‘It’s not funny. Look.’ Verity held out her hand. She was visibly shaking.
‘That’s not cows. That loud mooing noise you can hear is the puffins! They sound a lot like cows but I promise you the only cows are on the farm on the other side of the island. There may also be a painting of one in the art gallery, but I promise that’s as far as it goes.’
‘Puffins? That’s the puffins?’
‘That noise is definitely the puffins,’ he confirmed. ‘Some people actually think they sound like a muffled chainsaw. Come on.’ Pete carried on walking. ‘You’re safe.’
Relieved, Verity exhaled then threw back her head and let out a peal of laughter. ‘I can’t believe I thought it was cows.’
This time Pete stopped in his tracks and turned back towards her. He stared at her closely.
Verity had her hand on her chest. ‘Sorry, I’ve been told on many occasions that my laugh is a little loud.’
‘Never apologise for laughing.’ He was still looking at her oddly.
‘To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I properly laughed. Laughter has been knocked out of me for a quite a while… Is there a reason you’re still staring at me?’ she asked, starting to worry.
Pete’s face was suddenly pallid.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Sorry, sorry, you just took me by surprise.’ He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow. ‘I didn’t mean to stare, you just reminded me of someone I used to know.’
He carried on walking and the path widened. Verity walked beside him.
‘Was she someone special?’
Suddenly Pete looked a little tearful.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosey.’
‘You’re not. And yes, extremely special. I think about her every day.’
‘Where is this special person of yours now?’
‘She’s out there somewhere. Hopefully one day I’ll see her walking back up that cliff top so my life can restart. I have every faith.’
There was sadness in Pete’s voice and Verity began to realise the reason Pete had never married or had children. He was waiting for the love of his life to return.
‘Was she a groupie? I’ve heard all about your famous band,’ she said, trying to lighten the sombre mood.
‘You know about the band?’
‘The Men from Puffin Island!’
Pete smiled again. ‘Such an imaginative name. Do you know it took us nearly three months to come up with it?’ He gave a little chuckle. ‘We’d been performing together for at least six months and called ourselves “the band with no name” as we couldn’t decide on a name between us. We could write songs but coming up with a name was the hardest thing ever. Our following?—’
‘Your groupies,’ Verity interrupted.
‘Groupies – were increasing every day. There were even girls trying to swim across the causeway because they knew we lived on the island. All of a sudden everywhere we went became manic. Girls would hide on the cliffs, camp out on the bay and hire boats just to try and get a glimpse of us. This one night we were due to play a gig at The Olde Ship Inn but the pub was that packed we couldn’t even get to the stage so we ended up performing on the beach, just down there. I think that’s when it hit the news and word started to spread. That night Joe introduced us as The Men from Puffin Island and the name seemed to stick. I wasn’t sure I was keen on it as first, thought it was a little daft …’
‘The Beatles called themselves The Beatles, so it’s not as daft as that.’
‘That’s very true…and it did what it said on the tin. Wewerethe men from Puffin Island and each one of us was proud of where we came from. We were young, early twenties, and we all had the biggest egos you could ever imagine and dreams of being a global band, bigger than The Beatles. We could play as good as them, too. Joe and I wrote all the songs together.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with having big dreams.’
‘But it wasn’t meant to be.’ Pete stopped on the edge of the cliff and looked over towards the bay, lost in his own thoughts. Verity knew he was probably thinking about Joe. ‘And what are your dreams, Verity?’
