The Little Wedding Island: the perfect holiday beach read for 2018

‘Rude,’ I mutter to no one in particular. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. It was probably a gust of wind that slammed the door with such force that the lock clicked into place and the blind fell down. It’s not that windy today but we’re on a tiny island in the middle of the sea. The weather is probably unpredictable out here.

Well, there are plenty of other shops on the street if the florist doesn’t want me. There’s a bridal boutique on the opposite side of the street, a double window display inside it with three mannequins in each window, each dressed in beautiful wedding gowns. I smile at the sight, but as I take a few steps across the cobbles towards it, the window display starts to disappear from view as a blackout blind is lowered. They can’t be shutting up too. It’s not even close to lunchtime yet. I jog across the wide street, hoping to catch whoever’s inside, but I find that door locked too when my hand closes around the handle.

It’s not even eleven a.m. Where are they all going at once? Or do they just not want me to see inside?

Which is weird. Why would they not want me to see inside?

I glance behind me, suddenly feeling alone and unwelcome on what looked like such a warm and inviting street less than five minutes ago. It looks like a ghost town now. Apart from the café, every shop door is closed and every window has their blinds down. The florist has even drawn her pretty curtains.

Surely this isn’t because of me? I must be imagining it. Maybe none of the doors were open earlier. Or maybe they just close up for lunch really early here.

Two doors up from where I’m standing is a bakery. I can see the reflection of the cakes in the closed window of the shop opposite it. The door is still open and I decide to make a run for it. If I can grab just one shopkeeper, I’m sure they’ll have a simple explanation for the sudden mass exodus.

I stretch my calf muscles like I’m starting a marathon and sprint towards the open door of the bakery, and the very second I get there, just as I’m about to get one foot on the step, a woman slams the door shut from inside and I jump back in surprise.

She stares at me through the glass pane of the door, and keeps eye contact as she slowly and deliberately turns over the ‘open’ sign and pats it against the glass with a severe-sounding tap. The word ‘closed’ mocks me.

I step forwards and rap on the door. ‘What are you doing? Let me in!’ I say, wondering if they think I’m going to rob them or something. Do I look like a burglar?

Through the glass door, she looks me straight in the eyes, lifts a hand, and wags a finger at me like she’s scolding a toddler. She doesn’t break eye contact until a dark blind gradually lowers between us, blocking the view. A curtain has lowered inside the window too, shutting out the display of cakes.

This is ridiculous. What have I done to these people to make myself so unwelcome here? Why would any shopkeeper close their shop when a customer comes along? Doesn’t that defeat the object of having a shop? What’s going on?

I wander to the other end of the street, another metal arch strung with fairy lights and a sign saying, ‘Thank you for visiting The Little Wedding Street.’

Hah, I think as I lean against the arch and kick at a cobblestone, half expecting the shops to open up again now I’ve gone past, but there’s no movement. It really is like a ghost town, and I think of Oliver’s words about reporters coming here and still never knowing anything about the island. Is this why? Do they close down at the first hint of a tourist? I thought this was meant to be a place that relied on tourism. According to the cynics of the world like Oliver and Rohan, they’ve invented their church of no-divorce story to drum up tourism, and if that’s the case, this is surely not the way to go about it.

I sigh and turn my back on the street. I’m at the bottom of the hill leading up to the church. The cobblestones fade into neatly mown grass, and there’s a narrow path winding up the hill towards the grey building. Even from this angle, it’s still almost completely obscured by trees. There are other ways to get up to it – a wide tarmac path twisting around the coast edges and upwards in a circle around the hill – but I’d have to go back through the ghost street to reach it, so I take the little path.

The shops’ closing has upset me a bit. It’s made me feel like an intruder here, but I have to start my article somewhere and The Little Wedding Street certainly wasn’t very successful. I may as well get right to the heart of the matter and find out about the church.

I reach the top of the path and follow it around the hill to the coastal side of the island where it joins up with the wider road. I stop and lean against a tree to catch my breath, hoping no one is watching me feeling the effects of always taking the lift and not the stairs at work.

It’s like a forestry up here. Although the wide road is lined with uniform tree trunks, the branches above me are thick and unkempt with greenery and meet in the middle, not letting much daylight through. I’ve been to a lot of weddings in my time and I can safely say this is the most romantic walk to a wedding venue I’ve ever seen.

‘The proper road is a lot less steep, you know.’

I look up to see Rohan coming towards me, grinning.

Great. I’m sweaty and gasping for breath, and he looks just as gorgeous as he did earlier. Why is it that the hotter a guy is, the more of a state I look in his presence? Not that him being hot matters when he’s got the values of an immoral pond-skater, but I’m trying to be professional and aloof here, not the panting mess I currently am. My jeans have got grass stains on them from the climb up, my jacket snagged on every branch I passed, and there’s got to be at least half a tree attached to my hair.

‘Are you following me?’ I wheeze, trying to retain some dignity.

‘Of course not. I try to stay away from people who clearly don’t want to see me. Otherwise you get labels like “stalker” thrown around and there are all sorts of restraining orders and stuff. It’s not fun.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you knew that from experience,’ I mutter.

‘Oh, come on. I write tongue-in-cheek columns that take the mickey out of weddings. I don’t do anything illegal and I’m sorry I’ve offended you so much that you think that badly of me.’

I feel myself softening as I look at him. He seems genuine and his calm but amused way of speaking makes me think I’m being irrational. R.C. Art is probably just an exaggerated character that he uses for his job, like Ali G or Keith Lemon. It doesn’t mean Rohan is really like that. ‘Sorry, that was a bit harsh considering you brought me cake last night.’

A wide smile breaks across his face and I suddenly feel even more out of breath than I already was.

‘So, are you heading for the church?’

I nod and he continues. ‘So was I, but if I’ve really upset you that much and you want me to leave, I’ll go and come back later.’

‘No, of course not,’ I say instantly, taken aback by how considerate he is. I would never ask him to do that and the fact that he’s offered – that he’d be willing to go away just because I’m here – makes me feel warm all over. No one who was truly as horrible as R.C. Art would care about my feelings that much.

‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ he says, smiling again. ‘And we haven’t had our meeting about cockroaches yet. I definitely heard some scurrying in the night. What about you?’

I laugh despite myself. Talking to him makes it very easy to forget everything apart from the ice blue of his eyes and the way they sparkle as he grins at me. ‘No. There are no cockroaches.’

‘Oh well, maybe it was just mice and rats then,’ he says as he falls into step beside me and we turn the next corner so the church gate is in sight.

‘You just think you’re being funny. The B&B is very clean and Clara’s lovely. All right, her taste is a little… not-of-this-century… but there are no cockroaches and definitely no mice or rats. If you heard anything last night, it was probably those awful china ornaments with the blank eyes. I reckon they’re possessed. There’s definitely something not right about them.’

‘Oh, tell me about it. There’s one of a little boy playing with a dead bird on the chest of drawers in my room and it’s looking directly at the bed. I had to get up in the night and turn it round to face the wall so it wasn’t watching me. I was surprised to find it hadn’t turned back around by itself this morning.’

‘Enough to stop anyone sleeping.’

‘Actually, I couldn’t sleep because I was horrible to this girl on Twitter last week and she deserves a proper apology.’ He nudges my arm. ‘I am sorry, Bonnie. Genuinely. Not just because you’re here or because my boss told me I should be sorry approximately thirty thousand times while he was ripping my head off on Monday morning. I shouldn’t have screencapped your tweets or tried to bring the magazine battle into it, and I definitely could’ve been nicer over dinner last night.’

Goose bumps creep across the back of my neck and a lovely tingle goes down my spine. I shake myself. ‘Apology reluctantly accepted.’

‘Good, we can at least be civil to each other, can’t we? We’re both working on the same thing and this island is less than two miles wide – we’re bound to run into each other.’

‘I guess.’ I sigh. I never expected R.C. Art to be so reasonable. ‘Rohan…’

He cocks his head to the side as he looks at me, his mouth curving up at one side like he’s trying not to smile.

‘I’m sorry too,’ I say. ‘I shouldn’t have thrown wine over you last night, and I should’ve just ignored you on Twitter.’

‘Nah, you’re okay. I write stuff that’s always going to get a reaction. I’ve been at it for years and I still haven’t learnt to ignore my critics.’

I want to ask him more, but we reach the church gate and he whoops in victory. ‘Well, would you look at that? I told you there’d be an arch of flowers.’

I stop in awe of the little lane beyond the gate. ‘That’s not an arch of flowers. It’s more a tunnel of trees.’

The church is still out of sight, nothing more than the occasional glimpse of grey bricks between greenery, but the lane leading up to it is incredible. Huge trees are evenly spaced along each side of it, but rather than the wild forestry of the road leading up here, their branches are all twisted and plaited together so they meet in the middle and form a tunnel. The branches are starting to burst with the green buds of spring, and to say it looks magical would be an understatement.

‘It’s plant life. It counts,’ Rohan says. ‘You can’t say they’re not predictable here. They may as well have ordered that straight from the catalogue of romantic things.’

‘Oh, come on. That’s incredible. It must’ve taken years to construct that. They must’ve let the trees grow and then spent years training them into that shape so it looks fantastic but doesn’t hurt the trees.’

‘Hmm,’ he mutters noncommittally.

‘Can you imagine walking down here as man and wife? A father and daughter walking through this as he goes to give her away? Running through it with your new partner? Stopping here for your wedding photos? It’s perfect. I’ve never seen a more beautiful entrance to a church.’

He looks up at the trees and back at me. ‘I suppose you go to enough weddings to make a fair judgement so I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Doesn’t it feel special to you?’ I put my hand on my heart and close my eyes. ‘It feels like you can… sense how many couples have been married here. There’s such an incredible atmosphere.’

‘I think it’s called being away from city traffic.’

When I open my eyes, he’s looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

‘Know what I can hear?’ he continues. ‘The cha-ching of how much money this place must be dragging in from people who think they can sense romance in the atmosphere.’

I ignore him and try to open the gate instead but it doesn’t budge. It’s a wooden farm gate at around armpit height, but there’s a heavy chain binding it to the gatepost, and a hefty padlock that leaves no doubt about how welcome visitors are.

‘Seems warm and inviting.’ Rohan pushes the gate to see how steady it is. ‘I could climb that.’

‘Yeah, if you want to break your neck.’

‘Excuse me.’ A man clears his throat and we both look up to see a bloke in a black shirt and clerical collar coming down the lane towards us. ‘There will be no climbing of gates or breaking of necks today, thank you very much.’

He stops on his side of the gate and gives us a look that says he’d be more thrilled to find a hyperactive baboon with a box of matches and a fondness for pyromania waiting to come in. ‘Is there something I can help you with that may change your current plans for trespassing onto private property and possible mortal injury?’

‘We’ve heard a lot about your church,’ I say before Rohan can say whatever sarcastic comment is itching to spill out of his mouth. ‘We just wanted to come in and have a look at the place. It sounds magical.’

‘Ah, I see.’ The vicar nods knowingly. ‘Have you, perhaps, missed the giant padlock? Does the “keep out” sign translate to you as “come in, visitors welcome”?’ His voice is upbeat but there’s a hint of steel behind his words. ‘Reporters again, I presume?’

‘We’re just tourists,’ Rohan says. ‘Come to explore Edelweiss Island. You can’t stay here without having a butcher’s at the church, can you?’

‘Are you here to get married?’

‘No!’ Rohan sounds more alarmed than is probably normal to sound at the mere mention of a word.

‘Then I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ the vicar says with a shrug that looks more condescending than apologetic. ‘And if you get any further ideas of breaking and entering, I would like to advise you that I have a guard dog.’

‘Aww, I love dogs. What breed is he? Can we meet him?’ Rohan doesn’t wait for an answer before he lets out a shrill whistle to call the dog.

I expect to see a large, angry Doberman racing down the path hungry for a taste of blood. What actually happens is a little black pug comes waddling out of the woodland and sits down beside the vicar’s ankles.

‘Oh my God, that’s the cutest dog I’ve ever seen.’ Rohan drops to his knees and shoves both arms through the gate and starts cooing at the dog. I’m convinced he’s about to lose his fingers, but the dog wags his whole body as he wanders over, gives his hand a sniff, and promptly throws himself upside down on the grass and wriggles around for Rohan to tickle his belly.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.