Our house is a ten-minute walk from Main Street and the morning is bright but foggy, the mist hanging over the island. It will lift, like a magician’s silk hanky, the beauty of the island will be revealed in one great ta-da. The air is light and it makes me wetter than I thought. Soft rain, we call it. I don’t mind, I like walking in the rain, this kind of invisible rain, it’s always made me feel free. It cools my pounding head, sizzles the frying brain, even though it frizzes my hair.
There’s already a line of cars at the port awaiting the ferry which is returning to shore, probably the first outing of the day, and it’s already filled with cars. Tourist season. Every business person’s favourite time of year. The island is busy for the Easter weekend and outside the Royal Valentia Hotel preparations are underway for a Hardman half-marathon and 10k run.
I purchase enough food at the foodstore for today and tomorrow’s Easter Sunday dinner. We’re not religious but we like to eat and support any occasion that is marked with food. Pops has purchased the lamb directly from Nessie, the farmer who lives behind us, and I wonder if that’s where his dear little lamb friend disappeared to. If there was a lamb at all. Shopping totes in hand, I continue the short walk to Gerry’s garage. Problem is, his business is at his home, where his daughter Marion lives. Marion who has recently opened a hair salon and gotten pregnant by my ex-boyfriend and first love. I’d rather stay away from her, but I need to see about Pops and, with a bit of luck, I won’t encounter her.
I walk up the driveway. House to the right, business to the left. Cars in various states of life parked up, some rusted and without wheels that look like they’re there for the long haul. You wouldn’t know Gerry has money; he acts and talks like he couldn’t pay attention, but Pops always says he’s so tight he’d peel an orange in his pocket. Everything looks the same; it’s the same house I played at most days growing up. Where I had sleepovers. Marion and I loved having adventures around the cars. Ducking low, weaving in and out with walkie-talkies on a new adventure, sitting behind the steering wheels in imaginary high-speed car chases, tumbling across the bonnets as we’re struck. There’s probably even a few of the same cars we played in, still not crushed. All’s the same apart from the sign out front – Marion’s hair salon. She did it. Her dream.
I avoid the house and make my way to the barn that’s the garage. Two little Westies come down to meet me. Ham and Cheese or Peanut-Butter and Jelly or something like that. They don’t remember me either and yap at my heels, whacking their heads against my swinging bags as they try to jump up on me. The garage shutters are down, which is disappointing. I should have known he wouldn’t work over an Easter break.
I see a figure at the downstairs window of Marion’s house. Shite I’ve been spotted. I turn around and meander through the rusted cars towards the exit, dogs yapping giving me away.
Allegra Bird, is that you, I hear Marion’s voice and I want to settle in the soil and die like the rust-bucket cars. Lay down my roots, give up, and not have to face her. In truth I stopped loving Jamie long before I left to go to the other island, if it was really love at all, but I still hate her and him right now for even daring.
Rhubarb, away, she says, voice nearing me. Custard, get out of there.
Marion comes towards me down the porch and makes her way through the maze of cars. I step out of my hiding place, feeling foolish.
Oh Marion. Hi.
What the hell are you doing.
Her cardigan is wrapped tight around her, held by her arms across her stomach. I see a baby bump where there isn’t one, there couldn’t be any yet, she’s only eight weeks, it’s probably the size of a tab of e. Cyclops used to get them for us, he took them when he was DJ-ing, supplied them too. They never did much for me; mild euphoria, I suppose, but Jamie used to experience higher pleasure from physical touch so he loved it. If anything it gave me moments of clear focus and some of those moments, while I had my hand down Jamie’s pants, I was plotting and planning on leaving Valentia. Focused on my next goal. I never deserved him.
JP told me you were home. For the Easter break, is it, she asks.
I can’t stop looking at her stomach, I wonder if they talked about me. They must have. Even if it wasn’t malicious, they must have poured their hearts out. Pillow talk, quiet whispers of the things about me that bothered them. I know I used to do that with Jamie about Marion. I wonder if he told her the things I’d said. Innocent things really, but hurtful if you ever heard them about yourself. Stuff you’d mull over and wonder about changing your personality to fix. Lying in bed with two of us. I feel hot and angry, my heart pounding. Connecting over their shared frustration of me. How dare they. There’s so much that I could say to her, and I don’t want to say any of it. It couldn’t make anything better.