‘Jack! Jack!’ But he ignores me, his strides determined as he heads further off into the fields, leaving me behind. Tears sting at my eyes but I brush them away. I don’t want to upset Molly. I turn back to her, forcing a smile on my face.
‘It’s OK, darling, Dad just needs some space. Shall we go and check on Ella and Auntie Lorna?’
I reach my hand out to her. She stopped holding my hand a few years ago and although it brings me joy to see her growing up, it breaks my heart a bit too. I never realised it at the time, but there must have been a day when she held my hand as usual and then never held it again. But she takes it now.
Voices come from upstairs and we follow them up to Molly’s room. Ella is sitting on her camp bed, Lorna opposite her by the door.
‘What do you mean?’ Ella says to her mother as we step inside.
Molly dashes immediately over to Ella, sitting down next to her on the bed.
‘Is everything OK in here?’
Lorna turns to me, her face stricken.
‘I was just telling Ella that she needs to start packing. I’m really sorry but we have to leave.’
Ella’s face drops and my stomach does too.
‘I thought you just meant we needed to leave Grandma and Grandad’s house! I know you and Uncle Jack fought, and that house was kind of creepy, but …’
Lorna winces slightly, rubs her hands on her jeans and shakes her head.
‘I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t mean just here. We need to go back to London.’
She turns to me now.
‘Alice, I’m so sorry. You’ve been so kind to us both and I really appreciate it. But I can’t do this. We just have to go home. I’ve called the B&B and they’ve said we can stay there tonight, and then we’ll catch the ferry tomorrow morning.’
What is there to say? My husband is outside, angry and silent, unwilling or unable to open up to me. Any visions I had of him and Lorna reconnecting and my family gaining two more members are crumbling around me. And there is also that secret hope I’ve tried my best to ignore, that Lorna might be the answer to this island’s problems, that she might be the one to pull us all back from the brink. I can’t believe I was so foolish.
Ella stands up suddenly, her hair wild around her face.
‘No!’ she shouts.
There’s a moment of pause, all of us clearly surprised by the strength and volume of Ella’s voice.
‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart,’ replies Lorna, her voice pained. She seems to have shrunk somehow, withdrawn in on herself. She hugs her arms across her chest, her shoulders slumped. She looks nothing like the woman who shared dinner with us and Sarah’s family last night, laughing and talking and throwing furtive smiles down the table towards Jack.
‘No!’ Ella shouts again, even louder this time. ‘You just don’t get it! I’ve never had a family! Everyone has a family.Everyone. Apart from me. And now I’ve found mine and you want to take me away.’
I flinch, not sure that Molly and I should be witnessing this, not sure it’s our business, but unable to move. And I suppose if I think about it wearepart of this. Whatever might have happened in the past, wearepart of Ella’s family. Tears overspill her eyes but she wipes them away furiously. Molly looks up at her, her mouth slightly open, as Lorna and I stare on too. Ella’s anger takes up the whole room.
‘I don’t want to go back. I like it here. I’m making friends here. Molly, and Olive… Haven’t you noticed that I haven’t spoken to Farah or Ruby once since I’ve got here?’
I glance at Lorna and notice a hesitation, a flash of surprise across her face, that feeling of being caught out.
‘Iknewyou hadn’t noticed,’ Ella continues. ‘And it hasn’t been just this trip. It happened before. They told me a few weeks ago that they don’t … that they don’t want to be friends with me anymore.’
Her voice trembles and breaks now. I want to hug her but I know it’s not my place, and besides, she looks so tense and stiff that I’m not sure she would accept an embrace right now. She looks away, not meeting Molly’s eye now, embarrassment flushing her face. Lorna swallows, but her voice is measured when she replies.
‘I’m so sorry about your friends, honey. I really am. And I’m sorry we have to leave. I’m not doing this to upset you, or you, Molly sweetheart.’ Because Molly and Ella are sitting close together now, arms wrapped around one another. They look so much like sisters that I have to look away for a moment.
‘I wish things were different,’ continues Lorna, ‘I really do. But I just have to get off this island.’
It’s hard not to feel offended. I didn’t grow up here, but this has become my island. I may have thought of leaving when I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to Molly, but I love it here with a strength that means I know deep down I will never leave. Except I might have to. We all might have to. It takes me unawares, the reality I’ve been trying hard to ignore, to solve somehow. I’ve been trying desperately to find a way to hold this island together, to make sure that we can stay, and here Lorna is, desperate to leave. But I know this has nothing to do with me. I can’t change Lorna’s past and I can’t change the distance and tension between her and Jack, however much I might have hoped I could. It’s too late.
‘Can’t we at least stay for the funeral?’ Ella asks, quieter this time. Her tears have won the battle and slide freely down her face.
