‘Yes, of course. Sorry, Emmie, no offence.’ She scanned the room for a plug socket. ‘I mean, I’d have expected you to be spending the evening with Pip, rather than a bunch of strangers.’
‘We aren’t strangers!’ Lily snapped. ‘Celine, are we going to have to ban you from talking to Emmie like we did with Poppy after Pip took her to the school Christmas disco? We all know you want to marry my brother, despite him ending things two years ago, the main reason being that every other half-decent farmer who’s remotely in your age bracket is already taken. But Pip will make up his own mind about who he wants to be with, and you making passive-aggressive digs at his friend won’t do you any favours.’
Whew.I buried my head in the bottom of the fridge. These island women didn’t beat around the bush.
They reminded me of my mother.
‘Besides,’ Jasmine, Hugh’s mum, added, having arrived right behind Violet, ‘we might be old-fashioned around here but this isn’t some sort of medieval tournament where he’s forced to pick one of you. From what I heard, all that poor man wants is to focus on his farm. Take the hint, Celine, have some self-respect.’
Ouch.
‘Okay, so firstly, even if I am still interested in Pip, it’s nothing to do with how old he is. Little Lander and Craig Kelly are much closer to my age.’
‘That’s why I said half-decent,’ Lily muttered.
‘And secondly, me and Emmie are friends. I wasn’t making a dig because I know her and Pip will never be a thing. She’s only here a few days and knows nothing about farming. Hardly credible competition given my and Pip’s history.’ Celine glanced at Jasmine. ‘Not that this is a competition, of course. I only said what I did because we’re the worst at being cliquey when we gettogether. Anyone who hasn’t grown up knowing the old stories and silly in-jokes is bound to feel like a bridal-shower gooseberry at times. I mean, Emmie, can you even sew?’
‘Um, yes. I can manage bunting.’
‘Oh.’ Celine looked taken aback. ‘Did you bring fabric?’
‘Flora, Jack and Beanie donated an old item of clothing each,’ Lily said. ‘They didn’t want to be left out, so Emmie will sew their flags.’
‘Well, that’s perfect, then, isn’t it?’ Celine trilled, with nothing in her expression to suggest she’d been called out for being mean, or that the comments about her and Pip were embarrassing or unwelcome. I couldn’t help thinking about the milk jug, though. I could believe that Celine trashed my rented bike and bought me a lobster roll, without batting an eyelid. Breaking into my bedroom at Sunflower Barn, however, still seemed excessive.
As the evening wore on, I tried not to feel like a bridal-shower gooseberry – or like someone who was being secretly targeted by an unknown enemy.
It helped that, in the modest-sized café, at least one Hawkins sister was always close by, and more often than not, they remembered to explain the in-jokes and whisper essential backstory to the increasingly outlandish tales of life on a tiny island, including what sounded like an alarmingly unsupervised stint at boarding school. However, while Iris’s friends were perfectly nice, after brief exclamations about how they couldn’t wait to try my infamous pasties, it was only right that the attention was all on the bride-to-be and celebrating twenty-five years of female friendships. It was tempting to wish I’d had the option of spending the evening with Pip, rather than ‘a bunch of strangers’, but the truth was, as the women laughed, teased, sewed and played a rowdy game identifying who said different quotes about either Iris, Hugh or both of them, what Ireally wished was that I hadn’t reached twenty-six having never experienced anything like it.
It was reminiscent of the moment I’d walked out of Siskin airport into the salty air and clear skies of the island and felt as I’d been birthed from an aeroplane womb into a whole new reality.
While so frighteningly new andalive, this was something I ached to understand, to be a part of, to belong to.
It was when Celine turned up the volume to Madonna, the girls’ night staple that spanned the Irish Sea, and Violet grabbed my hand, dragging me onto the tiny space they’d designated a dance floor, that I finally acknowledged quite how empty my life had been, and that whatever happened when I returned to the mainland, I would never – Irefusedto ever – be the same.
We were on the floor, rowing back and forth to ‘Rock the Boat’, when the café door opened and a man burst through wearing a checked suit and a yellow cap.
‘What the hell?’ Iris’s friend, Fern, yelled into the sudden silence as Celine flicked off the music.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ Violet said, expression grim as she squeezed out of the line on the floor and clambered to her feet, brushing the dust off her velvet flares and scanning around for her platform trainers.
‘Barnie, this is a bridal shower,’ Lily said, not unkindly. ‘Invitation only.’
‘I know.’ Barnie lifted up the cap to wipe his clammy brow. ‘But I was with the lads, and Hugh, in the Island Arms, and they all got to talkin’ about love, and marriage, and how the right woman can tame the wildest heart, and, Violet, I couldn’t bear it any longer.’
Violet folded her arms, glancing up at the ceiling as though summoning the strength to hear out a drunk, desperate man’s declaration. ‘What couldn’t you bear, Barnie?’
‘You not knowing that you’ve tamed my wild heart.’
Eight women tutted as one.
‘Are you going to tell him, or shall I?’ Iris asked her sister.
‘It’s your bridal shower, of course I’ll do it.’ Violet sighed. ‘It’s probably my fault for not spelling it out earlier.’
‘Tell me what?’ Barnie asked, face swivelling between the sisters.
‘Are all men this clueless?’ another woman, Holly, asked me. ‘Or is it just islanders?’
