‘Excellent,’ I say, reaching for one.
Ted looks at me, resting his gaze on my smile for a moment.
‘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, and his mother fell in love with Jersey, so 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, and I just assumed they didn’t know how to anglicise 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 stayed 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 grey 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 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.
Ted catches my eye from across the circle. He shakes his head, but his eyes are smiling and, with a beer in his hand and his friends around him, he looks more relaxed than I’ve seen him all day. I can’t believe how at home I feel, among these people I’ve only just met. It crosses my mind that I can’t think of the last time I made a new friend back in London.
Ilídio walks over and nestles down in the sand at Sandy’s feet, reaching up to hold her hand, smiling up at her with his huge white teeth. The affection between them appears so easy, so delightfully unfiltered. The thought prompts me to check my phone, waiting for Jasper to call. Surely, he’ll call this evening.