‘It’s my pleasure.’ She was beaming at him. ‘We’re so pleased that you’re here. We were so sad when our wonderful Cassie said that she was leaving for a few months, and we already miss her so much, but it’s great to have a new neighbour to get to know.’ Wonderful Cassie. Really? ‘Have you settled in? What do you like to do in your spare time? We have a lot of different activities on the island. There’s something for everyone.’ Isla looked like she was keen to linger. She was edging towards the kitchen door.
‘That’s great.’ James stepped forward and took the casserole from her. ‘Thank you again for this. I’d love to chat but unfortunately I have a conference call starting in a couple of minutes.’
‘Another time. Perhaps at the weekend. Good to meet you. Enjoy the chowder.’
‘Thanks.’ James carried the casserole dish into the kitchen, telling himself that he really didn’t need to feel any guilt about rejecting her obviously well-meant friendship advances because he wasbusy.
James sat back and stretched. Cassie’s desk chair was fantastic, he had to give her that. He wondered what she did for a job, given that you could do pretty much anything remotely now. She’d said ‘Writer’. That could mean a lot of things or it could be a cover. Chief exec of a major corporate. Underwear designer. Spy. He’d discovered via Google that her last job was as a solicitor in Glasgow. Her digital trail had ended pretty abruptly four years ago, when she moved here.
What time was it now? Good God. Only half four. Time was pretty much standing still today. Shocking to realise how much your phone and your colleagues distracted you, and also made your day go faster. Maybe he should have invited Isla in for a cup of tea. Nope. He wasn’t that lonely.
Time to stretch his legs and check his phone.
It was raining but maybe he’d take a walk up to the end of the garden and to the field, take a look at Cassie’s animals.
The alpacas were taking refuge from the downpour under a large, wide tree. They were clearly the source of the clicking he’d heard a couple of times.
Where were the chickens Cassie had referred to? It was hard to see. Would they have some kind of chicken house? Yep, there was an enclosure in the top corner of the field, containing a wooden hut surrounded by a large wire enclosure. The chickens must be inside, and who could blame them.
‘Hey.’ The woman’s voice in James’s ear was a shock. The sound of her approach had obviously been masked by the pounding rain. ‘I’m Dina. You must be James.’
James took the hand she was offering for a sodden handshake.
‘Yes, I am. I presume you’re one of Cassie’s neighbours?’ She had to be the woman who’d waved manically at him a couple of times while he was swimming and who he glimpsed walking up the garden past the house from time to time. ‘Are you the person kindly looking after the animals?’ Why was he feeling grateful to her? They weren’t his animals and there was nothing wrong with his choice to have nothing to do with them.
‘Yes, I’m Cassie’s neighbour and we’re also very good friends. I live just around the headland. And, yes, I’m looking after the animals while she’s away. It’s great to meet you.’ Dina was around his age and was wearing a lot of glossy, bright-red lipstick and a large smile. Applying serious make-up didn’t seem like an obvious choice before going to feed animals in heavy rain, but maybe that was island life for you. Maybe this was going to be the highlight of her day and she was dressed for it. Or maybe her island life was a lot fuller than James’s was shaping up to be, and she was on her way somewhere else.
‘Good to meet you, too.’ Sad to say, he wasn’t lying. There was only so much isolation a person could enjoy. If he’d known how time was going to start dragging, he probably wouldn’t have ignored her when she waved at him.
‘I’m just here to collect the eggs. Wanna come see?’
James opened his mouth to say thanks but no thanks, and then thought about his plans for the evening. Work. The chowder – might as well eat it. Whatever there was on US terrestrial TV. Yeah, he could stand to spend a few minutes looking at chicken eggs with an attractive woman.
The egg collecting surprised James. There were more eggs than he’d expected, and they varied in colour and size a lot more than he’d thought they would. There were blue – properly blue – ones, some regular egg-coloured ones, some very pale ones. Apparently most of the chickens laid an egg most days, especially during the summer; and the gigantic ones were double-yolked and from the youngest hens.
‘Does each chicken lay the same colour egg each day or do they vary?’ he asked, genuinely interested in the answer. Really, almost nothing had happened in his life today.
Dina laughed. ‘Spoken like a city boy. Each chicken lays pretty much the same coloured eggs each day.’
‘And what do we do with all the eggs?’We. Like this was anything to do with him.
‘Cassie gives them to her neighbours. There’s a lot of that on the island. People sharing their produce. Laura contributes a lot of blueberry bakes.’
‘That’s nice.’ In a weird, living-in-a-nineteenth-century-children’s-story kind of way.
They were walking back towards the house now. Dina seemed like good company by any measure. Compared to having no-one other than Laura to talk to, she wasgreatcompany. James was almost tempted to ask her in for coffee, except she’d already told him that she was single and she’d been directing a lot of her red-lipsticked smiles at him. He really didn’t need another dating-type misunderstanding in the near future. Maybe something could happen towards the end of his stay, when it would be obvious that he’d be leaving soon.
‘So I’ll maybe see you at the island dinner on Saturday evening?’ Dina was hovering but he wasn’t going to ask her in for coffee.
‘Island dinner?’
‘It’s in the community hall, at seven. Everyone on the island goes.’
James hesitated for a second. Life here was not exciting. Saturday was going to be a slow day. But, no, going to a dinner with everyone on the island would really not improve the day. There was bored and there was desperate.
‘Yeah, unfortunately I have plans,’ he said. Plans? What plans could he possibly have?
‘Okay, well, if you change your mind, you know where I am. Next door, that way.’ Dina pointed, shot him another big red smile, and sashayed off round the side of the house.
