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Chapter 20
‘There you are,’ Jasper says with a grin.
He is just as attractive in the light of day, like a lovely box-fresh Ken doll. No! Ken dolls aren’t sexy, Ken dolls don’t even have genitalia. Do not start thinking of Jasper as a Ken doll.
‘Who’s that then?’ Jasper asks, nodding towards Ted.
‘My, er – my landlord, Ted. I’m renting his cottage down there. So, tell me more about the place we’re going to today,’ I say, clapping my hands together, keen for us to leave as quickly as possible.
Jasper opens the car door for me. ‘You are going to love the Écréhous. They are tiny islands between here and France, well, rocks, essentially, that don’t get covered by the rising tide. The fishermen’s huts there have been handed down through the generations, just made a little less basic over the years. It’s like camping at sea, that’s the best way I can describe it.’
As we drive across the island, Jasper tells me all about his family, about his father’s love of fishing. He says being at sea was one of the few times he got to be with his father alone, as none of his sisters were interested in learning how to fish. As he’s talking, I sink back into the pages of Jasper’s story. I have to remind myself that this is a story I want to be part of, the fairy-tale ending written for me. Ted’s new face is not relevant to the plot.
Gran tries to call me while we’re driving, but I silence the call and text instead.
Laura: Sorry Gran, just heading out on a boat trip! Can we speak this afternoon? BTW did you know my surname is pronounced Le Cane, not Ques-ne???
Gran: You are having a busy time of it – keen to have a chat when you have time. Le Cane does ring a bell now you mention it.
Me:??!??!
Gran: I think all the mums at your school kept pronouncing Ques-ne, and in the end, Annie couldn’t be doing with correcting people all the time. You know, I’d quite forgotten it was Le Cane until you said that – how funny!
How funny? How funny? I don’t think it’s particularly funny that I’ve been pronouncing my own name wrong my entire life.
‘Everything OK?’ Jasper asks, as he sees me frown at my phone.
‘Fine, just work stuff,’ I lie, putting my phone away. I don’t need another person laughing at my identity crisis.
Jasper’s boat is moored at St Catherine’s Breakwater, a long, man-made promontory stretching half a mile out to sea at the eastern end of the island. Jasper tells me they started building a harbour in the mid-nineteenth century, but the project was abandoned as the bay turned out to be too shallow. The long breakwater wall is now used by fishermen and boats mooring in the sheltered water.
Jasper rows a dinghy out to fetch his motorboat from a mooring, then drives back to pick me up. Once we’re out on the open water, I look at Jasper steering the boat, the wind in his hair and the sun on his skin. He looks so at home at the helm, and I try to adopt the stance of someone who is comfortable on a vessel this small and unstable.
‘Is this cabin we’re going to the one you had keys for in your suitcase?’
‘Yes,’ Jasper says, looking over the top of his sunglasses at me.
‘I only looked through your things to search for a name or contact number,’ I quickly add.
‘It’s fine.’ He smiles. ‘I must have taken the keys to London by mistake. Now, be warned, it’s pretty rustic.’
‘You know, I’ve always had a bit of a fantasy about remote cabins,’ I say, moving into the seat next to him, hoping the boat might get steadier the closer you are to the steering wheel.
‘Tell me everything,’ Jasper says huskily, his eyebrows dancing up and down above his sunglasses.
I laugh, ‘Not like that.’ It is like that, but I don’t think it would be appropriate to tell him all the graphic details of my Ryan Gosling/log fire/sheepskin rug fantasy on a first date. ‘No, I just mean somewhere to get away from it all, off grid – it sounds romantic.’
‘Well, I hope our little cabin lives up to expectations,’ he says, taking a hand off the wheel and laying it on my thigh. He seems more confident today, more at home in this boat than he was in his living room. I like this version even more.
It’s a twenty-minute boat-ride out to the small group of rocky islands. As we get close, I see several houses protruding from the water. It’s a bizarre sight, like finding a village in the middle of the sea, each rudimentary cabin built on inhospitable-looking rocks, jutting out of the water. Jasper says, ‘Laura, look, there,’ he points to the left of the boat, where two seals are basking on rocks in the sunshine.
‘Oh, look at them,’ I cry. ‘Look at their funny little faces.’
Jasper ties the boat to a buoy, then we get back into the dinghy and row to shore with the cool box and a bag of supplies. On the pebble beach, we leave the dinghy and the bags, and Jasper leads me up into a rabbit warren of huts, all built on top of each other in a little enclave at the far end of the spit. A few other boats are moored nearby, and Jasper waves to a family sitting out on their deck. This place feels like a different planet, a watery moonscape, miles from civilisation, and I catch myself wondering how the hell I came to be here. Only a few days ago I was sitting in the airless meeting room at Love Life eating a Pret sandwich.
‘Look,’ Jasper says, stopping to point out a particular cabin. It’s the one my mother was standing in front of in one of her photos. He remembered. He helps me replicate the shot, giving instructions for how I should stand, wanting to get it just right. When he’s satisfied, I snap a few photos of him pretending to be a model, staring off into the middle distance and giving me his best ‘blue steel’.
Back at the dinghy, Jasper effortlessly lifts the cool box up onto his shoulder, and we walk further up the pebble-covered spit, where larger cabins stand alone.
