I rinsed out the mug, my scrunched-up face turned away, and then investigated the kettle, other mug and plate, neatly wrapped cookie and everything else on the refreshment tray or in the fridge, running through different possibilities of how themilk jug had become contaminated. It had clearly been refilled since I’d last made a drink that morning. Had Lily or Malcolm left it near an open window, or on an outside table, and a bird had somehow, freakishly, managed to poop in the mug without them noticing?
Or, perhaps, a chicken wandered into the house at some point during the day. Except that we’d been cooking all morning, and someone would have noticed a chicken strutting about. Malcolm would have shut the birds in the coop as soon as they all arrived home.
I wondered whether I could ask Lily a few innocent-sounding questions about when she’d replenished the milk, or where she did it. Whether a bird had got in the house at all.
I briefly wondered whether to show her the jug and ask her straight out if she could figure it out.
One thing stopped me.
It was the second unexplainable, revolting thing that had happened in the past two days.
While I had initially brushed off the bike-juice as nothing to do with me personally, I couldn’t confidently dismiss this as an accident. Which meant it was a deliberate act of nastiness that I was meant to discover.
The mounting fear at the thought that someone would direct such a sinister act of animosity towards me was enough to send me running to the bathroom.
Once my stomach was horribly empty, my throat raw, I went over the rest of the room inch by inch, trying desperately to work out who had had the opportunity to sneak in and deposit the poop. It had to be someone who’d arrived at the beach after us, or knew that I’d be staying on after they’d gone. Unfortunately, that ruled out only Pip – it could be any of these other near-strangers, whose values and customs I had barely begun to understand.
That inevitably led me on to motive. I thought about how Celine had dragged Pip away from our conversation to play volleyball, going all out with her teasing and hair-tossing.
There was also Aster, who had made several rude asides about me. And what about Gabe? Did he harbour resentment about whatever had gone awry with Mum, seeing my sudden appearance as the perfect chance to exact revenge?
Richard, while I was trolling through potential suspects, had ignored me completely. Did he share Aster’s misgivings about mainlanders?
Then there were all the others. I couldn’t ignore the fact that Lily and Malcolm had the best opportunity. Perhaps it was one of the kids, playing a hilarious island-style prank, and I was getting all worked up for nothing. The bike was simply a coincidence.
I tried to circle back to believing that Clucker or Pecky had snuck in and left a present behind in the milk jug when no one was looking. I needed to at least check the carton in the kitchen fridge in the morning.
But my intuition wasn’t buying it.
Feeling more alone than at any other moment in my lonely life so far, I brushed my teeth until my gums bled, flicked the lock on the bedroom door and checked under the covers one last time before sliding into bed.
Unable to think of any other way to try to settle my frantic nerves, knowing that there was at least some chance I would find an answer there, I reached for the letters. I was grateful that the next one according to date was written by my mother. With the taste of that tea still lingering in the back of my mouth, I needed the comfort of her familiar hand.
11 January 1988
Gabriel,
While it may be considered cowardly to hide behind a letter, you yourself have said that writing words down can be the safest way to make sure they are taken as meant, and not misheard. Besides, I have waited up every night this week hoping you would ask me how I am, or would simply take a proper look and so notice what is happening to your wife.
You haven’t asked, so a letter it is.
My darling husband, while my love for you is as sure and as strong as the day we married, I have failed as your wife in making your dream come true.
I am not happy here. I am, in fact, more miserable than I thought possible. I have tried (surely you have seen how hard I have tried?) to be a capable farmer’s wife, a dutiful daughter-in-law. A true islander, in spirit if not in blood.
I simply cannot do it.
Your family hate me. The island women scorn me.
Those infernal chickens wish to thwart my every move.
I don’t know what I detest more: the weather or your mother ordering me about like an incompetent child, saddling me with tedious, loathsome tasks and then complaining when I don’t complete them with the skill or speed of someone born here.
I resent how all you have left for me is exhausted dregs after yet another long, lonely day.
Gabriel – I married you to share a life together. We speak less now than when limited to a weekly phone call.
I think I must go home, before this farm destroys any trace of the woman you fell in love with.
