by Fiona Gibson
‘What can I get for you?’ asks the ruddy-faced man in the kiosk. My gaze skims the array of shellfish gleaming on ice beneath the glass counter: cockles, mussels, langoustines and hand-dived scallops. I’m so ravenous I could devour them all.
‘Ummm … I can’t decide.’
‘Just arrived, have you?’ he asks, obviously picking up on my accent. I smile at him, pushing away any fears that he, like every other local here, is somehow connected to the distillery.
‘Yes, just this afternoon.’ I pause. ‘Um, I think I’ll go for a portion of mussels.’
‘Good choice,’ he remarks, sizzling some butter in a pan and slinging in a generous scoopful. Once they’re cooked and smelling heavenly he loads them into a cardboard carton, and crams in a wodge of thick wholemeal bread and a quarter of a lemon.
Perched on a rock, I devour it all greedily. Seals pop up in the shimmering sea as I lick my fingers clean of brown butter.
Although it’s tempting to stop by at Mary’s Store for wine – which is open on Sundays, until 7.30 p.m.! – I’m aware that I’d probably tipple the whole bottle during the long evening ahead and I want to be clear-headed tomorrow.
Back at the hotel, I glance briefly into the bar. It looks cosy enough with its dark wood panelling and sepia-tinted photographs of island scenes. The barman, who looks no older than Isaac, flashes a quick smile as he polishes a glass with a cloth. One teensy little wine wouldn’t hurt, I suppose. However, there are no guests in there, and no music is playing, and I don’t fancy sitting there alone, in awkward silence, or for the bartender to feel obliged to chat to me. So I head up to my functional but not exactly cosy room, wondering what I could do to make it feel more welcoming.
Whenever Dee goes away on her own – which she does, frequently, as a bold independent traveller – she takes scented candles and something to squoosh onto her pillow and immediately she feels at home. But it would never occur to me to pack candles or pillow spray. Instead, I just click on the bedside lamp and boil the kettle for a cup of tea. When it’s ready, I stretch out on the bed, edging over to make room for Scout as he jumps up to join me. It’ll be a bit of a squeeze, if he insists on spending the night here, but we’ll manage, I decide. And now, as I sip my tea and he snuggles closer, resting his head on my thigh, the room starts to feel a little homelier.
So here we are, I reflect, as his breathing settles into a slow rhythm. Just the two of us, here for God knows how long, for the purpose of persuading the distillery’s employees that I’m doing my best to turn things around. It’ll involve lengthy meetings with individual employees – and the whole team all together again. The very prospect causes my heart to lurch, and to take my mind off it I move to the flimsy desk where I start to unpack my paperwork. It’s not quite 7 p.m. and the long evening stretches ahead. Luckily, I have Scout to walk again later, plus a few hours’ work to crack on with.
I flinch at my phone’s chirpy ringtone. My heart sinks; it’s my parents’ landline. I’m not sure I’m up to updating Mum on everything right now. She was horrified when she heard I was planning to take on the business alone, and couldn’t understand my need to go back to the island so soon, if ever.
Wouldn’t it be easier just to wrap it up and be done with it, Suzy? As if it were as simple as taking an ugly vase to the charity shop.
I sigh and accept the call. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Hi, love.’
It’s not Mum, but my father. He has made an actual phone call. This is virtually unheard of. ‘Dad? Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, love. Everything’s fine,’ he murmurs. Why is he speaking so quietly? Perhaps it’s just that I’m unused to hearing his voice on the phone. ‘Just wanted to make sure you’ve arrived safely,’ he adds, so softly I can barely hear him.
‘Oh! Yes, I’m fine thanks, Dad. So everything’s okay, is it? Is Mum all right?’
‘Yep, she’s just having a bath, love.’
‘Ah, right.’ I can’t help smiling.
‘I wanted to wish you luck,’ he adds. I’m still in shock. Whatever next? Will he be WhatsApping me? Setting up a Facebook account? I can’t remember the last time we communicated in between seeing each other face to face.
‘That’s really kind of you,’ I say, my vision fuzzing a little.
There’s a pause. I hear faint sounds in the background and picture Mum emerging from the bathroom in her rose-patterned dressing gown. ‘I’m very proud of you, love,’ he continues, his voice even quieter now, ‘taking this on all by yourself. Takes some gumption, that.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ I swallow hard, waiting for him to add something like, ‘But we’re worried about you’, or: ‘What’ll you do if it all goes wrong?’
‘Have you brought that little dog of yours?’ he asks.
‘Yes, of course.’ My heart seems to lift as I ruffle Scout’s head. ‘He hates the ferry,’ I add. ‘It seems to make him really unwell.’
‘Poor thing,’ Dad says. ‘Not too keen on boat travel myself. I’m looking forward to meeting him, though …’
My smile widens. ‘I’ll bring him over next time I see you.’
There’s a small lull. The background noise has stopped. ‘That’d be nice, love. I’ve always wanted a dog.’
‘Have you? I never knew that!’
He chuckles. ‘Yes, but, you know. Your mum was never keen. And you can’t have everything, can you?’
‘No, I guess you can’t.’
‘So, anyway,’ he says, in a brisker tone now, perhaps keen to wrap things up before Mum catches him talking to me, illicitly. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine, Suzy, love. You’re a clever, resourceful woman and you know best what to do.’
Do I really? I think as we finish the call. Do I really know best?
It’s a bit too late to worry about that now.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ricky
‘Your street’s so instagrammable, Harry,’ Meg announces to Dad as he brings a pot of tea to the living room.
‘It’s what?’ Dad looks perplexed. He seemed a little shy when we arrived, greeting Meg hesitantly as if she might have come from the council to inspect the premises, and I was permitted a brief sort of half-hug. But he and Arthur embraced properly, as they always do.
‘It’s social media, Granddad,’ Arthur explains. ‘It’s a way of sharing what you’re doing with your followers.’
Dad nods gravely, apparently taking this in. In Harry Vance’s world, ‘social’ means a few drinks at the Anchor and ‘media’ amounts to the BBC news, supplemented – for the really hard-cutting stuff – with the Sgadansay Gazette. ‘D’you have social media, Arthur?’ Dad asks.
‘Yeah, ’course I do.’ He smiles.
‘He’s a bit young for it really,’ I add, ‘but I couldn’t see any harm in it.’
‘Oh, it is awfully young,’ Meg remarks in a surprised tone. Christ, it’s only Instagram we’re talking about, not vodka.
‘So who are these followers?’ Dad wants to know.
Arthur shrugs. ‘Just, y’know, my friends and stuff—’
‘Do you have them too?’ Dad turns to Meg, who’s perched neatly on the edge of the ancient armchair as if wary of fully settling into it.
‘Yes,’ she tells him patiently, ‘but mine aren’t just my friends. It’s actually a lot broader than that.’ I catch her looking down at the purple mug she’s holding as if trying to muster the strength to sip from it. It bears the logo of a local drain excavation company. I don’t think any of Dad’s mugs have white interiors.
‘You know them, though, don’t you?’ He studies her with a mixture of wariness and awe.
‘Not in real life, no,’ she replies, at which he looks even more confused since, as far as he’s concerned, real life is the only life there is.
‘So what do they want?’ he asks. ‘These followers, I mean?’
Meg’s mouth twitches. ‘They just want to see pictures of your lifestyle. It’s a way of sharing your aesthetic – a
kind of window into your world.’
‘Oh,’ he remarks, and as our conversation swerves towards more familiar territory of the weather (islanders discuss it obsessively), I can’t help wondering what Dad’s Instagram would be like.
So far, I’ve avoided mentioning the distillery. Understandably, it only seems to rile him to the point of simmering fury, and that’s the last thing I want to do while we’re here. Instead, I quiz him about Sgadansay gossip, and we learn that Mr Ross’s cat was found ‘flattened in the road’ and someone I don’t even know had to have a section of colon removed – all the uplifting local news. Once that’s all been covered, Dad announces that he’ll ‘get the tea on’ (the evening meal is always tea here; never dinner or, God forbid, supper). I follow him into the kitchen and offer to help. However, he says he doesn’t need help and I slope away like a dog sent out of the room.
‘Show Meg where the bathroom is!’ he calls after me, as if she might have continence issues. Arthur trots upstairs happily – he loves his little box room here – and Meg and I follow behind with our suitcases.
‘This is … cosy,’ she murmurs, stooping to avoid cracking her skull on the eaves. As I grew up in this house, I’m familiar with its quirky angles and do that automatically.
I smile at her. ‘Dad seemed a bit shy with you. I forget he can be like that sometimes.’
‘He’s probably just not used to meeting new people,’ she remarks which, whilst true, still rankles a little. I tell myself that she probably didn’t mean to sound patronising. As she peruses the room I wonder what she’s making of the yellow woodchip walls, the green tasselled lampshade over the centre light, and the washed-out purple duvet cover that’s been in use since I was a child. We haven’t seen much of each other since her parents’ party; crazy-busy with work, she’d explained. I know she sees clients at home sometimes outside her normal hours. I haven’t mentioned the polyamory thing again; it’s in her past and I guess it’s none of my business. Nor have I gone into details of what happened to Arthur’s mum, beyond the basics, because I haven’t wanted to get into how I could have done things differently and made everything better.
When she asked me that night, I brushed her off with, ‘I’ve told you already. We split up and she disappeared. I’ve tried to track her down but eventually I had to give up.’
‘There’s more to it than that,’ she insisted. ‘I can tell.’
‘I really don’t want to rake it all up, Meg.’
‘You’re so bloody private!’ she’d exclaimed, turning away irritably before falling into a deep sleep. And the next morning, she hadn’t mentioned it again.
There’s some clanking about downstairs now. ‘Just going out to the chippy,’ Dad shouts up.
‘Dad,’ I call back, ‘if we’re having fish suppers I’ll go and get them—’
‘No, only chips. I’ve got the rest sorted.’ The front closes, and he’s gone.
Back in the living room now, I scan the place for signs that Dad has allowed things to deteriorate since Arthur and I came up a few weeks ago. That time, he’d seemed determined to show that he was doing okay, that he wasn’t missing his job one bit. And thankfully the place is still neat and tidy, if a little oppressive. With all its dark wooden furniture, the room feels like a tiny antique shop that never properly fills with light.
An inviting aroma is drifting through, of something warming in the oven. Meg wanders through to the kitchen. ‘Ricky?’ she calls out. ‘Come here a minute, would you?’
‘What is it?’
‘I want you to see this.’ She appears in the kitchen doorway and gives me what I can only interpret as a look of mild disgust.
Christ, what’s Dad left lying about in there? Don’t say it’s an old pair of underpants or, worse, some titillating reading material. I’ve never imagined him as a consumer of that kind of stuff, but maybe the lack of a job to go to has made him start acting out of character. Looking faintly seasick again, Meg turns back into the kitchen. I hurry through to find her glaring down at the offending item.
‘Oh,’ I say, laughing now. It’s not a porn mag sitting there in plain view on Dad’s kitchen table. It’s just a hardcore Scotch pie.
She gives me a pained look. ‘D’you think that’s what we’re having for dinner?’
‘It’s a bit small for four of us,’ I reply.
‘It’s not the size of it, Ricky. It’s just … I’ve never eaten a mutton pie in my life.’
‘They’re actually really good,’ I remark. ‘Me and Arthur always get one at the football—’
‘We’re not at the football now, are we?’
‘It’s only mutton,’ I venture.
‘Yeah, mutton and about a gallon of grease. If you squeezed one you could lubricate the engine on that ferry—’
I’m laughing now – I can’t help it – as she flings open the oven door and jabs a finger at four similar pies warming on a tray. ‘Why did he leave that one on the table?’ she barks.
‘Um, maybe it’s spare in case anyone fancies two?’ She scowls at me. ‘Just have the chips then,’ I add. ‘Don’t feel obliged to eat it—’ I stop as the front door opens and Dad strides in with a carrier bag containing cartons of delicious-smelling chips.
Arthur trots downstairs, announcing, happily, ‘Scotch pies!’ as Dad tips baked beans from a can into a Tupperware bowl and blasts them in the microwave. Ping!
‘Erm, can I help?’ Meg asks, still looking squeamish.
‘No, you’re fine, love,’ Dad says briskly, now extracting a white sliced loaf from the bread bin. He plucks four slices from the packet, whacks them onto a chipped plate and spreads them liberally with margarine. As I lift plates from the wall cupboard, Arthur opens a drawer and grabs a bunch of ancient cutlery, which looks as if it might have been rescued from a shipwreck.
Dad serves dinner up, and as the male contingent tucks in, Meg prods hesitantly at her pie’s pastry lid. Clearly mustering courage, she nibbles at a tiny forkful and swallows it down. As for Dad, for whom having a stranger in his house is in fact a massive deal, he is clearly making an effort in his own, gruff way. After all, baked beans come under the banner of ‘vegetable’ and normally we’d just be having pie and chips.
‘So, what d’you do for a job then?’ he asks her, which strikes me as some kind of miracle. Dad isn’t a so-what-do-you-do? kind of man. As Meg pokes at her rapidly cooling chips, she explains what an alternative therapy practitioner actually does. Dad seems fine with the massage and even the acupuncture parts, but I suspect she’s lost him as she describes the concept of ear candling.
‘I place one end of the candle into my client’s ear,’ she explains, ‘and light it.’
‘You put a lit candle in someone’s ear?’ Dad gasps.
‘Not the lit end, no. The pointy end—’
‘Why would you do that to someone?’ he exclaims as if she’s just described her preferred method of assault.
She places her cutlery beside her barely touched dinner. ‘I use hollow candles,’ she explains. He fails to look reassured by this. ‘And the flame creates suction that helps to draw out the impurities,’ she adds.
I catch Arthur trying, unsuccessfully, to suppress a grin. We’ve discussed this candling thing between ourselves, and whilst I didn’t want to give the impression that I was running down my girlfriend’s profession, I had to admit that I was doubtful about its effectiveness. At best, I imagined that the client would be lucky to avoid injury.
‘And people pay money for that?’ Dad asks.
‘They do,’ Meg says, ‘and they always seem a lot lighter, and happier, after a session—’
‘Probably because you’ve taken the candle out,’ Dad quips, which makes Arthur splutter, and when I turn to Meg I see that she’s managed to muster a smile too.
The mood has lifted, and as I clear the table I decide that Dad might take a little time to warm up, but he’ll soon get to know my girlfriend and become used to having her around. As for Meg, she�
��ll understand that there are no grazing tables or toasted coconut granola around here, and as long as she doesn’t try to stuff a candle into Dad’s ear, everyone will get along fine.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Suzy
Scout slept at the foot of my bed last night. He stretches, yawning with an audible yowl as I get up to make an instant coffee, and I lift him up into my arms so we can watch the island waking up from our window. It’s not yet seven-thirty and the sky is mottled purple streaked with gold.
After I’ve dressed and showered we head out for the morning walk that’s already become a natural part of our day. Only now, the leafy residential streets of York have been replaced by narrow lanes that cut between the shops and fishermen’s cottages, leading us to the harbour and onwards towards the silvery beach. The sky is brightening, the purplish tones turning to mauve, then a pale, clear blue. By the time we return to the hotel, bright April sunshine is beaming brightly onto its flaking facade.
‘Is it okay to bring my dog in?’ I ask the girl on duty in the breakfast room.
‘Of course it is,’ she says, looking surprised that I’d even thought he might not be allowed. She looks no older than fifteen and, after bringing my oddly comforting bendy white toast, poached eggs and coffee, she disappears. Despite this being the start of the Easter holidays, no other guests show up for breakfast and we haven’t yet seen – or heard – any evidence of anyone else staying here.
Back in my room now, I conduct a meeting via Zoom, during which I explain to a senior man at our bottle suppliers that I am in the process of trying to take over the business by myself, as well as focusing hard on getting things back on track. ‘But you’ve lost key personnel,’ he points out, not unreasonably.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘our head distiller resigned, unfortunately. But I’m on the island now – that’s one of the reasons for me being here, to see what I can do about that. And, in the meantime, the team here are all experienced—’