On First Impression

The traffic barrier rules surely applied to everyone?

LOUISE unlocked the small metal cabinet and pressed the button inside. The traffic barrier lowered slowly and then came to a rest with a satisfying clunk, blocking access to the road ahead.

Choppy waves lapped the edge of causeway that carried the road to the mainland.

Within the hour, it would be completely submerged.

The cloud had lifted late in the afternoon and golden streaks on the horizon hinted at a beautiful sunset.

A flock of birds flew out to sea overhead.

Louise loved it when the incoming tide coincided with dusk.

It felt cosy to have the sea wrapping itself around the rocks, creating an island isolated from the rest of the world, until the morning came with a fresh batch of tourists.

She was startled by a car horn blasting.

Looking over, Louise saw a man winding down the window of his grey SUV.

“Can you open the barrier?” he demanded.

“I’m afraid not. It isn’t safe to use the causeway – the tide is coming in.”

The wind blew Louise’s hair into her eyes and she brushed it aside.

“Are you joking? I’m only a minute late,” he pleaded.

“Sorry, the times are on the signs. We close the barrier five minutes after the time on the sign to allow for people running late, but we can’t open it again once it’s down.”

This was the downside of being on barrier duty, Louise thought.

The barrier was only there to keep visitors safe. No islander would be foolish enough to try to cross the causeway once the waves were threatening the road.

Yet she occasionally encountered tourists who were angry about being trapped on the island, as though the person with the barrier keys oversaw the tide itself.

She thought it must come from living in cities, disconnected from nature.

“My car has high clearance,” the man protested.

“That won’t prevent it from being swept away,” she countered. “The barrier is down. It’ll be up again at seven a.m.”

“Seven a.m.?” the man repeated incredulously. “I need to get back this evening!”

Louise pointed at the sign by the barrier.

“The water will be clear of the road again in about six hours, but we don’t get up in the middle of the night to open the barrier.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Deep vertical lines had formed on the man’s forehead.

“There’s a number on the sign for stranded visitors to call. But if you call it, you’d just get through to me, as I’m on barrier duty this week.

“I can give you details of accommodation in the village,” Louise offered.

“Is this barrier just a way to make money from overnight stays?” he asked, almost shouting.

She shook her head. “Not at all. We have no official overnight accommodation because we prefer the island to be peaceful overnight.

“But we do have some rooms available for people who get stranded.”

The man’s shoulders slumped in resignation.

“Could you tell me where to go?” he asked.

Louise gave him the addresses of the couple of villagers who were happy to rent out their spare rooms and breathed a sigh of relief that he’d calmed down.

The next morning, the grey SUV was already at the barrier at seven o’clock.

“Good morning,” the man greeted her through his window, as Louise unlocked the control box.

“I hope you enjoyed your stay,” she replied. “Despite it being longer than planned. You must be pleased to be escaping at last.”

She pressed the button and the barrier lifted.

She was surprised that the man hesitated.

“I’m not leaving for good. I’ll visit again, maybe even later today.

“I’m Paul, by the way.” As she introduced herself, Louise hoped that Paul paid

more attention to the tide timetable if he did come back to the island.

Louise returned to the barrier at dusk.

High tide would be later than the day before and the water wouldn’t lap over the causeway for another hour, but they always closed the barrier at dusk regardless.

Every now and again the village discussed investing in an automatic barrier system, but she enjoyed her weeks on barrier duty.

She liked the rhythm it gave to her days and she usually enjoyed the people she met.

Paul had been an exception.

To her disbelief, she saw the familiar grey SUV driving up to the barrier as she walked towards it.

Paul wound his window down when she reached the car.

“Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?” she asked, tapping her watch. “Given what happened last night.”

“I’m five minutes before the time on the sign,” Paul pointed out. “I’ve been making the most of my time on your beautiful island.”

“What have you been doing?” Louise asked, curious despite her frustration.

The island was idyllic, but tourists didn’t usually find enough there to bring them back for a second day.

“I’ve been taking photographs of the puffins on the north coast,” Paul explained.

“I love puffin-spotting,” Louise admitted.

“I’ve got some great shots. Would you like to see?” he asked.

Without waiting for a response, he turned off his engine and picked up his camera from the passenger seat.

Louise leaned in to see better, and he flicked through the pictures on his camera screen.

The photos were excellent. They captured the character of the birds and drama of the rocky cliffs on the north of the island.

“I love that one,” she said, laughing at a shot of a plump puffin coming into land with its orange legs splayed.

“They look like clowns,” Paul replied.

Louise nodded in agreement, then suddenly realised the time.

She was late with the barrier.

“I need to put the barrier down now,” she told him.

The following day, Louise had a sense of déjà vu as she spotted the SUV approaching the barrier just as she arrived to close it.

“Third day in a row!” she exclaimed when Paul wound down his window to greet her. “Are you spending your whole holiday on the island?”

“I’m not on holiday,” Paul explained. “I’ve recently moved nearby and I’ve been exploring.

“I’ve been on early shifts at work this week, so I’ve been coming here afterwards to take photographs during the golden hour before sunset.

“Whilst paying close attention to the barrier closing times,” he said with a smile.

“Have you got any good shots?” she asked.

Paul held out his camera and she flicked through shots of the cliffs, puffins and eventually a familiar ginger tabby cat wandering along the wall outside the village shop.

“That’s my cat!” she exclaimed. “Felix.”

Paul laughed at the coincidence.

“It’s funny what they get up to,” Louise said, handing the camera back.

She’d assumed Felix had spent the day dozing in the conservatory, yet he’d been exploring the village.

“I’d best be off before you close that barrier on me,” Paul said suddenly.

Louise watched as Paul’s car grew smaller as it travelled over the causeway and finally became a speck and disappeared.

She wondered why he’d left so abruptly.

He was friendly and they had plenty in common, but she couldn’t forget their first meeting.

She wasn’t interested in a man who believed rules didn’t apply to him or who had no regard for deadlines.

She imagined he was the type of person who turned up at the airport just as the check-in desk was closing, or sent a job application off on the closing date.

It simply wasn’t attractive.

When Louise saw Paul’s car parked by the barrier the following evening, she felt her usual frustration at his insistence on pushing the rules, but an unexpected happiness that she would get to talk to him again, too.

He was walking along the foreshore, taking photos of the causeway, but on seeing her, he waved and walked over.

“It’s my last day on barrier duty for a month,” she said.

“It’s been a pleasure to see you every evening,” he replied.

“Even the first evening?” Louise asked. “You weren’t very happy with me.”

Paul looked down at his feet sheepishly.

“I can be abrupt when I’m stressed,” he admitted. “I really needed to be back on the mainland that night.

“My neighbour called saying my cat, Tiggy, had been hit by a car.”

Louise stared at Paul in surprise.

“Why didn’t you explain?” “I was embarrassed. I didn’t know then that you had a cat, too, so you’d understand.

“Anyway, you wouldn’t have raised the barrier, would you?” he teased. “You made it clear that the rules apply to everyone and are there for our safety.”

Louise blushed. She was definitely a stickler for the rules.

If you started bending them for some people, everyone expected an exception, and then there was no point in having rules in the first place.

Yet she felt sure that if he had explained there was a cat emergency she would have considered it.

“Is Tiggy all right?” she asked, fearing the worse.

“She’ll be fine. The car was going slowly and the vet is wonderful.

“Hopefully Tiggy will finally learn not to sleep in the middle of the road.”

Louise laughed. It sounded like the sort of daft thing that Felix would do.

It was endearing that Paul loved his cat so much.

She took a deep breath and asked the question that had been bothering her.

“Why do you keep leaving it until the last possible minute to cross back over?

“I showed you the tide times, but you keep risking getting stranded.”

“Can’t you guess?” Paul asked, smiling.

Louise shook her head. She had suspected he was perpetually running late, but he spoke as if he had been timing it deliberately.

“Because you said you were on barrier duty all week,” Paul explained. “I wanted to make sure I saw you.

“I wanted to talk to you again.”

Louise’s heart leapt.

“It sounds like I didn’t make a good impression, though,” he continued.

“I thought you were arrogant and always late for everything,” Louise confessed.

“My first impression of you wasn’t great, either.” Paul laughed. “With your inflexible rules and lack of compassion.”

“First impressions can be misleading,” Louise suggested.

“We can agree on that.” He smiled. “How about we start again – dinner on the mainland?”

“As long as you don’t make me late getting back.” Paul smiled.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”