see everyone’s shoulders relax. I get the distinct feeling that I’ve just passed Dolores’s initiation test; I’d have been shrugging my damp jacket on again and heading back out into the rain if I didn’t know my way around a pair of knitting needles.

Brianne has a look of genuine surprise on her face. ‘Cleo, that’s so great! We don’t get many new knitters on the island.’

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