The animal is desperate, eyes insane with fear, spittle flying. Its lips are pulled back, fangs bared as it throws itself against the bars with all its weight. It would rip out her throat if it had half a chance to escape the cage. A killer. As far as she can make out, some sort of chihuahua crossed with a gremlin and possibly a feather duster.
Hannah might also be yapping with terror, but she clenches her jaw shut tight, her hands squeezing into fists beside her.
The noise is extraordinary. An assault.
This is her first time in a helicopter. Someone like her wouldn’t usually travel this way, unless she was being airlifted to hospital, her life hanging by a thread. This journey is also ‘a matter of life and death’ according to Jane, but not really. Of course the girl’s wedding day is vitally important to her, and she’s the one paying for the flight, or rather her father is. 6
In the seat across the aisle from Hannah, Beatrice Wallace makes there-there noises to soothe her fur-baby.
‘Primrose, darling. Hush now. It’s okay, sweetheart. Mummy’s here.’
Poor thing! How she adores the dog. She always wanted a daughter.
Sitting next to Beatrice is her actual goddaughter, Charlotte. The girl has not looked up from her phone once, checking photos of her own face by the looks of it; as bad as a teenager, although Charlotte is now in her early twenties. She is missing the exceptional views. Blue for days!
Beatrice is very much looking forward to this holiday – the wedding of one of her best friend’s daughters, and a week away from the grind of London. Marvellous!
Hannah, however, is not thrilled to be returning to the island so soon. She has been summoned back from her first proper break in a year, to ‘save the day’ and put a stop to the bride-to-be’s theatrical tears which garbled her words in the frantic phone call the previous evening. She begged Hannah to be a last-minute replacement for her first choice of hairdresser (from a London salon, naturally), who has reportedly been poleaxed with food poisoning and will not be making the long journey over to Tresco.
Hannah told the girl she’d get back to her as she was just disembarking from the ferry at Penzance, but there immediately came a call from the island estate manager Bobby, who pointed out that Hannah’s job is to serve the likes of Jane and her family, whatever the request. The plans of worker bees like Hannah are never in the same league as those of the valued guests.
Hannah needs to keep in Bobby’s good books, and this, as 7much as the assurance of the fee and a paid flight back to the Isles of Scilly from the mainland, persuaded her to return.
By morning, it was as if the churning waves which had assaulted the evening ferry crossing from Tresco to Penzance had never happened and all was calm and bright. It likes to play tricks on you, the weather here – three seasons in an hour is not uncommon. Hannah caught the first flight back.
Today there are nine passengers on the Penzance to Tresco helicopter (aviation fans will know it’s a Sikorsky S-76) and while Charlotte seems a tad jaded by the transport (not a patch on the helicopter from Nice over to Monaco), most are excited by this leg of the journey and the prospect of their well-deserved holidays.
Passengers have been assured by a briefing video that it is only a fifteen-minute flight. Hannah wonders if her heart will hold out so long. It batters frantically, every instinct fighting against her current incarceration. Humans are not supposed to fly in deafening tin cans. She stares hard at the sea far below, trying to concentrate on something other than her fragile mortality. There is hardly any sense of scale from up here, just an unfathomable expanse – a terrifying watery void peppered by a sprinkling of miniature vessels which could be tiny fishing boats or mighty ocean liners.
A toddler squeals with glee, Primrose yelps in terror, Charlotte yawns theatrically, and Hannah squeezes her eyes shut and screams internally.
An eternity later – finally – a glimpse of land ahead!
Seeing the island from above as they approach is like the beginning of a film. Hannah almost forgets her sense of imminent death as they approach the intense turquoise blues of the 8shallow waters surrounding the small land masses. It is like the Caribbean – or at least what she’s seen of those tropical shores on television. There are even palm trees, despite this being, technically, England.
Return visitors know this view from the postcards sold at Tresco’s innovatively named Island Shop, purveyor of goods including caviar and baked beans, although not in the same tin. The photos on those cards do not do the scene justice.
The helicopter swoops over the crazy castle where The Family live – the island’s ultimate bosses, although they are off holidaying on some other paradise island at the moment – and comes to hover over the giant penis of the heliport.
‘Oh! Really!’ Beatrice nudges her companion and points. ‘Look!’
‘Wow!’ replies Charlotte, hastily chronicling the artwork for her Insta feed.
This is a new attraction. Someone has recently drawn said appendage on the grass, using weedkiller or bleach. Hannah has walked past this installation, but she hasn’t experienced the full glorious effect of the prank from the air. It amuses her to see the startled reactions of the elderly couple in the seats in front of her, and she can afford to smile now they are finally descending to hover over solid land.
As they touch down, she offers a sincere prayer of thanks.
Beatrice waits for a moment after Charlotte has alighted, so she can descend the steps alone like Joan Collins, although the hair is always an issue thanks to the downdraft. How on earth did Joanie’s wigs survive, she wonders?
Hannah’s legs are wobbly as she exits the helicopter, the last one to disembark because she allows the holidaymakers to go 9ahead, although they’ll get their bags at the same time as she does.
When she nears the waiting room she perks up and gives a wave, wink and a wiggle for the benefit of the heliport workers – Vlad and the two new lads, all of them in the pub every night living their best lives. She gets an appreciative whistle in return.
The travellers congregate in the bijou waiting room, gabbling and checking their phones. Beatrice scoops Primrose into her arms and the small dog, delighted to be released from her travelling cage prison, wiggles delightedly, licking her mother’s neck. Charlotte pulls a face at this display.
Bobby arrives ready to execute his estate manager meet-and-greet, giving Hannah a thumbs up, acknowledging her swift return to rescue the bridal party. Beatrice notices the interaction and smiles at Hannah, now recognising her from the Old Ship where the girl works primarily as a barmaid.
Meanwhile, arrival bags are offloaded while another batch is transported across to be stored in the hold. Passengers who are departing then walk across the green to board, bracing themselves for the return trip to the mainland. By the time everyone in arrivals has their bearings, the helicopter has already taken off again and a small group of seagulls has settled on the ball area of the graffiti cock, watching the proceedings with reptilian eyes.
There are no cars on the island, part of its USP, so heliport passengers are transported to the Old Ship Inn and their various timeshare cottages via the Wacky Races style tractor-bus. Workers and visitors generally use pushbikes or walk, and there are golf buggies to help those less mobile get around.
There is a short wait as a beefy heliport worker brings round 10a wheelchair for one of the larger passengers. Beatrice turns to Charlotte and whispers, ‘If she lies on the beach, do you think marine biologists will throw water over her?’
Charlotte giggles then snaps a selfie of her arrival. She will need to take precautions here – sea air is brutal on the complexion.