‘Oh, she do look pretty, don’t she!’
‘I’m no expert on the fairer sex, as you well know, Miss Elisabeth,’ says Bobby.
‘Ooh, she do! A very pretty maid. Well, the dress and the hair. Shame about the face!’ cackles Miss Elisabeth – former teacher, former councillor, part-time postmistress, tour guide, community centre assistant, playgroup assistant and church volunteer. The oldest worker on the island. The woman is nothing if not adaptable. Everyone calls her Old Betty, but never to her face.
‘Do not let them hear you!’ warns Bobby.
‘And a lovely service. Proper lovely,’ she witters on.
Bobby nods. The church side of things has gone down well. Plenty of photo opportunities, which will hopefully flood social media and drum up business. Standing outside the church for the official poses, the bride indeed looks … bride-like. The hair is a triumph, adorned with tiny pearls to complement 20the gown, a beautifully draped off-the-shoulder number with shades of Vera Wang if he’s not mistaken. Bobby loves a little Vogue glamour on the island – a welcome change from Barbours and wellies. Everyone here smells like wet dog. Even those who don’t have dogs.
‘They done her up a treat,’ says Betty. ‘The bride with the beautiful blue eyes.’
The bride’s eyes are obviously brown.
Bobby is confused. ‘Blue eyes?’
‘Oh yes,’ nods Betty. ‘One blew east, the other blew west.’
‘Will you behave,’ he hisses.
Bobby makes his way across the path to praise Hannah. A good manager should give positive feedback whenever it is warranted. So many bosses only admonish, which saps morale.
‘An excellent job with the hair there, Hannah. Well done. I love the little pearls. A very nice touch.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Good tip?’
‘Fair enough.’ She looks away as she says it, so he guesses it wasn’t impressive.
‘It stands you in good stead going the extra mile like this – cancelling your own break, rushing to the rescue. The guests appreciate it. The Family will appreciate it.’
The bride’s people are friends with the island’s ultimate bosses, The Family. Bobby reports directly to The Family, who report to the royal owners, or rather the minions in their employ, and the royals, of course, report only to God. Many of the regular visitors, like Jane’s family, have been coming here to holiday for decades. Most tourists only manage a day trip over to see the Abbey Garden – it’s all normal folk can afford – but 21those who stay, those who come back year after year at peak season, like Jane’s clan, timeshare owners who visit several times each year, they are usually dripping with assets.
The bride has appreciated Hannah’s effort to the tune of an extra fifty pounds on top of her fee – and while Hannah is grateful for the cash, it is more a Blue Peter badge level of thanks rather than a full commendation. Jane’s family spend more than fifty quid on a round of drinks in the Old Ship most lunchtimes. And Hannah hasn’t gone the extra mile for them – as the crow flies from Land’s End, she’s gone twenty-eight extra miles.
Still, her effort has pleased Bobby, which means word will get back to her immediate boss, the redoubtable Alison, who governs the pub with an iron will and a slick of Estée Lauder lippy. A good word from Bobby might help grease the wheel the next time Hannah wants to swap her shifts.
The wedding party no longer notices Hannah. As soon as she’d fulfilled her purpose she was dismissed and subsequently ignored. Jane, her relatives, and Glorious Greg the groom – thus named due to his habit of declaring everything on the island ‘glorious!’, from the shooting and fishing to the evocative Malbecs he downs like water – are back with their own kind now. Even Primrose is on her best behaviour and part of the inner circle, sporting a pink cape affair with a giant bow attached to her collar.
The guest holding the dog catches Hannah’s eye and makes a funny face, followed by a wry smile, as if to say, ‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?’ He mimes shooting himself, which makes her laugh. She recognises this good-looking young man from a past visit, but she’s forgotten his name. 22
Hannah was invited to the church as an afterthought. It’s an open invitation, although regular visitors know that most islanders will be far too busy working to come to mid-week midday nuptials. A few, like Miss Elisabeth, have stopped by for a few minutes to see the couple outside St Nicholas’s Church – built in 1878 by the rather innovatively named Thomas Algernon Smith-Dorrien-Smith, although presumably not single-handedly, aptly dedicated to the patron saint of sailors. None of the workers have been invited to the reception.
Hannah needs a lie down. She’s tired after yesterday’s bad crossing, a disturbed night’s sleep in the B&B, and today’s early start. Her body clock is more used to late nights behind the bar than early mornings, although when she’d first come over as a chambermaid she’d worked totally different hours. Now, along with her bar work, she’s added ‘unofficial hairdresser’ to her skill set, not that there’s an official hairdresser on the island. She’s been doing cuts and colours for friends, workers, and a few guests for the last couple of years. She also gives housekeeping a hand when they need, and she recently started helping the interior design team.
‘You’ll soon be managing this place at the rate you’re going,’ said Bobby, teasing her. But everyone has to pitch in here.
Hannah watches Bobby walk over to shake Glorious Greg’s hand, beaming at the bride and doing his best professional fawning. Bobby has a low centre of gravity and a suggestion of bowlegs, possibly from spending so much time tootling around on his bike, overseeing the smooth running of the island business. A peal of laughter trills out at something he says. Hannah is about to head back to her room and get some rest when Old Betty grabs her arm. 23
She comes up close, the old girl’s teeth always a shocker, and says, ‘Lovely job on that hair! Silk purse out a cow’s ear!’
Old Betty has an unusual turn of phrase.
‘Miss Elisabeth!’
‘Pity she didn’t get the genes, hey? That bleddy dog had more luck than her!’
‘You did a lovely job with the church flowers,’ says Hannah.
Betty ignores the compliment, as women tend to, and says, ‘He has an eye for you, that youth. Proper ’ansome, him. Proper tall.’
The tall young man holding the dog’s lead seems to divine they’re talking about him and gives them a small apologetic wave and another grin. His mouth is beautiful.
‘He is a bit lush,’ smiles Hannah, who has a vague recollection of kissing him under a bunch of mistletoe at the pub last Christmas. But then, who didn’t she kiss under that mistletoe.
Betty leans in and whispers, ‘You take care! Hear me? You take care!’
‘Why?’ asks Hannah.
‘He’ll be gone soon enough. One of you’ll end up brokenhearted. Or worse.’
‘Are you the island soothsayer now,’ laughs Hannah, shrugging Betty’s fingers off and trying to make her escape.
The old woman sweeps her into a farewell embrace. Hugging Old Betty is like hugging a sack of sticks.
Just then the wedding golf buggy, decorated with pink and white ribbons to match the flowers in the opulent bridal bouquet, sets off to a cheer, the newly hyphenated Bamford-Lloyds waving regally from the back. All the workers wave in reply – if they didn’t it would be noted by Bobby – and Hannah sets off in the opposite direction. 24
She wonders how anyone could bear to marry someone like Glorious Greg. The man’s a buffoon. But Hannah will be thirty-two next year, and her mother has been nagging her that it’s time to settle down, time to start thinking about giving her a grandchild. It’s not that Hannah’s against the idea, but it’s not so easy when tourists are only here for a couple of weeks at a time, plus there are very few eligible workers on the islands, and most of them usually only stay for a season or two before disappearing. Anyway, she tells herself, she’s having a fun time as she is.
And she’s been stung in the past. Before she came to the island she was engaged to be married for an entire five weeks – well, her boyfriend at the time asked her, but never supplied a ring, and never mentioned it again. They broke up the following month when he suddenly left the country, claiming it was for a new job, although it turned out to be a new woman. Hannah blames herself for not seeing how flaky he was. She doesn’t have the best track record in her love life.
She sighs and walks on.
Buttercups and daisies, honeysuckle and wildflowers in pinks and blues that she can’t name, adorn the path as she makes her way down to New Grimsby. She’ll have time for a nap before getting changed for her shift at the pub. She meets Angie from the shop walking Sadie Dog the other way up the path and greets them both, to the dog’s delight. She waves to Isak from the cottage gardening team who looks to be in mortal combat with a giant dead Echium over in Tern’s front yard. She texts her mother again – Sorry! I’ll try to get over to see you soon.
A soft silence suddenly engulfs her, and she’s hit by a wave of nausea like she’s still at sea. She’s overtaken by a strange 25sensation where the world seems to tilt and darken. She has to steady herself on a garden wall.
Exhaustion, probably.
This strange episode is observed by one plump baby gull which sits on the nearest cottage roof, bleating heart-rending cries in the perpetual hope of food. A single magpie remains on the chimney opposite watching her impassively. It calls out three sharp, scornful cries, and swoops away.
Hannah salutes it and hurries on.