It was amazing to be here, she’d told them all, and she had not been exaggerating. The scale of the place, the distances between the cabins, that was one of the things it was hard to get your head around. This was not somewhere you walked out on your balcony and there was your neighbour on his balcony in his bathrobe eating breakfast, and you both had to ignore each other. Here, on the island, by careful design, you would never really be aware of your neighbour or the other cabins. Members could feel perfectly comfortable having a bath with the curtains open, watching the sun going down over the ocean, log-burner blazing. Nor had Jess been expecting how far away the rest of the world would feel here, especially when you knew the tide was in, that the only way on or off this place for the next twelve hours was a boat or a helicopter. Their nearest neighbours the village, out there on the horizon in one direction （a vague impression of distant grey buildings and white-hulled boats, even on a clear day like today, and presumably no more than a tiny cluster of distant orange lights at night）， the bird sanctuary on the far side of the estuary on the other.
All the time, as Adam gave her the tour, Jess was thinking about what this would mean, for her, practically speaking. Given the size of her team. Given what was being asked of them. Given how long it would take two people to turn one of those huge cabins around. This had always been the aspect of her job she enjoyed most, the logistics. Finding ways of making everything more efficient, saving her team time and effort. Working out who would have to be where and when and how. Not just meeting people’s expectations but surpassing them. Figuring out what was going to need to happen in what exact sequence to ensure it all worked perfectly. That was the sort of thing – problem-solving – she enjoyed. That was how she would have loved to spend her first night on Island Home.
Instead, here she was, stuck for the evening looking after an extremely precocious seven-year-old.
It had been about 6 p.m. when Annie had called – just as Jess had been about to make herself a cup of tea and take the weight off her feet for five minutes.
‘How are you with kids?’ Annie had asked.
Obviously Jess had hesitated too long before giving her an answer – which would probably have been something like ‘I’m not sure, to be honest’ – because before she knew what was happening, Annie was explaining which cabin she should present herself at, and when.
‘It’ll be easy,’ Annie had promised. ‘Order some room service, watch a couple of films, read a story or two, put her to bed. I’ve met Lyra a few times, very sweet girl, very mature. She’ll be no trouble at all, I promise.’
Naturally, Jess remembered Kyra Highway, Lyra’s mother. Once upon a time she had been absolutely everywhere. Pepsi ads. Panel shows. Magazine covers. The front page of the News of The World . . .
Despite herself, Jess had been a little nervous on the way over, all Annie’s instructions from that afternoon ringing in her head.
It was perhaps only as she was walking along the cabin’s front path – the lights either side just beginning to glimmer into life in the dusk, a wood pigeon cooing nearby – that it really hit her where she was, and what she was doing, and how real all of this suddenly felt.
It was perhaps only as she was readying herself to knock on the cabin door （having failed to locate the bell, if there was one） that it had occurred to Jess how she might turn this whole situation to her advantage – if she dared.
Slightly to Jess’s surprise – what had she been expecting? A butler? – Kyra Highway herself had opened the cabin door. Still only half ready, still only half dressed, she had waved Jess inside, called through to Lyra to come and introduce herself, told Jess to chuck everything off any of the chairs and sit down, then apologized profusely for having put everyone in this awkward position. She really could not have been friendlier, more apologetic, more charming. There was a nanny coming, she promised Jess – Home had found one and she would be here in the morning.
‘God knows what I would have done about tonight if it wasn’t for you, though, Jess,’ she said. ‘We hadn’t really thought this through . . .’ She trailed off, distracted by rifling through her suitcase.