‘Assuming they actually produce any pearls of worth. Pearl farming is a highly speculative and competitive business,’ Isla added.
‘Well, the first harvest is imminent, so I expect you will find out soon enough.’
‘And Anya, whom I spoke with at the farm this morning, what is her role?’
Mr Smith looked down at the paper again. ‘I see she is a part-time assistant who receives a small weekly wage. Duties include running the visitor centre.’
‘And the burden of responsibility, what does that entail exactly?’ Isla asked.
‘You are committed to manage the business in partnership with Leo Fernandez until such time that the business either goes into profit or fails. And failure, since the business is speculative, is stipulated as being mutually observed by both parties.’
‘What if I want to immediately sell my interest in the pearl farm? In fact, what if I want to sell the whole island?’ Isla questioned.
Mr Smith looked rather taken aback but showed his professionalism by quickly recovering himself. ‘Well, I can see no specific condition of non-transfer in these documents and so, as long as the new owner agrees to take over the current legal burden of responsibility, then you are at liberty to sell the island if you wish to do so.’
‘Is it really your intention to sell, Miss Ashton?’ Mr Pollard questioned. ‘Because it is always worth considering that you may be able to run your business interests on the island remotely by appointing a manager.’
‘Yes, it is my intention to sell, and thank you but I already have a business interest. One in the UK that I need to get back to as soon as possible,’ Isla retorted.
‘Then you will need an estate lawyer and I’d like to offer my services.’ Mr Smith slid his card across the table towards her. ‘My advice to you would be to sell quickly. Right now, under the current Cayman Island’s rules on inheritance, you have no tax liability. But any increase in value exposes you to capital gains taxes. I’m thinking specifically about the pearl farm, if it does go into profit it may prove to be a lucrative asset to Pearl Island.’
Isla laughed. ‘I hardly think that’s likely, Mr Smith.’
He presented her with the prepared documents for signing. Isla scrawled her signature onto several pages.
‘Is there anything else we can do to help you?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I’d like you to recommend a good realtor,’ Isla replied.
‘Certainly. I’ll email you tomorrow with a few names I would personally recommend from Grand Cayman. Now our business of today is settled, I look forward to being of service to you again soon.’
In turn, the two men shook her hand. ‘Good luck, Miss Ashton,’ they said in unison.
Mr Smith and Mr Pollard, aware that the airstrip had no lights, were keen to be away from the island well before dusk.
Isla drove them to their charter plane around four pm. She said her goodbyes and thanked them again for their assistance.
‘It was a delight to meet you, Miss Ashton. Have a safe trip back to the UK.’
She watched them from the cart as they climbed back into the Cessna and flew away into the clear blue afternoon sky. Her own flight out was booked for tomorrow afternoon but she now wished she’d arranged to leave with the lawyers. Then she could have avoided ever having to see Leo again with his girlfriend or having to explain to Grace why she was selling Pearl Island.
Just one more day and this will all be over…
Isla went back to the house for a rest. The intense heat and humidity, the three-course lunch and probably the wine, followed by all the legal talk had drained her and also given her a thumping headache. She told Grace she was going for a nap and took a bottle of cold drinking water up to her room. She took a cool shower and then lay stretched out on the bed under the ceiling fan. She thought about Leo. How unexpected it had been to find him at the pearl farm. What a twist of irony that they were now partners in such a business. What a twist of fate that he was now in a relationship with someone else.
Her head and her body throbbed in the heat. Her aunt had never put air-conditioning in the house because electricity had always been a precious commodity here. There was a community generator and a grid of sorts, but she remembered that it was forever breaking down, or running out of fuel, and that the poles carrying the electricity cables across the island would often arc in the salty air and set on fire, plunging the island into a powerless situation until they could either be replaced or fixed. She could only assume that the situation hadn’t improved very much over the past ten years and that very few homes would have their own independent generators. Even if most did now have internet and Wi-Fi. Although that, of course, was also dependant on the electricity supply.
The events of the day filled her thoughts but it was so hot that it was hard for her to think clearly.
Was it hotter here than it used to be? Had global warming increased the temperature? Had she, while living in cold and damp Edinburgh, simply forgotten about this aspect of tropical island life?
This wasn’t even the hottest time of the year. Right now, in early August, it was still hurricane season and they had the benefit of the east winds. ‘The east wind is our friend,’ Grace always used to say in August, because come September, when the wind dropped and the sea was like glass, the heat and humidity became even more torturous.
One of the only ways to find relief from the sweltering temperatures and swarms of biting flies on the island was to go and submerge yourself in the sea. She remembered how she and Leo would go and float about in the sea after school had finished, with their arms and legs splayed out like starfish in the water. Then they might swim out over the reef, to where the water was deeper and were the volcanic vents in the sea floor allowed cool natural freshwater springs to bubble through the thermal climes. There they would free dive down into the depths to refresh themselves.
Looking back, it was amazing how long they could swim underwater on one single breath of air. It was like they could stay down there forever – swimming through the cooling bubbles of cold water that tickled their bellies as they rolled over them. They’d called it swimming in champagne.
Another way of keeping cool in the later months of the year, when the sun would even burn you through the clear water in the sea, was to head along the grassy headland and down a path to a cave that everyone called ‘the grotto’.
The grotto was the Pearl Island version of a spa; a natural ingress in the coastline that had been formed thousands of years ago by the sea. Inside, it was always cool and there were several freshwater pools there fed by underground springs in which to relax.
She tried to nap but her mind was too busy to allow her to sleep. She couldn’t get the imagined image of Leo with Anya out of her head. She realised she needed something to distract and to calm her thoughts and then she remembered she had Kate’s journals to read.
She retrieved the pile of old notebooks from the jewellery box and propped herself up on pillows. Flipping carefully forward through the late 1950’s old style school jotters to the 1960’s – which seem to be more about scrapbook pictures than written journal – into the to 1970’s and the journalist’s pads with rusty spiral wire holding them together, Isla’s attention settled on seeing mention of her own mother, Maggie, in 1972.
Isla had only fleeting recollections of her parents because they’d been killed in a car accident when she had been very young. Her mother, Margaret, or Maggie as she had been known, was born eighteen years after her elder sister, Kate. What a surprise it must have been for her grandmother to find out she was having another baby when her eldest and only other child was already so grown up.
Isla settled down and began to read, only to soon find herself not only shocked, but also totally engrossed.
Chapter Ten
Kate’s Journal - 1972
Harrogate. North Yorkshire.
Tuesday 31st October: If my dates are right, then the baby’s due any day now. It’s been hard to hide my belly th
e past few weeks. Luckily, the weather’s been freezing, so I’ve been able to keep my big thick coat on most of the time. Today, I went into the library after work and had to pretend to our new librarian that I was studying childcare and midwifery at college because she caught me in the childbirth section again instead of romantic fiction. She believed me. So I’m either a good liar or she’s an idiot. I suspect the latter. Oh God, I’m feeling so tired. These past nine months have seemed like forever and I just want this to be over soon. I never wanted to be pregnant. Not yet anyway. Not so soon after university and when I’m told I have a promising career ahead of me. Not when I haven’t even got a husband or a home to call my own. Not that I’d want HIM as a husband. Stupid fool man. And stupid fool me for believing HIM when he said I wouldn’t get pregnant.
Wednesday 1st November: I’ve read that labour starts slowly at first and can happen two weeks either side of the due date. My plan is to take myself off to have the baby where no one knows me. I’ve read that most births are straightforward. A couple of weeks ago, a woman in our street delivered her baby in her front room before the midwife could even get there and hearing about how quick and easy it had been for her calmed my nerves a bit. Not that I’m not scared. I’m bloody terrified.
Thursday 2nd November: I saw a poster today in the travel agent’s window on the high street. It showed an island in the sun. I think it was in the Caribbean. I stood in front of it in the icy rain under my umbrella for ages, staring at that azure blue sky and palm tree fringed blindingly-white sand beach, thinking how far away and how perfect it looked. It made me wonder if a place like that could actually exist in this world, when all around me is so grey and dismal. I can’t help but to think ‘if only’. If only life had been different. If only I wasn’t pregnant. The poster said just one word. ESCAPE. And it had me sold. If that’s what escape looks like, I really want to go there.
Saturday 4th November: My lower back hurts. I wonder if this is a sign? I’m achingly aware of every little twinge in my body and waiting for when my labour starts. I’m getting more and more nervous. I’ve saved a bit of money, so when the pains start properly, I’m going to leave a note for mum saying I’m on a work assignment and I’ll take a taxi to a hotel across the Dales. If I do need help, then I’ll pretend my imaginary husband is planning to join me but has been delayed and the baby’s come prematurely. Then they’ll call a midwife from another town. I’ve got the whole thing thought through. My imaginary husband looks like Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind, my favourite book and movie. I wished I looked like Vivian Leigh but I don’t. Life REALLY isn’t fair.
Sunday 5th November: My baby came into the world last night, on Guy Fawkes night, with her cries and mine muffled by the sound of screaming rockets and jack-in-the-box fire crackers exploding in the street just outside our house. She came just before midnight in our front parlour, assisted by my stressed-out mother, while my dad paced the floor furiously in the back room. Both were upset because I’d managed to keep my pregnancy secret from them the whole time. Despite my plans, I was making a pot of tea when it happened. I thought I heard what sounded like a loud pop and thought it was a firework in the alleyway but it turned out to be my waters breaking on the kitchen floor. The pains came on so strong and straight away that I was in too much shock and agony to make a run for it or to escape to my bedroom upstairs. When it was over, my dad demanded to know who the father was. When I refused to tell, he went ballistic all over again.
‘At least tell me he’s gonna marry ‘ya and provide for his babby?’
I kept my eyes down on my daughter. I thought she looked more like a newborn lamb than an newborn person. I shook my head.
There was no way the father of my child could marry me when he was already married. My dad shook his head in despair over my illegitimate child.
‘What are you gonna do now, then?’ my father asked me.
I raised my eyes to meet his. ‘Adoption. That’s my plan. I mean, I still have my career to think about and so the sooner she goes to a good home the better.’
‘This is not a dog you’re talking about, Katherine. It’s a babby!’ my mother suddenly blurted.
I stared down at my baby again and didn’t know what to say. My mum was right. This was going to be harder than I imagined. There was sure to be all sorts of paperwork and legalities.
‘Joyce from down the road had a babby last year and she’s my age.’ My mum continued to say. ‘She thought she was finished with all that business. Thought it was just the change of life.’
I glared at my mother. ‘What? You think Joyce will want mine too?’
‘No. Not her. Me. I’m just sayin’ that it could happen to me too.’ She glanced desperately at my dad.
Dad screwed up his face, as confused as I was as to what she was going on about.
‘I mean, in theory.’ Mum concluded.
I blinked in disbelief as the penny dropped. Had my mother just offered to take on this child as her own, so that I could carry on with my job with the local newspaper and live my life as usual?
She nodded her head at me as if reading my self-serving thoughts.
I laughed almost hysterically and relief flooded through me. ‘Yes, yes, of course. YES!’
I couldn’t accept fast enough. My mind was racing through the consequences but all I could see was a win-win situation. If my mother wanted a baby and I didn’t. If she was happy to take this child and this situation upon herself and to pretend to the whole world that she’d been the one to give birth then so be it.
Wednesday 8th November: The last few days have been something of a blur. I’ve still got bad belly pains and a flu-like sickness, which has meant me being signed off work, although it has also had the advantage of also keeping away any unwanted visitors from the house. While I’m recovering in bed, trying to catch up on my sleep and count my blessings, my mum is downstairs happily singing lullabies, changing nappies, and feeding the baby. She calls it bonding but it all just sounds like bloody hard work to me.
Friday 10th November: Over the past couple of days, my sickness got much worse not better as expected and I’m in absolute agony with stomach pains. I reckon they are as bad, if not worse, than when I was in labour. I’m in and out of sleep all night and I can see there is ice on the inside of my bedroom window but the sweat is pouring out of me. I feel so scared. Mum says, in my sleep, I’m screaming out and so today, in her panic, despite my cursing and objections, she called the doctor.
The doctor came straight away and to my horror and embarrassment, he examined me between the legs and then a few torturous minutes pressing down on my stomach. ‘Katherine,’ he said, ‘you have to understand that by not having a midwife to attend to you, it’s highly likely you still have afterbirth inside you. That can be very serious indeed, so we have to get you to hospital immediately.’
I screamed in pain but also at my mother not to make the call. Then, unable to take any more, I begged the doctor to do whatever had to be done here in my bedroom and to get on with it. I heard him talking with my mum for a time and then I felt him give me an injection in my thigh.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up and the pain had gone but the doctor was still there and I could still hear mum crying. But I wasn’t in my own bed. I was in hospital.
I tried to sit up but I felt too weak to move. ‘What happened?’
Panic and anxiety washed over me. What if the doctor told someone that the baby was mine and not mums? What if everyone at work found out? What if HE found out?
‘Oh Katherine, my girl,’ mum sobbed, ‘we almost lost you!’
Saturday 18th November: My hospital stay was put down to appendicitis to anyone who bothered to ask and once I was home I began to recover quickly. Our situation about the baby had thankfully remained unchallenged, so once I was back on my feet and the news got out about mum’s miracle child, I could pretend to all who came that I was overjoyed at having a surprise new sister. It felt a bit weird lying to everyone w
ho came through the door at first, but then with every lie, the reality of the situation sunk in a bit more and so the overjoyed bit I could manage perfectly well. Thanks to my mum and dad I had a fresh start in life and, thanks to the doctor’s swift intervention, I had died but been reborn.
Sunday 19th November: Mum struggled today when the Minister came visiting from our church after Sunday Service. I don’t go to church, so it didn’t bother me that he was in our house. But I saw from my mum’s face that telling outright lies to a man of the cloth bothered her a lot. He was asking far too many questions about me being in hospital and about the baby and she was getting all flustered. I panicked a bit when I saw her starting to tremble. I took the baby, who was sleeping in her arms, and I pinched her hard to make her cry, so that I could tell the Minister the baby needed changing. When he’d gone, I asked mum if she was sure she could go through with all of this. If she was completely certain about taking on the child - that if she’d changed her mind - we could still get her adopted instead. But mum said she was sure. She said she’d never been more sure of anything in her life.
Monday 20th November: The baby needs a name. I wanted to call her Scarlett after Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind but mum said that in Yorkshire a scarlet woman meant something else so instead we decided on Margaret, after Margaret Mitchell who wrote the book but agreed we’d shorten it to Maggie. Maggie has now been listed in the town’s register as the birth-daughter of my mum and dad. Mum said to me today that it has to be a secret that we kept for life. She told me it was her one and only condition. So I agreed. I agreed that Maggie will never know that I’m her mother and that she will forever think of me as her sister.
Isla read the last sentence twice and then sank back into the bed, totally stunned by what she had just read. Oh my, what a secret to keep. What a burden to carry for a lifetime.
Island in the Sun Page 7