‘I heard from Alice that you had a daughter,’ says Sarah, drawing my eye back to my old friend. ‘It’s been quite the talk of the island, Ella and Molly finding each other online.’
How strange to hear Ella’s name on Sarah’s lips. The thought that my daughter and I have been the subject of island gossip makes my stomach flip for a second.
As if reading my mind Sarah quickly adds, ‘Sorry, you know what the island’s like. Everyone is just really excited to meet her. And to see you again.’
She looks down as she says this.
‘So, you still live on the island then?’ I ask, not knowing what else to say.
She nods.
‘Yes. I’ve been down in London this week visiting an old university friend who moved there after we graduated.’
‘You got the grades after all then. I knew you would.’
I remember how worried Sarah had been that she wouldn’t get in to university. She was going to be the first of her family to go and knew how much it meant to her parents, even though they did their best not to let it show.
‘Where did you go in the end?’ I add.
I left the island before my exam results arrived. I had them forwarded from the exam board to my new address in London. But it meant I never got to find out how Sarah did in her own exams. I remember sitting with her at The Lookout, the island pub where I had a part-time job as a teenager, and going through prospectuses we’d been sent in the post. Sarah liked the idea of a big city but didn’t want to be too far away from her family.
‘I went to Glasgow and had a great time,’ she says with a smile. ‘After all that stressing I think I would have had a great time anywhere really. I stayed there after I graduated. But then I met Ben …’
Her eyes light up and she twists her wedding band on her finger, a smile on her face. But then she looks at me again and the smile slips slightly. I see her closing down, perhaps hesitant about saying too much. I don’t blame her, and yet it still hurts to see the friend who once shared everything with me monitoring herself and shifting on her seat in my presence.
‘And what do you do now?’ I ask.
‘Well, being an islander, I do a bit of everything of course, so it’s more a question of whatdon’tI do. We live on one of the old crofts, so a lot of my time is spent looking after that. We sell jam and chutney in the village shop and to other local islands. I work a few days a week as an assistant at the school. I help out at the village shop sometimes too. And I look after Olive and Alfie, of course. They’re twelve and nine and keep me busy.’
Olive and Alfie. Olive and Alfie. I can’t quite believe that the Sarah Douglas I grew up with now has her own children. She glows when she says their names, just like she did when she mentioned her husband Ben.
‘I bet you’re a great mum.’
Her face pales and she fiddles with the bracelet on her wrist, not looking at me. Perhaps it’s too much for our first encounter after all this time, but I couldn’t help it. It’s true.
‘How are your parents? Are they still on the island?’ I ask instead. I so hope that they are both still alive and well. They were so kind to me when I was young. I owe them so much.
‘Yes, Mum and Dad are fine. Getting older, but aren’t we all? They still live in the same house.’
I can picture the farmhouse Sarah grew up in so clearly it’s as though I’m back there now. Slightly ramshackle and untidy but always warm. Sarah’s drawings and later her school reports were always stuck up on the fridge, alongside every single one of her school photographs. Her father was a farmer but had a passion for carpentry and had his own workshop at the bottom of the garden. I remember how he always smelt of wood shavings and furniture polish. Sarah’s mother was a cheerful but no-nonsense sort of woman who knew everything there was to know about butchery and gave the kind of hugs that back then always made me want to smile and cry at the same time.
‘And what about you?’ Sarah asks, lifting her wine glass to her lips. But there’s nothing left in it, despite it being nearly full when I sat down. She catches the waiter’s eye and orders another glass; I ask for a gin and tonic.
‘Are you still an artist?’
A sudden memory of the smell of oil paints and the feeling of charcoal beneath my fingernails. I shiver slightly at the thought.
‘I’m a teacher. Deputy head at a primary school in East London.’
Sarah’s eyebrows rise.
‘I’m sorry if I seem surprised, I just always thought you would make it. You were so passionate. It was yourthing.’
The waiter arrives with our drinks. I reach for mine immediately, taking a long, deep sip. I feel the effect straight away. If Sarah wasn’t watching I’d probably finish the drink in two gulps. Instead, I place the glass back on the table and notice that Sarah has taken a large swig of her wine as well.
She’s right of course. Once artwasmy thing. It was the thing that got me up each day, that I loved more than anything. It’s how I filled hours alone in my room, how I expressed myself and how I escaped everything else in my life. Back then, I couldn’t imagine a life without art. And for a while after leaving the island I would still have described myself as an artist, even when I was working in a bar and hadn’t touched a paintbrush in a long time. But now the word seems so alien. It’s just not me. Not anymore.
I think back to those afternoons spent with Sarah flicking through university prospectuses. As soon as I saw the brochure for Goldsmiths I knew immediately that it was where I wanted to go. Where I wasmeantto go. But things didn’t work out that way. In the end, I didn’t even apply.
