Inside it smells like pencils, carpet and boiled potatoes.
‘Come on, it sounds like they’re down here.’
I follow Alice into the one classroom where a small crowd has gathered. I recognise Brenda immediately by her pink hair and by Puff the puppy, who is curled up on a beanbag in the corner. Also in the room are a woman in her late twenties who wears tie-dye harem pants and has a baby held in a carrier at her chest, another young woman in red dungarees with a short afro half-covered by a matching red scarf, a woman a similar age to me with striking cropped hair, a tall woman who looks in her fifties or so, with an ash blonde bob, and an elderly woman wearing a bright green raincoat even though we’re inside and it’s dry out. There’s another woman too but she’s facing away from me, busy arranging books on a low shelf.
My eyes follow the sound of the hammering to the corner where a man stands on a ladder, fixing a display board to the wall. My cheeks glow with embarrassment. It’s the man I saw at the harbour when we first arrived, the same man I totally ignored on my run yesterday. I look at him more closely this time. He has slightly ruffled greyish brown hair, a broad face, a long straight nose and a dark beard flecked with grey and a hint of red. He is busy working, his sleeves rolled up revealing tanned, muscular arms.
‘Let me introduce you to everyone,’ says Alice.
Brenda takes me by surprise by pulling me into a rough hug.
‘Your daughter is charming.’
I feel myself beaming.
‘Thank you, I certainly think so.’
The young woman in the tie-dye is called Tess and her wife, in the red dungarees, is Joy. Their baby is Harry and gives a gurgle as I lean down to stroke his soft cheek.
‘He’s gorgeous. How old is he?’
‘Nine months,’ replies Tess, bouncing him slightly in his carrier. ‘He’s teething at the moment so you might not find him so gorgeous when he’s screaming later.’ She smiles as she says it though and lifts one of his tiny hands to her face to kiss it.
‘I’m Kerstin,’ says the tall woman in her fifties, stretching out her hand and shaking mine firmly. ‘I hear you live on the Isle of Dogs. I used to work in Canary Wharf.’
‘Oh really?’ It jars to hear the name of that place here, to even think of all those glass and steel office blocks when standing in this quiet school on this quiet island.
‘Gave nearly half my life to the place. Then woke up one day and realised I absolutely despised my job and everyone I worked with. Sold everything and moved up here. Best decision of my life.’
‘And her skills have come in handy,’ says Alice warmly, smiling at Kerstin. ‘She’s the island’s resident finance whizz. She helps half the island with their accounts.’
The old woman in the green raincoat is introduced as Morag.
‘I moved here ten years ago. My children wanted to put me away in one of those awful “homes”.’ She mimes air quotations. ‘So I got as far away as possible! Ha! They didn’t like it at first, but they come and visit every now and then.’
I can’t help but smile, liking Morag already, just like I do all the other women I’ve met. Morag lives in a cottage by the harbour, she tells me, where she keeps a list of everyone who comes and goes from the ferry.
‘I saw you and your lass arrive yesterday. You were on the same boat as thosetourists.’
She pulls a face at the word ‘tourists’. I’m a little relieved that she doesn’t consider Ella and me tourists too. But if we’re not tourists, then what are we?
Just then I spot the woman standing beside Morag and before Alice can introduce us too she’s stepping towards me.
‘It’s been so long!’ says the woman, who I suddenly realise used to be one of my classmates.
‘I didn’t recognise you, Emma! Your hair looks amazing.’ It’s dyed white blonde and is elfin short, very different to the long, mousy hair she had when we were young. It suits her.
‘I think the last time I saw you must have been that picnic in the woods, do you remember?’ she asks me.
Abruptly the memory comes back to me. It was the spring before my last year on the island and the first sunny day we’d had in weeks. The Easter holidays had just started so my friends were back home from school. I told my parents I had a shift at The Lookout but really, I went straight to Sarah’s house; from there a group of us older children walked to the forest carrying blankets and picnic baskets, food made by parents and bottles of beer pilfered from fridges. I came empty-handed but no one seemed to mind. That afternoon we island children ate and drank and listened to music on someone’s portable cassette player and played games and celebrated the first day of spring. I got tipsy for the first time in my life, on beer and sunshine. Someone had managed to procure a joint and although I didn’t smoke it myself I remember breathing in the sweet smelling air and laughing at how dopey it made my friends. I kept listening out for someone approaching through the woods though – I’d told Jack our plans and invited him to join us.
‘You can make something up to tell Mum and Dad,’ I said to him. ‘Tell them you’re studying with a friend, it’s what I do.’
Jack was so quiet as a child and spent most of his time at home studying, or at church with our parents. Where I had painting and Sarah and my secret life of reading magazines and watching TV my parents wouldn’t approve of at her house, I always worried about what Jack had. When he was very little he joined Sarah and me sometimes, at the beach or at her grandparents’ house, but the older he grew the more he seemed to withdraw inside himself and into the role our parents prescribed for us both. I hoped he would decide to come to the picnic that day though. But he never did. Instead, when I arrived home, cheeks flushed from hours spent outdoors, my parents were waiting for me in the kitchen, Jack sitting between them, his face down. As soon as I walked in I knew that my parents knew that I’d lied, and I knew how they’d found out.
‘How dare you!’ my father shouted. ‘Lying to us, running around the island like a spoilt brat, giving our neighbours every reason to think what they already do – that you’re out of control.’
But I was full of beer and confidence so for once I shouted back.
