Brigid was probably no older than the other girls, but she comported herself with an air of some disdain, as though they were younger siblings she’d been forced to babysit. She gravitated toward Suzy, who seemed more of an equal. The other girls needed direction— Here: you take this closet, and why don’t you check the vacuum cleaners, see what works, what doesn’t, what just needs a new bag . . . Brigid had initiative, which was a relief to Suzy. She was able to assess a situation, see what needed doing, and get on it. She took over an old housekeeping cart that probably hadn’t been used as anything but a junk repository in more than a decade, checked the cleaning products to see if anything was still usable, chucked the rest, and pretty soon had flipped the cart over, found a screwdriver and some WD-40 in a toolbox, and was working on the wheels. She looked confident enough in what she was doing that Suzy went to work clearing another similar cart of debris so Brigid might have a go at its wheels as well.
“So,” Suzy began, with an animation so contrived that she didn’t even want to finish the sentence, but there was nothing any better, nothing particularly less ironic to say. “So how are things going for you here at the Osprey Lodge?”
Brigid snorted. “I’d rather be scrubbing shitters for the IRA at this juncture, I’d say.” She bugged her eyes, her mouth pursed in a psychotic grin.
“Oh, that sounds fabulous,” Suzy cried. “You think they’d take on an American? Really, I could be packed, ready to go, in”—she looked at her watch—“five minutes.”
They laughed halfheartedly.
Awhile later Suzy said, “I feel really awful for all of you guys, coming all this way . . . it’s usually a little better around here than this.”
“My sister was here a year ago.”
“That’s right,” Suzy said. “I forgot. So you know . . .”
“To be honest with you,” Brigid said, “I’m rather sure I’d still be something of a miserable article if Mrs. Squire . . . if there’d been no fire at all. I’d’ve managed to get myself messed with quite regardless, I expect.”
Suzy looked at her in confusion.
“Oh, it’s a damn boy,” Brigid said.
Suzy winced in empathy. “Someone back home?”
“Oh, no luck of the sort, no. Right here.” Brigid nodded resentfully.
“On-island?” Suzy was surprised.
“Oh, right here at the Lodge, if you’d believe.”
“A waiter?” Suzy’s face was still pinched, as if expecting a blow.
Brigid brightened then. “You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?” Her eyes were expectant. “Gavin? He’s from California?”
“Yeah,” Suzy said. “No, I mean, I know who he is, but . . . the one who came from Stanford, with Heather Beekin, right?”
“Is that her name?” Brigid hardly concealed her disdain.
“Did you meet her?” Suzy was confused again.
“No, not me. Not exactly . . .” Brigid paused, as though figuring out how to explain. “After the funeral yesterday, a gang of us went for a bite at the Luncheonette.”
“Heather went out to lunch with you?” Suzy was more confused than before.
Brigid slowed, explaining as though Suzy were not very bright. “There were quite a lot of them I hadn’t met. From the town. Introductions weren’t properly made, you know. Then, last night, quite late—Gavin—he was out here on the deck with her, he was. Not that I know him well, you know,” she confessed. “I’d only just met him, but he’s acted . . . oh, bloody, I don’t know—”
Suzy cut in. “I’d have a hard time . . . What’d she look like? The girl?”
Brigid made a face to imply she wasn’t much to look at. “A bit tall,” she said, “fair skin, dark hair, a bit heavy in the hip . . .”
Suzy was shaking her head.
“Rather a gothic look . . .”
“Janna,” Suzy said. “That’s not Heather Beekin. That’s Janna Winger.”
Brigid’s face went blank. The name meant nothing to her.
“Janna works for Reesa? At the salon?”
Brigid was shaking her head. “I’d entirely assumed it was the girlfriend, the . . . Heather.”
“Janna,” Suzy said again. “They were talking at the Vaughns’ yesterday, actually . . .” She caught herself. “The Vau . . . Lorna’s parents, they had a little gathering after the funeral at their—”
“And Gavin was there, you say?”
“Actually, we passed him on the way there—he walked over the hill.” Suzy was nodding.
“He did head for a walk . . .”
“No,” Suzy said, “no, but, he knew where he was heading. We stopped. We offered him a ride. That’s where he was going.”
“What a shit.” Brigid’s tone was bitter; she cared a good deal more than she wanted to reveal.
“I’m so sorry.”
Brigid slammed down her screwdriver. “The fucker,” she said.
“Were you . . . ?” Suzy tried.
“Oh, I don’t even know. We’d had a . . . We’d just begun to . . . Oh, bloody—how bloody stupid.”
“Maybe they’re not . . . ?” Suzy began again.
“Right.” Brigid snorted. She’d passed the fucker in the hall of the barracks that morning, and again at breakfast in the dining room, and he’d given her an absurd, sheepish, apologetic, nodding hello, then tucked his head down and barreled off as if he had savagely important business ahead. Brigid was so blindsided that she had yet to so much as acknowledge his greetings. She thought she might soon be able to muster a response of acutely conveyed distaste: nose wrinkled and lip curled as though repulsed by a horrid smell, hand slightly open, a breathy snort to say, What the fuck? It seemed as if it might be the only look she had left. As they worked in the maid’s room that afternoon, Brigid developed a private theory to explain Gavin. She told Suzy about how he sounded when he’d spoken a bit about Heather, and about his fantasies about moving to the island and living happily ever after. Brigid’s theory was that he had it in his head to take up with another island girl—it was the only way to make Heather adequately jealous, to make it really sting.
When Brigid left the lodge that afternoon, her skin felt itchy and raw from the cleaning chemicals. She was walking up the hill, desperate for a shower, when she saw Gavin come out the north door of the barracks, freshly showered himself, and start down the path.
“Hey, pretty girl . . .”
But it wasn’t Gavin calling. The Squires’ cottage sat just south of the staff building, and from where she stood Brigid could see Lance sitting on his porch, beer in hand, waving her over. To her left, she shot Gavin her well-rehearsed What the fuck? look, though he was probably too far off—or too clueless—to appreciate it, and she veered right, to Lance Squire.
“Hey-ay,” Lance called as she approached.
“Hi.” Brigid felt awkward, unsure of what to say to this man. She knew what was only appropriate: “I’m so dreadfully sorry—”
He cut her off. “You know,” he said, “that’s all I heard today from anyone. Can’t take much more sorry.”