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‘In the winter, mostly,’ said Jess, glossing over the fact that the isles could be completely cut off by fog and storms at any time of year.
‘Oh well, I survived on this occasion at least.’ Gabriella’s smile reappeared, this time for slightly longer, lighting up green eyes, flecked with gold. Jess detected a keenness behind them. She’d already noticed that Gabriella took in everything that was going on around her, as if she was storing away a mental snapshot for future reference.
Jess decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was no use judging someone on a few minutes’ acquaintance, but if she’d been a betting woman, she’d have staked fifty quid on the flower farm’s newest employee not lasting the week.
Personally, she really hoped Gabriella would stay the course. The farm needed extra seasonal workers for the harvest of early narcissi that bloomed in the mild climate at the start of September, long before any varieties on the mainland. Over the summer, the Godrevys also let out a few holiday chalets and there were also goats and a small beef herd that needed tending to. Thankfully, the farm animals were the domain of Jess’s mother, Anna, who left Jess and Will in charge of the flower growing and holiday business.
‘There’s our taxi and chauffeur.’ Jess pointed towards a very tall, well-built man in his mid-thirties who was leaning against a golf buggy, chatting to two elderly, but sprightly, sisters. They were all laughing and one of the ladies gave the man a hug.
‘Are they friends of yours?’ Gabriella asked, pulling her sunglasses over her eyes and peering at the group.
‘You could say that. That’s Una and Phyllis Barton who run a B&B on Gull Island. The driver’s Adam, my … um … boyfriend.’
Her toes curled at the description, because it sounded so teenage and she was way past that at thirty-five, but what else could she call Adam? They had been dating – and sleeping together – for six months now, although they’d known each other for almost two years. They weren’t living together yet, although Jess was pretty sure that the next step was imminent, given the heavy hints that Adam had been dropping about her moving in to his place.
Phyllis and Una roared with laughter at something Adam had said, and Una batted him coquettishly on the arm. Jess had often teased him that the Bartons were his personal fan club, but now she and Adam were a couple, he’d joked that only Jess would have him.
It wasn’t true. It was so not true. Adam had plenty of offers from both sexes, locals and tourists. No wonder. At six feet four, he stood out from the crowd in every way. His collar-length curly hair refused all attempts to be tamed into submission so he left it to the mercy of the elements. He was a year older than Jess and his lifestyle kept him in great shape. When he wasn’t lugging parcels around as postman or volunteering with the island’s part-time fire service, he was playing sport; rugby in the winter and rowing over the summer. Appearances could definitely be deceptive, thought Jess, sliding a glance at Gabriella again. Take Adam. No one wanted to face him in a scrum, but he was a big softy underneath.
‘I’ll pop round and give you a hand with the gate after fire training on Tuesday!’ Adam called after the Barton sisters. ‘Don’t miss your flights and have a good time on the mainland.’
‘Thanks, Adam!’
With a wave to Jess and curious glances at Gabriella, the Bartons scuttled off into the terminal, clutching identical tapestry bags. They’d doubtless be speculating about who the new arrival was all the way to Cornwall and back, thought Jess, but her attention was all for Adam. His tawny eyes lit up when he spotted her and her stomach did a little flip when he walked over and kissed her on the cheek.
He smiled at Gabriella. ‘You found her among the crowds trying to escape then?’ he said to Jess.
‘Of course. Gabriella Carter, meet Adam Pengelly.’
Adam held out a large hand. ‘Welcome to Scilly. There’s no getting away from us now.’
Jess laughed. ‘Not without digging a tunnel to Land’s End.’
‘Or Canada if you want to head in the other direction,’ said Adam as Gabriella took his hand gingerly.
‘But I’m sure you won’t want to do that,’ Jess added hastily, not entirely sure it was true, judging by the doubt in her new recruit’s eyes. She had a feeling that if you’d given Gabriella a spade she’d have started digging right there, but then again, if she couldn’t get used to a bit of banter and teasing, she wouldn’t last five minutes in the close-knit farm team.
Gabriella peered up into Adam’s face. He was at least a foot taller than her and built like the semi-professional rugby player he used to be before he’d moved to Scilly from his native Cumbria. Jess bit her lip, trying not to laugh at the apprehension in Gabriella’s eyes. That imposing physique and height must have been quite intimidating to strangers.
‘Off we go then. Can I help with your bags, Gabriella?’ Adam offered.
‘Thanks … and please, just “Gaby” is absolutely fine. Only my granny ever calls me Gabriella. It’s such a mouthful, isn’t it?’ She smiled again, which lit up her expressive eyes, but there was a touch of steel in her voice that took Jess by surprise. Maybe she might last a month rather than a week.
‘Gaby, it is then,’ said Adam. ‘Your carriage awaits.’
Gaby stared at the golf buggy as if it were a toy car. Maybe she’d been expecting a Rolls-Royce.
Adam grinned. ‘It’s safe … Ish.’
Jess batted Adam on the arm and he mimed an ‘ow’.
‘Ignore him. It’s totally safe. We don’t keep a van on the main island because we’ve no use for it and we use a local firm to collect the flowers from the quay to bring them to the airport. We borrow this buggy off a friend to get around St Mary’s when we need to. You’ll see lots of them about. Lots of tourists use them if they can’t or don’t want to do too much walking.’
‘Jump in,’ said Adam. He picked up Gaby’s case as if it were a handbag and slotted it next to her in the rear of the buggy.
Jess climbed into the front next to him.
‘Hold on tight. The roads are busy,’ said Adam as they drove the buggy down the hill towards the quay. There were about two cars in sight.
‘Will it take long to get to the harbour?’ Gaby asked.
‘Five minutes tops, unless there’s a traffic jam at the quay,’ Adam replied.
‘He’s joking, but it could be busy as the Islander ferry has just docked,’ said Jess. ‘How are the Bartons?’ she asked Adam as he steered the buggy around a large pothole.
‘The ladies are fine, but their guesthouse is in a bit of a state. I just offered to lend them a hand repairing the garden gate. The sheep keep getting into the allotment patch and scoffing the produce. I can fit it in after fire training on Tuesday.’
This was typical of Adam. He’d help anyone and put himself out in the process. He had no ego and although he was sociable with his mates and customers, he was also shy around women. Jess liked him all the more for that even if it meant that it had been over a year after they’d first met before they’d finally got together on a ‘date’.
Adam had asked her to go with him to a folk night at the Gannet pub on St Saviour’s at the start of the summer and, since then, Jess didn’t think she’d ever been happier. She helped to run a thriving business and lived in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Of course, she didn’t need a man to make her life complete, but meeting Adam had unveiled a new layer of joy. It wasn’t easy meeting people in a small, isolated community, and finding someone who she’d clicked with so perfectly was wonderful.
‘This is the Oxford Street of Scilly,’ Jess joked to Gaby when the buggy entered the top of Hugh Street, which was lined with shops, cafés, pubs and the isles’ only supermarket.
Gaby checked out the granite cottages and quaint shopfronts. ‘Oh. I see. Is this where I’ll find all the bars and clubs or are they on St Saviour’s?’
Jess exchanged a quick glance with Adam. He was stunned into silence. Jess cleared her throat, wondering how to reply. She turned around, trying to sound calm and positive, while thinking it might be kinder to turn the buggy back now and put Gaby straight on a plane home.
‘Um. There are a couple of pubs here and it can get quite lively during the gig rowing championships or if we have stag parties from Penzance over for the weekend. As for St Saviour’s, that has a pub and a smart hotel and we sometimes have nights out on the other islands, but there aren’t any actual clubs.’
‘Oh. I see …’ Gaby pulled a face. Then suddenly she let out a giggle. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. That was naughty of me. I’m joking. I came here for a quiet life.’
Relief flooded through Jess, combined with surprise at being taken in. Yes, there was definitely a steely side to Gaby Carter.
‘Oh, you’ll get that … after work, anyway. We’ll keep you occupied during the day.’ Very occupied, thought Jess. Late summer through to Christmas and beyond to Easter was by far the busiest time of the year at the flower farm. While frosts and festive mayhem took hold on the mainland, the farm’s packing shed would be also manic as they picked, sorted and sent millions of narcissi to bring golden light into the dark nights of people throughout the rest of Britain.
The buggy rattled over the cobbles onto the quayside, which was packed with tourists piling onto the ‘tripper’ boats that were moored two and three abreast. As usual, there was organised chaos as visitors clambered down the steps, asking if they’d got the right boat and climbing over vessels to get to the one they needed.
At the end of the stone quay, more passengers collected luggage and kayaks from the Islander ferry that made its daily round trip from Penzance between March and November. It dwarfed the open tripper boats, jet boats and yachts bobbing about in the harbour on the high tide.
‘We’re down here,’ said Jess, heading for the steps that led to the pontoons where the Godrevys’ motorboat, Kerensa, was moored alongside the floating rafts.
‘I’ll park the buggy while you get aboard. I’ll bring the bags,’ said Adam.
Jess took Gaby down the steps and along the pontoon. Gaby didn’t seem very happy with the wobbly surface.
‘You’ll soon get used to all of this,’ Jess said reassuringly. ‘We live and breathe boats here.’
Gaby nodded, but she didn’t seem too sure at all. ‘Kerensa. That’s a lovely name.’
‘It’s Cornish for love,’ said Jess, jumping deftly onto the boat.
She held out a hand to help Gaby, who climbed aboard more gingerly.
Adam was soon back, handing over Gaby’s case and some shopping from the Co-op. He untied the boat and Jess manoeuvred it away from the pontoon and between the smaller craft.
As they skirted the hull of the Islander, Gaby stared up at its crew who were unloading freight and getting it ready for its return journey to Penzance. Even as they passed it, she gazed at the ferry as if she was saying goodbye to an old friend.
‘Does the ferry come every day?’ she asked.
‘Every day throughout the summer except Sundays,’ said Jess. ‘But when winter comes, we only get the supply boat a few times a week.’
‘If we’re lucky,’ said Adam cheerfully.
Gaby gave a weak smile. ‘Oh.’
The little boat puttered out of the harbour and into the lagoon that separated St Saviour’s and the other isles from St Mary’s. Jess had been brought up around boats since before she could walk but she still had to concentrate on keeping Kerensa within the channel markers. The water was so shallow between the isles, there were even rare occasions when you could wade between St Mary’s and St Saviour’s, though Gaby was unlikely to be on Scilly long enough to witness one of those. She sat in the stern, her strawberry blonde ponytail streaming behind her in the breeze and her dark glasses hiding her eyes. Jess noted the way she gripped the edge of the seat with one hand, and kept the other firmly on the rail of the boat.
Jess had a sneaking admiration for her or anyone who was willing to give up a comfortable life in a lively city like Cambridge for a remote place like Scilly. But she wasn’t convinced that a desire for ‘a quiet life’ and a love of flowers was the whole reason for Gaby’s decision to abandon Cambridge and head all the way out here.
Twenty minutes later, Adam threw the rope around the bollard on the small quay at St Saviour’s and secured it to the cleat. Jess helped Gaby off the boat and up the steps with her bag. The quay rose out of a small rocky outcrop at the bottom of the island road. Deeper water lapped one side, while the other looked out over creamy sand, currently covered in a foot or so of translucent peppermint sea.
Gaby looked around her and shook her head in wonder. ‘Wow. It’s so beautiful. I’ve seen pictures on your website of course, but I hadn’t imagined the real thing would be anything like this. It’s still England, but as if England were set in the Greek islands.’
Jess followed Gaby’s gaze towards the long sweep of white sand that ran half the length of the island and the myriad rocky skerries dozing in the lagoon between the main isles. St Saviour’s, like Gull Island and its neighbour Petroc, were all clustered around the shallow ‘pool’ with only lonely St Piran’s lying to the west across a deep-water channel.
‘It is lovely on a day like this,’ she said, quietly proud of her home.
‘Not so lovely when you’re trying to get the mail delivered in a howling gale or when the fog drops down,’ said Adam.
Gaby turned to him in surprise. ‘Oh, you’re a postman, then?’
‘Yes. I deliver the smaller islands’ mail.’
‘You must have the best post round in Britain.’
He grinned. ‘You can say that again.’
Jess squeezed his hand behind Gaby’s back. ‘Better get going. Will’s going to be … um … eager to welcome you too.’ She mentally crossed her fingers that her brother was in. ‘We can walk to the farm from here.’
Despite Gaby’s protests, Adam carried her case and the shopping. Jess had given up trying to stop him long ago. She took the chance to chat to Gaby as they trudged up the slope from the quay and onto the road that ran along the spine of the island.
With Adam a few feet ahead, Jess slowed her pace to allow Gaby to take in her surroundings. She stared out over the Atlantic and spoke softly, almost reverently.
‘I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely seas and the sky
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’
Jess waited, a little taken aback.
Gaby turned towards her with a smile. ‘Sorry, couldn’t resist. That’s from Sea Fever by John Masefield. Do you know it?’
‘I think I might have heard of it but I’m not that great on poetry to be honest,’ Jess replied, quietly amused and also, if she was honest, thinking the lines were very apt for the way she often felt about the spectacular spot she lived in: drawn to the sea.
‘The view is incredible,’ said Gaby, echoing Jess’s own thoughts.
‘Yes, you practically see most of Scilly from up here and Land’s End too on a clear day. Look, there it is.’ Jess pointed out a shadowy but unmistakable hunk of land on the horizon to the east.
‘Wow,’ said Gaby. ‘Exactly how far is it?’
‘Twenty-eight miles, though it may as well be Canada on some days. The fog can roll in and you can’t see the sea at all, let alone the mainland,’ said Adam, waiting for them.
‘Wow. That must feel like being cast adrift in the middle of the ocean.’
Jess felt a quiet sense of pride in Gaby’s awe. ‘It can be but on days like this, it’s gorgeous. And actually, we’re here.’
Chapter 2 (#u7b3d71fc-d3ee-55af-84a4-cfce7db8c2d4)
‘Wow.’
Jess hid a smile as Gaby gazed at the five-bar gate set in a high hedgerow. A wooden sign was fixed on the front of the bars.
St Saviour’s Flower Farm
A, J & W Godrevy
The sign had been replaced once already since Jess’s father, Roger, had left the family home to live with a younger woman, fifteen years previously. Their mother, Anna, had insisted on having his initials erased and a fresh plaque put up showing her children as joint owners. However, the ‘new’ one needed repainting again, as the names were fading under the onslaught of wind, rain and salt. Olive lichen had started to crawl slowly over the ragged edges of the wood, but it was so familiar that Jess didn’t even see it these days. It was only because Gaby paused to examine it that Jess noticed it at all. One more job to add to the maintenance list, though being non-urgent, it probably wouldn’t get done at all until it dropped off.
‘Come on,’ said Jess, smiling inwardly at the impact her home and business was having on Gaby.
She pushed open the gate, letting Gaby go ahead of her. Adam closed it behind them and followed them both in while Gaby scanned the house, outbuildings and fields with sharp-eyed wonder.
The rambling farmhouse where Jess and Will lived with Anna was set back from the road behind a large concrete yard. Jess and Will had no choice but to take over the running of the place while they were still barely out of their teens. Their father had left the farm’s finances in a perilous state, but gradually Jess and Will had pulled it back from the brink and developed it into the thriving business that Gaby was now taking in.
‘The high hedges are there to protect the flowers, aren’t they?’ she asked Jess.
‘Yes, they spare the crops from the worst of the winds we get in the winter. The office is over here. You never know, Will might even be in there.’
‘While you introduce Gaby to Will, do you mind if I check out the Athene?’ said Adam. ‘I want to see how the renovation’s coming along. I reckon it’ll be ready for some trials after Christmas if we all pull our fingers out.’
Jess rolled her eyes. ‘That’s optimistic. It still needs a lot of work.’
He smiled. ‘We’ll get there. I won’t be long.’
‘OK,’ said Jess, amused at his enthusiasm for a half-built boat.
After Adam had left, she led the way to the office, chatting to Gaby along the way. ‘The Athene’s a vintage rowing boat – though we actually call them gigs. Will and Adam are hoping to restore it to its full glory,’ she explained.
‘Sounds exciting. Do you row?’
