Ok, milestone passed, now to deal with the parents. (she said with all the self assurance that comes from writing in the future)
I find myself strolling around the beach in no time at all, the journey a wash of pictures I pay no attention to, too absorbed in my own thoughts. I’m now almost certain I love Roger. As I feel the wet sand beneath my feet, and see waves slowly ebbing beside me, I remember when I first came to the island, and how I fell in love with it. But I loved university when I first visited it. I love my parents, and my friends, and I left them... I climb back up to the house, and see light through the frosted windows of the toilet block. Igor and his chicken groupies run towards me, held back by the mesh of their enclosure, before quickly losing interest and running back the other way. I poke my head around the door of the cottage, and find it empty. The camp bed is unmade, but the cottage is otherwise vacant. I stand in the middle of the room, taking in every inch of the building I had worked so hard to make my own. My eyes fall on the beautiful stove, the white walls, my bed, my table... and something on the table. A shoebox with a thick purple ribbon tied around it, and a gaudy gift-shop bow on top. Resting against the box is a piece of paper, folded in half with “Read me, Emma, read me!” written in large biro letters. Curious, I read the paper, and smile.
“Emma.” It reads, “Welcome to Scotland, and you’re welcome to it. Glad to hear you’re not actually dead, and I am very, very sorry for falling out of communication. I will remember to write, as it seems your new, Amish way of life does not support voicemail. I know there’s a lot going on right now but I have to get back to Bath; so far Greg has done about 80% of the wedding preparation and my mother has done about 19. If I’m not careful, I may end up not being in it. However I know you are mid-crisis and I couldn’t leave you stranded, so in the shoe box is something that might help. If not, then it’ll at least provide some anecdotes for small talk. Love, hugs kisses and etc, Vikkie”
I roll my eyes, but smile despite myself. Cautiously, I pull off the ribbon and look inside the shoebox. What I see inside makes me want to laugh and weep simultaneously. Nestled in a tea-towel, its’ shiny black surface dull with smears where it had been wiped clean but not properly dried, is the Magic Eight Ball. I lift it up, smiling as it shone in the sunlight. I walk back outside, and stand by the steps, looking out as the sun glitters on the sea.
“Emma.” My mother walks up behind me, making me jump a little. “We need to talk about this, Emma.” I nod, but say nothing. I look down into the swirling blue liquid inside the ball, my mind oddly clear of the confusion and buzz that it had been filled with.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” Mum’s voice sounds distant, far away...
“Emma!” I jump as she barks at me, the shock overriding the realisation that the Magic Eight Ball had slipped through my fingers. It rolls down the steps, thumping and bouncing as it falls. I start down after it, followed by despairing threats from my mum. It bounces off the rock face and rolls around the outcrop, out of sight. I run after it, but come to an abrupt stop as Arthur rounded the outcrop at the same time, almost bumping into me.
“Let me guess...” he smiles, holding up the magic eight ball. “Yours?”
I flush a little, smiling.
“You better not let my parents see you.”
“Why?” He grins, handing me the ball. “Are they going to take you away? Or are you about to give in and go home?”
I look down at the orb, and under a veil of swirling blue water, I see words that make my eyebrows shoot up.
“All signs point to No.”
No. My Parents weren’t going to take me away.
No. My Parents couldn’t make me change my mind.
No. I wasn’t going anywhere and I certainly wasn’t giving up.
It was cheesy. God knows it was cheesy, but I look up at Arthur, his lopsided smile waiting a response. Grinning, I leap at him, wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. After a brief, shocked pause, I can feel his hands on my waist as he kisses back. I pull away from him, before grabbing his hand, and I lead him with determination back up the steps. My mum stands still, glaring at me with suspicion.
“Mother!” I call up to her from the bottom of the steps, my voice straining against the sea wind but filled with ecstasy all the same. “I’m eighteen years old. I’m an adult. I have my own house, I am in charge of my own campsite. I can’t bake bread but I can live on pie. I dropped out of an English literature course but I can read and write as much as I like out here. I’m not spending time in student clubs but I’m in a relationship with a man... a wonderful man, eleven years older than me. You may not like it but this is my life now, and I’m not going back and I’m not changing.” I find myself brimming with pride, a million passions boiling in my chest as my heart knocks against my ribcage. I look up at her, eyes wide and expectant. I meet her gaze and, for a moment, even the wind seems to hold its breath. After an agonising, intense pause, she raises an eyebrow, and draws her lips into a thin line.
“You’re really happy out here?”
“Yes.” I’m oddly breathless, and I quietly grip Arthur’s hand tighter. It sends a tingle through me when he squeezes back.
“Well.” Mum looks around, breathing deeply, and wipes her eyes. “I suppose I can’t ask for anything other than that.” At that point, we both start sniffing and sobbing, and I take the steps two at a time to hug her. We hug forever, almost as if it was a goodbye hug. A hug saying goodbye to my student life, and to all the trappings and problems that came with it. Halfway through the hug, I become aware of Dad standing beside us, having an awkward conversation with Arthur. Sniffing and laughing at the same time, Mum lets go of me, and we both smile as we look out over the sea. In the distance, I see the small boat chugging out to see us, with a small group of people wearing backpacks and with camping equipment. I’m still holding hands with Mum as we look out over the beautiful mid-morning vista. Arthur moves closer beside me, resting one hand on my waist. He bows his head closer to my ear, his dark eyebrows drawn together, and a crooked smile on his face as he watches the little boat chug nearer to the island.
“You did remember to fix the slogan on the website, didn’t you?”
Dun Dun Dun daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And that’s the end, cheesed up because I’m in the mood for a happy ending to my long long tale of woe.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Relationshipshape
Ok, it’s awkward.
I mean the whole evening was great, don’t get me wrong. He’d made steak and chips and we ate it in front of the film that I’d picked, “Batman Begins”. (Which as it turned out we both hated, some things just bridge the generation gap nicely). It was quite comfy, sitting on the sofa with my feet on the coffee table next to his, watching him frown at the screen every now and again and catching his eye during a particularly crap part. Afterwards he went through his DVD collection and found one of the older Batman films. We actually didn’t make it through to the end of that one, what started as a chat about which comic adaptation was the best quickly devolved into cushion throwing and movie bashing.
At about eleven he yawned loudly (for over a minute - it was quite impressive) and we both went upstairs. My guest room was at the opposite end of the landing to his and we paused awkwardly in the no-man’s-land between. After a second or two of watching his feet he kissed me lightly, a dry brush of lips. He went to his room, and I went to mine.
It had clearly been shut up for a long time, there were no pictures on the wall and it felt cold and unlived in. But there were clean sheets on the bed and the carpet had clearly been vacuumed recently. I took the sight in without really focusing on it. I felt restless, like there was something I was supposed to be doing, but couldn’t quite set my mind on. I imagine this must be how people in films felt when the people watching them are shouting “Kiss him!” or “He’s got an axe”, vaguely unsettled and indecisive. (hopefully those lines aren’t in the same film....at least not in the same scene)
I stop my train of thought with an effort and yank on my pyjamas. I remember that I put a book in my bag, so I climb into the freshly made up bed and start reading. Twenty minutes later I have failed to take in anything and my ears are straining to hear anything from the rest of the house. Nothing. I decide Arthur must already be asleep. But just as I’m about to turn off the lamp and try to get to sleep, I hear his voice from a room at the other side of the house.
“Go to bloody sleep”
I suppress a smile. “But I’m really bored” I call back petulantly. There’s another slight pause in which I can feel him weighing up the conversation, then he calls out again.
“I’m watching The Sweeny in here”
I get out of bed and pad across the landing. Arthur’s lying in the middle of his bed, still fully dressed, minus socks. I sit down on the creased blue duvet and listen as he patiently explains the show to me. I’m just starting to consider returning to my own room to get some sleep, when my eyes drift shut.
When I wake up, sunlight is filtering through the blue curtains. I start to move, stretching out of my cramped position, then I encounter a warm shape and freeze. Arthur is lying next to me, still asleep, snoring. I’m tucked under his arm with my head resting on his chest. The arm that I’m under rests across my waist and tightens a little as I shift. The television is still on, now showing the news, but it’s muted. “Arthur?” I whisper, gently, if a little awkwardly, resting my hand on his chest. He doesn’t respond, so I let my head rest against him. I’m still in my pyjamas, he’s still as I found him; nothing happened. But I feel so sublimely happy that the thought of anything happening is redundant. I look at my hand, small and dainty against his broad chest, and close my eyes again. It was all a bad dream, all of it. Parents moaning at me, Vikkie being interviewed by a news station because everyone thought I was dead, Daniel and me... Daniel in general... this was the only thing that had ever been real, this was the only thing that mattered. I sigh happily, and wriggle my shoulders as I snuggle into the pillows.
“Don’t start sighing and being all girly. I don’t want you going soft on me.” Arthur mutters without opening his eyes. “Sorry.” I smile, but I can’t help fixing on that word. Girly. I look down at my pyjamas, blue with little white pandas dancing over them. I came here to get away from a life I thought I was too mature for. But now I’m here, and I realise that maturity and experience are two very different things. “What time is it?” Arthur mumbles, his arm flexing around my waist, briefly pulling me closer to him. I look at the clock on the morning news, but it takes a few minutes for me to actually focus on it long enough to answer him. “Nine thirty.” I clear my throat, trying to sound bright and breezy. “I should go and get changed, I have to go back to my parents...” I sit up, but he holds the back of my pyjama top. “But I was comfy.” “Arthur.” I roll my eyes and walk back to my room. I can hear his voice echoing in my head. Girly. Girly? No. I’ve done more in the past few months than some people do in ten years. I’ve set up my own business, I’ve got my own property, I’ve completely renovated my own house... I’ve got a working farm that isn’t necessarily going to survive the winter, I’ve got a huge debt to the student loan company, I’m in a relationship with a guy twice my age, I’ve drunkenly slept with his son, I’m a university drop-out... I drag myself back to my senses as I realise that I’ve been trying to get my head through a sleeve for the past five minutes. Sighing, I throw the offending T-shirt to the floor, and throw myself on the bed. What am I going to do? I struggle into my clothes, and ram my pyjamas back into my bag. The door creaks open a little, accompanied by a brisk knocking.
“Emma?” Arthur clears his throat, sounding awkward. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. No. Yes.” I blather as I cross to the door, catching him off guard as I pull it open. He stumbles a little, before regaining his balance and giving me a stern look.
“I meant to do that.”
“Sure.” I chuckle, but I find myself holding back tears of confusion. It must have been obvious, because he wordlessly opened his arms, hugging me.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Mmf.” I mumble, my face buried in his shoulder.
“I see.” He presses his lips to my forehead, before looking up again. “And how does that make you feel?”
I hit him on the shoulder, but make no attempt to move away from the hug. We stand there, in the middle of the doorway, me still holding my bag, and neither of us speaking. Eventually, he steps back, leaning against the wall.
“Well go on then.”
“What?” I sniff, a little confused.
“Go for a walk, go back to your island. You’ll find a way to figure it out. Be at one with nature, pray to the Pagan gods. Just... get happy.”
“How did you know I pray to Pagan gods?” I smile, only half joking.
“You ran away to Glastonbury and there are pentagrams on the majority of your possessions.” He tapped his nose, with a wry smile. “You can’t fool me, I’ve been watching The Sweeney for twenty odd years.”
Gratefully, I chuckle, and go to walk past him, but stop. I look up at him, and firmly plant a kiss on his lips. He looks down at me, smiling, before rolling his eyes.
“Go on, before I have to throw you out.”
I mean the whole evening was great, don’t get me wrong. He’d made steak and chips and we ate it in front of the film that I’d picked, “Batman Begins”. (Which as it turned out we both hated, some things just bridge the generation gap nicely). It was quite comfy, sitting on the sofa with my feet on the coffee table next to his, watching him frown at the screen every now and again and catching his eye during a particularly crap part. Afterwards he went through his DVD collection and found one of the older Batman films. We actually didn’t make it through to the end of that one, what started as a chat about which comic adaptation was the best quickly devolved into cushion throwing and movie bashing.
At about eleven he yawned loudly (for over a minute - it was quite impressive) and we both went upstairs. My guest room was at the opposite end of the landing to his and we paused awkwardly in the no-man’s-land between. After a second or two of watching his feet he kissed me lightly, a dry brush of lips. He went to his room, and I went to mine.
It had clearly been shut up for a long time, there were no pictures on the wall and it felt cold and unlived in. But there were clean sheets on the bed and the carpet had clearly been vacuumed recently. I took the sight in without really focusing on it. I felt restless, like there was something I was supposed to be doing, but couldn’t quite set my mind on. I imagine this must be how people in films felt when the people watching them are shouting “Kiss him!” or “He’s got an axe”, vaguely unsettled and indecisive. (hopefully those lines aren’t in the same film....at least not in the same scene)
I stop my train of thought with an effort and yank on my pyjamas. I remember that I put a book in my bag, so I climb into the freshly made up bed and start reading. Twenty minutes later I have failed to take in anything and my ears are straining to hear anything from the rest of the house. Nothing. I decide Arthur must already be asleep. But just as I’m about to turn off the lamp and try to get to sleep, I hear his voice from a room at the other side of the house.
“Go to bloody sleep”
I suppress a smile. “But I’m really bored” I call back petulantly. There’s another slight pause in which I can feel him weighing up the conversation, then he calls out again.
“I’m watching The Sweeny in here”
I get out of bed and pad across the landing. Arthur’s lying in the middle of his bed, still fully dressed, minus socks. I sit down on the creased blue duvet and listen as he patiently explains the show to me. I’m just starting to consider returning to my own room to get some sleep, when my eyes drift shut.
When I wake up, sunlight is filtering through the blue curtains. I start to move, stretching out of my cramped position, then I encounter a warm shape and freeze. Arthur is lying next to me, still asleep, snoring. I’m tucked under his arm with my head resting on his chest. The arm that I’m under rests across my waist and tightens a little as I shift. The television is still on, now showing the news, but it’s muted. “Arthur?” I whisper, gently, if a little awkwardly, resting my hand on his chest. He doesn’t respond, so I let my head rest against him. I’m still in my pyjamas, he’s still as I found him; nothing happened. But I feel so sublimely happy that the thought of anything happening is redundant. I look at my hand, small and dainty against his broad chest, and close my eyes again. It was all a bad dream, all of it. Parents moaning at me, Vikkie being interviewed by a news station because everyone thought I was dead, Daniel and me... Daniel in general... this was the only thing that had ever been real, this was the only thing that mattered. I sigh happily, and wriggle my shoulders as I snuggle into the pillows.
“Don’t start sighing and being all girly. I don’t want you going soft on me.” Arthur mutters without opening his eyes. “Sorry.” I smile, but I can’t help fixing on that word. Girly. I look down at my pyjamas, blue with little white pandas dancing over them. I came here to get away from a life I thought I was too mature for. But now I’m here, and I realise that maturity and experience are two very different things. “What time is it?” Arthur mumbles, his arm flexing around my waist, briefly pulling me closer to him. I look at the clock on the morning news, but it takes a few minutes for me to actually focus on it long enough to answer him. “Nine thirty.” I clear my throat, trying to sound bright and breezy. “I should go and get changed, I have to go back to my parents...” I sit up, but he holds the back of my pyjama top. “But I was comfy.” “Arthur.” I roll my eyes and walk back to my room. I can hear his voice echoing in my head. Girly. Girly? No. I’ve done more in the past few months than some people do in ten years. I’ve set up my own business, I’ve got my own property, I’ve completely renovated my own house... I’ve got a working farm that isn’t necessarily going to survive the winter, I’ve got a huge debt to the student loan company, I’m in a relationship with a guy twice my age, I’ve drunkenly slept with his son, I’m a university drop-out... I drag myself back to my senses as I realise that I’ve been trying to get my head through a sleeve for the past five minutes. Sighing, I throw the offending T-shirt to the floor, and throw myself on the bed. What am I going to do? I struggle into my clothes, and ram my pyjamas back into my bag. The door creaks open a little, accompanied by a brisk knocking.
“Emma?” Arthur clears his throat, sounding awkward. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. No. Yes.” I blather as I cross to the door, catching him off guard as I pull it open. He stumbles a little, before regaining his balance and giving me a stern look.
“I meant to do that.”
“Sure.” I chuckle, but I find myself holding back tears of confusion. It must have been obvious, because he wordlessly opened his arms, hugging me.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Mmf.” I mumble, my face buried in his shoulder.
“I see.” He presses his lips to my forehead, before looking up again. “And how does that make you feel?”
I hit him on the shoulder, but make no attempt to move away from the hug. We stand there, in the middle of the doorway, me still holding my bag, and neither of us speaking. Eventually, he steps back, leaning against the wall.
“Well go on then.”
“What?” I sniff, a little confused.
“Go for a walk, go back to your island. You’ll find a way to figure it out. Be at one with nature, pray to the Pagan gods. Just... get happy.”
“How did you know I pray to Pagan gods?” I smile, only half joking.
“You ran away to Glastonbury and there are pentagrams on the majority of your possessions.” He tapped his nose, with a wry smile. “You can’t fool me, I’ve been watching The Sweeney for twenty odd years.”
Gratefully, I chuckle, and go to walk past him, but stop. I look up at him, and firmly plant a kiss on his lips. He looks down at me, smiling, before rolling his eyes.
“Go on, before I have to throw you out.”
Sunday, 1 August 2010
After the Glee...
I’m still going through this really slowly, so apologies, but a lot happened and I have to explain it properly. Also, I kind of like making you suffer, folk of the internets.
As we reach the outskirts of the town and start driving towards the port, my phone rings. I flip it out one handed and press it to my ear.
“Emma?”
“Hi Vikkie. We’re nearly home”
“That’s great….why do you sound weird?”
“Weird?”
“All chirpy and….It’s an Arthur thing isn’t it?”
My smile stretches impossibly wider. “Yup”
“Well soak in the joy now because you are about to walk into the storm. Your parents are here, and they want to talk to you.”
I say goodbye to Arthur outside his house, allowing myself another brief moment to enjoy finally being allowed to hold onto him. Fear builds in me as I walk to my house alone. My parents are inside, sitting together on one side of the small table, like it’s a job interview….or a police interrogation. I am momentarily at a loss, then I cross the room and perch on the end of the bed, waiting for the yelling to begin.
“Emma, just what is it that you think you’re doing?” Mum starts, backed up by some glaring on behalf of Dad. “Dropping out of University” she pauses, dramatically, “Lying to us”.
“Ok, I apologise for lying, I just didn’t know how to deal with telling you the truth.”
“That should have told you something, when you’re ashamed of your decisions you’ve clearly made a mistake.” She fiddles with the empty mug I left on the table before went away.
“I don’t think it was a mistake, it was just difficult….” She cuts me off in disbelief.
“Not a mistake? Emma, you passed all you’re A levels, made it through all the applications without any trouble and your tutors seem to think you were doing really well.”
“You spoke to my tutor?”
“Well, they were concerned when you just dropped out in the middle of a successful term! You have a good future all laid out, you’ve been working for it for years, these last few months are a blip compared to that.”
“It’s not a blip! I chose to do this, I’ve been working really hard on everything, the house, the site….It’s all going really well.”
“But where is it going? Are you still going to be here when you’re fifty? How are you going to meet anyone out here, in the middle of nowhere. I know you probably “don’t care” about meeting someone and getting married…but it’ll sneak on you, one day you’ll be old and lonely and stranded on a rock in the middle of the sea.”
I can’t think of anything to say, She seems so certain that for a moment I’m sure that I have made a mistake. What am I doing here? I’ve given up my future for the sake of an unstable present. One lot of campers at my site, no money coming in, no idea how to run a business and a man whose twice my age…I stop myself. I refuse to get into that again, not when I‘m finally happy, a brief wave of warm emotion thaws my panic stricken mind. There is no such thing as a single, life ruining moment, one decision that if made wrongly with take out your entire life. I realise my Mum is still talking.
“Mum!” I cut her off with a wave of my hand. She stops mid sentence. “Enough, ok?”
She falls silent and my Dad jerks out of his seat, I suspect that she’s just kicked him into action.
“Emma, we’re worried about you, all these changes, so suddenly, could be a bad thing.”
“Really?” despite myself I’m getting angry, angry at them for ruining what should be the best day of my life, and angry at myself for letting them.
“And what would you know about change, the pair of you? All you do is sit around watching other peoples dreams come true on TV and talking about doing it yourself. But you’re still the same house you’ve been in for ten years! Nothing has changed and you’ve just wasted your time!”
There’s a stunned silence and I suddenly feel bad. It seems cruel to tell someone over fifty that they’ve wasted their life, its not like they can do anything about it now.
“Look” I say, placating “You can stay here for a few days and we’ll sort things out, and I’ll tell you everything. But I’m not going back to University, I’m sorry but it’s not what I want to do.”
I pick up the dirty mugs and heap them in the sink, then tidy up the rest of the place while my parents sit silently, as if they’re communicating telepathically. I catch sight of my chickens through the window, noting that they’ve recently been fed and that the soil in the garden is dark with water when it hasn’t rained since I left. I spot Arthur’s coat, draped over the wall and forgotten, I feel another dart of happiness. He took care of everything for me.
I put my parents bags in a corner and set up another bed which was intended for Vikkie when she visited later on in the year. The house is cramped with the three of us there, and I suddenly have an idea. I get out my phone, and, excusing myself, head into the garden. I dial and listen to the dialling sounds.
“Emma?” Arthur’s voice comes down the line “Everything ok with your parents?”
“Sort of” I wince, I cannot tell them about Arthur, they would die, literally die of shock. “Actually they’re going to be staying with me for a while.”
“Really?” he pauses “That sounds…fun.” humour colours his voice, detectable even over the phone.
“It does, doesn’t it?” I wait for a second, internally arguing with myself. I cannot just invite myself to stay it would be rude, and stupid and totally inappropriate….
“You could always stay here” I could swear I heard him shuffling his feet and running a hand through his hair.
“I suppose so…..” I dither, not wanting to seem too eager.
“Come on, it can’t be that hard to get you back here…Daniel managed it.”
“Git” I say, feigning offence. He chuckles.
“Couldn’t resist, sorry. Pack a bag and I’ll put you in one of the spare rooms.”
“Daniel isn’t there is he? Because that’s not a conversation I need to have today…or ever really.” I shred a few leaves anxiously.
“No, he said he was going back to his flat yesterday. Wont be back till Christmas.”
“Alright, I’ll be down there in about an hour.”
“See you then.”
I hang up feeling light with happiness, but also a little nervous. Despite being (very) attracted to Arthur, I had never actually spent a lot of time around him and the prospect of doing so was a little daunting. What if we had nothing in common? What if I bored him? Feeling now slightly more than a little nervous I grabbed a few things from the house and said an awkward goodbye to my parents, before walking down to Arthur’s.
And that’s it so far. I’ll let you know how it goes.
As we reach the outskirts of the town and start driving towards the port, my phone rings. I flip it out one handed and press it to my ear.
“Emma?”
“Hi Vikkie. We’re nearly home”
“That’s great….why do you sound weird?”
“Weird?”
“All chirpy and….It’s an Arthur thing isn’t it?”
My smile stretches impossibly wider. “Yup”
“Well soak in the joy now because you are about to walk into the storm. Your parents are here, and they want to talk to you.”
I say goodbye to Arthur outside his house, allowing myself another brief moment to enjoy finally being allowed to hold onto him. Fear builds in me as I walk to my house alone. My parents are inside, sitting together on one side of the small table, like it’s a job interview….or a police interrogation. I am momentarily at a loss, then I cross the room and perch on the end of the bed, waiting for the yelling to begin.
“Emma, just what is it that you think you’re doing?” Mum starts, backed up by some glaring on behalf of Dad. “Dropping out of University” she pauses, dramatically, “Lying to us”.
“Ok, I apologise for lying, I just didn’t know how to deal with telling you the truth.”
“That should have told you something, when you’re ashamed of your decisions you’ve clearly made a mistake.” She fiddles with the empty mug I left on the table before went away.
“I don’t think it was a mistake, it was just difficult….” She cuts me off in disbelief.
“Not a mistake? Emma, you passed all you’re A levels, made it through all the applications without any trouble and your tutors seem to think you were doing really well.”
“You spoke to my tutor?”
“Well, they were concerned when you just dropped out in the middle of a successful term! You have a good future all laid out, you’ve been working for it for years, these last few months are a blip compared to that.”
“It’s not a blip! I chose to do this, I’ve been working really hard on everything, the house, the site….It’s all going really well.”
“But where is it going? Are you still going to be here when you’re fifty? How are you going to meet anyone out here, in the middle of nowhere. I know you probably “don’t care” about meeting someone and getting married…but it’ll sneak on you, one day you’ll be old and lonely and stranded on a rock in the middle of the sea.”
I can’t think of anything to say, She seems so certain that for a moment I’m sure that I have made a mistake. What am I doing here? I’ve given up my future for the sake of an unstable present. One lot of campers at my site, no money coming in, no idea how to run a business and a man whose twice my age…I stop myself. I refuse to get into that again, not when I‘m finally happy, a brief wave of warm emotion thaws my panic stricken mind. There is no such thing as a single, life ruining moment, one decision that if made wrongly with take out your entire life. I realise my Mum is still talking.
“Mum!” I cut her off with a wave of my hand. She stops mid sentence. “Enough, ok?”
She falls silent and my Dad jerks out of his seat, I suspect that she’s just kicked him into action.
“Emma, we’re worried about you, all these changes, so suddenly, could be a bad thing.”
“Really?” despite myself I’m getting angry, angry at them for ruining what should be the best day of my life, and angry at myself for letting them.
“And what would you know about change, the pair of you? All you do is sit around watching other peoples dreams come true on TV and talking about doing it yourself. But you’re still the same house you’ve been in for ten years! Nothing has changed and you’ve just wasted your time!”
There’s a stunned silence and I suddenly feel bad. It seems cruel to tell someone over fifty that they’ve wasted their life, its not like they can do anything about it now.
“Look” I say, placating “You can stay here for a few days and we’ll sort things out, and I’ll tell you everything. But I’m not going back to University, I’m sorry but it’s not what I want to do.”
I pick up the dirty mugs and heap them in the sink, then tidy up the rest of the place while my parents sit silently, as if they’re communicating telepathically. I catch sight of my chickens through the window, noting that they’ve recently been fed and that the soil in the garden is dark with water when it hasn’t rained since I left. I spot Arthur’s coat, draped over the wall and forgotten, I feel another dart of happiness. He took care of everything for me.
I put my parents bags in a corner and set up another bed which was intended for Vikkie when she visited later on in the year. The house is cramped with the three of us there, and I suddenly have an idea. I get out my phone, and, excusing myself, head into the garden. I dial and listen to the dialling sounds.
“Emma?” Arthur’s voice comes down the line “Everything ok with your parents?”
“Sort of” I wince, I cannot tell them about Arthur, they would die, literally die of shock. “Actually they’re going to be staying with me for a while.”
“Really?” he pauses “That sounds…fun.” humour colours his voice, detectable even over the phone.
“It does, doesn’t it?” I wait for a second, internally arguing with myself. I cannot just invite myself to stay it would be rude, and stupid and totally inappropriate….
“You could always stay here” I could swear I heard him shuffling his feet and running a hand through his hair.
“I suppose so…..” I dither, not wanting to seem too eager.
“Come on, it can’t be that hard to get you back here…Daniel managed it.”
“Git” I say, feigning offence. He chuckles.
“Couldn’t resist, sorry. Pack a bag and I’ll put you in one of the spare rooms.”
“Daniel isn’t there is he? Because that’s not a conversation I need to have today…or ever really.” I shred a few leaves anxiously.
“No, he said he was going back to his flat yesterday. Wont be back till Christmas.”
“Alright, I’ll be down there in about an hour.”
“See you then.”
I hang up feeling light with happiness, but also a little nervous. Despite being (very) attracted to Arthur, I had never actually spent a lot of time around him and the prospect of doing so was a little daunting. What if we had nothing in common? What if I bored him? Feeling now slightly more than a little nervous I grabbed a few things from the house and said an awkward goodbye to my parents, before walking down to Arthur’s.
And that’s it so far. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Friday, 9 July 2010
ooopsie
It has been pointed out to me that Daniel is sometimes Arthurs son and sometimes his brother...the man is a temporal paradox! seriously thought they are brothers - I just suck at editing :) sorry.
Electra
Arthur to the rescue! Sorry for the unrelenting suspense, but it was worse for me at the time.
After I have paid for my room and half eaten breakfast I go out onto the deserted streets. It’s barely morning and most of the shops are still closed. I start to walk, directionless, before going to a coffee stand on the street. I manage to dredge up enough change for a cup of tea and a packet of sweets. Taking a seat on the wide sandstone steps of a library I balance the cup next to me and methodically stir in sugar.
The time passes slower than I have ever known it to. The level of tea slowly diminishes and I go in search of a bin. Bored out of my mind I look through the windows of a dozen shops and hop from foot to foot nervously. The lights come on in a HMV across the street and I go in. I look over the spines of glossy DVD cases, scuffing my feet over the grey linoleum. Some rock-trance-gibberish weaves through the air and seems to get louder with each passing minute, making me tetchy. My phone begins to rig, making me jump. I had half convinced myself in the empty world that I was the only survivor of a global catastrophe.
“Emma? I’m outside Starbucks on Bridge Street.”
“Ok, I’m near there….I think.”
“Great, sorry I’m running out of credit.” abruptly the phone goes dead.
Smiling ironically to myself I slip my phone into my pocket. It takes me an embarrassing twenty minutes to find the right street, and even then it seems the longest street in the world. A hovering Starbucks sign, crouching like a parasite on the side of a three story building, guides me to the one car parked on that side of the street. It’s a kind of flatbed truck (I still know nothing about cars) painted green, but peeling. Arthur waves at me through the dirt tinted window. I yank open the door and settle myself in the seat, squirming on the wrinkled, age burnished leather and disturbing a cloud of tobacco scented dust motes.
When I slam the door shut the car feels very small, the space between us in particular is minuscule. Arthur seems to feel the same because he snaps the key round in the ignition and reverses out sharply, putting exaggerated focus on the road. I let my eyes stray to the mirror suspended between us and study Arthur closely for the first time. Only the top half of his face is visible, tanned and weather beaten, faintly traced with lines. His eyes continually move on the road, frowning at road signs, his heavy brows drawing together and strands of hair falling forwards over his face.
His eyes flick up to the mirror casually, casting a glance behind us, but they catch my gaze and hold it. Caught out my face flames and I look down, fiddling with the sweet wrapper and pulling out a few colourful pieces of sugar. The car moves forward again and, when I risk a glance from behind my hair, Arthur’s attention is back on the road.
“Smartie?” I offer the packet awkwardly and he takes a few, popping them into his mouth in between shifting gears and twisting the wheel. Ahead of us a junction is clogged with traffic and gradually we coast to a stop behind a scarlet hatchback full of people wearing baseball caps at odd angles. Arthur huffs deeply and turns off the engine. Silence congeals around us as we sit in the motionless car listening to the revving of engine and shuffling of tires outside. I’m very conscious of every movement, and so sit unusually still, but of course this makes me want to move around more.
“Well this is fun” Arthur says ironically, mouth turning up in a lopsided grin.
“I’m glad you find this funny” I crumple up the sweet wrapper and stuff it into an ashtray.
“Let’s face it, we’re not going to get a better opportunity to talk are we? When you get out of this car there’s a good chance I won’t see you again.”
“Not if I can help it” I can’t help smiling at his expression “I haven’t exactly made the best impression have I? First you see me with half my clothes off on the beach, then I punch you in the face, then you had to save me from my own bread, after which I slept with your brother, disappeared so you thought I was dead and then had to have you rescue me again. I don’t know how I’m going to top that, so I might as well just go home.”
“I don’t know…there’s another two hours of journey time, anything could happen.” His smile has grown into a full grin now and I thank God I can still deter serious discussion with humour.
“Emma…” he begins, his expression becoming grave again and causing me to mentally ask God why he insists on torturing me, it can’t all be the witchcraft thing…which come to think of it, I have yet to tell Arthur about.
“Emma…I really have no idea what to do about this.”
“This meaning…..” I meet his eyes and hazard a guess “The possibility of an us?”
He nods, “I mean, aside from the fairly monumental obstacle of age…there isn’t really anything to stop us.”
My heart leaps a few notches higher in my chest and thumps furiously against my ribs as if it’s trying to speak for me, because I can’t seem to say anything.
“If you wanted to do something, when we get back” he falters “You probably don’t want to…”
“Yes I do!” I blurt, then calm myself forcibly. “I do”
“I’m afraid I’m not really a clubbing, drinking kind of person” He frowns a little “the age gap rears its head again….”
“Who likes clubbing?” I shrug, I really don’t anyway, I’m more of a hot chocolate and a book kind of person, not a glow stick and aspirin….chic.
“We could just get a film and some dinner…” I suggest.
“I’ll cook” he interjects, managing to keep a straight face.
“Fair enough, but I get to choose the film”
“Good”
“Great”
I’m trying not to smile, but failing miserably, so that when he closes the gap between us and kisses me, our teeth bump. For a few seconds it’s totally, utterly perfect, almost worth dying-but-not-really-just-vacationing. Then the idiots in the hatchback catch sight of us and start piping the horn and yelling things about robbing the geriatric wing and Electra (which I’m quite surprised they know about, a classical education being wasted on the twats of the world, makes me glad I don’t pay taxes).
Arthur pulls away and glares through the windshield, looking so much like a crotchety old man I can’t help the splutters of laughter that escape through my nose. The guys in the car in front are still shouting and the hatchback is now visibly rocking, as if it’s filled with chimpanzees not chavs (there is a difference…I may have to look it up). I turn to look out the window, just as Arthur winds his down and we shout, in unison.
“Shut up you wankers!”
I get the feeling this is going to work out just fine.
:)
After I have paid for my room and half eaten breakfast I go out onto the deserted streets. It’s barely morning and most of the shops are still closed. I start to walk, directionless, before going to a coffee stand on the street. I manage to dredge up enough change for a cup of tea and a packet of sweets. Taking a seat on the wide sandstone steps of a library I balance the cup next to me and methodically stir in sugar.
The time passes slower than I have ever known it to. The level of tea slowly diminishes and I go in search of a bin. Bored out of my mind I look through the windows of a dozen shops and hop from foot to foot nervously. The lights come on in a HMV across the street and I go in. I look over the spines of glossy DVD cases, scuffing my feet over the grey linoleum. Some rock-trance-gibberish weaves through the air and seems to get louder with each passing minute, making me tetchy. My phone begins to rig, making me jump. I had half convinced myself in the empty world that I was the only survivor of a global catastrophe.
“Emma? I’m outside Starbucks on Bridge Street.”
“Ok, I’m near there….I think.”
“Great, sorry I’m running out of credit.” abruptly the phone goes dead.
Smiling ironically to myself I slip my phone into my pocket. It takes me an embarrassing twenty minutes to find the right street, and even then it seems the longest street in the world. A hovering Starbucks sign, crouching like a parasite on the side of a three story building, guides me to the one car parked on that side of the street. It’s a kind of flatbed truck (I still know nothing about cars) painted green, but peeling. Arthur waves at me through the dirt tinted window. I yank open the door and settle myself in the seat, squirming on the wrinkled, age burnished leather and disturbing a cloud of tobacco scented dust motes.
When I slam the door shut the car feels very small, the space between us in particular is minuscule. Arthur seems to feel the same because he snaps the key round in the ignition and reverses out sharply, putting exaggerated focus on the road. I let my eyes stray to the mirror suspended between us and study Arthur closely for the first time. Only the top half of his face is visible, tanned and weather beaten, faintly traced with lines. His eyes continually move on the road, frowning at road signs, his heavy brows drawing together and strands of hair falling forwards over his face.
His eyes flick up to the mirror casually, casting a glance behind us, but they catch my gaze and hold it. Caught out my face flames and I look down, fiddling with the sweet wrapper and pulling out a few colourful pieces of sugar. The car moves forward again and, when I risk a glance from behind my hair, Arthur’s attention is back on the road.
“Smartie?” I offer the packet awkwardly and he takes a few, popping them into his mouth in between shifting gears and twisting the wheel. Ahead of us a junction is clogged with traffic and gradually we coast to a stop behind a scarlet hatchback full of people wearing baseball caps at odd angles. Arthur huffs deeply and turns off the engine. Silence congeals around us as we sit in the motionless car listening to the revving of engine and shuffling of tires outside. I’m very conscious of every movement, and so sit unusually still, but of course this makes me want to move around more.
“Well this is fun” Arthur says ironically, mouth turning up in a lopsided grin.
“I’m glad you find this funny” I crumple up the sweet wrapper and stuff it into an ashtray.
“Let’s face it, we’re not going to get a better opportunity to talk are we? When you get out of this car there’s a good chance I won’t see you again.”
“Not if I can help it” I can’t help smiling at his expression “I haven’t exactly made the best impression have I? First you see me with half my clothes off on the beach, then I punch you in the face, then you had to save me from my own bread, after which I slept with your brother, disappeared so you thought I was dead and then had to have you rescue me again. I don’t know how I’m going to top that, so I might as well just go home.”
“I don’t know…there’s another two hours of journey time, anything could happen.” His smile has grown into a full grin now and I thank God I can still deter serious discussion with humour.
“Emma…” he begins, his expression becoming grave again and causing me to mentally ask God why he insists on torturing me, it can’t all be the witchcraft thing…which come to think of it, I have yet to tell Arthur about.
“Emma…I really have no idea what to do about this.”
“This meaning…..” I meet his eyes and hazard a guess “The possibility of an us?”
He nods, “I mean, aside from the fairly monumental obstacle of age…there isn’t really anything to stop us.”
My heart leaps a few notches higher in my chest and thumps furiously against my ribs as if it’s trying to speak for me, because I can’t seem to say anything.
“If you wanted to do something, when we get back” he falters “You probably don’t want to…”
“Yes I do!” I blurt, then calm myself forcibly. “I do”
“I’m afraid I’m not really a clubbing, drinking kind of person” He frowns a little “the age gap rears its head again….”
“Who likes clubbing?” I shrug, I really don’t anyway, I’m more of a hot chocolate and a book kind of person, not a glow stick and aspirin….chic.
“We could just get a film and some dinner…” I suggest.
“I’ll cook” he interjects, managing to keep a straight face.
“Fair enough, but I get to choose the film”
“Good”
“Great”
I’m trying not to smile, but failing miserably, so that when he closes the gap between us and kisses me, our teeth bump. For a few seconds it’s totally, utterly perfect, almost worth dying-but-not-really-just-vacationing. Then the idiots in the hatchback catch sight of us and start piping the horn and yelling things about robbing the geriatric wing and Electra (which I’m quite surprised they know about, a classical education being wasted on the twats of the world, makes me glad I don’t pay taxes).
Arthur pulls away and glares through the windshield, looking so much like a crotchety old man I can’t help the splutters of laughter that escape through my nose. The guys in the car in front are still shouting and the hatchback is now visibly rocking, as if it’s filled with chimpanzees not chavs (there is a difference…I may have to look it up). I turn to look out the window, just as Arthur winds his down and we shout, in unison.
“Shut up you wankers!”
I get the feeling this is going to work out just fine.
:)
Sunday, 4 July 2010
After the vanishing act
So off to Glastonbury with my morbid moods, I had to write this when I got back, having no internet access on the lam, so forgive me for adding some dramatic detail.
The journey takes an age and I wait it out, staring at the rain washed windows of various trains and busses whilst ignoring the passengers. I drink vending machine tea, which tastes dead to me after weeks of the home brewed, copper kettle variety. I munch on a few miniature packets of biscuits, feeling the food bunch in my stomach like wet sand. After only a short time I have become acclimatised to life on an island in a period before electricity, now it’s hard taking trains seriously.
I am the only passenger to disembark in Glastonbury, and the street is otherwise empty, a residential street. I walk for ages trying to find the shops, but discover only rows of houses and gardens. Eventually I stop at a corner shop and buy a newspaper as cover for asking directions. I follow these and eventually go through an improbable gap between some houses. There the street dead ends in a neat square of grass with a droopy birch, bordered solidly on all sides by houses. One of the houses however is not a house, but the back of a shop with a huge arch, like an underpass, through which I go. Stretching out on either side of me is the high street, with it’s colourfully fronted shops and little cobbled recesses leading to restaurants.
I wander around for a while, going in and out of shops full of glittering touristy rubbish and others selling the paraphernalia of the serious witch. The scent of handmade incense clings to me as I walk the open street, the smell of ground resin and singed herbs which reminds me of home. I run my hands over racks of thick coloured candles without interest and sift polished gemstones from hand to hand. But there’s nothing to really grab me, I feel as if I’m not entirely present, as if my real body is still on the island being shouted and gawped at.
I decide to stop somewhere for some dinner, and then check into a bed and breakfast or something. The restaurant I eventually choose is a dusky blue with hanging canopies of translucent fabric. I sit alone at an indigo draped table, eating a kind of Moroccan thing with apricots and couscous. The candle on the table burns down to its cheap glass holder and goes out. I still feel separate, as if none of these things are real. Already I want to return to the island, to get on with my real life. But I stubbornly seek out a hotel for the evening, one of the chain motorway ones with cream walls and green carpets in every room. I know that, despite my longing to return, once I do go home I will feel that same as I did before I left, ashamed, lonely and miserable.
I turn on the television as soon as I get to my room, skipping through the channels until I settle on a film that seems vaguely familiar. Flipping off the glaring fluorescents, I crawl underneath the green duvet and manage to keep my eyes open for another hour before succumbing to sleep.
I wake up the next morning and for a few awful seconds forget where I am. The television is still on, the sounds of a news broadcast filtering into the humid air. I struggle upright just as a knock comes at the door. I retrieve the breakfast that I ordered yesterday. A plastic bottle of orange juice and a plate of uniformly produced lukewarm pancakes clotted with too much syrup. As I settle myself into bed to pick at my oozing meal, I prod the remote and the faint voice of the presenter becomes audible.
Just as a preface to this – I didn’t believe it either, I still can’t.
“....Following the dredging there has been no sign of any remains, but the police statement implies that none are expected given the devastating weather conditions.”
Nothing to cheer you up like a little death with your breakfast, I twist the cap from my juice irritably. Why is there never any good news in the morning? It’s always doom and death and economic downturns.
“....Locals report that the victim had been behaving erratically and seemed unhappy, at this point suicide has not been ruled out”
Well that’s bloody typical. So you’re not leaping around with a basket full of cookies and a herd of tiny bunnies, therefore automatically it’s your own fault if something bad happens to you.
“.....It seems that the missing woman had been behaving strangely for some time, now we go live to a close friend of the woman in question.”
Wheeling out a grieving friend or relative to raise the ratings, it says a lot that I’m not surprised by this. Any further thoughts are cut off when the screen changes to show an image of Vikkie, standing in my garden on the island looking drenched and tearful beneath the presenter’s umbrella.
A cold wave of shock makes every hair on the back of my neck stand on end. They think I’m dead. Dead. It’s surreal to be sitting in the unfamiliar room watching a report on my own suspected suicide, almost as if I really am dead and this is a bizarre afterlife. Maybe it really is and....no, stop, I’m alive.
Vikkie is still being interviewed and I watch because I can’t think of anything else to do. Then a horrible thought occurs to me, my parents will have seen this. Setting aside the fact that they are probably upset, understandably so given my sudden death, they will be furious when they realise that I am not dead, but am in fact a liar and a dropout. I know that at some point it will all have to come out, I have to tell someone that it was a mistake.
I dig my phone out for beneath all the clothes in my bag, flip it open and scroll down a list of numbers. I can’t decide who to call first, my parents will be furious, which puts me off phoning them straight away, but Vikkie is still on camera which makes me reluctant to call her and give the reporters a real story.
At the bottom of the list of numbers are the contact details for Daniel Shield. Arthur, I realise, might be down there, on the beach, watching as they dredge up my sodden clothes and thinking....what? The truth is I have no idea, is he relieved that it’s all over, that his embarrassing lapse of judgement so neatly tidied itself away? Or does he feel sad, guilty, remorseful or horrified. I cannot face the last alternative, that he is simply indifferent, hardened against any concern for my welfare by my own stupid thoughtless actions.
I quickly return to Vikkie’s number and wait for the reporter to leave her alone. This takes a good five minutes as the interviewer is going in for the kill, his voice bending greasily into feigned sympathy, whilst still accusing enough to imply negligence on Vikkie’s part. At last I can’t take it anymore and dial the number just to give her an excuse to leave. As the phone in her pocket begins to chirp and she excuses herself, I feel once more the strangeness of the situation, as if she is just a character on the screen, coincidently answering a call I am making to someone real.
Her voice comes over the crackling line, “Hello?”
I hear no similar voice from the television, and assume she is safely away from the television crew.
“Vikkie? It’s Emma.”
“Emma?!” she blurts loudly “Emma, where the hell are you? We thought...”
“Yes I know, I’m watching the news right now, in Glastonbury.”
“Why are you in Glastonbury? Just how many secret lives are you leading?”
“Just the two that I know of” I joke weakly.
“I’m serious” she growls “I came up here to visit you, like I said in my message, but I couldn’t get over to the island because of the storm. The next thing I know you’re house is empty with no sign of a note...”
“What message?” I cut in
“The one I left on your phone.”
“I didn’t get a...” as if sensing my confusion, the phone, which only too late I remember has been off for over a week, gives a beep, and a brief check of the display informs me I have nine messages from Vikkie. Vikkie takes advantage of my stunned silence to continue her story.
“Anyway, I tried to find a number for that Daniel Shield guy to see if he knew where you’d gone, and all I could get was this weird number that turned out to be a house on the island. So I went there and you’ll never guess what!”
I closed my eyes and waited, feeling sure that I already knew where this was going.
“That git with the permanent scowl lives there, turns out they’re related. Anyway, he seemed a bit concerned that you’d just left, so that got me more worried and I called your parents to see if you’d gone to visit them.”
“You didn’t!” I exclaim “well done; now they’re going to hate me...”
“I think at this point they are just going to be happy that you’re breathing...and not being eaten by seals”
“Yeah, but sooner or later my being alive isn’t going to be a novelty anymore and they can get back to cursing the name of their lying, dropout daughter.” I pile my things back into my bag with the phone still clasped to my ear, then pause in dismay as something occurs to me. I grab my purse and open it, confirming that the worst has indeed happened.
“Shit! I left my cash card on the island, and I only have enough to pay for my room...just.”
“Why did you leave it behind?”
“I was in a bit of a hurry ok? Things have happened in the large space of time we weren’t speaking, oddly enough.” I throw my purse back into my bag and start going through the outside pockets.
“There’s no need to snap at me.” Vikkie snaps, causing the phone line to crackle.
“I’m sorry, stressed out. Can you pick me up?” Sudden hope lances through me, only to be shattered when she says,
“I can’t, it just about killed my car coming all the way down here so I had to take it in for a once over at a mechanic. Last time I saw it, it was up on blocks with the steering wheel missing.”
I slap a hand across my eyes in frustration and try to think of a way around the problems that keep mounting up around me. I can’t get back to the island, Vikkie can’t come and get me, I can’t get my parents to collect me because it would mean being in an enclosed space with them...
“Hang on a minute” Vikkie’s voice grows faint and I can hear her talking to someone else behind the hiss of static and constant bluster of the wind. Suddenly a voice returns, but it isn’t Vikkie.
“Emma?” Arthur’s voice comes through the tiny speaker, shock evident even with the terrible reception.
“Hi” I acknowledge weakly “It’s me...sorry about the...” how the hell do you apologise for accidentally faking your own death? “misunderstanding” I finish, mentally flinching at the poor wording.
An odd sound comes down the line and I realise he’s laughing.
“Well, personally I am very disappointed, but I’ll get over it.” He pauses for a moment “I was very worried, when you disappeared.” Any hint of humour is gone now, every word carries a weight of seriousness and I realise he’s being totally sincere.
“I’m sorry” I reply instinctively “I didn’t...I wasn’t trying to make a statement or anything, I really didn’t mean to drag you back into things, I’m sorry”
There’s a long silence.
“You’re kidding right?”
“Excuse me?” I blurt incredulously.
“Emma, you didn’t do anything you need to apologise for, you went away without telling me, so what? I’m the one who said you weren’t anything to do with me. If anything I should be sorry, and I am. I shouldn’t have shouted at you, it was just a bit of a shock, you and Daniel”
“Not me and Daniel!” I realise with a start what he must think, what neither myself (nor Daniel apparently) had told him. “Me and Daniel aren’t together...I mean we were for about three hours, which were probably the low point of my entire existence....no offence to your son.” I wince at my rambling.
There’s another silence as he processes this.
“I didn’t know that” he says finally, quietly.
I can’t think of anything to say, so I just sit, listening to the interference and a soft regular sound that I think is Arthur breathing.
“Your friend says you’re stuck in Glastonbury” his voice comes back across the line as if I have only just picked up the phone.
“Yeah” I sag in relief, finally an adult who can help me.
“I’ll come down and pick you up, it’ll take a few hours, but I’ll call you when I get there to tell you where I am.”
“Ok”
“See you soon”
“Bye”
His voice disappears and I hang up.
The journey takes an age and I wait it out, staring at the rain washed windows of various trains and busses whilst ignoring the passengers. I drink vending machine tea, which tastes dead to me after weeks of the home brewed, copper kettle variety. I munch on a few miniature packets of biscuits, feeling the food bunch in my stomach like wet sand. After only a short time I have become acclimatised to life on an island in a period before electricity, now it’s hard taking trains seriously.
I am the only passenger to disembark in Glastonbury, and the street is otherwise empty, a residential street. I walk for ages trying to find the shops, but discover only rows of houses and gardens. Eventually I stop at a corner shop and buy a newspaper as cover for asking directions. I follow these and eventually go through an improbable gap between some houses. There the street dead ends in a neat square of grass with a droopy birch, bordered solidly on all sides by houses. One of the houses however is not a house, but the back of a shop with a huge arch, like an underpass, through which I go. Stretching out on either side of me is the high street, with it’s colourfully fronted shops and little cobbled recesses leading to restaurants.
I wander around for a while, going in and out of shops full of glittering touristy rubbish and others selling the paraphernalia of the serious witch. The scent of handmade incense clings to me as I walk the open street, the smell of ground resin and singed herbs which reminds me of home. I run my hands over racks of thick coloured candles without interest and sift polished gemstones from hand to hand. But there’s nothing to really grab me, I feel as if I’m not entirely present, as if my real body is still on the island being shouted and gawped at.
I decide to stop somewhere for some dinner, and then check into a bed and breakfast or something. The restaurant I eventually choose is a dusky blue with hanging canopies of translucent fabric. I sit alone at an indigo draped table, eating a kind of Moroccan thing with apricots and couscous. The candle on the table burns down to its cheap glass holder and goes out. I still feel separate, as if none of these things are real. Already I want to return to the island, to get on with my real life. But I stubbornly seek out a hotel for the evening, one of the chain motorway ones with cream walls and green carpets in every room. I know that, despite my longing to return, once I do go home I will feel that same as I did before I left, ashamed, lonely and miserable.
I turn on the television as soon as I get to my room, skipping through the channels until I settle on a film that seems vaguely familiar. Flipping off the glaring fluorescents, I crawl underneath the green duvet and manage to keep my eyes open for another hour before succumbing to sleep.
I wake up the next morning and for a few awful seconds forget where I am. The television is still on, the sounds of a news broadcast filtering into the humid air. I struggle upright just as a knock comes at the door. I retrieve the breakfast that I ordered yesterday. A plastic bottle of orange juice and a plate of uniformly produced lukewarm pancakes clotted with too much syrup. As I settle myself into bed to pick at my oozing meal, I prod the remote and the faint voice of the presenter becomes audible.
Just as a preface to this – I didn’t believe it either, I still can’t.
“....Following the dredging there has been no sign of any remains, but the police statement implies that none are expected given the devastating weather conditions.”
Nothing to cheer you up like a little death with your breakfast, I twist the cap from my juice irritably. Why is there never any good news in the morning? It’s always doom and death and economic downturns.
“....Locals report that the victim had been behaving erratically and seemed unhappy, at this point suicide has not been ruled out”
Well that’s bloody typical. So you’re not leaping around with a basket full of cookies and a herd of tiny bunnies, therefore automatically it’s your own fault if something bad happens to you.
“.....It seems that the missing woman had been behaving strangely for some time, now we go live to a close friend of the woman in question.”
Wheeling out a grieving friend or relative to raise the ratings, it says a lot that I’m not surprised by this. Any further thoughts are cut off when the screen changes to show an image of Vikkie, standing in my garden on the island looking drenched and tearful beneath the presenter’s umbrella.
A cold wave of shock makes every hair on the back of my neck stand on end. They think I’m dead. Dead. It’s surreal to be sitting in the unfamiliar room watching a report on my own suspected suicide, almost as if I really am dead and this is a bizarre afterlife. Maybe it really is and....no, stop, I’m alive.
Vikkie is still being interviewed and I watch because I can’t think of anything else to do. Then a horrible thought occurs to me, my parents will have seen this. Setting aside the fact that they are probably upset, understandably so given my sudden death, they will be furious when they realise that I am not dead, but am in fact a liar and a dropout. I know that at some point it will all have to come out, I have to tell someone that it was a mistake.
I dig my phone out for beneath all the clothes in my bag, flip it open and scroll down a list of numbers. I can’t decide who to call first, my parents will be furious, which puts me off phoning them straight away, but Vikkie is still on camera which makes me reluctant to call her and give the reporters a real story.
At the bottom of the list of numbers are the contact details for Daniel Shield. Arthur, I realise, might be down there, on the beach, watching as they dredge up my sodden clothes and thinking....what? The truth is I have no idea, is he relieved that it’s all over, that his embarrassing lapse of judgement so neatly tidied itself away? Or does he feel sad, guilty, remorseful or horrified. I cannot face the last alternative, that he is simply indifferent, hardened against any concern for my welfare by my own stupid thoughtless actions.
I quickly return to Vikkie’s number and wait for the reporter to leave her alone. This takes a good five minutes as the interviewer is going in for the kill, his voice bending greasily into feigned sympathy, whilst still accusing enough to imply negligence on Vikkie’s part. At last I can’t take it anymore and dial the number just to give her an excuse to leave. As the phone in her pocket begins to chirp and she excuses herself, I feel once more the strangeness of the situation, as if she is just a character on the screen, coincidently answering a call I am making to someone real.
Her voice comes over the crackling line, “Hello?”
I hear no similar voice from the television, and assume she is safely away from the television crew.
“Vikkie? It’s Emma.”
“Emma?!” she blurts loudly “Emma, where the hell are you? We thought...”
“Yes I know, I’m watching the news right now, in Glastonbury.”
“Why are you in Glastonbury? Just how many secret lives are you leading?”
“Just the two that I know of” I joke weakly.
“I’m serious” she growls “I came up here to visit you, like I said in my message, but I couldn’t get over to the island because of the storm. The next thing I know you’re house is empty with no sign of a note...”
“What message?” I cut in
“The one I left on your phone.”
“I didn’t get a...” as if sensing my confusion, the phone, which only too late I remember has been off for over a week, gives a beep, and a brief check of the display informs me I have nine messages from Vikkie. Vikkie takes advantage of my stunned silence to continue her story.
“Anyway, I tried to find a number for that Daniel Shield guy to see if he knew where you’d gone, and all I could get was this weird number that turned out to be a house on the island. So I went there and you’ll never guess what!”
I closed my eyes and waited, feeling sure that I already knew where this was going.
“That git with the permanent scowl lives there, turns out they’re related. Anyway, he seemed a bit concerned that you’d just left, so that got me more worried and I called your parents to see if you’d gone to visit them.”
“You didn’t!” I exclaim “well done; now they’re going to hate me...”
“I think at this point they are just going to be happy that you’re breathing...and not being eaten by seals”
“Yeah, but sooner or later my being alive isn’t going to be a novelty anymore and they can get back to cursing the name of their lying, dropout daughter.” I pile my things back into my bag with the phone still clasped to my ear, then pause in dismay as something occurs to me. I grab my purse and open it, confirming that the worst has indeed happened.
“Shit! I left my cash card on the island, and I only have enough to pay for my room...just.”
“Why did you leave it behind?”
“I was in a bit of a hurry ok? Things have happened in the large space of time we weren’t speaking, oddly enough.” I throw my purse back into my bag and start going through the outside pockets.
“There’s no need to snap at me.” Vikkie snaps, causing the phone line to crackle.
“I’m sorry, stressed out. Can you pick me up?” Sudden hope lances through me, only to be shattered when she says,
“I can’t, it just about killed my car coming all the way down here so I had to take it in for a once over at a mechanic. Last time I saw it, it was up on blocks with the steering wheel missing.”
I slap a hand across my eyes in frustration and try to think of a way around the problems that keep mounting up around me. I can’t get back to the island, Vikkie can’t come and get me, I can’t get my parents to collect me because it would mean being in an enclosed space with them...
“Hang on a minute” Vikkie’s voice grows faint and I can hear her talking to someone else behind the hiss of static and constant bluster of the wind. Suddenly a voice returns, but it isn’t Vikkie.
“Emma?” Arthur’s voice comes through the tiny speaker, shock evident even with the terrible reception.
“Hi” I acknowledge weakly “It’s me...sorry about the...” how the hell do you apologise for accidentally faking your own death? “misunderstanding” I finish, mentally flinching at the poor wording.
An odd sound comes down the line and I realise he’s laughing.
“Well, personally I am very disappointed, but I’ll get over it.” He pauses for a moment “I was very worried, when you disappeared.” Any hint of humour is gone now, every word carries a weight of seriousness and I realise he’s being totally sincere.
“I’m sorry” I reply instinctively “I didn’t...I wasn’t trying to make a statement or anything, I really didn’t mean to drag you back into things, I’m sorry”
There’s a long silence.
“You’re kidding right?”
“Excuse me?” I blurt incredulously.
“Emma, you didn’t do anything you need to apologise for, you went away without telling me, so what? I’m the one who said you weren’t anything to do with me. If anything I should be sorry, and I am. I shouldn’t have shouted at you, it was just a bit of a shock, you and Daniel”
“Not me and Daniel!” I realise with a start what he must think, what neither myself (nor Daniel apparently) had told him. “Me and Daniel aren’t together...I mean we were for about three hours, which were probably the low point of my entire existence....no offence to your son.” I wince at my rambling.
There’s another silence as he processes this.
“I didn’t know that” he says finally, quietly.
I can’t think of anything to say, so I just sit, listening to the interference and a soft regular sound that I think is Arthur breathing.
“Your friend says you’re stuck in Glastonbury” his voice comes back across the line as if I have only just picked up the phone.
“Yeah” I sag in relief, finally an adult who can help me.
“I’ll come down and pick you up, it’ll take a few hours, but I’ll call you when I get there to tell you where I am.”
“Ok”
“See you soon”
“Bye”
His voice disappears and I hang up.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Bad Bad Decisions
Oh god, worst thing to happen ever. I feel.....oh god I’ll just tell you.
I blame the entirety of what happened on alcoholic beverages in general and vodka in particular.
I went out shopping, mainly to avoid thinking about all the Arthur stuff going on. I stopped for a rest and had stashed my things under a table in a pub because I thought I deserved a drink after the last few days of total misery. I ordered my first vodka and coke (the first on many) and was about halfway through drinking it when someone sat down in the chair opposite mine. It was Daniel Shield.
“Hello again.” He greets me before I can pretend that I was just leaving.
“Hi” I reply, awkwardly, taking another gulp of my drink.
I have never liked this guy, I realise I only met him once in person, but still there are some people, in fact, most people in my case, who I hate on sight. Daniel Shield looks like the kind of person most people detest. Clean cut, organized and successful overlaid with smugness because he knows how clean cut, successful and etc he looks.
“Everything going well I trust?” he asks, as if he’s a minor royal talking to a shrimp factory owner.
“Excellently” I reply shortly
“No problems with the locals then? They can be rather...off-putting.”
“And you would know this from your long years of study” I can’t help retorting. I instantly regret it. There are some people you can banter with, arguing lightly and insulting them a little just for the fun of the confrontation. Mr Shield didn’t exactly look like one of these people; he looked like someone who had their lawyer on speed dial just in case someone mocked his one sixteenth Norwegian heritage.
“I actually come from Ilensay, I grew up there.” He smirks, knowing that he has pinned me conversationally, as the mental comeback count begins I realise that I have nothing suitably cutting to say.
“I had heard that there was a slight problem with Arthur, he holds quite a prominent position as the head of the council there.”
“I know” I snap, resenting his patronising tone.
“So punching him was, you agree, a fairly foolish idea?”
Bastard
“Do you want another drink?” his sudden offer catches me off guard and he takes my silence for a yes, plucking my glass from my hand and heading for the bar.
My mind is working furiously. Why would he....? Then it hits me like a cold sheet of water thrown up by a speeding hearse. He can’t be...flirting. The thought makes me want to laugh out loud, but also makes me almost sick with dread. So this is it, after all this time, and the only person who finds me attractive is a patronising stuffed shirt who thinks of flirting as verbally subduing your quarry and making them feel inadequate. Wonderful.
Ok so I have a teeny confession to make, I have never actually been in a relationship. Scratch that, I have never even been, almost-very nearly-potentially-possibly in a relationship, full stop, which makes this cosmic joke of a “date” even more humiliating and awful. Even more awful is the fact that this guy is my age, or very nearly my age, give or take a year. As opposed to he who I’m not even mentioning, who is my age give or take a decade and who I actually might have considered possibly liking. But look which one I end up with. Typical.
So I sit and drink my drink, convinced that I should be mildly grateful for the long overdue attention. I allow alcohol to slowly dull the receptors in my brain that are screaming, “Push over the table and run you idiot! This guy is awful and so not worth your time.” I just sit there, aware that I have been defeated, listening to his long winded and one sided conversation that I suppose is intended to put me in awe of him, but instead leaves me with the strange impression that he wants my vote in the next general election.
When he offers me a lift back to the boat because he is staying on the island overnight at, “the old family stamping ground” – which I assume means “house”, I accept. When we are on the boat and a sudden lurch pushes us together I don’t pull away fast enough to make it perfectly crystal clear that he should not be that close, which is why his hand ends up on my leg, and why I end up in the "old family heirloom" which I presume means bed.
So in conclusion, I wake up with a pounding headache and a dry throat, in a strangers house. Looking at my clothing strew across the floor and wondering why everyone thinks teenagers love one night stands, because it is certainly not an experience I will be repeating.
I hastily shove on my clothes and tiptoe downstairs, where I see one of my shoes in the middle of the living room. I hurry over to grab it and jam it onto my foot. I feel awful, cheap and disgusting and just…awful. I never did anything like this in school, I never got drunk or did…other stuff.
But that’s not the worst part.
“Emma?”
I turn in disbelief to see Arthur standing in the doorway in a rumpled T-shirt, jogging bottoms and sleep tousled hair. He puts his coffee on a little side table but continues to frown at me.
“What are you doing…?”
“There you are!” Daniel breezes in with another cup of coffee which he presses into my hand. “Oh, hi Dad”
No, please no!
“Daniel” Arthur say’s evenly, still looking at me.
“Dad this is Emma, but then you already know her.”
Ha bloody Ha!
“No I really don’t” murmurs Arthur, before saying, louder “I actually have some things that I have to do, I’ll see you later Daniel.” and then he’s gone, just like that. Daniel turns to me.
“Just us then, listen I was just…”
“I have to leave, actually” I thrust the coffee at him briskly, striding out into the hallway.
“Right, well, maybe we can…”
“Daniel, no, just no.” I sigh, jerking open the door “Nothing, again, ever.” I stress the last word, stepping out into the cool morning air and shutting the door behind me.
Of course then I tiptoe through the shrubs to get to the back door. I need to talk to Arthur, I need to explain. The door opens onto the kitchen, floored with fat terracotta tiles which make my shoes clack. The hall is carpeted and painted the same bland cream colour as the kitchen, though it is livened with a few pictures in gold frames. I hear sounds through a partially open door, a peek through shows me that it is a study, and Arthur is there, staring blankly at a computer screen.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room is slightly modern with blue walls and a chocolate brown carpet. The shelves are filled with novels, mostly Stephen Kings and detective thrillers. It’s oddly endearing, to see that he is a little less grown up than he thinks he is. I push open the door and step inside.
“Arthur?”
He spins round in the squishy beige chair, bare feet steadying him on the carpet. Now that he is actually looking at me, it makes things harder, all my words are sticking in my throat.
“Emma” he replies evenly.
“I wanted to…explain, about Daniel and everything.”
“You mean you didn’t sleep with him?” I can see now where Daniel gets that cold voice and glare from.
“Yes, I mean, I did, but I didn’t…”
“Emma, you don’t need to explain, because there is nothing to explain, I don’t owe you anything and you certainly don’t owe me anything. So there is nothing to talk about.”
I’m totally stunned, he just cut me off, right there, like everything is suddenly meaningless. I nod mutely and manage to walk out of the room and out of the house before my eyes start to burn. Perfect. Well if any future hope of a potential relationship was still flopping limply, beached on a far off shore, this was pretty much a rock to its head.
I make it back to the site in time to make a vat of porridge for the campers, then I have the longest ever shower and bundle up in fluffy socks with an enormous mug of hot chocolate. My head is pounding, I literally feel like I’m dying, how do people do this every weekend? I dig in my cupboard for a forgotten packet of liquorish allsorts, if I’m going to do this kind of thing regularly then I think avoiding sugar is a lost cause as well.
How could I behave like such a slut? Arthur thinks I’m too young for him, so my solution is to act like the typical irresponsible teen? Very mature. I can’t even bring myself to go and see him, to try and explain. Everything is ruined, my bright shiny new life is just a joke, a stupid little fantasy for the stupid little girl. I pick the packet of sweets up and throw them across the room, followed by the mug and a shower of magazines which slither down the wall into the steaming puddle of chocolate.
For a while I just stare at the mess, then I get a cloth and wipe up the liquid, tossing the broken china into the bin, followed by the damp magazines. I feel embarrassed by this tantrum, as if it proves all the bad things my mind is saying about me. I get the little pie plate from it’s place above the stove and start to make pastry with the ingredients still strewn across the table. Adults don’t sit around in pink fluffy socks eating sweets, they carry on and make do. Just because this life is fractured doesn’t mean it’s not worth living, people have to stick with their choices.
I spoon bruised and bleeding berries into the lined dish, slowly flattening them, watching the juice squirt out under the spoon. This so isn’t helping, of all the things I could have baked, why pie? Arthur was right, the whole island is too small, all my memories of it bleeding together so that every place is inhabited by Arthur. It’s ridiculous. I slash pastry ribbons to cross over the top of the fruit. Totally stupid, I’ve been with him (not even with him) for a grand total of about an hour, and for half of that he hated my guts. That’s not a relationship, that’s not even a long lunch.
But still, as I begin to work on my second pie mechanically, I can’t help but see him in my head. Ok, so and hour isn’t that long, but I spent more than double that with Daniel, and that doesn’t mean we got any closer. I met Vikkie on our first day at school, within the first fifteen minutes, and we’ve been friends for nine years. My hands still over the floury table, the pastry falls into a tangled lump. Maybe, sometimes, when you meet someone, it’s not about time spent together, or age or anything else for that matter. Perhaps it’s about meeting them, and that’s it.
But it doesn’t matter does it? I could have realised this days ago, I could have made him see. Now he hates me and nothing matters anymore.
I notice yesterdays clothing, rumpled and discarded on the floor. The thought of wearing it again makes me feel slightly sick; as if it’s a skin I’ve discarded which is slowly putrefying. I pick up the shirt and the shoes and go outside, the skirt trailing from my arm. I reach the curved wall behind the house and look down at the dark points of rock standing out in the churning froth. I throw the bundle of soiled fabric as hard as I can, watching it tumble over and over, the wind shredding it into it’s components and then strewing them over the waves.
So I decided that I need a holiday from everything, a little break to remind me that there is life away from the island. The campers have decided to cut their stay short because of a weather warning that’s been issued, a storm approaching. So I’m free to do as I please. I’ve decided that I should visit Glastonbury. A couple of days of vegetarian food and interesting shops and I’ll feel more myself again, I’m sure.
I blame the entirety of what happened on alcoholic beverages in general and vodka in particular.
I went out shopping, mainly to avoid thinking about all the Arthur stuff going on. I stopped for a rest and had stashed my things under a table in a pub because I thought I deserved a drink after the last few days of total misery. I ordered my first vodka and coke (the first on many) and was about halfway through drinking it when someone sat down in the chair opposite mine. It was Daniel Shield.
“Hello again.” He greets me before I can pretend that I was just leaving.
“Hi” I reply, awkwardly, taking another gulp of my drink.
I have never liked this guy, I realise I only met him once in person, but still there are some people, in fact, most people in my case, who I hate on sight. Daniel Shield looks like the kind of person most people detest. Clean cut, organized and successful overlaid with smugness because he knows how clean cut, successful and etc he looks.
“Everything going well I trust?” he asks, as if he’s a minor royal talking to a shrimp factory owner.
“Excellently” I reply shortly
“No problems with the locals then? They can be rather...off-putting.”
“And you would know this from your long years of study” I can’t help retorting. I instantly regret it. There are some people you can banter with, arguing lightly and insulting them a little just for the fun of the confrontation. Mr Shield didn’t exactly look like one of these people; he looked like someone who had their lawyer on speed dial just in case someone mocked his one sixteenth Norwegian heritage.
“I actually come from Ilensay, I grew up there.” He smirks, knowing that he has pinned me conversationally, as the mental comeback count begins I realise that I have nothing suitably cutting to say.
“I had heard that there was a slight problem with Arthur, he holds quite a prominent position as the head of the council there.”
“I know” I snap, resenting his patronising tone.
“So punching him was, you agree, a fairly foolish idea?”
Bastard
“Do you want another drink?” his sudden offer catches me off guard and he takes my silence for a yes, plucking my glass from my hand and heading for the bar.
My mind is working furiously. Why would he....? Then it hits me like a cold sheet of water thrown up by a speeding hearse. He can’t be...flirting. The thought makes me want to laugh out loud, but also makes me almost sick with dread. So this is it, after all this time, and the only person who finds me attractive is a patronising stuffed shirt who thinks of flirting as verbally subduing your quarry and making them feel inadequate. Wonderful.
Ok so I have a teeny confession to make, I have never actually been in a relationship. Scratch that, I have never even been, almost-very nearly-potentially-possibly in a relationship, full stop, which makes this cosmic joke of a “date” even more humiliating and awful. Even more awful is the fact that this guy is my age, or very nearly my age, give or take a year. As opposed to he who I’m not even mentioning, who is my age give or take a decade and who I actually might have considered possibly liking. But look which one I end up with. Typical.
So I sit and drink my drink, convinced that I should be mildly grateful for the long overdue attention. I allow alcohol to slowly dull the receptors in my brain that are screaming, “Push over the table and run you idiot! This guy is awful and so not worth your time.” I just sit there, aware that I have been defeated, listening to his long winded and one sided conversation that I suppose is intended to put me in awe of him, but instead leaves me with the strange impression that he wants my vote in the next general election.
When he offers me a lift back to the boat because he is staying on the island overnight at, “the old family stamping ground” – which I assume means “house”, I accept. When we are on the boat and a sudden lurch pushes us together I don’t pull away fast enough to make it perfectly crystal clear that he should not be that close, which is why his hand ends up on my leg, and why I end up in the "old family heirloom" which I presume means bed.
So in conclusion, I wake up with a pounding headache and a dry throat, in a strangers house. Looking at my clothing strew across the floor and wondering why everyone thinks teenagers love one night stands, because it is certainly not an experience I will be repeating.
I hastily shove on my clothes and tiptoe downstairs, where I see one of my shoes in the middle of the living room. I hurry over to grab it and jam it onto my foot. I feel awful, cheap and disgusting and just…awful. I never did anything like this in school, I never got drunk or did…other stuff.
But that’s not the worst part.
“Emma?”
I turn in disbelief to see Arthur standing in the doorway in a rumpled T-shirt, jogging bottoms and sleep tousled hair. He puts his coffee on a little side table but continues to frown at me.
“What are you doing…?”
“There you are!” Daniel breezes in with another cup of coffee which he presses into my hand. “Oh, hi Dad”
No, please no!
“Daniel” Arthur say’s evenly, still looking at me.
“Dad this is Emma, but then you already know her.”
Ha bloody Ha!
“No I really don’t” murmurs Arthur, before saying, louder “I actually have some things that I have to do, I’ll see you later Daniel.” and then he’s gone, just like that. Daniel turns to me.
“Just us then, listen I was just…”
“I have to leave, actually” I thrust the coffee at him briskly, striding out into the hallway.
“Right, well, maybe we can…”
“Daniel, no, just no.” I sigh, jerking open the door “Nothing, again, ever.” I stress the last word, stepping out into the cool morning air and shutting the door behind me.
Of course then I tiptoe through the shrubs to get to the back door. I need to talk to Arthur, I need to explain. The door opens onto the kitchen, floored with fat terracotta tiles which make my shoes clack. The hall is carpeted and painted the same bland cream colour as the kitchen, though it is livened with a few pictures in gold frames. I hear sounds through a partially open door, a peek through shows me that it is a study, and Arthur is there, staring blankly at a computer screen.
Unlike the rest of the house, this room is slightly modern with blue walls and a chocolate brown carpet. The shelves are filled with novels, mostly Stephen Kings and detective thrillers. It’s oddly endearing, to see that he is a little less grown up than he thinks he is. I push open the door and step inside.
“Arthur?”
He spins round in the squishy beige chair, bare feet steadying him on the carpet. Now that he is actually looking at me, it makes things harder, all my words are sticking in my throat.
“Emma” he replies evenly.
“I wanted to…explain, about Daniel and everything.”
“You mean you didn’t sleep with him?” I can see now where Daniel gets that cold voice and glare from.
“Yes, I mean, I did, but I didn’t…”
“Emma, you don’t need to explain, because there is nothing to explain, I don’t owe you anything and you certainly don’t owe me anything. So there is nothing to talk about.”
I’m totally stunned, he just cut me off, right there, like everything is suddenly meaningless. I nod mutely and manage to walk out of the room and out of the house before my eyes start to burn. Perfect. Well if any future hope of a potential relationship was still flopping limply, beached on a far off shore, this was pretty much a rock to its head.
I make it back to the site in time to make a vat of porridge for the campers, then I have the longest ever shower and bundle up in fluffy socks with an enormous mug of hot chocolate. My head is pounding, I literally feel like I’m dying, how do people do this every weekend? I dig in my cupboard for a forgotten packet of liquorish allsorts, if I’m going to do this kind of thing regularly then I think avoiding sugar is a lost cause as well.
How could I behave like such a slut? Arthur thinks I’m too young for him, so my solution is to act like the typical irresponsible teen? Very mature. I can’t even bring myself to go and see him, to try and explain. Everything is ruined, my bright shiny new life is just a joke, a stupid little fantasy for the stupid little girl. I pick the packet of sweets up and throw them across the room, followed by the mug and a shower of magazines which slither down the wall into the steaming puddle of chocolate.
For a while I just stare at the mess, then I get a cloth and wipe up the liquid, tossing the broken china into the bin, followed by the damp magazines. I feel embarrassed by this tantrum, as if it proves all the bad things my mind is saying about me. I get the little pie plate from it’s place above the stove and start to make pastry with the ingredients still strewn across the table. Adults don’t sit around in pink fluffy socks eating sweets, they carry on and make do. Just because this life is fractured doesn’t mean it’s not worth living, people have to stick with their choices.
I spoon bruised and bleeding berries into the lined dish, slowly flattening them, watching the juice squirt out under the spoon. This so isn’t helping, of all the things I could have baked, why pie? Arthur was right, the whole island is too small, all my memories of it bleeding together so that every place is inhabited by Arthur. It’s ridiculous. I slash pastry ribbons to cross over the top of the fruit. Totally stupid, I’ve been with him (not even with him) for a grand total of about an hour, and for half of that he hated my guts. That’s not a relationship, that’s not even a long lunch.
But still, as I begin to work on my second pie mechanically, I can’t help but see him in my head. Ok, so and hour isn’t that long, but I spent more than double that with Daniel, and that doesn’t mean we got any closer. I met Vikkie on our first day at school, within the first fifteen minutes, and we’ve been friends for nine years. My hands still over the floury table, the pastry falls into a tangled lump. Maybe, sometimes, when you meet someone, it’s not about time spent together, or age or anything else for that matter. Perhaps it’s about meeting them, and that’s it.
But it doesn’t matter does it? I could have realised this days ago, I could have made him see. Now he hates me and nothing matters anymore.
I notice yesterdays clothing, rumpled and discarded on the floor. The thought of wearing it again makes me feel slightly sick; as if it’s a skin I’ve discarded which is slowly putrefying. I pick up the shirt and the shoes and go outside, the skirt trailing from my arm. I reach the curved wall behind the house and look down at the dark points of rock standing out in the churning froth. I throw the bundle of soiled fabric as hard as I can, watching it tumble over and over, the wind shredding it into it’s components and then strewing them over the waves.
So I decided that I need a holiday from everything, a little break to remind me that there is life away from the island. The campers have decided to cut their stay short because of a weather warning that’s been issued, a storm approaching. So I’m free to do as I please. I’ve decided that I should visit Glastonbury. A couple of days of vegetarian food and interesting shops and I’ll feel more myself again, I’m sure.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Bread! and lots of it folks!
Well, this is defiantly the most interesting thing that’s going on right now, so I return to the Arthur saga.
After a few days the island air got to me again and I returned to my state of pre-church confrontation euphoria. Living in such a beautiful place, in such an old-fashioned way, and with a group of men depending on me for food; I started to feel the need to embrace the long forgotten domestic arts. I began to bake cakes of all descriptions, coffee and walnut, lemon drizzle and strawberry stacks, some even survived the demands of the campers to make it down the hill to Pam and the other people at coffee morning. After a while I began to get rather bored with simple recipes and scoured my three cookbooks for some more challenging things to fill my empty time. Having already made mass quantities of jam at home, it seemed silly to make more, so I moved to the next logical step, Bread.
According to my cookery book, it is one of the easiest things to make, having only a handful of ingredients and taking very little actual work and lots of waiting. So I heat up the water to the right temperature, mix the yeast with the warmed flour and some salt, then dump the whole lot onto the table for kneading. This actually takes a lot of effort, so by the time my dough has developed “a nice sheen”; my arms feel stringy with aching muscle. I drop the ball of dough back into the bowl, cover it up with cling film (that’s a whole separate battle) then leave it on the tiled windowsill to rise in the sun. The book says this will take two whole hours, so I tidy everything up and lie down on my bed to read another, less floury, book.
After two hours I’ve read nearly half of my book and am feeling impatient. The whole room smells of slightly warmed dough and yeast, so I open a window to let some fresh air in, then I go to uncover my dough.
Well....at least it’s risen.
This is actually an understatement; instead of doubling in size as the recipe book said it would, my bread has quadrupled, then doubled. It has risen nearly four whole inches above the rim of the bowl, and when I prod it, it hisses with trapped air and neatly heals the impression of my finger. I’m actually quite afraid that it is going to eat me.
I only have one, two pound, loaf tin. So I have no choice but to heap the whole swollen monstrosity into it and hope for the best. Optimistically I sprinkle the top with flour and a handful of poppy seeds, ok so it isn’t perfect, but home cooking is functional, not pretty.
I somehow manage to get it into the stove’s oven compartment, and then set my chicken shaped oven timer to fifty minutes. Instead of waiting inside for my bread to cook (and maybe throwing in a few Hail Marys for good measure) I decide to have a potter in the garden, if only to watch the caterpillars slowly munching their way through it. I’ve been settled on the wall for quite a while, drinking some tea and flicking to the best articles in one of my old magazines, when I notice Arthur struggling with the gate whilst holding a lumpy pile of stuff.
For a moment I’m a little thrown, I haven’t actually seen him around since he came to apologise and then nearly kissed me. Not that I’m keeping track or anything.
I pick my way through the lines of vegetables and take the things from him, recognising the tins and plates which I had taken cake to Pam with. The problem with stress cooking being that if it isn’t coupled with stress eating then it’s really just a waste.
“Hi” I say, depositing the heap of tins and plates onto the wall, “You didn’t have to bring all those up, I was going to collect them tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t going to; it’s just that I was coming up here anyway”
“Really and why’s that?” It is only in situations like this that I realise how much I suck at flirting.
“To see if you knew about all the smoke coming from your chimney.” He says with a touch of amusement.
I whip round. “Shit! The bread” I yelp, running back into the house. There is indeed a column of dark smoke pouring from the chimney. Arthur follows behind me, carrying the heap of things with an amused little smirk on his face.
I duck inside and grab my oven mitts, yanking open the oven door and trying to heft the loaf tin out. I feel a kind of tremor along my arms and the tin gives, but the top half of the mammoth loaf is left stuck to the roof of the oven. I dump the tin on the table, realising too late that it will burn the wood, leaving a large oblong of seared black. Arthur, in an attempt to be helpful rather than just lean in the doorway watching me in amusement, gets a spatula and makes a move to start scraping the remains of the loaf out of the oven; only I’m still in the way. We collide as I straighten up from the stove, having pulled all the shelves out to dislodge the bread. At first we both just clash and apologise repeatedly, disentangling limbs and spatula respectively. But after a second we both seem to realise our proximity to each other. My face is turned upwards towards his, which is tilted down. His hand brushes my side as it falls back to his and my heart hitches. The kitchen is silent and for a moment our breathing, loud and irregular, is the only thing I can hear. Then Arthur blinks and ducks down to the stove, working briskly.
I shake off my daze and go back to my loaf. Powdery traces of bread reduced to charcoal skitter across the floor as I wrangle the loaf, still as hot as a flame heated stone, out of the tin and onto a cooling rack.
Once Arthur has finished clearing out the oven and thrown the broken pieces of bread into the bin, he comes to look at the remains of my loaf, keep a cautious distance between us as if I’m a crazed nymphomaniac.
“I knew I shouldn’t have added more yeast. You just don’t argue with Delia, the universe can’t take it.” I laugh, trying not to feel hurt at his rejection.
He leans over and rips a piece off, popping it into his mouth.
“It’s not that bad” he mumbles through a mouthful.
“Really?” I ask, hopefully.
“Its bloody awful.” he says, and then splutters with laughter as I swat him with the spatula. After a second he seems to collect himself enough to reassert the barrier between us. These lapses into familiarity, as though there isn’t a day’s difference in age between us, somehow make it harder to go back to the prescribed elder-younger relationship.
“I should probably…”
“Yeah” I gesture to the door, giving him leave to go.
“Don’t burn the house down.” he calls, as he goes down the path.
Still chuckling I begin to measure out a fresh lot of ingredients, practice makes perfect after all.
When the second batch of slightly ill-fated bread is safely rising in its bowl, I decide to take a walk around the island, I always think better when I can walk around, and the whole Arthur thing was starting to give me a headache. I set off, the wind tangling my skirt around my legs and throwing my hair across my face. I round the edge of the cliff and look out across the vast expanse of wind tussled grass. It’s quite cold and I’m really starting to wish I brought a jumper when I catch sight of someone a few yards ahead of me. Arthur. He’s hunched against the wind, collar turned up and a cigarette smoking viciously against the blasts of sea air. As I get closer I spot a pile of spent cigarette ends balanced on top of an empty packet.
“Avoiding you would be easier if this island wasn’t so bloody small” He calls out against the shrill wind. I smile and sit down on the rock beside him.
“And we’re avoiding because?”
His face twists into an expression that’s half playful and half serious.
“Because you are growing on me and I am too old to entertain the notion of…”
“Gardening?”
He smiles weakly.
“And old is relative, I mean mentally I’m a forty year old nag”
I look up, smiling, and for a second our eyes meet. I can honestly say that up until just then I had never, ever felt as attracted to anyone as I did to him. He reaches a hand up and brushes it over my hair, before letting it fall back to his side. He sighs deeply and I let my eyes find the horizon again, wondering if maybe, just maybe we would have been happy in another universe.
“I’ll try to get better at the avoiding thing, I promise.” I whisper.
“I’ve got to…” he motions towards the village and I nod
I stay up there for hours, and it’s weird, but I feel as if I’ve lost a relationship that had lasted years, rather than the mere possibility of one a paltry hour long. The only person who I have liked, who ever liked me back, thinks he can’t have anything to do with me. The terrible thing is, deep down, I know it too.
God I feel so bad going on about this like a nauseating adolescent, but that’s what I am, so it’s difficult to tell it any other way.
After a few days the island air got to me again and I returned to my state of pre-church confrontation euphoria. Living in such a beautiful place, in such an old-fashioned way, and with a group of men depending on me for food; I started to feel the need to embrace the long forgotten domestic arts. I began to bake cakes of all descriptions, coffee and walnut, lemon drizzle and strawberry stacks, some even survived the demands of the campers to make it down the hill to Pam and the other people at coffee morning. After a while I began to get rather bored with simple recipes and scoured my three cookbooks for some more challenging things to fill my empty time. Having already made mass quantities of jam at home, it seemed silly to make more, so I moved to the next logical step, Bread.
According to my cookery book, it is one of the easiest things to make, having only a handful of ingredients and taking very little actual work and lots of waiting. So I heat up the water to the right temperature, mix the yeast with the warmed flour and some salt, then dump the whole lot onto the table for kneading. This actually takes a lot of effort, so by the time my dough has developed “a nice sheen”; my arms feel stringy with aching muscle. I drop the ball of dough back into the bowl, cover it up with cling film (that’s a whole separate battle) then leave it on the tiled windowsill to rise in the sun. The book says this will take two whole hours, so I tidy everything up and lie down on my bed to read another, less floury, book.
After two hours I’ve read nearly half of my book and am feeling impatient. The whole room smells of slightly warmed dough and yeast, so I open a window to let some fresh air in, then I go to uncover my dough.
Well....at least it’s risen.
This is actually an understatement; instead of doubling in size as the recipe book said it would, my bread has quadrupled, then doubled. It has risen nearly four whole inches above the rim of the bowl, and when I prod it, it hisses with trapped air and neatly heals the impression of my finger. I’m actually quite afraid that it is going to eat me.
I only have one, two pound, loaf tin. So I have no choice but to heap the whole swollen monstrosity into it and hope for the best. Optimistically I sprinkle the top with flour and a handful of poppy seeds, ok so it isn’t perfect, but home cooking is functional, not pretty.
I somehow manage to get it into the stove’s oven compartment, and then set my chicken shaped oven timer to fifty minutes. Instead of waiting inside for my bread to cook (and maybe throwing in a few Hail Marys for good measure) I decide to have a potter in the garden, if only to watch the caterpillars slowly munching their way through it. I’ve been settled on the wall for quite a while, drinking some tea and flicking to the best articles in one of my old magazines, when I notice Arthur struggling with the gate whilst holding a lumpy pile of stuff.
For a moment I’m a little thrown, I haven’t actually seen him around since he came to apologise and then nearly kissed me. Not that I’m keeping track or anything.
I pick my way through the lines of vegetables and take the things from him, recognising the tins and plates which I had taken cake to Pam with. The problem with stress cooking being that if it isn’t coupled with stress eating then it’s really just a waste.
“Hi” I say, depositing the heap of tins and plates onto the wall, “You didn’t have to bring all those up, I was going to collect them tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t going to; it’s just that I was coming up here anyway”
“Really and why’s that?” It is only in situations like this that I realise how much I suck at flirting.
“To see if you knew about all the smoke coming from your chimney.” He says with a touch of amusement.
I whip round. “Shit! The bread” I yelp, running back into the house. There is indeed a column of dark smoke pouring from the chimney. Arthur follows behind me, carrying the heap of things with an amused little smirk on his face.
I duck inside and grab my oven mitts, yanking open the oven door and trying to heft the loaf tin out. I feel a kind of tremor along my arms and the tin gives, but the top half of the mammoth loaf is left stuck to the roof of the oven. I dump the tin on the table, realising too late that it will burn the wood, leaving a large oblong of seared black. Arthur, in an attempt to be helpful rather than just lean in the doorway watching me in amusement, gets a spatula and makes a move to start scraping the remains of the loaf out of the oven; only I’m still in the way. We collide as I straighten up from the stove, having pulled all the shelves out to dislodge the bread. At first we both just clash and apologise repeatedly, disentangling limbs and spatula respectively. But after a second we both seem to realise our proximity to each other. My face is turned upwards towards his, which is tilted down. His hand brushes my side as it falls back to his and my heart hitches. The kitchen is silent and for a moment our breathing, loud and irregular, is the only thing I can hear. Then Arthur blinks and ducks down to the stove, working briskly.
I shake off my daze and go back to my loaf. Powdery traces of bread reduced to charcoal skitter across the floor as I wrangle the loaf, still as hot as a flame heated stone, out of the tin and onto a cooling rack.
Once Arthur has finished clearing out the oven and thrown the broken pieces of bread into the bin, he comes to look at the remains of my loaf, keep a cautious distance between us as if I’m a crazed nymphomaniac.
“I knew I shouldn’t have added more yeast. You just don’t argue with Delia, the universe can’t take it.” I laugh, trying not to feel hurt at his rejection.
He leans over and rips a piece off, popping it into his mouth.
“It’s not that bad” he mumbles through a mouthful.
“Really?” I ask, hopefully.
“Its bloody awful.” he says, and then splutters with laughter as I swat him with the spatula. After a second he seems to collect himself enough to reassert the barrier between us. These lapses into familiarity, as though there isn’t a day’s difference in age between us, somehow make it harder to go back to the prescribed elder-younger relationship.
“I should probably…”
“Yeah” I gesture to the door, giving him leave to go.
“Don’t burn the house down.” he calls, as he goes down the path.
Still chuckling I begin to measure out a fresh lot of ingredients, practice makes perfect after all.
When the second batch of slightly ill-fated bread is safely rising in its bowl, I decide to take a walk around the island, I always think better when I can walk around, and the whole Arthur thing was starting to give me a headache. I set off, the wind tangling my skirt around my legs and throwing my hair across my face. I round the edge of the cliff and look out across the vast expanse of wind tussled grass. It’s quite cold and I’m really starting to wish I brought a jumper when I catch sight of someone a few yards ahead of me. Arthur. He’s hunched against the wind, collar turned up and a cigarette smoking viciously against the blasts of sea air. As I get closer I spot a pile of spent cigarette ends balanced on top of an empty packet.
“Avoiding you would be easier if this island wasn’t so bloody small” He calls out against the shrill wind. I smile and sit down on the rock beside him.
“And we’re avoiding because?”
His face twists into an expression that’s half playful and half serious.
“Because you are growing on me and I am too old to entertain the notion of…”
“Gardening?”
He smiles weakly.
“And old is relative, I mean mentally I’m a forty year old nag”
I look up, smiling, and for a second our eyes meet. I can honestly say that up until just then I had never, ever felt as attracted to anyone as I did to him. He reaches a hand up and brushes it over my hair, before letting it fall back to his side. He sighs deeply and I let my eyes find the horizon again, wondering if maybe, just maybe we would have been happy in another universe.
“I’ll try to get better at the avoiding thing, I promise.” I whisper.
“I’ve got to…” he motions towards the village and I nod
I stay up there for hours, and it’s weird, but I feel as if I’ve lost a relationship that had lasted years, rather than the mere possibility of one a paltry hour long. The only person who I have liked, who ever liked me back, thinks he can’t have anything to do with me. The terrible thing is, deep down, I know it too.
God I feel so bad going on about this like a nauseating adolescent, but that’s what I am, so it’s difficult to tell it any other way.
Friday, 4 June 2010
Confused.com?
Another couple of odd events, but in a completely different way.
I hadn’t realised before, maybe because I wasn’t before, but now I’m lonely. I want to talk to someone about everything that’s happened. I need to share it with someone before I explode. But there’s no one. I don’t dare go down to the village; God knows what Pam thinks of me now.
I flip open my laptop and check on my website. There’s a message on it. A glowing white envelope of heaven sent correspondence. I click it open to find a booking request, my first. Four hikers who want a pitch at my new campsite, for two weeks starting in three days time. I close my eyes in thanks to whatever higher power exists.
With renewed vigour I go about my business, ignoring the village below and the spectre of ‘Arthur’. I clean the now completed toilet block, washing away the dust that clings to the fresh tile with long slow strokes to reveal the gleaming surface beneath. I tidy my house, washing the dishes and scrubbing the floor until my fingers are red and withered by the soapy water. I pick great bunches of fresh green herbs and put them in a jug on the table to scent the room.
The work makes me tired and so sleep is easier. For once I put aside my chick lit books with their Easter basket coloured covers, and open something a little more complex. I re-read a few of my course texts because their characters suffer so much indecision and angst, much better than the accusing and trashy happy endings that grate on every sore spot I posses. The days fill themselves with little pleasures, gradually blocking out all the pain of the past few days; cup of tea in the sun with a novel, winning an item on eBay and the oozing yolk of a perfectly boiled egg. (Well obviously not, but I tried)
The first I see of my visitors, some days later, is a procession of tiny green and beige clad people slowly making their way up the hill towards me. I make myself presentable and open up my spreadsheet so that I am prepared to enter their details. At last a knock comes and I open the door to four men in shorts and cagoules. Four rather weedy men it has to be said, but still, people.
“Hi! We’re the Kinden party?” the first guy, dark haired with glasses, says.
“Hello!” I shake his hand and move to one side, allowing them to enter.
“You must be tired; can I get you some tea?” I ask, perhaps a little too eager to please.
“No, thanks.” he holds up a hand to deter me “We really have to get the tent up, but we would like to know when dinner will be.”
“Any time you like” I say, baffled by this, like he needs my permission to make dinner.
“Brilliant” he grins “Will you be able to have it done by around seven?”
My entire face freezes. What? Why the hell do they think I’m cooking for them? As if he senses my shift in mood he frowns and produces a computer print out.
“That’s what it says on your website, “Let us feed you”? I thought it was a little strange, but never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?”
It’s a printout of my website, but it’s wrong somehow. One of the pictures has shifted to the side to fit on to the screen, blocking part of my slogan. He’s right it does say “Let us feed you” now, rather than “Let us feed your spirit.”, why can nothing ever go right?
I try to return his friendly smile and enter his name and the charges into the computer. At least he’s paying a decent price. When he and his friends have trooped outside to erect their tent I close the door.
Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger!! What am I going to do? I search through my ingredients, trying to conjure an idea. What can I cook for four people? I’ve grown used to my always slightly off concoctions. Over thick gravy, burnt pastry and over cooked pasta are tolerable when you are the one who has cooked them, not so much with other people.
Eventually I decide on a rustic supper of goat’s cheese potato bread with fruit and grilled vegetables on the side. There is no possible way that I can screw that up.
Oh God! Why do I ever open my mouth!
An hour later and I have made what looks like the most mutated pizza ever to grace the surface of mars. My grilled vegetables have become parched little slugs that taste of stove fuel, and my fruit…well the fruit is ok, even I can’t mess up fruit, but everything else is a disaster. I eye the failed bread/semi-successful pizza with distaste. Someone knocks on the door.
Bloody campers! I’ll just have to tell them that the food is out of the equation, that there is just nothing I can do. I dust off my hands and open the door.
It’s Arthur.
For a few seconds I’m too astonished to move, and then I come to my senses and start to slam the door. He jams his foot in the way and I look up, annoyed. It’s then that I notice what he’s holding. My pie.
Is he going to kill me with my own pie? The thought flashes wildly through my brain. Even as it does he inches the door open until we are looking each other in the eye.
“Did you make this?”
I’m pretty sure that I’m hallucinating from the fumes of burnt goats cheese.
“Yes” I say, as if this should be obvious.
“Ok” There’s a slight pause where I feel I should say “Ok, what? You psychotic weirdo pie thief”
“Well I’m a bastard” he sighs and runs a hand over his face.
“Obviously” I say before I can stop myself, letting the sarcasm that runs through my veins like blood infect my voice.
A slight rueful smile twitches at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, for…pretty much everything I have ever said to you, ever, alright? I’m a moron, can I come in?”
“If you keep saying things like that…yeah”
Wordlessly I move out of the way and he steps past me to stand in the middle of the room shifting nervously. I close the door and sit down in one of the chairs at the table. After a moment he takes the other and sets the pie on the table between us.
“So…you’re a bastard” I prompt.
“Yes” he snaps to attention and I realise he’s just been staring at me.
“And you are a bastard because…”
“Because…I was very wrong about you. I thought you were going to change the island, make it into a tourist trap to supplement you’re trust fund or whatever. I didn’t realise you were…like us, someone who likes this place just as it is.”
“Well I do, so that blows your first theory out of the water.”
“I’m working on my second.” He cocks his head playfully.
“Which is…”
“That you like this place just as it is, and so don’t pose a threat to the island. That you bake and…you punch harder than I do.”
“I’m a kicker too.” I allow myself a smile, this guy isn’t as bad as I thought he was, granted I thought he was the devil, but still.
We both seem to realise that we’ve leaned closer at the same time. For a second or two there is only an inch between us, then less, and I realise his eyes are slightly closed, just like mine. I can just feel his lip touching mine before he pulls away sharply. One moment I can feel warm breath on my face and my vision is filled with him, the next we have both pulled away.
“Do you want some tea? Or pie?” I ask, suddenly awkward.
“Sure” he gives a smile which is more like a grimace and swiftly looks away.
I busy myself with the kettle, getting out large blue and white striped mugs and matching plates.
“So…uh…” He gestures, wincing a non-verbal apology at his ignorance.
“Emma” I fill in.
“Emma, how old are you?”
Although it seems like idle conversation, I can still feel the tension in the room. For a few moments I agonize over the answer, to tell the truth is to put up a boundary, to lie is to put up a different one. Despite myself I feel that I’m starting to quite like this guy, and not just in the friendly “I no longer suspect you of being capable of murder” way.
“I’m 18, nearly nineteen”
Was it my imagination or did I just hear a sharp intake of breath?
“I’m 31” he says conversationally, but I can hear something else in his voice, an edge of regret and finality. I set the tea down on the table.
“I should actually be going…another time maybe.” he gets up and brushes past me, I feel a leap of excitement as he passes. How could this have happened? In the space of ten minutes I had gone from hating him, to not minding him, to very nearly kissing him. Bloody sea air.
“Miss Glades?” the voice of the lead camper pipes from outside.
Oh right, dinner.
I hastily throw together a platter of fruit, cheese and the less scorched vegetables. I open the door to the campers, wielding my very best hostess smile and hand the plate over. I make a plan to go into town to buy more supplies, as it looks as if I’m going to mess everything up at least twice. By the time I’ve eaten my own dinner and cleared away I’m hardly thinking of Arthur at all.
Well that’s a lie. To tell you the truth it’s really confusing, and I keep returning to the moment in the kitchen, playing it through again. I have no idea what’s going on with me, or him come to think of it.
I hadn’t realised before, maybe because I wasn’t before, but now I’m lonely. I want to talk to someone about everything that’s happened. I need to share it with someone before I explode. But there’s no one. I don’t dare go down to the village; God knows what Pam thinks of me now.
I flip open my laptop and check on my website. There’s a message on it. A glowing white envelope of heaven sent correspondence. I click it open to find a booking request, my first. Four hikers who want a pitch at my new campsite, for two weeks starting in three days time. I close my eyes in thanks to whatever higher power exists.
With renewed vigour I go about my business, ignoring the village below and the spectre of ‘Arthur’. I clean the now completed toilet block, washing away the dust that clings to the fresh tile with long slow strokes to reveal the gleaming surface beneath. I tidy my house, washing the dishes and scrubbing the floor until my fingers are red and withered by the soapy water. I pick great bunches of fresh green herbs and put them in a jug on the table to scent the room.
The work makes me tired and so sleep is easier. For once I put aside my chick lit books with their Easter basket coloured covers, and open something a little more complex. I re-read a few of my course texts because their characters suffer so much indecision and angst, much better than the accusing and trashy happy endings that grate on every sore spot I posses. The days fill themselves with little pleasures, gradually blocking out all the pain of the past few days; cup of tea in the sun with a novel, winning an item on eBay and the oozing yolk of a perfectly boiled egg. (Well obviously not, but I tried)
The first I see of my visitors, some days later, is a procession of tiny green and beige clad people slowly making their way up the hill towards me. I make myself presentable and open up my spreadsheet so that I am prepared to enter their details. At last a knock comes and I open the door to four men in shorts and cagoules. Four rather weedy men it has to be said, but still, people.
“Hi! We’re the Kinden party?” the first guy, dark haired with glasses, says.
“Hello!” I shake his hand and move to one side, allowing them to enter.
“You must be tired; can I get you some tea?” I ask, perhaps a little too eager to please.
“No, thanks.” he holds up a hand to deter me “We really have to get the tent up, but we would like to know when dinner will be.”
“Any time you like” I say, baffled by this, like he needs my permission to make dinner.
“Brilliant” he grins “Will you be able to have it done by around seven?”
My entire face freezes. What? Why the hell do they think I’m cooking for them? As if he senses my shift in mood he frowns and produces a computer print out.
“That’s what it says on your website, “Let us feed you”? I thought it was a little strange, but never look a gift horse in the mouth, right?”
It’s a printout of my website, but it’s wrong somehow. One of the pictures has shifted to the side to fit on to the screen, blocking part of my slogan. He’s right it does say “Let us feed you” now, rather than “Let us feed your spirit.”, why can nothing ever go right?
I try to return his friendly smile and enter his name and the charges into the computer. At least he’s paying a decent price. When he and his friends have trooped outside to erect their tent I close the door.
Buggerbuggerbuggerbugger!! What am I going to do? I search through my ingredients, trying to conjure an idea. What can I cook for four people? I’ve grown used to my always slightly off concoctions. Over thick gravy, burnt pastry and over cooked pasta are tolerable when you are the one who has cooked them, not so much with other people.
Eventually I decide on a rustic supper of goat’s cheese potato bread with fruit and grilled vegetables on the side. There is no possible way that I can screw that up.
Oh God! Why do I ever open my mouth!
An hour later and I have made what looks like the most mutated pizza ever to grace the surface of mars. My grilled vegetables have become parched little slugs that taste of stove fuel, and my fruit…well the fruit is ok, even I can’t mess up fruit, but everything else is a disaster. I eye the failed bread/semi-successful pizza with distaste. Someone knocks on the door.
Bloody campers! I’ll just have to tell them that the food is out of the equation, that there is just nothing I can do. I dust off my hands and open the door.
It’s Arthur.
For a few seconds I’m too astonished to move, and then I come to my senses and start to slam the door. He jams his foot in the way and I look up, annoyed. It’s then that I notice what he’s holding. My pie.
Is he going to kill me with my own pie? The thought flashes wildly through my brain. Even as it does he inches the door open until we are looking each other in the eye.
“Did you make this?”
I’m pretty sure that I’m hallucinating from the fumes of burnt goats cheese.
“Yes” I say, as if this should be obvious.
“Ok” There’s a slight pause where I feel I should say “Ok, what? You psychotic weirdo pie thief”
“Well I’m a bastard” he sighs and runs a hand over his face.
“Obviously” I say before I can stop myself, letting the sarcasm that runs through my veins like blood infect my voice.
A slight rueful smile twitches at the corners of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, for…pretty much everything I have ever said to you, ever, alright? I’m a moron, can I come in?”
“If you keep saying things like that…yeah”
Wordlessly I move out of the way and he steps past me to stand in the middle of the room shifting nervously. I close the door and sit down in one of the chairs at the table. After a moment he takes the other and sets the pie on the table between us.
“So…you’re a bastard” I prompt.
“Yes” he snaps to attention and I realise he’s just been staring at me.
“And you are a bastard because…”
“Because…I was very wrong about you. I thought you were going to change the island, make it into a tourist trap to supplement you’re trust fund or whatever. I didn’t realise you were…like us, someone who likes this place just as it is.”
“Well I do, so that blows your first theory out of the water.”
“I’m working on my second.” He cocks his head playfully.
“Which is…”
“That you like this place just as it is, and so don’t pose a threat to the island. That you bake and…you punch harder than I do.”
“I’m a kicker too.” I allow myself a smile, this guy isn’t as bad as I thought he was, granted I thought he was the devil, but still.
We both seem to realise that we’ve leaned closer at the same time. For a second or two there is only an inch between us, then less, and I realise his eyes are slightly closed, just like mine. I can just feel his lip touching mine before he pulls away sharply. One moment I can feel warm breath on my face and my vision is filled with him, the next we have both pulled away.
“Do you want some tea? Or pie?” I ask, suddenly awkward.
“Sure” he gives a smile which is more like a grimace and swiftly looks away.
I busy myself with the kettle, getting out large blue and white striped mugs and matching plates.
“So…uh…” He gestures, wincing a non-verbal apology at his ignorance.
“Emma” I fill in.
“Emma, how old are you?”
Although it seems like idle conversation, I can still feel the tension in the room. For a few moments I agonize over the answer, to tell the truth is to put up a boundary, to lie is to put up a different one. Despite myself I feel that I’m starting to quite like this guy, and not just in the friendly “I no longer suspect you of being capable of murder” way.
“I’m 18, nearly nineteen”
Was it my imagination or did I just hear a sharp intake of breath?
“I’m 31” he says conversationally, but I can hear something else in his voice, an edge of regret and finality. I set the tea down on the table.
“I should actually be going…another time maybe.” he gets up and brushes past me, I feel a leap of excitement as he passes. How could this have happened? In the space of ten minutes I had gone from hating him, to not minding him, to very nearly kissing him. Bloody sea air.
“Miss Glades?” the voice of the lead camper pipes from outside.
Oh right, dinner.
I hastily throw together a platter of fruit, cheese and the less scorched vegetables. I open the door to the campers, wielding my very best hostess smile and hand the plate over. I make a plan to go into town to buy more supplies, as it looks as if I’m going to mess everything up at least twice. By the time I’ve eaten my own dinner and cleared away I’m hardly thinking of Arthur at all.
Well that’s a lie. To tell you the truth it’s really confusing, and I keep returning to the moment in the kitchen, playing it through again. I have no idea what’s going on with me, or him come to think of it.
Friday, 28 May 2010
And the gloves are off....
I’m not entirely proud of myself for this, I have no idea what made me do it, and it all happened very fast, but I’ve tried to remember how it felt, which to be honest, wasn’t that great.
After the initial flurry of buying and moving, it all settled down to, well, life. The normal domestic chores that probably take you an hour, tops, suddenly occupy most of your time when you’re living the life of a pilgrim minus the groovy hat. I get up, wash in water heated in the copper kettle, make breakfast and then get on with whatever it is I have to do until the sun goes down. I’ve painted the windowsills greyish blue, the door too. The walls outside are now fresh and white, whilst inside I painted wide horizontal stripes of pale blue and cream. The floor is scrubbed, the bed made and I am busily making a house for my broken chickens.
Oh yes, I have broken chickens. Stupid farmers market. I went down there with the aim of buying a few hens and a cockerel as part of my quest for self-sufficiency. The whole place was really overwhelming, people yelling and waving their arms plus all the animals clucking and snorting and whooping all over the place. It was a little much after spending so much time alone on an island, or alone in a dorm. (Not that there was much difference mess wise between the market and university.)
So I picked out some really nice looking chickens, all sleek and white with puffy, fluffy feet and little beady eyes (I’m the first to admit I know nothing about livestock ok, but they looked impressive) but when the bidding started, I got flustered. There was this guy with a flat cap…it was very intense. So in a desperate attempt to actually do something, rather than just stand there like a numpty, I waved my arm around and ended up with…Igor.
To be fair they only cost me ten pounds which is quite good. To be unfair I now have four hens which are ex-battery and frankly look like polish refugees from some old film, and a one-legged, one-eyed cockerel…with a hunchback. But you have to hand it to the little things, they can lay. It’s as if after being caged and abused by people they are shocked by actual kindness, so shocked they just keep dropping eggs everywhere in gratitude.
That’s another thing. Think of any meal that you love, anything at all, and I can guarantee it tastes better when cooked in my stove. I’ve steadily worked my way through all my cookery books, baking and stewing to my heart’s content (though I have yet to find out what broiling is). Everything seems to taste more of itself out here, I can’t get over it.
It’s actually surprised me how well I’m doing out here. I mean, I’m not exactly like other teenagers; I don’t bemoan the loss of my phone as soon as the signal disappears, or eschew any kind of physical activity for fear of damaging my nails. (I also use words like ‘eschew’ without joking about sneezes) but I’m still a modern person, someone who likes the internet and lives for episodes of “Ashes to Ashes” and ice-cream.
Still, I haven’t gone totally stone-age. There’s still the small matter of my website to attend to, now the toilet block is nearing completion. Even though I say so myself it looks quite cool, with sweeping beach shots fading to a view of the village, backed with soft guitar music and lilting panpipes. I even came up with a slogan, “Let us feed your spirit” a little corny but still attractive. I’ve even hammered in little signs to denote the pitches.
But there’s a little wrinkle in my new life, one that I am intending to sort out. I haven’t actually met anyone from the village yet, other than Pam and The Middle-aged Monster. But, never one to rest on my laurels for want of a farthing, or whatever that saying is, I intend to remedy that. I thump a ball of pastry on to the surface of the table, rolling it out deftly. I saw a banner on the church yesterday that advertised a weekly island get together, in the form of a coffee morning, so I’m taking a pie down to the church for it. I know its genius. I line a pie plate and add some berries, the first to grow in my new garden. There is just time to change out of my flour covered clothes and in to a clean T-shirt and full cotton skirt. I pull the pie out of the oven, gloriously browned and steaming. Carefully carrying the plate in my tea towel covered hand I start walking down the hill.
As I reach the village I catch sight of Pam heading towards the church and give her a wave. She stops and waits for me to catch up with her, smiling.
“Hi!” I stop, breathless, in front of her.
“That looks gorgeous” she exclaims, sniffing the air appreciatively.
“Why thank you” I say, shifting the hot plate from one hand the other carefully. “Do you think it’ll win them over?”
“And then some, they won’t be able to resist.”
I had learnt from her that aside from myself and one bad tempered acceptation, the entire island was populated by sweet old dears and their wizened husbands, as the young people had all cleared out to the city for university and had all settled there. So I wasn’t that scared about the coffee morning, its young people that frighten me, not little grannies…unless they have crochet hooks.
Together Pam and I step into the shaded entry and push open the heavy wooden doors, and then we freeze. In the middle of the aisle is that guy, facing away from me and talking to what looks like most, if not all of the village. He doesn’t hear us come in and keeps talking, his words humming through the air like angry hornets.
“…just totally unacceptable, she’s a total airhead! I cannot believe Daniel ever approved this, actually I can! It’s obvious she found some way of convincing him, I can guess how.”
I’m shocked speechless. No one has ever sounded like they hated me that much, not ever. It’s just too big a shift in perspective, from being the hopeless virgin people sniggered at to this blatant insinuation that I slept around to get what I wanted. Hot tears of rage and humiliation sting my eyes; there is no way to defend myself against this, and nothing I can say.
“Arthur!” Pam shouts sternly. He whips round, and for a second I think I see a trace of remorse in his eyes, then the shutter slams down and he folds his arms, challenging me. I feel so stupid, so hopelessly girly in my skirt, clutching my pie and wanting the world to like me. He stands there, older, wiser and so much stronger. Grubby jeans and boots, longish shaggy hair shading his eyes and making him unreadable. For a second it’s all I can do not to run away, then I have one tiny stunning thought that brings me back to myself.
Sod you, says the little voice in my head. I am not just some girl, some little city bimbo, I am Emma Glades, a bloody institution of sarcasm, cruel humour and refusal to ever EVER let anyone have the last word.
This new me, or should I say the carefully restored old me, carefully places the pie on a nearby table, strides up the length of the church, clenches her fist, lashes out and connects with his face at bone crunching speed. His whole head snaps back, body reeling after, everyone draws a collective breath. And I am so out of there.
I sprint the length of the church again, slam out of the doors into the sunlight, heart racing, legs like jelly. My hand aches, my whole arm feels broken. I run up the hill, skirt tangling around my legs and soaking up the sweat. I don’t stop until I am in my house, turning to lock the door and then to sink to the cold stone floor.
What the hell have I done? I punched a man, a man who hates me and who looks quite capable of murdering me and plastering me into my own walls. Hot tears of shock and fear and pain squirt from my eyes and for a moment all I want to do is go home and hide under my childhood bed. Instead I do the next best thing, I call Vikkie.
“Hello?” Her voice crackles down the line.
“Vikkie? It’s me, Emma.”
“Oh! Emma, I forgot to call you!”
“What?” I ask, surprised by her delirious happiness.
“Well, it all happened weeks ago, but I got caught up and forgot…anyway, I’m telling you now. Greg proposed!”
“He what?!”
“I know! It was so sweet, he did it at the train station where I was busking, he threw the ring into my hat and I nearly died of shock!”
“Wow” for a moment I really am speechless, forgetting my own worries in the face of this amazing news.
“He has to buy me a new guitar though, I dropped mine, you know what with the shock? And a hobo stole it.”
“Oh no!, still now you can write about a love so strong it brought music to hobos across the land” I tease, forgetting my turmoil momentarily, then a cosmic two-by-four hits me.
“How long ago was this, weeks?”
“Well….I thought you’d be busy, to be honest I forgot. You’re not angry are you?”
“No” I say quickly. And I’m not angry, just upset. We’re best friends and she didn’t remember to tell me? For weeks?
“Emma? I have to go…I have some stuff to do.”
“Ok, but I really need to talk to you later, there‘s this guy….” I mutter, embarrassed by my own helplessness, but she’s already hung up on me.
I put my phone away and put the kettle on, laying out a mug and a plate of homemade oat cookies as consolation. I can’t talk to my best friend because she’s busy, I can’t call my parents because they would kill me if they knew I had ditched university to raise wonky chickens and punch people in the face. Well, as far as “No man is an island” goes I am a peninsula with a rapidly eroding coastline.
God that was hard to write, but I’m glad I did, it feels like this is the only place I can vent all this crap.
After the initial flurry of buying and moving, it all settled down to, well, life. The normal domestic chores that probably take you an hour, tops, suddenly occupy most of your time when you’re living the life of a pilgrim minus the groovy hat. I get up, wash in water heated in the copper kettle, make breakfast and then get on with whatever it is I have to do until the sun goes down. I’ve painted the windowsills greyish blue, the door too. The walls outside are now fresh and white, whilst inside I painted wide horizontal stripes of pale blue and cream. The floor is scrubbed, the bed made and I am busily making a house for my broken chickens.
Oh yes, I have broken chickens. Stupid farmers market. I went down there with the aim of buying a few hens and a cockerel as part of my quest for self-sufficiency. The whole place was really overwhelming, people yelling and waving their arms plus all the animals clucking and snorting and whooping all over the place. It was a little much after spending so much time alone on an island, or alone in a dorm. (Not that there was much difference mess wise between the market and university.)
So I picked out some really nice looking chickens, all sleek and white with puffy, fluffy feet and little beady eyes (I’m the first to admit I know nothing about livestock ok, but they looked impressive) but when the bidding started, I got flustered. There was this guy with a flat cap…it was very intense. So in a desperate attempt to actually do something, rather than just stand there like a numpty, I waved my arm around and ended up with…Igor.
To be fair they only cost me ten pounds which is quite good. To be unfair I now have four hens which are ex-battery and frankly look like polish refugees from some old film, and a one-legged, one-eyed cockerel…with a hunchback. But you have to hand it to the little things, they can lay. It’s as if after being caged and abused by people they are shocked by actual kindness, so shocked they just keep dropping eggs everywhere in gratitude.
That’s another thing. Think of any meal that you love, anything at all, and I can guarantee it tastes better when cooked in my stove. I’ve steadily worked my way through all my cookery books, baking and stewing to my heart’s content (though I have yet to find out what broiling is). Everything seems to taste more of itself out here, I can’t get over it.
It’s actually surprised me how well I’m doing out here. I mean, I’m not exactly like other teenagers; I don’t bemoan the loss of my phone as soon as the signal disappears, or eschew any kind of physical activity for fear of damaging my nails. (I also use words like ‘eschew’ without joking about sneezes) but I’m still a modern person, someone who likes the internet and lives for episodes of “Ashes to Ashes” and ice-cream.
Still, I haven’t gone totally stone-age. There’s still the small matter of my website to attend to, now the toilet block is nearing completion. Even though I say so myself it looks quite cool, with sweeping beach shots fading to a view of the village, backed with soft guitar music and lilting panpipes. I even came up with a slogan, “Let us feed your spirit” a little corny but still attractive. I’ve even hammered in little signs to denote the pitches.
But there’s a little wrinkle in my new life, one that I am intending to sort out. I haven’t actually met anyone from the village yet, other than Pam and The Middle-aged Monster. But, never one to rest on my laurels for want of a farthing, or whatever that saying is, I intend to remedy that. I thump a ball of pastry on to the surface of the table, rolling it out deftly. I saw a banner on the church yesterday that advertised a weekly island get together, in the form of a coffee morning, so I’m taking a pie down to the church for it. I know its genius. I line a pie plate and add some berries, the first to grow in my new garden. There is just time to change out of my flour covered clothes and in to a clean T-shirt and full cotton skirt. I pull the pie out of the oven, gloriously browned and steaming. Carefully carrying the plate in my tea towel covered hand I start walking down the hill.
As I reach the village I catch sight of Pam heading towards the church and give her a wave. She stops and waits for me to catch up with her, smiling.
“Hi!” I stop, breathless, in front of her.
“That looks gorgeous” she exclaims, sniffing the air appreciatively.
“Why thank you” I say, shifting the hot plate from one hand the other carefully. “Do you think it’ll win them over?”
“And then some, they won’t be able to resist.”
I had learnt from her that aside from myself and one bad tempered acceptation, the entire island was populated by sweet old dears and their wizened husbands, as the young people had all cleared out to the city for university and had all settled there. So I wasn’t that scared about the coffee morning, its young people that frighten me, not little grannies…unless they have crochet hooks.
Together Pam and I step into the shaded entry and push open the heavy wooden doors, and then we freeze. In the middle of the aisle is that guy, facing away from me and talking to what looks like most, if not all of the village. He doesn’t hear us come in and keeps talking, his words humming through the air like angry hornets.
“…just totally unacceptable, she’s a total airhead! I cannot believe Daniel ever approved this, actually I can! It’s obvious she found some way of convincing him, I can guess how.”
I’m shocked speechless. No one has ever sounded like they hated me that much, not ever. It’s just too big a shift in perspective, from being the hopeless virgin people sniggered at to this blatant insinuation that I slept around to get what I wanted. Hot tears of rage and humiliation sting my eyes; there is no way to defend myself against this, and nothing I can say.
“Arthur!” Pam shouts sternly. He whips round, and for a second I think I see a trace of remorse in his eyes, then the shutter slams down and he folds his arms, challenging me. I feel so stupid, so hopelessly girly in my skirt, clutching my pie and wanting the world to like me. He stands there, older, wiser and so much stronger. Grubby jeans and boots, longish shaggy hair shading his eyes and making him unreadable. For a second it’s all I can do not to run away, then I have one tiny stunning thought that brings me back to myself.
Sod you, says the little voice in my head. I am not just some girl, some little city bimbo, I am Emma Glades, a bloody institution of sarcasm, cruel humour and refusal to ever EVER let anyone have the last word.
This new me, or should I say the carefully restored old me, carefully places the pie on a nearby table, strides up the length of the church, clenches her fist, lashes out and connects with his face at bone crunching speed. His whole head snaps back, body reeling after, everyone draws a collective breath. And I am so out of there.
I sprint the length of the church again, slam out of the doors into the sunlight, heart racing, legs like jelly. My hand aches, my whole arm feels broken. I run up the hill, skirt tangling around my legs and soaking up the sweat. I don’t stop until I am in my house, turning to lock the door and then to sink to the cold stone floor.
What the hell have I done? I punched a man, a man who hates me and who looks quite capable of murdering me and plastering me into my own walls. Hot tears of shock and fear and pain squirt from my eyes and for a moment all I want to do is go home and hide under my childhood bed. Instead I do the next best thing, I call Vikkie.
“Hello?” Her voice crackles down the line.
“Vikkie? It’s me, Emma.”
“Oh! Emma, I forgot to call you!”
“What?” I ask, surprised by her delirious happiness.
“Well, it all happened weeks ago, but I got caught up and forgot…anyway, I’m telling you now. Greg proposed!”
“He what?!”
“I know! It was so sweet, he did it at the train station where I was busking, he threw the ring into my hat and I nearly died of shock!”
“Wow” for a moment I really am speechless, forgetting my own worries in the face of this amazing news.
“He has to buy me a new guitar though, I dropped mine, you know what with the shock? And a hobo stole it.”
“Oh no!, still now you can write about a love so strong it brought music to hobos across the land” I tease, forgetting my turmoil momentarily, then a cosmic two-by-four hits me.
“How long ago was this, weeks?”
“Well….I thought you’d be busy, to be honest I forgot. You’re not angry are you?”
“No” I say quickly. And I’m not angry, just upset. We’re best friends and she didn’t remember to tell me? For weeks?
“Emma? I have to go…I have some stuff to do.”
“Ok, but I really need to talk to you later, there‘s this guy….” I mutter, embarrassed by my own helplessness, but she’s already hung up on me.
I put my phone away and put the kettle on, laying out a mug and a plate of homemade oat cookies as consolation. I can’t talk to my best friend because she’s busy, I can’t call my parents because they would kill me if they knew I had ditched university to raise wonky chickens and punch people in the face. Well, as far as “No man is an island” goes I am a peninsula with a rapidly eroding coastline.
God that was hard to write, but I’m glad I did, it feels like this is the only place I can vent all this crap.
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Return to Witch Island
The journey is hell, utter total hell. Despite my flip-flops, light gypsy skirt and T-shirt, I am boiling on the train. Packed in with sweating people on their way to their holidays, drinking a coke that five minutes ago was chilled and which is now the same temperature as everything else in the carriage. A couple of boys are messing around at the end of the compartment, throwing water at each other and annoying the collection of grannies next to them. I find myself wondering at what temperature stupidity catches fire. My long hair weighs on me like I’m wearing an enormous hat, over really heavy hair.
Just to add insult to sunburn and sweatiness, when I eventually arrive in Scotland it is raining; cold horrible rain that drips down your neck and makes your sandaled feet slippery and gritty. I run to the boat, ignoring the huge droplets of water that flick from my bushy hair. The village is as deserted as it was on my first visit, and I’m in no mood to call in on Pam, so I head straight home. The journey over the hill is…eventful. I lose my shoe twice to the gripping mud and my clothes are plastered to me with rain when I finally reach the house, only to find the gate swollen totally shut. I rip my skirt climbing over the wall and then waste time hunting for the key to the door in my bag, getting the contents soaked in the process. At last I’m inside. I kick off my wet, squeaky shoes and pad, dripping to the candles which are where I left them last time I was here.
I change into my mostly dry pyjamas and bash the dust from the sleeping bag which I had stowed under the folding bed. Too late I realise that all the firewood is outside in the rain, so I can’t light the stove. The only food I have is a flapjack from the train station shop, which I have to save for breakfast. None of my things will be here until tomorrow…maybe. So I sit, wrapped in my sleeping bag in front of the cold stove, a single candle at my elbow, wondering what I have done to deserve this.
Eventually I must have slept, because I wake up to daylight and a burnt out candle. The rain, though not completely gone, is now light and misty. I tug on my dampish clothes with a slight shiver of disgust, and go outside to check on my toilet block. It’s coming along rather nicely, with all the walls now up and one toilet installed. It is as yet sink-less and without tiles, but still useable which is a small mercy if I ever saw one. I give the whole block a quick look over then walk down to the village, munching my flapjack. With a little bit of luck my boxes will be arriving soon. In the end I limited myself to one box of clothes, one of books and one of assorted food stuffs and oddments like matches and string. Everything else I will have to buy in town. While I’m waiting for the boat to arrive I call in on Pam for a cup of tea and a chat.
“It’s nice to see someone make it this far” she confides over a second cup “to be honest, most of the others found the place a little…unwelcoming.”
“The locals or the house?” I quip, helping myself to a chocolate biscuit.
“Both!” she laughs “Not many people here like change, especially not from all the city born brats that came looking…no offence.” I nod, inviting her to continue “Then there’s that story about the woman who built the place.”
“What woman?” I ask, a little sharply.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter dear; it would just give you nightmares. Now, is that your luggage out there?” I look out of the window and, sure enough my boxes are stacked neatly in the square beside a “Mighty Mover” holding a “Mighty Clipboard”. Resenting the interruption I go outside and sign for the boxes, pick one up and wave and awkward goodbye to Pam, before lugging it up the hill to my house.
It takes hours, what with all the heavy boxes and the forty minute journey each way, but eventually all three boxes are stacked against the wall. I rescue some firewood from outside and leave is to dry in a corner while I change into some dry clothes. Now seems like as good a time as any to go shopping for some actual furniture. I catch the boat into town, fortunately the captain hung around for a chat with Pam so I didn’t have to wait until tomorrow, and start poking around in the second-hand shops.
I love second-hand shops! You never really know what it is you’re going to find. I examine a heap of gorgeous tiles, a porcelain chandelier and a tangled clump of old jewellery. I can’t help falling in love with a plain white, rectangular blanket box, which is perfect for keeping my clothes in. I’ve decided to opt for minimal furniture, after all, the place isn’t huge, but I still need a table and two chairs, maybe a bookcase too. I spot a beautiful table in the window of a little shop up a side alley. It’s square and solid old wood, scarred and stained with use. I’ve reached my limit on what I can carry, so I balance the large chest on top of the table and slowly work my way back to the boat.
By evening I am established. My clothes are folded neatly in the blanket box with their little lavender sachets (this being the only environment in which they might actually be useful). I have a table, though no chairs so I cannot sit at it. Instead I take my meal of fried bacon topped baked potato seated on my bed, admiring the colourful heaps of books that litter the floor. That night, well fed and at last alone in my own home, I curl up on my bed for the first time and sleep, dreamlessly.
Aww bless. But you don’t know what I’m dreaming about do ya? Next time – on to the present, I can’t wait to see what happens now that I can write about.
Just to add insult to sunburn and sweatiness, when I eventually arrive in Scotland it is raining; cold horrible rain that drips down your neck and makes your sandaled feet slippery and gritty. I run to the boat, ignoring the huge droplets of water that flick from my bushy hair. The village is as deserted as it was on my first visit, and I’m in no mood to call in on Pam, so I head straight home. The journey over the hill is…eventful. I lose my shoe twice to the gripping mud and my clothes are plastered to me with rain when I finally reach the house, only to find the gate swollen totally shut. I rip my skirt climbing over the wall and then waste time hunting for the key to the door in my bag, getting the contents soaked in the process. At last I’m inside. I kick off my wet, squeaky shoes and pad, dripping to the candles which are where I left them last time I was here.
I change into my mostly dry pyjamas and bash the dust from the sleeping bag which I had stowed under the folding bed. Too late I realise that all the firewood is outside in the rain, so I can’t light the stove. The only food I have is a flapjack from the train station shop, which I have to save for breakfast. None of my things will be here until tomorrow…maybe. So I sit, wrapped in my sleeping bag in front of the cold stove, a single candle at my elbow, wondering what I have done to deserve this.
Eventually I must have slept, because I wake up to daylight and a burnt out candle. The rain, though not completely gone, is now light and misty. I tug on my dampish clothes with a slight shiver of disgust, and go outside to check on my toilet block. It’s coming along rather nicely, with all the walls now up and one toilet installed. It is as yet sink-less and without tiles, but still useable which is a small mercy if I ever saw one. I give the whole block a quick look over then walk down to the village, munching my flapjack. With a little bit of luck my boxes will be arriving soon. In the end I limited myself to one box of clothes, one of books and one of assorted food stuffs and oddments like matches and string. Everything else I will have to buy in town. While I’m waiting for the boat to arrive I call in on Pam for a cup of tea and a chat.
“It’s nice to see someone make it this far” she confides over a second cup “to be honest, most of the others found the place a little…unwelcoming.”
“The locals or the house?” I quip, helping myself to a chocolate biscuit.
“Both!” she laughs “Not many people here like change, especially not from all the city born brats that came looking…no offence.” I nod, inviting her to continue “Then there’s that story about the woman who built the place.”
“What woman?” I ask, a little sharply.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter dear; it would just give you nightmares. Now, is that your luggage out there?” I look out of the window and, sure enough my boxes are stacked neatly in the square beside a “Mighty Mover” holding a “Mighty Clipboard”. Resenting the interruption I go outside and sign for the boxes, pick one up and wave and awkward goodbye to Pam, before lugging it up the hill to my house.
It takes hours, what with all the heavy boxes and the forty minute journey each way, but eventually all three boxes are stacked against the wall. I rescue some firewood from outside and leave is to dry in a corner while I change into some dry clothes. Now seems like as good a time as any to go shopping for some actual furniture. I catch the boat into town, fortunately the captain hung around for a chat with Pam so I didn’t have to wait until tomorrow, and start poking around in the second-hand shops.
I love second-hand shops! You never really know what it is you’re going to find. I examine a heap of gorgeous tiles, a porcelain chandelier and a tangled clump of old jewellery. I can’t help falling in love with a plain white, rectangular blanket box, which is perfect for keeping my clothes in. I’ve decided to opt for minimal furniture, after all, the place isn’t huge, but I still need a table and two chairs, maybe a bookcase too. I spot a beautiful table in the window of a little shop up a side alley. It’s square and solid old wood, scarred and stained with use. I’ve reached my limit on what I can carry, so I balance the large chest on top of the table and slowly work my way back to the boat.
By evening I am established. My clothes are folded neatly in the blanket box with their little lavender sachets (this being the only environment in which they might actually be useful). I have a table, though no chairs so I cannot sit at it. Instead I take my meal of fried bacon topped baked potato seated on my bed, admiring the colourful heaps of books that litter the floor. That night, well fed and at last alone in my own home, I curl up on my bed for the first time and sleep, dreamlessly.
Aww bless. But you don’t know what I’m dreaming about do ya? Next time – on to the present, I can’t wait to see what happens now that I can write about.
Friday, 14 May 2010
University - The Final Part...finally.
And now an update on the cottage, well a back date, because currently it’s finished, but you know what I mean.
Inside the builders have finished, finally. My stove has been installed and in use for a while, but now I have a sink, a wide deep trough of thick porcelain with a single, perfect pump, cast iron, above it. Experimentally I ease the greased handle down and water gushes from the sculpted mouth of the pipe, pattering into the sink and down the drain. A few moments later I hear the water splash into the water butt outside. Perfection. By the summer by campsite facilities will also be nearing completion, as the builders have agreed to begin work a week before I arrive. The house will also have been re-plastered, so that I can get down to painting it and doing the small jobs that I am capable of doing.
On our last night in the cottage we eat steak and drink cheap screw top wine, the elixir of the camping man. Inside the walls are bathed with light from the cooking fire and the candle on the floor, outside my garden rests, recovering from its makeover. Between us are the thick, glossy folders of samples and a piece of paper covered in calculations.
“Maybe this -” Vikkie points to a piece of cabbage green slip proof flooring “I think the last site I went to had that.”
“I want something…interesting.” I complain, taking another sip of wine “Something glamorous but homey, pretty but still masculine, something that say’s I’m a serious camper but…”
“I wear a tutu under my combats?” Vikkie snorts into her glass “You can’t have everything, so just choose something.”
Eventually I select indigo tiles, which we agree are both pretty and masculine, aged wood flooring for the sink area and dark blue anti-slip covering for the showers. I fall in love with plain curved copper pipe taps and choose flat showerheads to match, alongside basins like the one in the house.
Reluctantly we pack up our bags the next morning, leaving behind a house bare except for the bed and the jars in one of it’s notches. I close the door, locking it with a large old-fashioned key, and walk down the path, shutting the gate behind me. We stop briefly so that I can talk to Pam, who wishes me good luck in my final stint at University, then board the boat back to the mainland. I haven’t seen that man since the day at the garden centre, and I don’t particularly care. Not one tiny bit.
Anyway, back at university it was hard to think about the island without suffering cravings usually associated with drugs.
The time goes by like a very heavy bus dragged by five overweight snails. I lie on the bed in my sweltering dorm room trying to concentrate on my work, which isn’t easy when all I can think about is what I would be doing at the cottage right now. To top that off my parents keep calling, asking if I need help moving my stuff to where I’m staying for my research project, which makes me feel like a lying snake.
Something impacts messily on my window. The boys from across the hall are outside throwing water balloons, very mature.
It’s not like I don’t know how to have fun, I like fun god damn it! I like reading on the grass in the sun, and eating ice-cream and walking around the lake, I really do. But it seems that my definition of fun is different to that of around 99.999% of the entire teenage population, making me the minority in a minority culture. Brilliant.
Vikkie has already buggered off with Greg to an afternoon at the pub or something, and I don’t begrudge her it…Ok so I do. I wish that there was another me somewhere, not exactly the same, but someone who understands the difference between difference and alienation.
I sigh a cloud of stifling air back into the room. I have one exam, one exam left, and then it’s over. Around the room my things sit accusingly, I haven’t even started to pack yet. Suddenly my laptop gives a blip and I shake away the screensaver to reveal my eBay homepage and its lengthy list of “Selling” items. It was only when I returned from the island that I realised how much stuff I own, and how little space I had to work with, so I put a load of things on eBay and so far have managed to get rid of loads of excess baggage. I watch the bidding numbers go up in the last few seconds with satisfaction.
With sudden inspiration I grab an empty white box and scrawl “Bookage” on top in sideways black letters. Even though I’ve managed to sell around half of my books, I still live in fear of people stumbling in and assuming my room is a conveniently placed library. There are books on shelves, on the windowsill, under the bed and the desk and balanced above the door. It’s also impossible to find a specific volume because they are ordered by colour and not by title or author. It was only last week that Greg pointed out that I had three copies of “Cat’s Eye”, each one a different colour. I have always hated Greg.
I stack books in the box carefully; piling others on the floor for listing on eBay, when I have finished the room looks bare, as though I have stripped the insulation of my little world from the walls. I grab another box and write “Clothes” on it. This one is easier to fill, I take out all my plain T-shirts and baggy over shirts, stuffing them into the box and topping it off with armfuls of bright gypsy skirts in every imaginable colour and pattern. Satisfied that I have packed every garment I will ever need, at least until winter, I open all the drawers in my bureaux, and nearly faint with shock at the mess within. I take another box and write “Misc.?” in big letters, then sort through the mess of notes, cosmetics, underwear and jewellery.
I have already stocked up on food to take with me, and called a haulage firm to drive all my boxes to the dock where I can get them onto the boat, then lug them up the hill at the other end…in theory. To be honest I’m a little fuzzy on the details at this point. I click off of the eBay page and check my emails, opening one from the builders, dated yesterday and showing a picture of the beginnings of my toilet block. Scrolling down I scrutinize a second picture which shows one of the men kicking the bucket off of the cliff whilst the others raise the new toilet aloft. Mister scowly won’t like that. Oh yes I haven’t forgotten him, and I’ve never been one to back away from confrontation. As Vikkie once put it “You hang on for that last word no matter how much you get hurt in the process.” I intend to live up to this reputation proudly if he so much as turns that Neanderthal brow in my direction.
I load a few more boxes and then return to my exam preparation, one tiny paper to get through and then I’m free, it’s a totally glorious thought. My mood has improved drastically now that the end is finally in sight, not to mention that over those two weeks of gardening I lost four pounds! Life it seems has thrown me a bone after all my complaining, and soon I can enjoy it with nothing to distract me but the buying of chickens and the devouring of as much chick-lit as I can handle.
The exam goes quite well, I have my usual panic that everyone is still writing when I have stopped, but I think it’s ok, though I can’t help but remember my GCSE English teacher’s maxim of “quality not quantity are the words of lazy people”. I have scribbled a few fairly insightful pages on Chaucer, coupled with the usual examiner prescribed bull that was drilled into me by text books and lectures. Suddenly it’s my last day, and I’m oddly nostalgic. I walk around the lake, stopping at the small sandstone building with its columns, where Vikkie and I hunted swans semi-seriously in the autumn. I gather up my university texts, all the Austin and Shakespeare, and bag them up for eBay. Whilst everyone else is shipping out to their flats or home for the summer, I pack my overnight bag and go over my boxes again before they are taken by the “Mighty Movers” to the “Mighty Movers Machine”.
Saying goodbye to Vikkie is the most difficult part about leaving, or to be perfectly honest, the only difficult part. We stand in the empty space that was once my sanctum, both packed and ready to leave.
“Well, glad that’s over” I say, picking up my bag.
“Yup, awful, totally gruelling.” Vikkie agrees.
“You’ll write won’t you, with your new address?” I ask as we head downstairs.
“Yup, and I’ll send you some chocolate”
I smile.
“I got you something” she says, pulling out a small paper wrapped package.
“Me too!” I hold out my own gift. We exchange them and there is some mutual rustling as we rip them open to reveal…two identical candle holders.
“We need to spend more time apart” groans Vikkie, shoving hers into her bag.
“I’ve been saying that since we met.” I pat her on the back and she climbs into her car, I wave her off and catch the campus bus for hopefully the last time.
That was a month ago, we’re nearly there guys, stay with it.
Inside the builders have finished, finally. My stove has been installed and in use for a while, but now I have a sink, a wide deep trough of thick porcelain with a single, perfect pump, cast iron, above it. Experimentally I ease the greased handle down and water gushes from the sculpted mouth of the pipe, pattering into the sink and down the drain. A few moments later I hear the water splash into the water butt outside. Perfection. By the summer by campsite facilities will also be nearing completion, as the builders have agreed to begin work a week before I arrive. The house will also have been re-plastered, so that I can get down to painting it and doing the small jobs that I am capable of doing.
On our last night in the cottage we eat steak and drink cheap screw top wine, the elixir of the camping man. Inside the walls are bathed with light from the cooking fire and the candle on the floor, outside my garden rests, recovering from its makeover. Between us are the thick, glossy folders of samples and a piece of paper covered in calculations.
“Maybe this -” Vikkie points to a piece of cabbage green slip proof flooring “I think the last site I went to had that.”
“I want something…interesting.” I complain, taking another sip of wine “Something glamorous but homey, pretty but still masculine, something that say’s I’m a serious camper but…”
“I wear a tutu under my combats?” Vikkie snorts into her glass “You can’t have everything, so just choose something.”
Eventually I select indigo tiles, which we agree are both pretty and masculine, aged wood flooring for the sink area and dark blue anti-slip covering for the showers. I fall in love with plain curved copper pipe taps and choose flat showerheads to match, alongside basins like the one in the house.
Reluctantly we pack up our bags the next morning, leaving behind a house bare except for the bed and the jars in one of it’s notches. I close the door, locking it with a large old-fashioned key, and walk down the path, shutting the gate behind me. We stop briefly so that I can talk to Pam, who wishes me good luck in my final stint at University, then board the boat back to the mainland. I haven’t seen that man since the day at the garden centre, and I don’t particularly care. Not one tiny bit.
Anyway, back at university it was hard to think about the island without suffering cravings usually associated with drugs.
The time goes by like a very heavy bus dragged by five overweight snails. I lie on the bed in my sweltering dorm room trying to concentrate on my work, which isn’t easy when all I can think about is what I would be doing at the cottage right now. To top that off my parents keep calling, asking if I need help moving my stuff to where I’m staying for my research project, which makes me feel like a lying snake.
Something impacts messily on my window. The boys from across the hall are outside throwing water balloons, very mature.
It’s not like I don’t know how to have fun, I like fun god damn it! I like reading on the grass in the sun, and eating ice-cream and walking around the lake, I really do. But it seems that my definition of fun is different to that of around 99.999% of the entire teenage population, making me the minority in a minority culture. Brilliant.
Vikkie has already buggered off with Greg to an afternoon at the pub or something, and I don’t begrudge her it…Ok so I do. I wish that there was another me somewhere, not exactly the same, but someone who understands the difference between difference and alienation.
I sigh a cloud of stifling air back into the room. I have one exam, one exam left, and then it’s over. Around the room my things sit accusingly, I haven’t even started to pack yet. Suddenly my laptop gives a blip and I shake away the screensaver to reveal my eBay homepage and its lengthy list of “Selling” items. It was only when I returned from the island that I realised how much stuff I own, and how little space I had to work with, so I put a load of things on eBay and so far have managed to get rid of loads of excess baggage. I watch the bidding numbers go up in the last few seconds with satisfaction.
With sudden inspiration I grab an empty white box and scrawl “Bookage” on top in sideways black letters. Even though I’ve managed to sell around half of my books, I still live in fear of people stumbling in and assuming my room is a conveniently placed library. There are books on shelves, on the windowsill, under the bed and the desk and balanced above the door. It’s also impossible to find a specific volume because they are ordered by colour and not by title or author. It was only last week that Greg pointed out that I had three copies of “Cat’s Eye”, each one a different colour. I have always hated Greg.
I stack books in the box carefully; piling others on the floor for listing on eBay, when I have finished the room looks bare, as though I have stripped the insulation of my little world from the walls. I grab another box and write “Clothes” on it. This one is easier to fill, I take out all my plain T-shirts and baggy over shirts, stuffing them into the box and topping it off with armfuls of bright gypsy skirts in every imaginable colour and pattern. Satisfied that I have packed every garment I will ever need, at least until winter, I open all the drawers in my bureaux, and nearly faint with shock at the mess within. I take another box and write “Misc.?” in big letters, then sort through the mess of notes, cosmetics, underwear and jewellery.
I have already stocked up on food to take with me, and called a haulage firm to drive all my boxes to the dock where I can get them onto the boat, then lug them up the hill at the other end…in theory. To be honest I’m a little fuzzy on the details at this point. I click off of the eBay page and check my emails, opening one from the builders, dated yesterday and showing a picture of the beginnings of my toilet block. Scrolling down I scrutinize a second picture which shows one of the men kicking the bucket off of the cliff whilst the others raise the new toilet aloft. Mister scowly won’t like that. Oh yes I haven’t forgotten him, and I’ve never been one to back away from confrontation. As Vikkie once put it “You hang on for that last word no matter how much you get hurt in the process.” I intend to live up to this reputation proudly if he so much as turns that Neanderthal brow in my direction.
I load a few more boxes and then return to my exam preparation, one tiny paper to get through and then I’m free, it’s a totally glorious thought. My mood has improved drastically now that the end is finally in sight, not to mention that over those two weeks of gardening I lost four pounds! Life it seems has thrown me a bone after all my complaining, and soon I can enjoy it with nothing to distract me but the buying of chickens and the devouring of as much chick-lit as I can handle.
The exam goes quite well, I have my usual panic that everyone is still writing when I have stopped, but I think it’s ok, though I can’t help but remember my GCSE English teacher’s maxim of “quality not quantity are the words of lazy people”. I have scribbled a few fairly insightful pages on Chaucer, coupled with the usual examiner prescribed bull that was drilled into me by text books and lectures. Suddenly it’s my last day, and I’m oddly nostalgic. I walk around the lake, stopping at the small sandstone building with its columns, where Vikkie and I hunted swans semi-seriously in the autumn. I gather up my university texts, all the Austin and Shakespeare, and bag them up for eBay. Whilst everyone else is shipping out to their flats or home for the summer, I pack my overnight bag and go over my boxes again before they are taken by the “Mighty Movers” to the “Mighty Movers Machine”.
Saying goodbye to Vikkie is the most difficult part about leaving, or to be perfectly honest, the only difficult part. We stand in the empty space that was once my sanctum, both packed and ready to leave.
“Well, glad that’s over” I say, picking up my bag.
“Yup, awful, totally gruelling.” Vikkie agrees.
“You’ll write won’t you, with your new address?” I ask as we head downstairs.
“Yup, and I’ll send you some chocolate”
I smile.
“I got you something” she says, pulling out a small paper wrapped package.
“Me too!” I hold out my own gift. We exchange them and there is some mutual rustling as we rip them open to reveal…two identical candle holders.
“We need to spend more time apart” groans Vikkie, shoving hers into her bag.
“I’ve been saying that since we met.” I pat her on the back and she climbs into her car, I wave her off and catch the campus bus for hopefully the last time.
That was a month ago, we’re nearly there guys, stay with it.
Friday, 7 May 2010
It's gardening time!
Day two of work and we are rapidly catching up on the present day drama, good thing too, I think I’m going to bust a gut if I don’t write it all down soon. But for the moment there’s other stuff to be getting on with.
The next day is not as pleasant. When I wake it is drizzling, water clotting the dirt and making the weeds unpleasant to handle. The insects are low and biting viciously before the sun is fully up and the builders bad tempered after a harrowing boat ride over the troubled sea.
I work in the garden, yesterdays clothes dampened with sweat and the humidity, slightly crusted with salt. Vikkie goes into town on the boat to buy fresh food to cook on the stove, not to mention the right kind of pot, which I tracked down to a junk shop and have sent her to collect.
It feels like I’m fighting a constant battle against the garden. Every time I turn away from a cleared section new tendrils seem to sprout, curling around woody immovable stems that had escaped my notice. I hack at them with the spade, which is sharper than the axe, heaping up sizeable chunks for the stove and throwing what is left into the bin. Halfway through the morning the metal container is filled, so I take my lighter and a chunk of the magazine that I was reading on the boat and set it on fire. With the wood soon burning fiercely, despite the rank weather, I turn back to my work, throwing branches on top of the fire and watching the green wood smoke and eventually succumb to the blaze.
After yesterdays work on the garden my body is protesting, every muscle is screaming for mercy and rest on a proper bed rather than the floor. After a while I give up and retreat to the side of the house where I sit on the ground, wrapped in a coat and flipping through sample books. The builders brought several of these glossy white folders for me to look at, because it is they who will be building my shower block. I flick through thick card inserts supporting slivers of tile, trying to make definitive choices, but it’s hopeless. Sighing I set the folders aside, there is nothing else I can do, too tired to work in the garden and too miserable to attempt anything productive. I find my bag and dig out some violet nail polish, kick off my boots and begin painting my nails. Anything to distract myself from the utter misery of being bitten all over by insects, wet, unfed and having to use a bucket as a toilet.
I am halfway through my second foot and thinking about starting on my fingers when a shadow falls across my feet. Thinking it’s Vikkie I look up, but, instead there is a man, the man I saw on the beach. I feel immediately self conscious, as I used to when someone knocked at the door and my comfy tracksuit bottoms and unwashed hair were suddenly, painfully displayed to a stranger. I am very aware of my filthy jeans and shirt, of my tangled hair and unwashed face, and also of the fact that he may have seen me as good as naked. The look he’s giving me doesn’t help, a mixture of mistrust and distaste, the kind of look I give worms, knowing that they can’t hurt me but still hating their presence.
“You left this on the beach” he thrusts something damp and sand speckled at me, my undershirt.
“Oh” I take it from his hand and try to stand up, balancing weirdly on my freshly painted feet. He gives my polished nails a glance, his lip curling into a sneer. He’s older than I am, his hair brownish and grizzled, face unshaven making him look older still and haggard. I feel uncomfortable, his dislike of me is washing off of him in waves.
“Don’t let it happen again, some of us value this place. I suppose that’s hard for you to appreciate.” Before I can say a word he turns and stalks off, cutting through the garden without a backward glance. I find myself close to tears. I have always hated being told off.
I am still sitting on the grass when Vikkie returns, clutching three plastic bags stuffed to brim. She drops them on the grass and sits down opposite, pulling things out and talking excitedly.
“I got your pots, they’re bloody heavy though, you owe me new arms. I picked up some chicken as well, and some vegetables. Oh! And tea! don’t know about you but I have been dying without…” she catches sight of my pinkish eyes “what happened?”
“I left this..” I wave at the clump of wet, gritty fabric “on the beach, and some guy brought it back. He was mean.” There is a brief silence as Vikkie considers this.
“I thought that was the point of you living here, that whenever someone pissed you off you just pushed them off the side.” I let out a weak spurt of watery laughter.
“Come on, I’ll make some tea”
From the back of the house, where the builders are packing up, there come shouts of “Hurray!” and “About bloody time.” Vikkie and I haul the bags inside and, dubiously, wrangle with the stove.
I pack some fuel in and light it, then unwrap the parcels from the junk shop, finding a frying pan, an enormous kettle and a pot, all made of gleaming copper. We fill the kettle with water and set it on one of the massive burners to heat. Thankfully the builders were thoughtful enough to bring their own mugs, as we only had two tin camping cups. After everyone had drunk their fair share of scalding hot tea I tucked the box of teabags into a niche above the stove with the jars of jam.
That night, when all the builders were gone, I cooked chicken casserole with Ilensay rosemary, dubbing it the Ocean House special. We sat on the floor, the formerly austere cottage brought to life and made welcoming with the light of a fire and the scent of fried chicken and stock. But, when the fire is reduced to mere embers, and we have turned in for the night, I lay on the hard stone floor and my anxiety creeps back like damp. Somewhere, on this island, is a man who hates me, I think. The thought troubles me more than it should and for hours I cannot sleep, but imagine instead his face, twisted in scorn.
With the promise of caffeine to lure Vikkie out of bed we begin to make astounding progress. We finish clearing the garden and turn to digging it over, exposing dark moist soil. I clip the wild hedges of rosemary, lavender and lemon balm into soft globes and straight rows. Vikkie marks out square beds with rounded stones from the beach. In the last few days of our stay on the island we go to he mainland in search of plants, leaving the builders to install my sink.
I wander through the gleaming glass greenhouses of the local garden centre, stroking the thick succulent stalks and wavy fronds of tray after tray of plants. Eventually I select a few things that I can plant and leave to grow on their own in my absence, onions, potatoes, beans, peas and tomatoes. I also find marigolds, which supposedly subdue caterpillars and a few more herbs to fill the space and provide colour. With my wide wire trolley brimming with greenery I browse through the other sections, those that sell gifts and fair-trade products. I’m not intending to buy anything, but I notice a heap of gorgeous blankets, all soft and grey natural wool. I’m fingering the fringe of one, having left my trolley at the head of the narrow aisle, when I catch sight of him. The same guy as yesterday, wearing grubby jeans and a jersey. I’m about to duck out of sight when he looks up, his dark eyes flick between me and the designer blanket, then the same sneer appears and he strides away angrily.
What is his problem with me? I drop the blanket as though I’ve been burnt and grab my cart, heading for the till. My cheeks are burning and I feel very small and stupid, though I’m not sure why. I cart my plants outside and get out my phone to call Vikkie, who is browsing in a comic book shop a short journey away, to get her to pick me up. But as I do so I release the handle of the wheelbarrow-like cart, which tips, sending plants rolling, soil spilling from their pots. Swearing I try to pull them back in one-handed, listening to the dialling beeps and then ringing as I wait for Vikkie to pick up. At last I have all the plants in the cart, but as I try to level it they tip again. I realise that I can’t right it without dropping all the pots again.
A hand suddenly grabs the handle of the cart, brushing against mine. My heart catches as the unbidden image of my grumpy stalker fills my mind. The cart lurches up and I release the pots, turning to see…Vikkie.
“Hi!” I say, weakly.
“I got done early.” she explains, hefting the plants into her tiny boot.
I’m quiet on the ride home, unsettled by my mistake. This cannot be a normal response surely? My first reaction to a strange and hostile older man should not be of the heart beating faster variety. I’m still berating myself, cringing in remembered embarrassment as we lug the plants up the hill and drop the pots on to the ground inside the boundaries of the garden. Not content with simply putting in vegetables I have brought fruit trees from a separate nursery, fragile little things that will hopefully grow quickly and give me fruit in the summer. For a few happy hours I am content with my role as gardener, setting seedlings into the bare squares of soil in odd patterns. I plant the trees at the sides of the house and edge the brick path with thyme. Behind the house is my favourite place, and I save the best job till last. On the side of the house facing the sea is a staircase that leads to nowhere, worn sandstone steps and plastered sides ending in a flat square of stone with twisty railings, like a balcony. I plant some stubborn little plants at the base, ones that will eventually grow and climb all over the little private space.
That’s a lot of intrigue for one entry, but there you go, it was a lot to deal with at the time.
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