She said it comfortingly, as if the presence of the proprietor would automatically be warming. Grant took it for granted that she was apologising for the absence of an official welcome to a guest.
He sat and watched the kitchen fire gradually lose heart as it became conscious of the bed of potato peelings on which it had been cast away. He did his best to rake out some of the damp black mass from underneath so as to provide an encouraging draught, but the thing merely settled down in a sad heap. He watched the glow fade until only little red worms of incandescence ran to and fro across the surface of the blackened coals as the passing wind sucked the air from the room into the chimney. He thought of putting on his waterproof and walking in the rain; walking in the rain could be a delightful thing. But the thought of hot tea held him where he was.
After nearly an hour of firewatching, no tea had come. But ‘N. Todd, Prop.’ came back from the harbour, accompanied by a boy in a navy-blue jersey pushing a wheelbarrow laden with large cardboard cartons, and came in to welcome his guest. They did not expect guests at this time of the year, he said; he thought when he had seen him come off the boat that he would be staying with someone on the island. Gathering songs, or something.
There was something in the way he said ‘gathering songs’—a detached tone bordering on comment—that made Grant sure that he was no native.
No, said Mr Todd, when asked, he did not belong to the place. He had had a good little commercial hotel in the Lowlands, but this was more to his taste. And, seeing the surprise on his guest’s face he added: ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Grant, I was tired of counter-rappers. You know: the kind of chap who can’t wait a minute. Out here no one ever thinks of rapping on a counter. Today, tomorrow, or next week is all the same to an Islander. It’s a bit maddening now and then, when you want something done, but for most of the time it’s fine and restful. My blood pressure’s away down.’ He noticed the fire. ‘That’s a poor sort of fire Katie-Ann’s given you. You’d better come ben to my office and warm yourself.’
At this moment Katie-Ann put her head in at the door and said that it had taken all this time to boil the kettle because the kitchen fire had gone out on her, and would Mr Grant now think it a good thing to have his tea and his high-tea at one and the same time. Grant did indeed think it a good thing, and as she went away to prepare this evening repast he asked his host for a drink.
‘The magistrates took away the licence from my predecessor, and I haven’t yet got it back. I’ll get it back at the next Licensing Court. So I can’t sell you a drink. There isn’t a licence on the island. But if you’ll come ben to my office I’ll be glad to stand you a whisky.’
The office was a tiny place, tropical in its breathless heat. Grant savoured the oven atmosphere gratefully, and drank the bad whisky neat, as it was proffered. He took the indicated chair and stretched out his feet to the blaze.
‘You’re not an authority on the island, then,’ he said.
Mr Todd grinned. ‘In one way I am,’ he said wickedly. ‘But probably not the way you mean it.’