Grace gave her a look of sympathy and concern.
Isla fought back the tears welling up and lifted all the bundles from the box. She’d spent the last ten years desperately wondering what was happening to Leo. Was he hurt? Was he sick? Was he still alive? And if he was alive, then what were the conditions like in a prison in Honduras?
She had cried so many tears for him over the years that she’d hardly had any left for herself. If she had received these letters then, they might have answered all of her questions and things might have been different, but now they didn’t change a thing.
Today, Leo had said he still loved her, but he had stalked her and set up the pearl farm in her honour or her memory – or something. She didn’t feel comfortable about that. And what about poor Anya? She had certainly heard every word of his outburst too and had looked so shocked. Was she heartbroken at knowing that Leo was still in love with a woman from his past? She imagined them having a terrible argument about it and Anya being in tears.
She walked back over to the flaming BBQ drum with all the letters in her hands.
‘Oh, Miss Isla! My goodness. Surely you want to read them first?’ Grace exclaimed.
But Isla shook her head. ‘No. I really don’t need to open old wounds, Grace. I don’t need to know how bad it was for him. I certainly don’t need to know why he did what he did, because it doesn’t matter anymore. Now I know how the story ends.’
The flames curled and licked at her fingers as she threw each bundle into the fire.
She watched them blacken and fall into ashes.
Grace hurried back into the house and quickly came out again with a bottle of wine.
They ate their meal on the back porch and in an attempt at lifting Isla’s quiet mood, Grace asked about her life and her work back in the UK. ‘I hear you have your own business designing jewellery. That sounds exciting.’
‘Yes, it is. It’s called Passion Designs. I design for retail and for commissions.’ Isla told her.
‘A perfect career for you, Miss Isla. Like your aunt, you have always loved jewellery.’
Isla contemplated for a moment while Grace speared her fork into a piece of fried breadfruit.
She wondered how much Grace had really known about Kate. She had been her friend as well as her employer for all these years. But had she also been a confidant?
She decided to find out. ‘Kate was not my aunt. She was my grandmother.’
From the immediate look of surprise on the housekeeper’s face, it was quite clear that she did not know about this. Grace took a gulp from her wine glass before setting it down to stare at it for a moment while she digested this information. ‘I never knew. She never said anything to me about that.’
Isla continued. ‘She sent me all her journals. I only found out myself when I started reading them last night. Kate was twenty-two years old when she gave birth to my mother, but she didn’t want to keep her, and so her mother took on the baby as her own. The whole thing was kept a secret. The father was never informed. Kate had an affair, you see, with a married man.’
Grace listened intently. ‘Well, my word, that’s quite a secret.’
Isla nodded. ‘Isn’t it. I’m keen to find out what else will be revealed, as there’s plenty to get through yet from the 70’s and 80’s. No doubt it will prove interesting reading.’
Grace looked concerned. ‘Well, those were certainly interesting days, I can tell you.’
‘But were they happy days?’ Isla pondered, sincerely hoping that Kate had been happy at some point in her mostly sad and angst-ridden life.
‘Well, I thought they were happy. Kate and Mr Ernest seemed like a golden couple. She often said she missed him while he was away on business and they seemed to make up for it when he was home. They had cocktails and dinner together and candles and music on the porch every night. They gave wonderful parties. He clearly adored her and brought her so many gifts – the clothes and of course the jewellery. I always thought they were very much in love.’
‘You thought? You mean you’re not sure?’
Grace shook her head. ‘I can tell you this because you’re already reading her journals and, if she’s told you her earlier secrets, then she’s probably going to tell you about her affair with Jack Fernandez.’
Isla reeled in her seat and had to cover her open mouth with her hand.
‘An affair. With Jack?’
And then suddenly, like little pieces of a giant jigsaw falling into place, her muddled up picture of the past started to make some kind of sense. Like Kate’s bitter feud with Jack and her dislike of Leo, which had obviously come in the wake of the affair. The lingering cocktail vigils on the porch, fuelled by the loss of Ernest, but amplified over the guilt she felt about losing him so soon after brutally betraying him. Isla took a deep breath. ‘Oh, my God! I really don’t understand how she could do such a thing – and with Jack Fernandez of all people!’
They both sat silently considering this until Grace changed the subject.
‘And what about you, Miss Isla? Do you have a boyfriend waiting for you back in the UK?’
Isla shook her head. ‘No. No one special anyway.’
Grace raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s a shame. I’d expect a pretty woman like you to have someone special in her life by now.’
Isla laughed ‘At my age, you mean? I’m only twenty-six!’
‘I mean that I expect you must have had plenty of serious offers,’ Grace proffered.
‘Oh, I’ve had a few boyfriends over the years but none of them serious.’ Isla went on to explain. ‘In fact, once they get to that clingy stage, that’s when I usually decide I really don’t need a committed relationship or all the fallout if it doesn’t work out.’
‘Oh…’ said Grace, ‘That’s sounds a little erm… harsh?’
‘Maybe. But I’m a career woman. I want to live life on my own terms. What about you Grace? Do you think you’ll ever settle down and get married?’
Trusting that Grace, who was well into her sixties, was already perfectly settled down and that her question of marriage might be redundant, she hoped they might be able to change the subject of their conversation at last. But when Grace furrowed her brow and hesitated before supplying her final answer, Isla’s inherent curiosity was more than a little piqued.
‘Ah, so that’s a maybe, then?’
Grace’s face was growing redder by the minute.
‘And who might the lucky man be, if I might be so bold to ask?’ she pressed.
Grace set down her cutlery and pressed her hands together as if she was about to pray.
And for a moment Isla fully expected Grace to confess to having a long standing crush on Minister John and braced herself for a bout of nausea.
‘It’s Carlos…’ she suddenly blurted out.
Isla almost choked on her red snapper. ‘What? But I thought you said…?’
‘The inappropriate gesture I told you about was him asking me to marry him.’
Isla didn’t know what to say except: ‘And how on earth was that inappropriate?’
‘Because at the time I was tending to Miss Kate. She was in the last years of her life and I couldn’t marry Carlos and leave her. She needed me day and night. It wasn’t fair to her or to Carlos.’
Reaching across the table, Isla took Grace’s hand. ‘So you had him fired?’
‘Yes. You see, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He kept bringing me flowers and leaving me gifts. Playing his damn guitar under my window at night. It was ridiculous, really. I did love him but he wouldn’t stop pestering, so I sent him away. I picked up my broom and I chased him down the drive with it. I told him to go away and not to come back.’
‘Oh…’ said Isla ‘That’s sounds a little erm… harsh?’
Grace nodded her head and pulling a little handkerchief from her apron pocket, she blew her nose.
‘Poor Carlos.’ Isla sighed. ‘He’s obviously still crazy about you. Look, things are different now
Grace, so if you still love him, maybe it’s not too late and you two could talk it over.’
‘Oh, you mean like you and Leo Fernandez are talking it over?’ she scoffed.
They locked eyes over the table for a moment until Isla suggested serving dessert.
Aware that it was getting late, Isla knew that she soon had to find the nerve to steer the conversation around to her plans. Knowing just how unhappy the news would make her had compelled her to wait, so not to spoil their dinner and their conversation. And so, like a coward, she could run upstairs afterwards to hide until morning came.
When every last morsel of the mango pie on Grace’s plate had been enjoyed and she set aside her dessert fork, Isla finally plucked up the courage to say something.
‘Erm, Grace, I want you to know I’m leaving tomorrow. I had wanted to stay another few days, but I’m afraid I have important business to attend to in Edinburgh that simply won’t wait any longer.’
Grace wore a look of disappointment but soon shrugged it off.
‘That’s all right, Miss Isla. I understand.’
‘You do?’ Isla sighed with relief.
Grace dabbed her lips with her napkin. ‘So, while you are away I’ll sort the new church rota. When you get back, if you like, I’ll put you down for the flower arranging. Everyone will be so pleased, and—’
‘Actually, Grace, you have to understand, I’m not coming back.’
There was a moment of silent confusion between them.
‘But what do you mean? This is your island. You have to come back, Miss Isla.’
Isla cringed. ‘Look, Grace, there is no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. I’m not coming back and I plan to sell Pearl Island.’
Grace stared at her in disbelief for a moment and then she burst into tears. ‘Oh, Miss Isla. I’m so shocked. I can hardly believe it. I really didn’t think you’d ever want to sell Pearl Island. This was your aunt’s home. This is your home. This is my home too. Is this because of Leo? Because if it is, then you two young people really do need to sit down and talk this out!’
A further silence fell between them for a full minute before Isla could speak again.
‘Grace, you have to understand that this place does not suit my life. This has nothing to do with Leo. I had made the decision to sell before I came back here because I have a business to run back in the UK. I have no time to manage a whole island from here or from a distance. So, it’s best if I sell it to someone who can take care of it and do a much better job than I can.’
‘But what if someone awful buys it and turns it into one of those vacation resorts. Where will we go? What will we all do?’
Isla didn’t know what to say to this without sounding shallow, because at this stage she really didn’t know who would buy the island or for what reasons, or how that might impact the islanders.
‘I promise I’ll make sure no one awful buys it. I’ll make sure that there are clauses in place to safeguard against anything detrimental happening to the island or to the people.’
Grace narrowed her watery eyes and seemed far from convinced.
‘And…’ Isla further assured her, ‘Kate has already seen to it that you will always have your own home here on the island, free of ground rent, and that can never be threatened. Ever.’
Grace dabbed her tears and stared down at her empty plate.
Isla stood up. ‘Can I get you another slice of pie, Grace?’
But Grace stood up too and without another word, she walked into the house and up the stairs to her room. Isla busied herself by clearing the table and washing the dishes and, once everything was tidy, feeling quite wretched and sad and alone, she picked up the half empty bottle of wine left on the table and took it upstairs to her room.
Upstairs in the master bedroom Isla switched on her laptop. She read the latest email from Evie, who had once again and without a fuss confirmed the rearrangement of her flights. She then replied to several emails from Mr Smith, who had not only kept his promise in recommending real estate agents to her from Grand Cayman but had already identified one cash-rich interested party who was actively looking to buy a small island and would like to view as soon as possible.
She messaged back suggesting, that if the viewer could possibly arrive first thing in the morning, then she would be available to personally show him or her around the island, and that she was planning to leave mid-afternoon to connect with her overnight flight back to the UK.
Then she lay back on the bed with mixed feelings. She felt badly about hurting Grace, who had done nothing but to be kind and sweet. She should hardly feel bad about hurting Leo, it was the very least he deserved after all the pain he had caused her, but of course she did feel badly because of the awful things she’d accused him of doing and how he had responded.
So now I’m done. Goodbye, Isla.
It irked her how Leo had managed to have the last word. It also irked her that he’d managed to come back to Pearl Island as if nothing bad had ever happened here. Somehow he’d managed to pick up his relationship with his treacherous Uncle Jack and breeze his way into a business partnership with Kate. While in contrast, she’d come back here with all her issues still to resolve.
She was still feeling angry and hurt and not just with Leo, because she realised she was angry all over again with Kate – for pretending to be her aunt when she had actually been her grandmother.
It was all quite surreal. It was all incredibly painful.
The heat and humidity of the day had paved the way for an evening storm. She got up and walked out onto the porch, where she was met by a cacophony of night-time sounds from the garden. The pulsating chorus of chirruping from the crickets and the loud gleep gleeping of tree frogs and geckos who were calling out for a mate. Thunder could be heard rumbling in the distance and flashes of lightning lit up the sky, while a steady drumbeat of raindrops began to fall on the metal roof of the house. After a few moments, she went back inside and closed the doors to the porch and, feeling far from sleepy, put on the bedside light. Then, after pouring herself a glass of wine, she carefully placed the older and more frayed looking notebooks from the jewellery box aside and lifted out a pile of attractive swirly art-deco style covered journals and then settled down to continue reading about Kate’s life in the 1970s.
Chapter Sixteen
Kate’s Journal - 1974
Harrogate. North Yorkshire.
Friday 7th March: At work today, HE finally gave me the promotion he’d promised me over a year ago, except for some reason, my new office is in the basement instead of the top floor. I’m now Katherine Jones, Managing Editor of Entertainments, yet feeling very unentertained by it all, because I know I am a constant source of office gossip and HE’s the reason I don’t have any friends here anymore. I’m begrudged every little raise, despite that I’ve worked my fingers to the bone for this rag of a newspaper for the past three years, and all for an extra two pounds a week.
Monday 10th March: This afternoon while I was sitting quietly in the loo, my favourite spot for eavesdropping on the latest office gossip, I overheard Gloria the bitchy telephonist gossiping to Joan the new ditzy junior reporter about how I’m being both ‘bedded and groomed’ to take over HIS desk when HE retires. She made ‘bedded’ actually sound glamourous and ‘groomed’ like I was being prepped for Fleet Street. To say that I’m fed up is a bloody understatement.
Friday 14th March: Today, I overheard Susan the Stupid Shorthand Typist telling Gloria The Bitch all the intimate details of her passionate affair with a married man. How they had been meeting in secret and were in love. How he was going to leave HIS wife for her. When I realised who they were talking about I wanted to throw up. I realise now that’s why I’m in the basement. Well, Susan is bloody welcome to him and she’s really stupid if she thinks he’ll ever leave his wife.
Tuesday 18th March: Me and HIM are finally over. I know it’s for good this time because there was no crying or heartache, no drama, no sc
reaming and shouting from either of us. I just told HIM to go and rot in hell and I went back to my basement. But to be honest, I feel like it’s me that’s rotting. I realise I’ve wasted my life and I feel like there’s no point to anything anymore.
Monday 24th March: I hate my job. I hate Harrogate. I feel trapped. Is this really all there is and will ever be for me? Now I’m suddenly the family breadwinner because mum has Maggie to look after and dad’s been signed off – just as the three day week ended too. So, it’s not like I can walk out of this stinking job and into a better one because there aren’t any better ones. There isn’t anything. The work situation in North Yorkshire is worse than dire. People say I’m lucky to have such a secure and well-paying job and a good family with a roof over my head. I know I should be happy about all of it but I’m not. I’m bloody miserable.
Monday 31st March: I went to the doctor today, the doctor that saved me once before. I told him that people have noticed at work that my eyes are swollen and red from crying myself to sleep. The worst of it is, I explained, that they think I’m crying over the split with my boyfriend, which I certainly am not. I’m crying because I’ve never felt so miserable about everything and my whole life feels worthless. I need help, I told him, because I’m desperate. He said I had a bit of depression and that he had tablets that would help. I told him I’d try anything once.
Friday 4th April: Today is my birthday. I am twenty-four years old. Maggie made me a card in nursery class and gave me a box of chocolates. Mum and dad gave me five pounds. I’m going to buy a bottle of gin with it and get drunk. I can’t take the happy pills that the doctor prescribed for me anymore because they give me terrible stomach cramps. I read on the warning leaflet inside the packet that they can cause internal bleeding, so what’s the bloody point in that? How can anyone ever feel happier knowing their insides are being dissolved? At least, that’s what it felt like to me.
Isla put down the journal with a sigh. What horribly depressing times and what a stressful situation. Even though some of it was certainly a direct result of Kate’s own bad decisions – particularly in continuing the affair with her married boss after Maggie was born - it was impossible to read about her life back then and not feel both sorry and frustrated for her at the same time.
Island in the Sun Page 11