‘Tell me what?’ Barnie was rigid.
A day ago, I would have been surprised that Violet didn’t take him outside, or in the back kitchen, or at the very least into a corner before answering him, but I was rapidly cottoning on to the fact that privacy and discretion weren’t how islanders did things.
‘Barnie, I have not tamed your wild heart.’
‘You have! Honestly, Violet, I knew it as soon as?—’
‘Are you going to listen or what?’
Barnie nodded mutely.
‘Your heart is as wild as a milky mug of cocoa. It’s literally island-shaped. And even if it wasn’t, you know I have zero interest in taming it. You can’t allow yourself to get carried away by Connell’s cider-fuelled ramblings.’
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Please. He’s given that speech so many times, his own wife is sick of hearing it.’ Jasmine groaned.
‘Then you turn up here, disrupting Iris’s special night, and expect me to suddenly change my mind. I know you, Barnie Cork. I fell for your oversized, mushy island heart after you lent me your best pencil on our first day of school. But my heartiswild, as you know all too well. And, unlike Connell, I will not tame it for anyone. I will not submit my dreams to a man’s, put them to one side for a distant day I hope might eventually come,once all his plans have been fulfilled and our babies grown, by which time, my elderly parents will expect me to be taking on the farm. I will not settle nor shrink myself to fit in someone else’s safe world. Not even yours, Barnie. You are the best person I know. You make me laugh like no one else, and you know exactly how to dry my tears. If anyone could make me stay, it would be you. But you also allowed me to see who I really am. To dare to live free. I will miss you more than I can bear to think about.’ Violet paused to wipe the tears pouring down her face. ‘But I’m not destined to be the wife of a man who lives for his doughnut stand.’
‘I live for you,’ Barnie croaked, his own eyes spilling over.
Violet paused for the briefest of moments.
‘Goodbye, Barnie.’
‘You’re really going?’
‘Once my new niece or nephew is safely here, I’m leaving.’
‘Well, I guess that’s that, then. Arnie’s waiting outside.’ Barnie pulled off his cap, used it to blot his face then turned to go.
‘Will you dance with me at the wedding?’ Violet blurted.
Barnie paused, one hand on the door. ‘Since when have I danced with anyone else?’
We all sat there, in our line on the floor, until the door closed and the sound of a car pulling off faded into the distance. Violet stood to one side of us, face crumpled.
‘Does that mean Barnie’s fair game now?’ Fern asked. ‘I wouldn’t mind working on his doughnut stand.’
‘Can somebody please pour my sister a drink?’ Lily asked through gritted teeth. ‘And help me up. And tell Fern that she’d better wait until Violet is a good few thousand feet in the air before making another comment like that unless she wants to be pushed off Lithin cliff.’
‘Celine?’ Iris said, with a note of steel in her voice.
Celine flicked to an ABBA song, we turned down the lights, turned up the volume and danced our wild hearts out.
23
A combination of farmers, café owners and a pregnant bridesmaid meant the festivities concluded by eleven. Lily and I were dropped off by Taylor’s taxi, which had squeezed enough women into a seven-seater car to surely invalidate any insurance. While Lily paid the teenage babysitter and secured her a lift in the taxi, I made a drink of mint tea in the kitchen and padded up to bed.
By the time I’d checked every inch of the room, then checked again, I dared to hope that everything was as I’d left it. Given that Celine and Richard were both accounted for that evening, if anything had been amiss, that would have implicated Aster as the only other person who seemed to dislike me.
I decided instead that the most sensible conclusion was the obvious one – the incidents were unfortunate coincidences, which I’d try not to let taint my remaining time here.
I was about to treat myself to another letter while I could still keep my eyelids open, when my phone pinged with three messages in quick succession. They were from an unknown number.
How long before Pip gets fed up with pasties?
Because anything else he’ll want from a wife, island women can do better
