The Club(4)
And now here she was, having waited on the mainland for the causeway to become passable, crossing it in a chauffeur-driven electric Land Rover Defender with two other new arrivals, both Littlesea locals, all daunted, all trying very hard not to show it. She would surely never forget that first sight of the road emerging from the sea, surprisingly winding, alarmingly narrow, the way the piles of rocks on either side of the track appeared first, then within minutes the wet surface of the road itself was shining in the early afternoon sunlight, clumps of seaweed still stranded across it in inky scribbles, the island a hulking outline on the horizon.
She would have been a fool not to be a little nervous. How different all this would be from The Grange, the hotel at which she had worked for so long, with its acres of tartan carpets, its formal dining room complete with bow-tied waiters, the saloon bar with its golfing prints, the little plastic bottles of lily-of-the-valley toiletries, the lingering smell of disinfectant in the corridors. How weird it was going to be to move from somewhere so familiar, where she knew everybody, where everybody knew her, to somewhere completely new, completely strange.
It was a bright October afternoon, the cloudless blue sky criss-crossed with vapour trails.
As the wooded island ahead of them loomed ever larger and wider and darker, Jess tried to make out all the different buildings and features that had just been described in their induction. The Manor, or at least a windowed turret of it, was visible first, peeking out amongst the tips of the pines. Then, as they got closer, she could make out their destination: The Boathouse, a two-storey weathered wooden building a hundred metres from the end of the causeway, with an adjoining large car park full of glossy black SUVs next to a glass-fronted reception area where members collected their cabin keys, deposited their phones for the duration of the stay, and sipped champagne in front of a blazing fire while they waited for a porter in a golf buggy. Next to that, further down the pine-lined beach, was a concrete and cedar single-storey building jutting out into the water – this, Jess supposed, was the undersea restaurant Poseidon. Beyond that she could make out a steep road disappearing up a sharp slope into the woods.
This was not the landscape she’d grown up with, but she could see its beauty, even – or perhaps especially – at this time of year. The pale slender trunks of the silver birches. The fierce glow of the beeches. The yellow bursts of gorse and broom. The dark pebble beaches. The white stretches of sand. Springy thickets of sea buckthorn. Banks of browning bracken. The autumn sunlight sparkling on the waves.
For the most part – and for obvious reasons – the cabins and their terraces were arranged so they weren’t easy to spot from a distance, from the water. The spa and tennis courts were on the far side of the island, close to the old listed water tower that was now a revolving Italian restaurant, near the sailing and water sports facilities and the staff accommodation (not visible from the water either, and where about half the island’s employees – Jess included – would be based, the other half arriving each morning from the mainland). It was funny to think how strange all this felt to her now, and how familiar it all would be in just a few days’ time. Her Home.
The people were going to take a bit of adjusting to as well. The Head of Membership, Annie Spark, for instance, an extraordinary vision with waist-length Jessica Rabbit-red hair, in a bright pink jumpsuit, high-top trainers and huge gold hoop earrings, who had greeted her at The Causeway Inn, the seventeenth-century harbourside pub overlooking the exact point the causeway met the mainland, acquired by the Home Group (Annie had explained) as somewhere members could sit and enjoy one of a range of fifteen local ales and ciders or a bite to eat while they waited for the tide to turn and the road across to the island to become passable.
In one of the downstairs bars – a room with a sea view, arranged with low, mismatched vintage armchairs, a pair of crossed logs smouldering in the fireplace – Annie had talked them all through the itinerary for the weekend.
Tonight, Thursday, there would be an intimate dinner for a select five guests in The Manor, hosted by Ned Groom. Annie had listed the members invited. Jess felt her heart jump. All around her, fellow newbies tried to keep their expressions neutral. It had already been underlined, both at interview and in a stern aside from Annie, that you would not last long at Home if you were the kind of person who was easily starstruck.
It had also been made very clear, when she had accepted the job, what a privilege it was as a senior member of the team to be allowed to keep a phone on her while she was working. Indeed, on her arrival at head office, she had been given a brand-new work iPhone and instructed to keep it with her, charged and on at all times, in case she was needed. She had also been told, very firmly, never to take it out when a guest was there – just as all the arriving staff had been instructed to keep an eye out for any member who’d failed to surrender theirs on arrival.
‘This is one of the few places in the world,’ Annie had reminded them, ‘that most of these people can eat a meal or have a drink or just sit around doing nothing and be absolutely confident no one is going to snap a picture of them doing it. Try to imagine what that feels like. Just try to imagine how much you’d be willing to pay for it. And that’s why any member you see with a phone in their hand – because, believe it or not, they’re not immune to the urge – is off the island, immediately, their membership cancelled. And that’s why none of our waiters, waitresses, bar staff or housekeeping crews are allowed mobiles either.’