25

But there was never any cake.

The wind and the rain. The dirt path home from the harbour had turned to paint. By the time we got back, Pip’s new suit shrink-wrapped his arms. Eddy was in the kitchen; it had been cleaned. He avoided our eyes, fiddling with his barometer and looking out of the window. ‘Bad one,’ he kept saying, ‘I can tell a bad one.’ He went into his study to make a call. Sofi got out the flour and the scales. Pip had taken off his suit and was drying himself off with a towel, in his boxers.

When Eddy came back out, he said he was sorry to break up the party. He’d just spoken to Tom at Le Maseline harbour – he was saying this to me rather than the other two. ‘I was right,’ he said. ‘They’re saying it’s going to be a bad one. Force 4 on Alderney apparently.’

Then he asked if my flight from Guernsey was in the morning.

‘Yes,’ I said. As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. ‘At 11.15.’

He said he thought tomorrow’s ferries would be cancelled, that the last sailing they were definitely letting leave was the next one, in an hour.

It happened that fast. Eddy said I had to go; that it was now or never.