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.