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 harbor 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. 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 incredibly 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 a 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 civilization, 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” pose.
Back at the dinghy, Jasper effortlessly lifts the cool box up onto his shoulder, and we walk farther up the pebble-covered spit, where larger cabins stand alone.
“This is us,” he says, pointing toward the one at the far end.
The cabin is built on stilts, so we have to climb up stairs to get to the front door. There’s a basic wooden balcony overlooking the sea, and a driftwood sign propped against the door that reads: Écréhous Rules: Take only photos, leave only footprints. Jasper shows me around inside; there’s one main room with a gas-powered stove and fridge, a small kitchen table, and two green checked sofas around a driftwood coffee table. Upstairs in the eaves are two small bedrooms. There’s no log fire, but there is a wood burner. It’s rustic and charming, and I fall instantly in love with the place.
“No running water or flushing loos, just a compost toilet around the back,” Jasper says.
OK, maybe I’m not entirely in love with it. The words “compost” and “toilet” are not optimal first-date words.
“My grandfather built this place from scratch,” Jasper explains. “Everything you see had to be brought out on a boat.”
“I can see why you love it,” I say.
“Worth the effort of getting here then?” he says with a wink.
“Definitely.”
Jasper opens the cool box, unpacking all sorts of posh pâtés, sourdough biscuits in a rainbow of rustic hues, and a bottle of rosé. I’m impressed Jasper knows how to put together a decent picnic. I once went on a picnic date in Hyde Park and the guy brought a multipack of Monster Munch crisps and six cans of lager.
Jasper opens a bag of truffle crisps and offers some to me. As I reach my hand in, he pretends to snap the bag shut, like a crocodile. I jump in surprise and then laugh. We look at each other and grin. I feel a glow of contentment. I’m genuinely enjoying myself, and I haven’t thought about Ted’s newly shaven face for at least five minutes.
I don’t even know why I’m thinking about Ted’s face at all. I mean, sure, he’s superhot now, and he’s really lovely, and he isn’t fifty as I’d first assumed, but that shouldn’t make a difference. He’s still too old for me, still technically married, his life sounds immensely complicated, and he doesn’t even like Phil Collins. Plus, he made it pretty clear last night that he still loves his wife and he’s not in the market for anything like that. Then I have to stop thinking about not thinking about Ted, because it’s reminding me of the letter from Belinda sitting guiltily in my handbag. Why am I even having to rationalize this to myself? It’s ridiculous; I’m on a date with Jasper, perfect Jasper who ticks all the boxes.