‘He’s probably done you a favour,’ Niall says as we ruminate over Eamon’s revelations. ‘Think of all the money you might have
lost planting out crops that would have failed, or buying animals that might not have survived.’
‘That’s true, I suppose.’ I look up at him from my place on the mattress, which now, after Eamon’s news, suddenly doesn’t
seem quite so cosy.
‘I’ve never been very green-fingered anyway,’ Paddy says, tickling his puppy Brogan’s furry ears. ‘Mary would never even let
me water the plants at the hotel.’
‘You know me, Darce,’ Roxi says, holding out her blue fingernails (when did she have time to repaint them? We’ve only just
arrived today). ‘The closest this body’s ever got to a spade is a little incident in a garden shed in Tooting.’
I shake my head. ‘Dermot?’ I look over to where he’s sitting quietly in the corner, nursing a mug of coffee. ‘What do you
think?’
Dermot looks up. His dark brown eyes blink steadily back at me as we await his verdict on the situation. ‘You’re buggered,
basically,’ he says, choosing not to beat about the bush, as always.
‘Great. Thanks for the support.’
‘I’m only telling it as I see it, Darcy. Look, you’ve managed to con a load of no-hopers into coming to live on an island
with you, with the promise of some sort of Felicity Kendal-inspired utopia. And now when they arrive, not only will they be
lucky if they have a bed to sleep in, but the only way they’re going to
see anything fresh when they’re here is if they can row a boat over to a supermarket on the mainland!’
As I glare at Dermot I feel hot tears springing into the corners of my eyes, which I angrily fight back.
Great! I can’t cry at a funeral, but I’m going to start now! Well, there’s no way I’m giving Dermot the satisfaction of seeing
me
.
‘I’m going out for a while to get some fresh air,’ I announce in a voice that’s a bit too calm. ‘Perhaps we can talk about
this again in the morning when we’ve all had a chance to think about it, and hopefully come up with some
helpful
ideas about what we’re going to do.’
Then I simply turn and walk calmly out of the cottage, slamming the door behind me for Dermot’s benefit.
‘Great work, guys,’ Roxi says as I leave. ‘You handled that well.’
It’s dark outside, but luckily, with the ever-changing Tara weather, the sky is now completely clear, and the almost full
moon casts enough light over the island to allow me to be able to walk safely away.
I wander far enough so that I can still see the cottage, but so the others won’t be able to see me, and perch myself on a
large rock jutting up out of the ground. The star-filled sky above me is quite magnificent, and as I gaze up towards it, I
reflect that it’s definitely not a sight you see living in central London. But even that splendour is not enough to suppress
my doubts as they come bubbling to the surface once more.
What on
earth
have I done, coming to live here? It’s already been one disaster after another, and I’ve only been here a day
.
There’s some movement from my cottage as the others begin to remove their bedding, and as I watch them carry their
belongings across to their own cottages I marvel at how they all cast such different silhouettes in the moonlight. There’s
stocky little Paddy with Brogan; slim Niall; big, broad Dermot; and then tall but lean Conor following up the rear. Roxi and
I have decided that there’s just not enough room in my little cottage for the two of us to share with all our things, so after
a bit of rearranging, Roxi now has the cottage next to mine, so she doesn’t have to go too far.
One of the figures returns from delivering their mattress back to their cottage, and heads towards me in the moonlight.
‘Aren’t you cold, sitting out here all alone?’ Conor asks, standing in front of me with his hand in his pockets.
‘Maybe a little.’ I pull the zip on my hoody up a bit higher.
‘Your fire’s still burning merrily away to itself back there,’ he nods in the direction of my cottage. ‘Dermot made it up
for you before he left.’
‘That was good of him,’ I say through gritted teeth.
‘He didn’t mean anything by what he said before. It’s just his way.’
‘I know.’
‘Your boys’ll wonder where you are.’ Conor throws in his best shot.
The puppies … they’ll be all on their own
.
‘Maybe I
should
go back, now everyone’s gone,’ I say, climbing up from the rock.
Conor holds out his hand to help me up, and then we walk back down to my cottage together.
‘Do you want to come back in?’ I ask him without thinking. Then I blush.
God, have to stop that every time Conor is around!
‘I would, but I’ve moved my mattress now,’ Conor grins.
‘Plus I think you’ve got a lot to think about tonight. I’m sure your dogs will keep you company though, and Roxi’s just next
door if you should want anything. She’s pretty protective of you, isn’t she?’
I smile as I think about Roxi.
‘Maybe another time, though.’ He leans forward, and as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, kisses my cheek. ‘I’ll
see you in the morning, yes?’
‘Yes … the morning,’ I mumble, surprised by his kiss.
Conor casually waves goodbye as he walks away towards his own cottage. Hastily I enter through my own front door, where I
find Woody and Louis curled up asleep on my temporary bed in front of the fire. They lie next to a walkie-talkie and a note
that simply reads:
Sorry about earlier. If you need me in the night, just use this. D
After a restless night, which has as much to do with sleeping on a mattress on the floor with two puppies who refuse to sleep
in their brand-new dog bed as it has to do with the constant worry of my latest island dilemma, I’m wandering around my kitchen
trying to figure out how I boil some water in the kettle on my brand-new stove so that I can make myself a cup of tea. Someone
has kindly left me some basic supplies in the fridge, so after several infuriating minutes of trying to figure out how to
light the gas on the hob I’ve now given up, and have poured myself a glass of orange juice instead. It’s just as well I never
bother eating breakfast.
But my stomach gives a small grumble – must be something to do with all the sea air – and as there’s no one about, I consider
breaking into some of my secret chocolate stash I’ve snuck over and hidden well away from Roxi, in the lining of one of my
larger suitcases.
So while Woody and Louis gambol around at the back of
the cottage, emptying their bladders and burning off some of their excess energy, I stand enjoying my basic breakfast of a
Twix and a glass of orange juice at my kitchen door, gazing out at the view of the bay down below, which is nothing short
of stunning this morning. An azure-blue sky with a few white clouds dotted across it could easily belong to the top half of
a Mediterranean landscape, if the bottom half didn’t so obviously belong to the craggy cliffs and pale yellow sand of Tara’s
Celtic past.
When I’ve finished my snack, I follow the dogs out onto the grass. Fresh salty sea air immediately fills my nostrils as the
breeze catches my hair and billows it up around my face. Wearing only my Nike hoody, pyjama bottoms and trainers I wander
out a bit further, tucking my hair up under my hood as I walk, for once not caring what I look like as I step out of my house.
Who is going to see me out here, anyway? It’s not like I’m stepping out into a busy London street in my night-clothes.
With the puppies racing around on the damp morning grass, and seagulls circling and crying as they ride on huge gusts of wind
above me, suddenly I feel freer than I’ve ever felt before in my life. I almost want to join the gulls there and then as I
stand as close to the cliff edge as I dare, leaping off the cliff face to soar around in the wind like they do.
Maybe when the other islanders get here they’ll feel this same sense of freedom and want to stay, I think hopefully, closing
my eyes for a moment to breathe in the sea air again. And maybe they won’t need to do this whole self-sufficiency thing. Who
really wants to grow their own vegetables and keep their own pigs, anyway? Perhaps they’ll just enjoy being here for the
sake of it. Who wouldn’t with views like this, especially in this gorgeous weather?
As I open my eyes again, they’re immediately drawn to some movement down in the water below. There it is again – something
is moving about in the waves! Deciding I need to take a closer a look, I scoop Woody and Louis up and hold on to them tightly
as I inch towards to the cliff edge. As the three of us gaze silently down into the sea, I don’t think the puppies know what
we’re looking for, but I certainly know what I think I saw a few minutes ago. There … there they are again, leaping in and
out of the waves – the unmistakable curve of two dolphin backs.
Silently we watch the dolphins moving gracefully about in the sea for a few minutes, until Woody and Louis begin to get restless
in my arms, probably wanting their own breakfast, and for safety I decide it’s best to take them away from the cliffs and
back to the cottage.
As I pour warm water onto their dry puppy food, I smile to myself. We have dolphins living around the island – surely that
must be lucky? I’ll look it up on the internet in a minute, and check. Damn, I almost forgot. I can’t do that now. But it
must mean something … I’ll ask Eamon, or even Conor when I see him; he seems to be into all that kind of thing. Maybe things
are going to get better after all.
Dermot is the first person I see after I’m properly dressed and leaving my cottage. This doesn’t surprise me; it is pretty
early, and I bet Roxi is still asleep. Roxi can sleep anywhere; the fact that she’s spent her first night on a strange island
won’t have affected her requirement for nine to ten hours of beauty sleep
at all. But even without Roxi on hand for advice, choosing what to wear this morning has been surprisingly easy – a bit like
when you’re at school and you just fall into your uniform every morning. I’m determined, though, that I will not succumb to
a Tara uniform of jeans, a sweatshirt and big clumpy boots. But it will do, just for today.
‘Morning,’ Dermot says, walking towards me. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Yes thanks,’ I reply, feeling a bit awkward. After all, the last time I’d spoken to Dermot we hadn’t exactly been on friendly
terms. ‘I’m sorry about last night, Dermot – for snapping at you.’
‘It’s already forgotten,’ he says lightly. ‘You had had a bit of a first day of it, what with the furniture and everything,
and then the old fellow’s news just to top it all off.’
‘Yes, it hasn’t exactly been the best of starts.’
‘Any ideas what you’re going to do yet?’
‘Nope, not really,’ I shake my head. ‘I just hope that when the others get here they see how beautiful it all is and want
to stay anyway.’
Dermot’s eyebrows furrow. ‘Hmm; that’s one way to go about it, I suppose.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Burying your head in the sand and hoping everything will turn out all right.’
‘I’m not burying my head in the sand! I just don’t see what
I’m
supposed to do, that’s all. It’s not my fault we can’t grow crops or keep animals easily.’
‘No, but it’s your job to find a solution to the problems that are immediately going to arise when the – excuse my language
– shit hits the fan.’
‘Why, why is it?’ I flap my hands around in frustration.
‘Because,’ Dermot continues in a voice so calm it’s irritating, ‘it’s your island. I did warn you there was more to all this
than meets the eye.’
He’s right, as usual. But that doesn’t make it any better.
‘I’ll just have to think of something before the others get here then, won’t I?’ I say huffily. ‘Oh, by the way, my oven doesn’t
seem to work.’
‘Did you switch the gas supply on?’
‘The what?’
‘The gas supply. There’s a bottle in the cupboard next to the sink. You need to switch that on before any of your gas appliances
will work.’ Dermot pauses for a second and eyes me suspiciously. ‘You do know there’s no underground gas supply here, Darcy.
It all comes from bottles which we have to ship over from the mainland.’
‘Of course I know,’ I say quickly. ‘I’d just forgotten. Thanks for reminding me. Oh, and for this.’ I hold out the walkie-talkie
to him.
‘No, you keep hold of that; it’s yours. It’s your only form of communication while you’re on the island. We’ve all got one
– you just need to charge it up at night like a mobile phone.’
‘Right. Well, thanks again.’
‘Not a problem. So, what are you going to do now?’ Dermot asks, looking at the dogs’ leads clutched in my other hand.
‘I thought I’d take the puppies for an early-morning walk, since it’s such gorgeous weather right now, and explore the island
a bit at the same time. Do you know what the others are up to?’
‘I think Niall and Paddy have got the same idea as you, and
have taken Brogan out for a walk, and Conor took off early this morning with his fishing rod.I haven’t seen your friend Roxi
yet.’
‘No, you won’t, Roxi will still be sleeping. She’s used to working pub hours, so don’t expect to see her until at least eleven
o’clock.’ I casually take a glance around me. ‘OK, well, maybe we’ll bump into some of the others when we’re on our walk,
eh, guys?’ I pat my leg in the hope that the puppies might respond and come running to me. They look up for a moment, then
carry on with what they’re doing – currently investigating the entrance to a disused rabbit hole.
‘I’ll look out for her when she finally decides to wake up,’ Dermot says, looking towards Roxi’s cottage. ‘But I doubt she’ll
sleep long once I start up my circular saw in a few minutes.’
I grin. ‘I once knew Roxi to sleep through the fire brigade turning up at a building three doors down from us, with their
sirens wailing full blast. She was fuming when I told her she’d missed everything.’
‘Because she might have been in danger if the fire had spread?’ Dermot asks with concern.