He’s kneeling on a folded tarp, digging weeds out of the flower beds by the fence. His dedication to a job he clearly doesn’t enjoy amazes me. Hearing my voice, he turns around.
“I’m just going down to the village. Do you need anything?”
He wipes his forehead with his sleeve, pushing hair off his face. “List on the fridge.”
Brandon has taken to list making like a champion and the kitchen cupboards are decorated with various coloured lists. He’s even applied some logic to his list placements, so the “general crockery” list is on the cupboard. The “utensils and cooking implements” list is taped above the AGA, and the fridge door has the list of “food we need.” I slide this from under the fridge magnate, fold it, and slip it into the pocket of my waterproof jacket. There’s an old, padded envelope on the table, which is perfect for a handful of berries, so I open the fridge and select samples of each kind we’ve picked and drop them into it.
Jacket and walking boots on, I set off towards the village. It’s not until I notice the decorations on every house that it dawns on me, Christmas will be here very soon. There’s very little in the way of tinsel and fairy lights, but every house has a wreath, green cedar fronds, pinecones, clusters of nuts, and even boughs of that thorny plant with orange berries. My family always takes the festive season very seriously. As children we always made our own advent calendars, and now my sister’s kids have taken over this tradition. Mum and dad, who’ve retired to Italy, always fly in for the week and we all celebrate together. I don’t want to be here on this island of strangers when I could be sitting with my family around a huge tree with a mountain of gifts.
In the village, all the shops have been decorated, too. The pharmacy has a fat church candle on the window ledge tied with a wide ribbon of rich looking red silk. In fact, several of the other shops have big floppy bows of the same silk. It’s an expensive fabric to use on street decorations, surely. There’s even a red rosette on the knitted hat of the woman in the queue outside the bakery.
We need bread, too, so I join the queue behind the red rosette lady. After ten minutes of waiting, I realise the queue isn’t moving at all.
“Excuse me, why is it taking so long?” I ask the woman.
“Waitin’ for the next batch to come out of the oven.”
Seriously? The queue has at least ten people. I hope their ovens produce enough bread for all of us.
She’s looking at me, but I can’t think what to say and feel tongue-tied. Striking conversations with strangers is never easy for me unless we have something specific to talk about.
I look behind me, there are no supermarkets here, nor even a small corner shop that has all the essentials. Everything on my list, milk, yogurt, pickles, chicken, pasta, herbs for pesto sauce, blueberries for smoothie, muesli…everything needs a visit to a different shop.
Rosette-lady misunderstands my frustration and gives me a less than friendly look. “We all have to queue. This isn’t the big city where you come from. I’m sure a Mrs. La-Di-Da like you is used to bakeries as big as Buckingham Palace.”
Here we go again! People who don’t know me always mistake my shyness for snobbery. If I really were “La Di Da,” I’d tell her in the big city we don’t go to bakeries; bread, along with all other shopping, comes to our door.
What am I doing here in this place full of hostile people? I can just leave. If not London, then there are a million places I can go – France, Italy, Burkina Faso.
“Hello stranger.” Someone taps me on the shoulder.
It’s Millie, the nice woman from the Blue Sage Café, looking very pregnant.
“I owe you an apology,” she says when we’ve exchanged hellos. “I meant to pop over for a visit, but I’m a bit less mobile these days.” She smiles gesturing towards her growing bump.
“Do you need bread?” I ask. “Because I’m afraid it’s a long wait.”
Rosette-hat-lady throws me the stink-eye again. But I don’t care, and surely, they can’t expect a woman in Millie’s condition to queue. “Go and sit down. I’ll get your bread. What do you need?”
“Thank you.” She shakes her head. “We bake our own at the Hall. I came in to get a few things from the post office and now on my way to the pier–” She breaks off as if an idea just occurred to her. “Why don’t you walk with me?”
It’s a tempting offer because Millie is a far lovelier company than hostile Rosette lady. Bread can wait for another time, but we’re out of so many things.
“What else do you need?” Millie holds out a hand for my list and reads through it. “I’ll have a word with our cook. She can send you some of this from our larder. And she bakes amazing breads.”
“No, no, you can’t.” I take the list from her. “Isn’t it enough you’ve been so generous with all those gorgeous teas and biscuits?” She’s been sending me her wonderful herbal mixes to help with my nausea. I can’t expect her staff to feed us, too.
“Don’t be daft. Cook loves to bake and will turn cartwheels of joy if you let her work out what your favourite bread might be. She makes walnut bread, onion bread, cumin-seed bread, nigella-seed bread, wheat, rye, corn, spelt, you name it.”
My objections are weakening with every word. “But…” I try to argue.
“Besides, our larders are groaning with stuff.” She leads me a few steps down the square, around what must be a fountain. At least, it’s a large stone basin with steps leading up to a small nymph carrying a jug. “All the islanders still send us contributions from their farms like the old days. You know this used to be a feudal island and all the people were basically tenants on the Seigneur’s lands.”
I’d read about that.
“George keeps telling them they don’t owe us anything, but they still send.” She digs into her pocket for a small pencil and puts ticks against half the items on my list. “And I’ll ring Appletree Dairy, they can deliver butter, milk and cheese, and…” She scrolls down the list. “You can’t have blueberries, they’re out of season.”
“Out of season?”
