The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis

them. He didn’t need to, as it happened. Not immediately.
    ‘Oh, hallo, Professor,’ he said without enthusiasm. It was only one of those incomers who had bought a house on the island for the purposes of holidaying there: a mean man in Eric’s view, who drank alcohol-free lager with lime and not too much of that. There was a girl with him wearing the guarded, faintly sulky air of a girl who is not too stupid to know that she is the latest in a series of similar girls. Eric had noticed, over the months, that several incomers had bought houses on the island apparently for the sole purpose of conducting clandes tine affairs. The professor kept an old duffel coat which he made all his women wear, probably so that he would recognize them if his memory slipped.
    ‘Hallo, Isabel,’ said Eric.
    The girl did not respond.
    ‘Sophie?’ he ventured.
    Silence.
    ‘Agnes . . .?’ Oh
shit
, he might have learned to keep his mouth shut by now. He would have done if he hadn’t been so discomposed.
    ‘This is Jennifer,’ said the professor cheerfully.
    ‘What’ll you have?’ asked Eric, slipping behind the bar. ‘Down here for long?’
    ‘Two halves of lager, alcohol-free, with lime,’ said the professor. ‘Just till the New Year.’
    He sat on a bar stool and began to ask questions to prove that he was conversant with island ways and the inhabitants. Eric polished a glass and wished he’d go. Those locals who did frequent the inn were wont to melt away when they saw the professor. The girl stood, restively twisting her glass. Poor cow, thought Eric, without compassion. The door opened and he looked up, hopeful now, but it was yet another incomer. ‘Evening, Mrs H.,’ he said. This was the female of the species. When her husband was away on business she brought men with her to her white house on the hill. ‘How’s Graham?’ he inquired nastily, for he happened to remember that her husband was called John.
    ‘He’s fine,’ she said without turning a hair.
    No shame, thought Eric. None of them had any shame. They treated the island like a brothel. He looked back to the time when he had pictured his bar full of local characters gathered for the edification and amusement of the gently bred guests who had just unpacked their pigskin suitcases in the charming ambience of their bedrooms before coming down, talking animatedly among themselves, to drink a lot of expensive liquor before dining, while his wife chirruped and shone like a budgerigar in crisp cottons, scent and fresh lipstick. His ideas of marriage and the typical hostelry were hopelessly out of date. Mrs H. ordered a mineral water with ice and a slice of lemon.
     
    Finlay tied up his boat and helped his passengers ashore by way of the amateurish pier which the locals begrudgingly held together, each hoping that somebody else would do something to make it more stable, and if not that the council might. There was enough light from the lamp hanging outside the inn to show them where they’d be when they got there, but not enough for them to see where they were going. Consequently they shuffled along the narrow shore road, carrying their luggage and wondering what they’d let themselves in for. It was beginning to rain.
    Hearing the sound of a number of people putting down their bags, Eric went into the hall. Seeing through the open door that rain was sifting through the lamplight he felt guilty. They were here for Christmas after all. ‘That’ll turn to snow by the morning,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll show you to your rooms and then perhaps after you’ve signed in you’d like a drink before dinner . . . on the house,’ he added, as he noticed their downcast mien, and he wondered whether he should have met them at the pier with the van, even though it was only a hundred yards or so. He had a moment of terror as he realized that he was solely and personally responsible for keeping these people contented for the length of their stay. Maybe he should have