As I watch the emotion on Ted’s face, it makes me feel strangely powerless. If you believe in fate leading you to love, do you also have to believe it is fate that leads love away? Are we all just floating in the sea, completely dependent on the tide and the universe to steer us to a happy harbor, or do we have oars? Do we have a chance to steer ourselves to shore?
“Thank you, Ted, for the doughnuts, that was thoughtful of you,” I say, moving the conversation away from heartbreak and back to food.
“You’re welcome. I’ve got to give you a proper taste of the island,” and as he says it, the smile returns to his eyes.
* * *
* * *
When we arrive back at St. Ouen’s at around five, Sandy is folding napkins and stacking them onto paper plates on the table in Gerry’s garden. She introduces me to her husband, Ilídio, who is scraping down a greasy-looking barbecue to take down to the beach. He is short, with dark stubble, tousled black hair, and bright white teeth I assume must be veneers. I ask if I can help them get ready for the party, but they insist they have everything under control, so I take the opportunity to have a shower and wash my hair. I now have yesterday’s clothes back from the hotel, but Sandy has kindly left me an emerald-green wrap dress to borrow. It’s too big for me, but it’s clean, and if I wrap the cord around my waist twice, it just about works.
I look at my laptop and feel guilty at how little work I have achieved today. I need an angle for the mini-break piece, reasons to visit Jersey outside the summer season. Suki wants something original, and I thought being here would inspire me. Then I think of Ted’s Jersey wonders, the story of only making them when the tide is right, the community fete with all the homemade produce, all the potato fields and the cows. Food does feel like a big part of the island’s identity. Could I tell the island’s story through food—“A Taste of Jersey,” perhaps?
As an idea begins to form, my phone buzzes.
Vanya: Did you escape the sex dungeon? Been thinking about what you said, about whether you can be a feminist and a romantic. Love this quote from the singer Eartha Kitt: “I fall in love with myself, and I want someone to share it with me. I want someone to share me with me.” That’s how I feel. V
I love that Vanya has kept thinking about our conversation. How many nights have we stayed up late with a glass of wine, talking about Schitt’s Creek one minute and Dostoyevsky the next? I will never find a flatmate who can replace her.
Outside, I hear voices and poke my head through the doorway to see a group of people gathering on the beach beyond the fields. Ted is fixing balloons to a wall that follows a narrow footpath down to the sea, and I walk down to join him.
“How’s your puff?” Ted asks, handing me two uninflated balloons.
“Excellent,” I say, reaching for one.
Ted looks at me, pausing his gaze on my smile.
“You look pleased with yourself?”
“Your Jersey wonders, they gave me an idea for my article.”
“ ‘Around the World in Eighty Doughnuts’?” he suggests.
“Something like that.”
“Has your suitcase man called yet?”
“Not yet, but he will,” I say, pushing my tongue into my cheek, and Ted gives me an unreadable smile.
“Ted, Laura, get on down here, will you!” Sandy’s voice travels up from the beach. “Ilídio’s going to burn the sausages to a crisp if someone doesn’t stop him.”
“We’ve been caught slacking,” Ted says, securing the balloons to the wall with a rock.
The whole village of L’Étacq has turned out for Gerry’s leaving do. It’s a perfect warm evening for a beach party, and people have brought their own camping chairs to sit on around the campfire. There are about thirty of us in all, a collection of Gerry’s friends from all over the island. Half a dozen of Ilídio’s extended family are here. He tells me his parents moved over from Madeira when he was a baby. His mother fell in love with Jersey, so she persuaded all her sisters to move here too.
Sitting between Sandy and Ilídio’s sister Teresa, they ask about my Jersey connection. I explain my father’s family are from here.
“What are their names?” Sandy asks.
“Well, I’m a Le Quesne, like my dad’s family, but my grandmother was a Blampied before she married.”
“Proper Jersey names,” says Teresa.
“Sorry, Ques-ne?” Sandy asks with a frown. “Q-U-E-S-N-E?”
I nod my head. I’m used to having to spell out my surname.
“Um, I think you’ll find that’s pronounced Le Cane,” Sandy says, collapsing into laughter.
“What? No, it isn’t . . .” I trail off. Sandy is doubled over, snorting like a warthog.
“Trust me, it’s a common Jersey name, with a French pronunciation—you don’t say Ques-ne.”
My mind starts doing backflips. That’s how the woman from the airport pronounced it. Now I think about it, people have said my name like that before. I just assumed they didn’t know how to anglicize it. Why would Mum have taught me my name wrong?
“But no one speaks French here!” I say indignantly. “You have all these French names for things but then pronounce them in English.”
When Sandy finally stops cackling about the fact that I’ve been mispronouncing my own name my entire life, she says, “The island was originally French, before William the Conqueror got involved.”
“It was part of Normandy until 1204, and the traditional island language, Jèrriais, is a form of Norman French,” chips in the man sitting next to Sandy. He is in his sixties, dressed entirely in brown, and has long gray hair tied back in a ponytail.
“This is Raymond, he’s a bit of an island expert,” says Sandy, shooting me wide eyes.
“All the original road names were French,” Raymond explains. “Some get pronounced the original way, some have been mangled into English, which can get confusing, but people’s names stay as they always were, pretty much.”
Am I going to have to change the way I say my name? I wonder, as Raymond shifts his chair around to better join our conversation. Then he says, “Jersey history goes back more than two hundred and fifty thousand years. It’s only been an island for six thousand.”
Sandy is still looking at me with wide, unblinking eyes. She must be worried that Raymond is about to dispense quite a significant volume of history to me, because she quickly changes the subject, pointing out how good the surf is this evening. Then she tells me about what a good surfer Ted is, how he used to sneak out surfing at night if he knew there was a big swell coming in, then go to school with seaweed in his hair.