She shifts on the sofa and sighs into her pillow. ‘He didn’t break it, really. Someone else did that. A story for another time.’
Cleo
14 October
Salvation Island
SINGLE LADIES, I’M BEYONCé
‘Heya,’ Delta says, looking up from her magazine as I approach the café counter. She’s wearing denim dungarees over a white T-shirt and her dark hair is held off her face with a sequinned cherry-red hairslide, her baby bump up front and central.
I pull off my woollen gloves and flex my cold fingers. ‘Hello, yourself,’ I say, pleased to see her again. ‘I’m badly in need of hot coffee.’
‘And cake?’ She nods towards a glass cake stand. ‘Erin made it. She’s Salvation’s answer to Nigella Lawson.’
I pull Erin up in my head. Tall, freckles, athletic doctor’s wife with a sweet tooth. The kind of woman who looks as if she’d be good at anything she tries her hand at, whether it’s baking or brain surgery.
‘It’s coconut and raspberry jam,’ Delta says. ‘You’d be doing me a favour. The baby has insisted on way too many slices.’ She pats her belly.
‘Go on then,’ I say.
‘Two slices?’ She sly-eyes me. ‘Take one back for Han Solo?’
‘Just the one will do nicely.’ I soften my eye-roll with a smile. ‘You’re wasted here, you could make your fortune as a saleswoman over on the mainland.’
Delta screws her nose up as she pushes coffee and a huge slab of cake towards me. ‘Nah. Been there, done that. Give me the quiet life any day, especially now this one’s on the way.’
‘Really?’ I say. I’d assumed that she’d come back to the island as a temporary measure. She has a cart-wheeling kind of energy about her, something in her startling green eyes that suggests wanderlust and adventure.
Delta glances around the warm, quiet café.
‘I came in here with my mother every Saturday when I was a kid. The woman who used to own it was a terrible cook, only ever baked jam tarts. Burnt them sometimes, as well.’ Delta shrugs. ‘It was the coming here that counted – me and Mam always walked the long way to collect shells.’
I find it hard to imagine Dolores as a carefree young woman beachcombing with her small daughter.
‘So is it yours now, this place?’ There’s an ambience to the café that speaks of Delta’s influence: Ibiza chill-out background music, whitewashed walls, a panel of stained-glass art hung in a high window splashing slices of coloured light across the pale floorboards.
‘Kind of,’ she says. ‘It belongs to my uncle Raff officially, but he doesn’t like being tied to running it.’ There’s something in the way she says it that suggests indulgence, that Uncle Raff is someone she adores. ‘He owns the pub too,’ she says. ‘Not that he works there much, either. You’ll run into him soon enough, for sure. Come to the pub one of the evenings, he’s always on the wrong side of the bar.’
I find myself wondering how it feels to belong to a community like this, to be part of its story. ‘I’ll do that,’ I say. ‘God, this cake is good.’
‘I know, right?’
‘Brianne mentioned that there’s reliable internet connection in here?’ I say.
Delta nods. ‘The Wi-Fi password this week is vodka,’ she says, glancing at her bump. ‘It was Pinot last week. Wishful thinking.’
I laugh as I pull my phone out. ‘Cake is almost as good.’
Delta doesn’t look convinced as she nods towards the back corner of the café. ‘There’s a computer set up behind the partition if you fancy a proper keyboard,’ she says. ‘It’s not booked until four if you want to use it. You can have it for free, just don’t tell Mr Four O’clock.’
Her easy friendship warms me. ‘Fab. I will, thanks,’ I say, ridiculously thrilled by the idea of an hour of decent connection rather than sitting on top of Wailing Hill at the mercy of the weather and the temperamental reception gods. I managed to send my first piece in to Ali on a wing and a prayer; this feels like a luxury in comparison.
‘I’ll bring you some fresh coffee over,’ Delta says.
I hold my breath as I wait to see if Ali’s available to chat, and let it out when her face pops up on the screen, squinting until she slides her glasses on.
‘It is you,’ she half shouts, grinning. ‘How’s life out there on that godforsaken rock?’