‘We could play cards after we’ve eaten,’ Erin said to Jules. ‘Do you play cards? Dad, Fitz and I play Go Fish sometimes.’
‘I used to play rummy with my dad,’ Jules said. ‘Tell you what, we’ll play both.’
‘Loser has to do the washing up,’ Lance said, laughing, and Jules could hear the relief in the timbre.
‘Thank you so much,’ Lance said, pouring two glasses of rosé. ‘She gets so upset about Tasha, but what can you do?’
Jules looked through the window to where Erin was picking cut-and-come-again salad leaves from a raised bed.
‘It seems to me that you do all you can to provide her with a bit of a sanctuary. She said to me how much she loves coming here.’
He clinked his glass against hers.
‘And we love having her. Here’s to sanctuaries wherever they may be. We all need them, don’t we?’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Jules said.
She couldn’t believe how quickly the evening passed. After supper of crab, salad and new potatoes garnished with fresh dill and parsley butter, Lance disappeared into the café and came back with three little tubs of ice cream.
‘Honeycomb, chocolate and orange, or lemon and raspberry,’ he said.
‘Isle of Wight ice cream,’ Jules said.
‘Made with local milk and cream,’ Lance said. ‘There used to be over three hundred dairy farms on the island. Now there are only ten. You won’t see that many cows around in the fields these days and this company is trying to keep cattle on the island and provide a livelihood for the farmers.’
‘This is a very supportive place,’ Jules said.
‘It has to be,’ Lance said. ‘Any small community has to be supportive, or it won’t just not thrive, it will die.’
‘Mum used to say it was a magical island,’ Erin said. ‘Do you know what wight means?’
‘No, I never really thought about it,’ Jules said, ‘but I presume it’s an alternative spelling for white because The Needles are white. At least, they look white in photographs.’
‘They’re made of chalk,’ Lance said, ‘so they are white, but that’s not the answer.’
‘It means ghost or spirit,’ Erin said.
Jules felt her heart beat a little faster and developed a clamminess at the nape of her neck.
‘But it’s had many different names over time,’ Lance said. ‘The Anglo Saxons called it Wiht which comes from their word for ‘place of the spirits’, but before that the Romans called it Vectis which people think might have derived from the Latin for conquered. The Vikings called it Wightland, and then it was Henry VIII who named it the Isle of Wight. Another theory is that wight used to mean a divide and of course we’re divided from the mainland.’
‘It is meant to be the most haunted place on earth. Mum used to call it the island of spirits,’ Erin said. ‘I like to think that. I like to think that Mum’s spirit is still here somewhere. Tasha says there are spirits at Hideaway Cottage. Have you seen them?’
‘No. I’m not sure I really believe in that sort of thing.’
‘Don’t you think it’s got a special atmosphere though?’
‘Yes, but that’s not necessarily to do with spirits. It could just be the way the cottage sits in the landscape or perhaps how Guy has done it up with such care.’
Erin threw her a slightly pitying glance.
‘Or it could be that the spirits of the people who lived there before are looking after it like Mum is still here looking after us.’
‘Erin, you’re going to end up scaring Jules. Why don’t we choose an ice cream before they melt?’
He caught Jules’s eye and held her gaze for a moment as if he was looking straight into her soul.
‘Let me guess. You look like a lemon and raspberry person to me.’
