The Island Home: The Book Making Life Brighter in 2021 Libby Page Newest Edition 2025
The Island Home: The Book Making Life Brighter in 2021 Libby Page Newest Edition 2025
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Dedication
For Bruno
Title Page
THE
ISLAND
HOME
LIBBY PAGE
CONTENTS
Dedication
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Acknowledgements
Credits
About the author
Also by Libby Page
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
LORNA
Euston station, 8.30 p.m. It’s midsummer and London sweats and steams,
clutched in the middle of a heatwave. The after-work crowds have thinned
but the concourse is still busy, figures in damp, crumpled suits staring at the
announcement boards where times and destinations flash in orange letters.
Families huddle in groups, mothers fanning young children and handing out
water bottles as they wait, perched on piles of luggage. A surprising scent of
coconut wafts from the glowing doorway of The Body Shop, mingling with
the sourer human smells of hundreds of hot passengers leaving and arriving,
carrying bags and their own secret burdens. A few discarded evening
newspapers litter the floor, trampled underfoot by rushing commuters and
holidaymakers. A police officer patrols the perimeter of the station, an
Alsatian sniffing the air at the end of a short lead. Occasionally the officer
pauses on his route to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.
We are early. The 9.20 train to Fort William is up there on the board but
there’s no platform yet. Beside me my daughter Ella pulls her new pink
suitcase as though it’s empty, her steps light. My own case feels much heavier
as it drags behind me. Partly because this whole trip was Ella’s idea really,
not mine.
I glance across at her, my teenage daughter on the cusp of turning fourteen
in just a few weeks’ time, as she pauses, staring eagerly up at the clock. Her
pale cheeks are flushed with excitement and the warmth of this summer
evening and her auburn hair hangs loose, for once in natural curls rather than
the poker-straight style she spends nearly an hour achieving each morning.
When Ella asked for hair straighteners for Christmas, I refused at first. I’ve
always loved her curls, ever since she was a baby and the soft ringlets first
started to grow. I’ll always remember the sweet, talcum-powder scent of her
head when she was a baby and the feeling of her hair tickling my face when
she struggled to sleep as a toddler and shared my bed. Back then I’d often
wake with Ella’s face pressed against my cheek. Her reddish-brown curls
would be the first thing I’d see when I opened my eyes. The thought of her
singeing them makes me wince. And yet she was insistent about those
straighteners, pleading with me for the first time in her life. So I bought them.
When she opened them she nearly knocked over the small Christmas tree in
our flat as she leapt over to thank me with an eager hug. That’s partly why I
agreed to this trip: it’s only the second time she’s ever truly asked anything of
me.
My hair is the same shade as Ella’s but even wilder – I long ago gave up
trying to control my own curls and today they’re pulled off my face in a
messy bun, the nape of my neck damp from the heat and the rucksack on my
back. How is it so hot? Surely it should be cooler this late in the day, but the
heat clings to me.
‘Shall we grab some food while we wait?’
Ella glances across at my question. There’s wariness in her eyes. We’ve
always been so close: the two of us against the world. But these past few
days have tested us like nothing else. I can feel my emotions simmering
beneath the surface – anger, fear, grief – but I push them down like clothes
stuffed into an overfull suitcase. I may have my reservations about being here
but here we are. In the end I agreed to this trip for my daughter’s sake. And
perhaps for my own too. After all these years, maybe it’s finally time to go
back to the place I once escaped and to face everything that I left behind.
‘Leon?’ I suggest, knowing, of course, that it’s her favourite. Her lips part
into a broad smile and there it is, one of those surging swells of love that so
often take me off guard, a love that fills up every cell in my body and makes
me feel as though I could levitate. For a second, I forget the reason why we
are here and everything that awaits us at the end of our long journey and link
my arm through my daughter’s.
‘Good idea, Mum,’ she replies.
Ella waits with the bags while I queue for our food. Ahead of me in the
line is a family – two grandparents, a grown-up daughter and three children,
one in a buggy, one on the mother’s hip and one holding the hand of his
grandfather. My stomach twists as I watch them.
‘You all have what you like,’ the grandfather says, reaching for his wallet.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ replies his daughter, smiling wearily but gratefully.
I look away, blinking quickly.
‘Next please!’ calls the server and I return my attention to the menu,
choosing two halloumi wraps and the waffle fries Ella loves. A few seconds
later I’m holding the steaming foil parcels and returning to our table outside
where Ella is wiping a debris of discarded food and litter into a paper
napkin. On a neighbouring table a pigeon with one gnarled pink foot hops
among a scattering of leftovers. From up here we have a view of the
concourse below as well as the platform boards. I can hear the hum of the
street outside, the buses pulling up in front of the station and the Friday night
traffic crawling down the Euston Road. Even inside, the air feels heavy with
fumes and dust: the hot, heavy fug of the city that I have grown used to over
the past twenty-two years.
I moved here as a teenager, arriving with a stolen suitcase and a head full
of dreams. I quickly learnt how brutal the city can be though, especially when
you are alone with nothing but a few hundred pounds in coins and rolled-up
notes stuffed in your rucksack. I took whatever jobs I could find. Temp jobs
and then years of bar work. It was only when I fell pregnant with Ella at
twenty-six that I decided I needed a proper career and trained as a teacher,
helped out by a hefty student loan and the council flat I managed to get for us
both in a sixties block on the Isle of Dogs, that not-quite island encircled by
the muddy River Thames where the shining tower blocks of Canary Wharf
glint garishly on the horizon. Over the years I managed to save just enough
money to buy our flat from the council, although each month I still feel the
same panic that I might not be able to meet my mortgage payment. I always
do manage it but the fear is still there, as familiar by now as the sound of my
own breath. I’ve always been anxious about money. Because if something
happens – if I get sick or the boiler breaks or I suddenly need something
important for Ella, there’s no one to bail us out. I know this well because all
of those things and plenty more have happened over the years. And each time
I’ve had to find some way to make ends meet by myself.
Ella’s phone chirps and she looks down, her hair falling slightly in front of
her face. She smiles and types a reply, her thumbs tapping at incredible speed
on the screen.
‘Ruby and Farah?’ I ask. The two girls have been Ella’s best friends since
primary school. I’m used to seeing them at our flat, preparing snacks for the
three of them and hearing their laughter spilling out of Ella’s bedroom. I
know it makes me a terrible mother to admit it, but many times over the years
that noise has caused an involuntary pang of jealousy in my gut. Being
envious of your own daughter does not feature on the ‘ways to be a good
mum’ list. But I do envy Ella’s closeness with her friends. I lost touch with
the ones I used to have and have struggled to make them ever since. Making
friends means answering too many questions and revealing too much about
yourself and your past. It’s simpler to keep to myself, devoting my life to Ella
and my job. Mostly I’ve got used to it but sometimes the loneliness catches
me like a splinter.
‘No,’ Ella replies, not looking up, ‘Molly.’
At the mention of the name the reality of the nature of this trip hits me
again, throwing me off balance. Is it too late to turn around and head home?
We could catch the tube and then the DLR and be back at our flat in less than
an hour. Then we could spend the summer how we’d originally planned –
visiting galleries and ice-cream shops and reading magazines together in the
parks. Just me and Ella, the way it’s always been.
My own phone pings and I reach for it in my pocket, the familiar motion
distracting me. It’s Cheryl.
‘Have a safe journey,’ the message reads. ‘Let me know when you get
there. xxx’
The message calms me slightly. If I say that Cheryl is my closest friend it’s
only really a half-truth. The full truth is that she is my only friend. We first
met five years ago when she started as a teaching assistant at the school
where I was then a year head and am now deputy head. I remember spotting
her on playground duty that first day, playing football with the kids, her large
gold hoop earrings swinging as she ran and the children chased her, her
smiling mouth painted in bright red. Her laughter rose high and loud above
the background din of the playground and I remember feeling an instant need
to get to know her – this woman who could make herself heard over a rabble
of children. She caught my eye and waved, pausing in the game for a moment
and coming over to introduce herself. I’m not sure if we’d ever have become
friends if she hadn’t been so persistent though, chatting cheerfully to me
every day at school and inviting me to go for a drink together after work. At
first, she did most of the talking, but over time and as we grew closer she
gently coaxed out details of my past. She’s the only person who knows at
least parts of my story, parts I’ve always glossed over with other colleagues
or with the mums of Ella’s friends who’ve at times made unsuccessful
attempts to draw me into their groups.
Cheryl is ten years younger than me and sometimes it shows – when she
tries to talk to me about what songs are in the charts and celebrity gossip and
I just nod and smile blankly. But mostly the age gap between us doesn’t
matter. We’ve grown close over the years and we each know enough about
what it means to work at an inner-city primary school run by a chauvinist to
understand one another well.
‘Thanks,’ I type back. ‘End of term, hurrah! No more Dave the creep for
six weeks! xx’
Dave, or Mr Phillips to the children, is our head and my boss. He’s always
made me somewhat uneasy, but ever since he appointed me as his deputy six
months ago his inappropriate comments have become worse. If I knew it was
going to be like this then perhaps I might have turned down the job. But I
needed the extra money. And after ten years of teaching at the same school it
felt like the recognition I’d been craving for so long. The recognition I
deserved. Now I’m not even sure I truly earned the job or whether I was
appointed for some other reason entirely. It’s a depressing thought.
‘I’m already on to my third glass of wine,’ Cheryl replies. I smile,
picturing my friend in the flat I’ve come to know so well. For my fortieth
birthday last year instead of a big party Ella and I spent it at Cheryl’s with
her husband Mike and their two-year-old Frankie. Cheryl cooked for us
while Mike dutifully topped up our wine glasses, pouring a splash for Ella to
try too. It was a good evening and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any
differently. But there’s still a part of me that imagined something bigger and
noisier, if only I lived a bigger and noisier life. It’s a thought that has visited
regularly over the years – at birthdays, Christmases and New Years when
Ella and I have celebrated alone in our flat again. We have our traditions:
matching pyjamas at Christmas and watching the fireworks from our window
at New Year with mugs of hot chocolate towering with marshmallows. But
after we’ve said our goodnights I always stay awake, wondering if I’ve let
Ella down by not being able to give her more than this – more than me.
Another message arrives from Cheryl and I know that she has seen through
my joking tone. Of course she has; she knows me well.
A lump rises in my throat. I picture the black dress folded at the bottom of
my suitcase and all the miles and all those years that stand between this
station and our final destination.
‘Platform one,’ says Ella suddenly, her voice high-pitched with
excitement. I glance up at the board; is it really that time already? My pulse
quickens. This is it. It’s too late to turn back now and besides, I made a
promise to my daughter. I can’t let her down.
We gather our things and move through the station, passing a stand where
baguettes sweat behind glass and another where a florist struggles to keep
rainbow bouquets from wilting in the heat. Above us dozens of other
possible destinations glow in amber, reminding me of all the other places we
could be heading. Notices advise us to be alert to anything suspicious and
adverts blink and flash in bright lights. And my daughter and I roll our
suitcases behind us, weaving in and out of other passengers.
The Caledonian Sleeper waits at the platform, bottle green with an
emblem of a stag on the side of each carriage.
‘Is it your first time travelling with us?’ asks a pink-faced man in a green
uniform with a thick Glaswegian accent. He clutches a clipboard and pulls
briefly at the collar of his shirt.
‘Yes!’ Ella says.
‘No,’ I say at the exact same moment.
This train might look slightly more modern than the one I caught to London
when I was eighteen, but I still remember it well. The man in the uniform
looks at us both, frowning for a second before regaining his charming
customer-service smile.
‘Well, here is a brochure about your journey,’ he says, handing it to Ella.
‘You’ll find a card in your room, if you could write down your preferences
for breakfast. You’re in coach G, right down the other end. Just keep
walking.’
‘Perhaps we’re walking to Scotland,’ Ella jokes as we head further and
further down the platform. I don’t laugh though; suddenly I can’t even find a
smile.
Finally, we find coach G and another staff member ticks our names off a
list and helps us carry our luggage on board. The train’s corridors are so
narrow that we have to walk to our berth single file. If we met someone
coming the other way we’d have to back up like cars reversing on a country
lane. Luckily the carriage is empty for now.
Ella opens the door onto a room not much larger than an airing cupboard.
‘This is so cool!’
My daughter has always been an optimist. The room contains a sink, a
narrow set of bunkbeds and a small window. Ella dumps her suitcase on the
floor and clambers straight up the ladder onto the top bunk. There’s just
enough space for me to step inside and close the door. As Ella tests out her
bed, I stow my suitcase under the bottom bunk and lift Ella’s onto the rack
above the sink.
The train is mostly as I remember it, with its tiny corridors and long
windows. But it’s my first time inside one of the cabins. When I took the
sleeper train all those years ago I spent the night in the seated carriage. All
the saved tips from my job at the local pub hadn’t been enough to cover a
cabin, especially as I knew I’d need to keep money for when I arrived in
London. I didn’t sleep all night. Instead I sat wide awake, running my fingers
over a pebble stowed in my coat pocket and staring out the window into the
darkness.
At 9.25 p.m. I feel a jolt in my stomach as the train pulls away from the
station.
‘We’re moving!’ Ella says from her top bunk. She’s already changed into
her pyjamas and is lying on her bed. Her voice brims with anticipation.
Standing by the window, I watch as the train eases away from the station
and rolls through the city. The sky is a dark lavender washed with peach, city
lights starting to glow as evening draws in. Endless office blocks and rows
of terraced houses hug the railway line, bricks stained black from pollution.
A few lone workers are still visible inside one office while in another I spot
a cleaner pushing a hoover steadily between empty desks. I look up at the
tower blocks not dissimilar to our own, lives cramped side by side and on
top of one another. I wonder if any of the people inside these blocks know
their neighbours, or whether it’s just me who has lived alongside strangers
for most of my life. Some of the blocks we pass are sleek and modern,
geometric shapes cut out of steel and glass. But squashed right up close too
are buildings with boarded-up windows, supermarkets housed in ugly squat
cubes, car parks and junk yards and building sites where cranes make a mess
of the skyline. I picture the city stretching beyond the boundaries of what I
can see, rolling out in a sprawling mass of buildings and streets, parks and
stamp-sized gardens, the backbone of the River Thames arching through its
centre. Millions of lives rubbing up alongside one another, crossing over and
converging in the sounds of neighbours shouting and the smell of cooking
seeping through ceilings and walls.
I can’t help but think of our flat, dark and empty now. The collection of
stones and smoothed glass on the kitchen windowsill, collected from my
daily runs alongside the river. The small living room with photos of Ella on
the walls and a few of the two of us, and the growing patch of damp in the
corner that I really need to get sorted. And Ella’s bedroom, the bed neatly
made and a soft-toy puffin named Dora resting on her pillow. Whenever I
step inside my daughter’s room I dread seeing that Dora has been relegated
from the bed. It will happen one day, just like so many things I fear about my
daughter getting older. But each time I see that floppy, faded puffin there I
thank god it’s not today.
Outside the train window the city continues to flash by. This city has been
my home for over twenty years but as the train edges towards the suburbs and
then out into open countryside it’s as though a thread linking me to London
strains and then snaps. In its place I feel the tug of a much older connection,
one I’ve tried to ignore for years but that I feel now pulsing under my skin.
It’s a connection that pulls me north. I picture mountains and black lochs,
sheep and sunburnt bracken. Large, sweeping skies and teal sea. Something a
bit like terror and something like excitement flutters uncontrolled inside. I
gave everything to escape the place where I grew up. And I have resisted
making this journey back ever since. I fought against it, ran away from it, hid
from it. But despite it all, there is a part of me that longs to see a mountain
again.
CHAPTER 2
ALICE
Dust billows in clouds as I give the cushions another firm thump. I don’t
know why but this house just seems to attract dust. I’ve spent the whole
morning cleaning: hoovering, dusting and washing windows until they gleam
and the beach and the sea can be seen crystal clear through the glass. I may
have lived here for years but I still can’t get over this view. I’m not sure I
ever will. Beyond the house the farm stretches around us in rolling green
fields and stone walls, Jack’s polytunnel (my husband’s pride and joy)
hunkered in the shelter of the cliffs at the back of the farm. From the living-
room window we have a perfect view down the hill that gives this farm its
name and onto the beach.
I’ve always thought of it as our beach. Silly really, because all the
islanders use it too, for walking dogs, children’s beach parties and barbecues
in the summer. But I’ll always think of it as ours. It’s where Jack and I first
got to know each other all those years ago, walking side by side on the sand,
him too shy to look me in the eye and me chatting so much, like I always do
when I’m nervous, that I worried I bored him. Back then I was just a visitor
to the island, a volunteer helping out on the farm on my gap year. Although
the farm back then was nothing like it is today; you’d hardly recognise it. It
had been neglected for years, the fields barren, the stone walls tumbling
down, an air of forgotten-ness everywhere. Jack and the other islanders and
volunteers nursed the place back to life. I suppose I played my part too, in a
small way. And now it’s our home and one of the things I love most about it
is having the beach right there on our doorstep. The beach has been my and
Molly’s playground over the years and even though she’s now too old for
building sandcastles and making driftwood mermaids I’ll always remember
the first tottering steps she took there, the way she squealed with joy as a
toddler as Jack and I swung her between us, her toes skimming the surface of
the cold sea.
As though she knows I’m thinking about her, my daughter bursts into the
living room, her short, light brown hair sticking up in all directions on her
head and a wide smile on her face. Fourteen years of loving her and it still
catches me unprepared sometimes, this fierceness.
‘Have you tidied your room?’ I ask her. She nods.
‘Yes, Mum. And I’ve made up the camp bed and cleared space in my
wardrobe.’
‘You star.’
She grins.
‘Can I go meet Olive now?’
‘Of course, have fun.’
As she turns to leave, her phone beeps and she pulls it quickly from the
back pocket of her denim shorts. Looking down, her face spreads into an
even wider smile.
‘Olive?’ I ask. But she shakes her head.
‘Ella.’
I can see the excitement on her face, the eagerness and anticipation. It’s
been there since Jack and I agreed to the plan, so carefully organised
between the two girls. I feel a sort of excitement too with a mix of nerves and
anxiety thrown in for good measure. How will the next few days go? Will we
get through it? How will Jack cope? And what will our visitors think of the
house, the farm, and me?
‘OK, I’m going now,’ Molly says, slipping the phone back into her pocket.
I wave from my spot by the sofa and then she is gone in a blur of energy and
movement. I watch her half-walking, half-running down the bumpy farm track
and spot her best friend Olive in the distance waiting for her. Turning back to
the room, I give the pillows another thump.
‘I think you have sufficiently plumped those cushions,’ comes a voice from
the doorway.
Jack leans against the frame, his grey eyes watching me, his face serious.
He’s dressed in his battered, mud-stained jeans and a grey T-shirt. I picture
his muddy boots by the doorstep and the green overalls he wears for the
heavier-duty farm work. He must be in for a tea break. As I watch him I
picture him when we first met, him nineteen, me just turned eighteen. Back
then his hair was longer and free of any specks of grey, his curls messy, his
expression serious like it is now. He was so earnest as he worked on the
farm but so gentle too, planting seeds with delicacy and care. Just one of the
reasons why I fell in love with him.
‘You’re probably right,’ I reply, straightening the throw on the back of the
sofa. ‘There might be no cushion left if I keep going.’
I expect him to smile, waiting for the skin around his eyes to crinkle and
for his irises to sparkle the way they do for me and Molly. His smiles are
like an opening, the window into the side of him that wept on our wedding
day and when Molly was born and that collects beautiful pebbles and shells
from the beach, claiming them like treasure. But he remains stony.
‘I don’t know why you’re bothering.’
I know I shouldn’t care, but his words sting. I’ve been working all day,
trying to make the place look as inviting as possible.
‘We don’t often have visitors.’
As I say it I think of my sisters and a lump swells in my throat. They visit
once or twice a year and I try to get over to the mainland to see them too, but
it’s hard. The journey takes a full day, longer if there’s a storm and the ferry
is cancelled. It’s always been the hardest thing about living on a Hebridean
island, harder than the long winters when it feels sometimes as though the sun
may never rise. My older sisters have busy lives, Caitlin a GP just outside
Edinburgh and Shona teaching mathematics at Aberdeen University. They
have their families too, a boy and a girl for Caitlin and three boys for Shona:
my gorgeous niece and nephews. It’s been a long time since we were all
together – last autumn when my sisters came with their families and our
parents joined us for a weekend too. I remember how bereft I felt after they
all left, wandering through our near-empty house, changing sheets and airing
out bedrooms. Shona’s youngest, Finlay, left a soft-toy monkey behind and
when I found it beneath his bed I hugged it to my chest, breathing in his little-
boy smell before calling Shona to let her know the beloved toy was not lost.
Jack’s face is hard as he runs a hand along the mantelpiece.
‘We don’t even know how long they’ll stay. It just seems a waste of time to
me.’
I give the sofa one final smooth with my hand and turn for the door,
squeezing past my husband and trying not to let him hear hurt in my voice.
‘I’ve got to go, I’ve got my class. I’ll see you later.’
I change into my yoga gear and climb into the Land Rover, trying to brush
off the conversation with Jack as I drive. I know he’s just upset. This is all so
hard for him. I focus on the view as I make my way across the island. Kip
looks its loveliest today, the sun high in an endless blue sky and the sea
stretching out in all directions. The mountain at the centre of the island glows
golden in the sunlight, the pine forest deep green at its base as though the
branches have been dipped in emerald ink. I still remember arriving here for
the first time. It was raining that day, as it so often is up here. I never
imagined back then that this island would change my life. I never thought that
I would stay.
It doesn’t take long to reach the community hall where I run my classes.
The women are waiting for me outside, chatting in the sunshine. They are my
students but more importantly, my friends. I climb out of the car and greet
them with a smile.
‘Beautiful day,’ says Emma. She is a few years older than me, with pixie-
cropped hair and a string of tattoos wrapping round her upper arms. She went
to school with Jack and like him stayed on the island, marrying another island
native, Duncan McLeod. Together with Duncan’s brother George they run the
island’s tiny brewery.
‘No Joy today?’ I ask, turning to Tess, a woman in her late twenties in tie-
dyed harem pants and a loose-fitting orange shirt.
‘No,’ she replies. ‘She’s looking after Harry.’
Tess and Joy own a holiday let on the island and run walking tours and
photography workshops for tourists. Their baby Harry is nine months old and
sometimes joins my classes, sliding along the hall floor on his belly. No one
seems to mind as he crawls beneath their downward dog, giggling as he
does. But he’s teething at the moment, poor thing, and can be temperamental.
‘How about taking the class outside? The hall is so damned stuffy,’
suggests Morag, my oldest class member at eighty, but surprisingly flexible
for her age. She tells me she used to be a ballet dancer, although I’m not sure
whether I believe her because over the years she has claimed to have been a
ship’s captain, a bomb disposal expert, a stunt double, a horse trainer and the
first female firefighter in Scotland. Today she is dressed in a pair of bright
yellow leggings and a baggy white T-shirt with ‘Choose Love’ written on it
in bold black letters.
‘Good idea. Let’s make the most of the weather.’
‘While it lasts,’ adds Kerstin, the tall woman in her fifties who left a busy
job in banking (and her husband) five or so years ago to move here with her
cats and has been coming to my classes ever since.
‘Is this all of us?’ I ask the group.
‘Yes,’ replies Tess, ‘Sarah and Brenda are still on the mainland and Jean
wasn’t feeling up to it today.’
Brenda is in her sixties and has bright pink hair that always makes me
smile and makes her easy to spot when she takes her long walks across the
island. She was one of the first friends I made when I moved here. She’d
arrived just a couple of years before me so I guess she understood what it felt
like to be a newcomer. Now, she’s Molly’s godmother and is the very best
kind: without children of her own she spoils Molly with outlandish but
thoughtful gifts and her door is always open for cups of tea and homemade
biscuits. Molly and I may be close and she may have her friendships with
Olive and the other island children, but it has always been a comfort to know
there is another adult besides Jack and me whom she can turn to if she needs
to. Not that she just has the one. That’s one thing I hadn’t quite realised when
I became pregnant: when you have a baby here they become the island’s
child, not just your own. Sarah’s another of my closest friends, an island
native like Emma, and Molly’s best friend Olive’s mum. And Jean is the
island school’s headteacher, but over the years has become my friend too.
The same qualities that make her a great teacher – her curiosity and kindness
and the interest she takes in everyone from small children to adults – also
make her a great friend. A flash of worry sparks in my mind as I think of her.
I hope she’s doing all right. Despite my concerns, I force a smile.
‘OK then, let’s get going.’
I may not have my sisters close by, but this somewhat motley group of
island women makes up for it. We fetch the yoga mats from the hall and carry
them under our arms down to the beach, chatting as we walk. We unroll the
mats on the sand and I keep the class gentle and slow-moving, not feeling that
energetic after all the cleaning. That is one of the great advantages of being
the teacher.
I run classes for tourists too and longer retreats if I get enough interest, but
my friends are my most loyal attendees and these are the classes I enjoy
teaching the most.
After the session we sit side by side on our mats, facing the sea. Gulls
swoop low over the water, the distant ridgeline of the mainland just visible
on the horizon. The sun is warm on my bare arms but there’s a cool sea
breeze. Morag reaches into the waistband of her leggings and pulls out a tiny
hip flask, taking a quick swig before stowing it safely out of sight. Tess leans
back on her hands, closing her eyes and tilting her face to the sun. I glance at
the bags beneath her eyes but also the contented glow that radiates from her
and feel a pang as I remember Molly as a baby.
‘So, they arrive tomorrow then?’ asks Kerstin.
The other women turn to look at me expectantly. I stretch out my legs,
pushing my bare feet into the damp sand.
‘Yes, they should be here on tomorrow’s ferry.’
My friends nod.
‘And tell us again,’ asks Emma. ‘The girls had been in touch on Facebook?
For how long?’
‘A year.’
‘And you had no idea?’
‘None.’
I remember the moment Molly first told us she’d found her cousin online
and that they’d been messaging. I couldn’t believe she’d kept it so well
hidden from us. But part of me was impressed too by her resourcefulness, by
the sense of family which has always been so important to me but that I’ve
worried she might not have inherited, what with our smaller, more isolated
life. Jack was furious though. I wonder if Lorna felt the same way. It feels
strange to think of my sister-in-law, having never met her. Over the years I’ve
thought about her many times. Would she have approved of me as a choice
for her brother? What would she make of Molly, my proudest achievement?
And why did she leave all those years ago and never come back? I’ve tried
to get Jack to open up about her and about their past so many times but have
never made much progress. He just closes up every time I ask him and the
harder I try the tighter he seems to curl in on himself.
We gaze out to sea for a moment, all the complexities of the situation
sitting heavy in the air around us. I still can’t quite believe that tomorrow
they will both be here on this island: the sister-in-law and niece I’ve never
met.
‘How’s Jack doing?’ asks Kerstin.
I think back to our earlier conversation and his hard expression.
‘Not great. It’s all so difficult. I think deep down he wants to see her again,
and to meet Ella of course, but I think he’s scared too.’
‘That’s not surprising,’ says Emma. ‘It’s been such a long time. I still
remember when she left. She was what, eighteen?’
I nod silently. She was the same age when she left as I was when I arrived.
I’ve tried many times to picture her making that journey to London on her
own. How did it feel to ride the train through the night, taking her away from
everything she knew, and then to step out into the huge city after a childhood
lived among sea and sand?
‘And how do you feel?’ Tess asks.
I take a long breath.
‘I want to make them feel welcome. Whatever else happens I guess I just
want to feel like I tried my best to make things work. Made the best of a bad
situation, you know?’
Emma leans towards me, draping an arm around my shoulder.
‘We’ll help you however we can,’ she says, giving me a little squeeze.
And I smile at her, remembering how kind she was to me when I first moved
to the island – how kind everyone was. The other women shuffle slightly
closer to me. Morag reaches out her hip flask and I give in and take a brief
swig before passing it back with a nod of thanks. However much I may love
my husband, would I really have stayed and made my life here if it wasn’t for
these women?
‘I know you will,’ I say with a smile. ‘Right, I’d better get back and finish
getting everything ready.’
We return the mats to the hall and I say goodbye to my friends, hugging
them in turn.
When I arrive back at the farmhouse the kitchen is warm and filled with
steam and the smell of garlic and lemon. Jack is leaning over the large
Rayburn, one of my aprons tied around his waist and a wooden spoon in his
hand. Molly is laying the table, setting out plates and cutlery neatly.
‘How was the class?’ Jack asks, pulling me gently towards him. I can feel
his softness again as though the warmth of the kitchen has thawed his earlier
frostiness. I breathe out with relief, placing a hand briefly on his chest. He
lifts it to his mouth and kisses my palm and in his eyes I see all the apology I
need. I see him.
‘It was good,’ I say. ‘We took the mats to the beach. Morag managed a
surprisingly good tree pose despite the whisky I caught her drinking after.’
Jack laughs, the sound bright and sweet.
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