He must have slept at last because he woke in the morning to a grey light and rain like bullets against the window next to him.
Later he and his father went out and looked at the damage. A few slates down and the roof was right off the shed that had once housed a cow. Nothing too worrying. When they came back into the kitchen, drenched and scoured by the salt, sandy wind, Fran was up. She was sitting in his mother’s dressing gown, her hands cupped round a mug of coffee. The women were chatting and from the porch where he stood to take off his boots, he heard a sudden outburst of giggling. His first wife, Sarah, had never been able to relax like that on visits to the Isle. He felt his mood lift. Perhaps it would be OK. Fran was strong enough to deal with his parents after all. He left aside the question of whether they might one day return to the Isle on a permanent basis.
They spent most of the day in the house. Mary worked at the knitting machine that was set up in the corner of the living room. All morning they heard the swish and click as she pushed the wool in its shuttle across the ratchets. Fran was reading. There was a fire made with scraps of driftwood and coal and the wind roared in the chimney. Later in the afternoon Fran went to get ready for the party.
‘Come with me, Jimmy. Help me choose what to wear.’
And they made love very quietly, with the blue and white curtains drawn against the storm, like teenagers in their parents’ home, listening out for the adults who might suddenly come in.
Afterwards she laid her clothes on the bed. ‘What should I go for, Jimmy? Do people dress up here?’
He shook his head, bewildered by her sudden anxiety. She would look lovely whatever she chose. There was hardly a dress code for a Fair Isle party.
‘It matters, Jimmy. I want them to like me. I want to do you proud.’
In the end she went for a long denim skirt and a bright red cardigan, little flat blue shoes. She stared at the mirror before nodding to herself. ‘Not too formal, but dressy enough to show I’ve made an effort.’
Mary wanted them to be at the lighthouse early so they could greet all the guests as they arrived. She seemed a little tense to Perez. He’d never thought of her as a shy woman but she seemed awkward about acting as hostess in the field centre, away from her home ground. Perhaps she just wanted to make it special for him and Fran.
Everyone would be coming by car; this was no weather to take the three-mile walk north. Perez wondered how that would play out. There was hardly a strict adherence to the drink-drive laws in a place where the police only appeared if there was an emergency or to give a talk in the school. But everyone knew what he did for a living. He supposed there were sufficient non-drinkers in the Isle to provide lifts home. Mary never took more than a small glass of wine for a toast and they could squeeze someone else in their car.
In the field centre the tables had already been moved out of the dining room to make a space for the dancing. In the old keepers’ accommodation, walls had been knocked through at the time of the original conversion to make big spaces for communal living. Jane was in the kitchen. Perez went in to thank her again for her work. She smiled and took his hand but seemed distracted.
‘So we’ll serve the food as we decided yesterday? About nine o’clock as usual?’
‘How are things?’ He realized he was like an old woman, desperate for gossip. How pathetic was that! Why couldn’t he be content with his own business? But if he was hoping for more information about Maurice and his teenage daughter he was disappointed. Of course he should have known Jane would be discreet.
‘It’s been a very good season,’ she said, with another brief, clipped smile.
In the dining room he heard the first sounds of the musicians. The fiddle player was tuning up. They swung into the first reel and he felt his feet tapping already. Looking out from the kitchen he saw Fran surrounded by a group of islanders. She had her head tilted to one side and was listening to them talking, her eyes wide open as if she was fascinated by the words. Then she said something he couldn’t hear and they all began to laugh.
Of course they’ll love her, he thought. She’s so good at all this. How could they do otherwise?
He went to join her, took her hand and led her on to the floor for the first dance. He knew what was expected of him.
Chapter Five
On the afternoon of the party Jane had sat in her room at the back of the field centre. She liked this space. With its high ceiling and narrow window, it made her think of a nun’s cell. There was a single bed, a wardrobe incorporating a chest of drawers, a wash-hand basin. On the bedside table her wireless (this was how she thought of it, a legacy from her very old-fashioned parents) tuned to Radio 4, on the windowsill a row of books, spines facing outwards as if on a shelf. On the chest there was a pile of Times crosswords, carefully cut out of the newspapers by her sister and posted each week. The crosswords were the only things Jane had missed in her isolation. She wondered fleetingly if sisters in enclosed orders were allowed crosswords and then how many lesbians had become nuns in a less enlightened time. She supposed it would be one way to avoid marriage, the expectation that one would inevitably become a mother.
The simplicity of the room appealed to her. She’d gone south for three months over the winter when the field centre was closed for visitors and it was this clean, sparse space that she’d missed most. She’d spent Christmas with her sister’s family and the good-natured chaos, the squawking children surrounded by wrapping paper and chocolate, had driven her slightly crazy. She’d fallen asleep each night, her senses dulled by the alcohol she’d needed to keep her sane, and dreamed of her room in the field centre, the ironed white sheets and the plain painted walls.
It was four o’clock, in the lull between clearing up after lunch and serving dinner. Dinner was already prepared; a casserole was cooking very slowly in the oven, potatoes had been scrubbed for baking. This evening a simple meal had been essential because of the Perez party later. Soon she would return to the kitchen to organize the buffet, but most of the work for that was already done. She took off her shoes and lay on her bed. She would rest for half an hour. This was a time of contentment. She loved the contrast between the drama of the storm outside and the peace of her room.
She was setting out the party food on big trays, before covering it with cling film, when Angela came into the kitchen. Jane was listening to the five o’clock news on the radio, but Angela’s appearance made her reach over and switch it off. Angela never dealt with domestic matters and her presence in the kitchen was unusual, an occasion. Her natural habitat was outside. She strode like an Amazon across the hill with her telescope on its tripod slung over her shoulder and binoculars around her neck. Indoors she seemed constrained and restless.
Jane assumed that this was about Poppy. They both disliked Maurice’s youngest daughter. It was the only matter they had in common. She hoped Angela had come up with a plan to control the girl. But it seemed there was something quite different on the warden’s mind.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she said, ‘about next year.’
Jane looked up from the tray of pastries. ‘Of course.’ She was astonished. Angela always left the staffing to Maurice. ‘I was thinking I might come in early next season. The kitchen needs a good clean and we never get a chance once the visitors arrive. And I could fill the freezer with baking. Take the pressure off once the rush starts.’ When there was no immediate response Jane added: ‘You wouldn’t need to pay me the full rate, of course.’ Actually, she would have offered to do the work for nothing but she knew Angela would find that weird. Jane thought how much she would enjoy a few weeks here at the start of the season, imagined the kitchen after it had been thoroughly scrubbed, the red tiled floor gleaming, the cooker and the larder spotless.