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The Bookshop on the Shore

Page 26

by Jenny Colgan


  And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight

  Warlocks and witches in a dance;

  Nae cotillion brent-new frae France,

  But hornpipes, jigs strathspeys, and reels,

  Put life and mettle in their heels.

  At this, the band struck up again, slowly starting a waltz. Turning round, Zoe saw the crowd automatically form a circle, and before she knew it, she was dragged into it, a boy on either side, pulling her as they started to leap in a circle.

  As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,

  The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;

  The piper loud and louder blew;

  The dancers quick and quicker flew;

  They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,

  Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,

  And coost her duddies to the wark,

  And linket at it in her sark!

  First round one way, then the other, then they split into couples and Zoe found herself waltzed around, pushed and pulled one way and the other, moving into the centre and back again, as the circle went around, broke, reformed and never stopped moving and the music spiralled ever upwards, and Zoe found she was exhausted and laughing hysterically and dancing maniacally all at once.

  And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch’d,

  And thought his very een enrich’d;

  Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,

  And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main;

  Till first ae caper, syne anither,

  Tam tint his reason ’thegither,

  And roars out, ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark!’

  And in an instant all was dark:

  And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,

  When out the hellish legion sallied.

  At this, the violins all screeched at the same time, and midnight chimed from a great bell held by one of the band, whereupon, to Zoe’s absolute shock, one of the women in white with another great hooded death robe came through the party from the back of the floodlit forest riding a horse, and galloped around the party with a large woven basket from which she discarded great handfuls of golden-sprayed leaves behind her.

  The dancers immediately stopped and charged after her, grabbing at the floating, flying golden leaves as she vanished into the dark forest and they followed to get up to who knew what mischief in the greenwood.

  Completely out of breath and utterly disorientated, Zoe stood glued to the spot as everyone thundered past her, chasing the horse, laughing and shouting moving further and further off. The musicians changed to a more sedate waltz for those few left behind. Zoe’s eyes landed on Ramsay who, laughing to himself with the full ridiculous magnificence of it all, had collapsed back onto the huge throne, one leg dangling over the side as he drank deeply from a large ornate goblet someone had left there.

  Suddenly, in the light of the fire, on the stage with the house behind him, on the oversized chair made from the forest, he ceased to look like the slightly absurd, apologetic figure he made around the house, where he had to stoop to enter most rooms, where his feet were too long for the treads on the stairs, where he constantly looked distracted, as if wherever he was, he truly needed to be somewhere else, glancing at his watch, vanishing to his library, disappearing from the house.

  Here, the cloak thrown back, a rumble of laughter in his chest, he looked like what he truly was for the night: like a lord of misrule. Zoe moved forward, hypnotised. He looked like someone totally different – powerful and in command and . . . dangerous? But not in the way she had ever thought before. Rather he looked – as the flames licked the side of the big red sandstone house, as the shadows flickered on the walls – elemental and at home in this place.

  And she felt a jolt deep inside her – something thick and visceral, that she hadn’t felt for a long time, that she had thought she might never feel again. In the heat of the flames and the sharp bright noise she felt, as if from nowhere, an absolute bolt of desire.

  He couldn’t see who it was in front of the stage; the fire was crackling in his eyeline. Her dress, she noticed now, was almost entirely torn away below the knees, and she was completely filthy – mud up her legs from looking for Hari at the shore, smuts from the fire in her face, her hair blown everywhere by the wind. She was very pink and without even thinking, held up her arms.

  Ramsay, carried away, rather drunk on the spirit of the night as much as anything else, without thinking for two seconds reached down his long arm, and scooped her up on stage, pulling the gorgeous girl into a dance, spun her around – he was tall enough he could do this while still sitting down – and pulled her close.

  ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark,’ he said, pulling her close and tight to him and Zoe suddenly felt the oddest sensation: she realised she was feeling desperate to be in his arms, desperate to be held by him. He was so very large and broad, she felt herself practically disappear inside him, as if she herself was folded into something very small and very safe. She felt his heartbeat, his great chest pressed against her small one, and found herself moving her head to bury herself in it. He smelt of burning wood, of whisky, of books, of everything Zoe wanted most in the world.

  Then the violins and the pipes crashed in and he spun her out and then realised – Zoe saw – to his absolute horror that the girl he had picked from the melee was— Well, it was her.

  His face, which only a moment before had been proud, wild, not a little frightening as he had spoken the strange language of the poem he was reading, instantly adjusted as if he was coming back down to earth, as if the fire was dying down and he instead remembered everything that was real, and real life came flooding back to both of them, and he blinked and wrinkled his forehead in a way she recognised incredibly well and said, in a very different voice, apologetic and somewhat stuttery, ‘Ah, Nanny Seven . . . I mean, Zoe . . .’

  And Zoe went from feeling like a whirling dervish in her red silk dress and wild hair and inflamed heart dancing like the wind in bare feet in front of a great fire, to feeling like a rather dirty London au pair girl in a torn dress, her make-up everywhere – she must, she realised, look absolutely ridiculous.

  ‘Sorry, I . . .’

  ‘I didn’t mean to grab you,’ said Ramsay, dropping her hand as if it were hot. ‘Oh God. I’m so sorry . . . I got a little carried away . . .’

  He suddenly looked terrified, as if she was about to accuse him of something.

  ‘Of course it was completely inappropriate, I . . .’

  Zoe shook her head.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s fine,’ she said, her brain too fizzing with disappointment and embarrassment to say anything else. She realised suddenly how cold she was in the light dress, and as the revellers started to return from the trees, laughing and clutching the gold-sprayed leaves, and a queue started to form where they were turning the huge roast pig, she suddenly felt utterly absurd.

  ‘I’ll . . . I’ll just go check on the children,’ she stammered.

  ‘Um, of course, of course,’ said Ramsay, and he gently gave her his arm to help lower her down from the stage, and even as she leaned against him, Zoe couldn’t get away from how ridiculous she felt, what a fool – what an utter fool – she had nearly made of herself. Her heart pounded as she walked, head down as if disgraced, telling herself over and over again she had got carried away with the alcohol, with the night. Nothing had happened. Nothing.

  Ramsay watched her go, feeling more of a clot than ever. What on earth was he thinking? What a ridiculous . . . Oh God. For a moment, before he’d realised it was her, he had simply thought she was . . . he felt embarrassed to even think of it. A beautiful apparition. A dark-haired, scarlet-clad witch conjured up on Halloween night, lovely and liable to slip away; free and wild and so sexy . . .

  What had he been thinking? He had suddenly wanted to . . . his children’s nanny. Christ on a bike, he’d end up in the papers. He rubbed his forehead wearily and turned back to the revellers, but the high point of the evening had been and gone, and the
re was little to do now except mingle politely with those of his guests still sober enough to stand up straight, and thank the local boys and girls who’d turned up with the bin bags.

  He didn’t realise they had been observed, the flickering long white dress and long dark hair of a girl who could have been a ghost or a spirit child in the halls; a thin girl sitting alone in her room, staring through the curtains in the dark, sleepless, waiting, who had seen it all and was now sure that the worst would happen.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The oncoming winter weather hadn’t halted the flow of tourists at all. Zoe had thought that tourism in Scotland, like most places, would be seasonal, but had found out that on the whole it was fairly constant – nobody expected good weather any month of the year, so it didn’t really make much difference when you came. And it added to people’s joy if they got one of the glorious, bright clear autumns, or bursting, frenzied springtimes when they were expecting heavy rain.

  So in fact there were rather more tourists, as the weather grew darker and many people quite liked the idea of sitting in a coach for lots of the day rather than having to walk about. And news of the van had started to grow; the coach driver (out of shame, Zoe was convinced, for his lying over the accident) had spread the word about the book van, and now there was quite the parade of bibliophiles, so much so that the coach driver (whose name was Ross) was considering launching a reading tour, and had actually bought several books himself and made a little library corner just next to the toilet, a rather unfortunate placement, but space was highly limited and it was better than nothing.

  Meanwhile, Zoe had also started bringing Shackleton down on the weekends (to avoid inevitable questions about why he wasn’t in school) and setting him to work for a few hours in the kitchen with Agnieszka.

  The joy he got from managing to turn out some immaculate scones made them incredibly happy, and from then on a steady stream of delicious baked goods was provided and Shackleton earned some money for his efforts, and it touched Zoe greatly when he spent the first lot on two Superman costumes for Patrick and Hari, although it got slightly more wearisome when the boys refused to take them off under any circumstances and, when finally peeled off, would both sit in front of the new washing machine until it was done and would run about in front of the fire in their tiny underpants until their costumes had dried, teaming up to fight crime that normally ended up in them kicking Mary (although to be fair they mostly tried to aim for her good leg).

  One evening, Zoe was watching them do this as she stirred a risotto on the stove and trying to protect Mary – who was refusing to move from the window seat where she was reading The Secret Garden or to stop dangling her leg down which frankly would have minimised the amount of damage the boys could do and was generally acting as more of as a provocateur than anything else – and shoo away Porteous, who would scamper in and out of the boys’ games, then pop back to see if Zoe had dropped any rice, then the tail would be off again. Everyone was trying to get Shackleton to stop playing the new Drake song on his laptop by making fun of it mercilessly which was making him angry and riled, defending his idol.

  Ramsay popped his head round the door as he came home, cold and tired after a long drive, with a lot of work to do and, remembering well the bleeping, angry, cold evenings of the past, was surprised and amazed to see the noise and laughter emanating from the kitchen, the warmth and good smells and good heavens, was Shackleton dancing? Even Mary was smiling! Then he remembered the night of the Samhain and, beside himself with embarrassment, was about to withdraw when—

  ‘DADDY!’ hollered Patrick, who for some reason was wearing nothing but his underpants, which appeared to have holes in them. The little boy tore towards him, followed by, Zoe noticed, her heart slightly breaking, Hari, both running towards the tall figure kneeling on the ground.

  Oh please, she thought. Oh please. She hadn’t heard from Jaz for so long. She knew it was awful – he had to come visit, he had to. She texted him, sent pictures on WhatsApp, but nothing.

  And she knew it was bad for Hari. Everything else was better, she kept telling herself fiercely. The house, the companionship, the fresh air, even the nursery. Everything. She was doing the right thing.

  But oh, he needed a dad. She turned her face away, unable to watch, but Ramsay, unprompted, without even a pause in what he was doing, simply took Hari’s curly head under his huge hand, pulled him in. ‘Hello, little man,’ he said.

  Zoe looked up and didn’t realise how desperately anxiously she was looking at Hari until Ramsay noticed it and released the little boy, straightening up from everyone.

  ‘Um . . . supper smells good,’ he said. Zoe blinked.

  ‘You want to eat with us?’

  ‘Well . . . if that’s all right?’

  ‘It’s your house,’ said Zoe a little shortly. ‘Of course it’s all right.’

  She was still embarrassed by the visceral reaction she had had to him; how in an instant it felt – unfairly, horribly – that everything was different, and they both blushed.

  ‘Right then,’ said Ramsay at the exact same moment as Zoe’s phone pinged, and she glanced down and saw that it was Jaz.

  * * *

  The first thing Zoe realised, as she went out to read the message, was that at some point – she couldn’t remember when – she’d stopped following his Insta. That was odd. She had been poring over it every day for so long, examining every picture, trying to see who was in the background, whether it was the same person, the same girl . . .

  When had that stopped? When had she stopped thinking about him like that, worrying away obsessively at the thought of him, like picking a scab she knew she should leave alone? And now . . .

  ‘Coming to see boy, yeah,’ it said. Then: ‘Where the FUCK are you?’

  ‘Scotland,’ she typed cheerily. ‘Get to Inverness.’

  ‘You in Inverness?’

  ‘Three hours away.’

  ‘FFS.’

  She sent him a happy emoji. ‘H. desperate to see you.’

  ‘Is he talking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right. Well, least it wasn’t my fault.’

  Zoe stared at the screen. Leave it, she told herself. Leave it. He didn’t know what he was saying. He never did. That was the problem.

  ‘When will we see you? Will send postcode.’

  ‘What’s house number?’

  ‘Doesn’t have one. It has its own postcode.’

  ‘You’ve landed on your feet then.’

  Zoe felt her own feet freezing through the cold stone of the kitchen floor and told herself again: don’t fall for it. Don’t. Don’t react. Just think about Hari. He’s the only one who matters.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Landing 11.15. Tomorrow. Will rent a car.’

  Zoe swallowed back the bitterness of that blithe statement. Just renting a car at random. Throwing down a credit card without looking at it.

  ‘Good,’ she sent back. ‘Text me when you land.’

  And then, all thoughts for the day flown, she turned and stared into the room, her heart beating fast, wondering what the hell to do now.

  Would he want to stay over? She hadn’t thought to ask. Maybe she’d leave it. She didn’t want to prejudice him one way or the other. Where? There were a million empty rooms . . . What would Mrs MacGlone say? Oh God, would Jaz be rude to her? Or expect to stay in her room . . . No. He wouldn’t.

  She banished those thoughts from her mind, paced up and down, threw cold water on her face. When should she tell Hari? He’d go nuts, presumably. Although she would enjoy telling him. But then again, what if Jaz changed his mind? Or the flight got delayed or something went wrong? That would be worse than anything. She’d leave it, and then pick him up early.

  Oh God. She . . . Damn it, why did she only have that stupid red dress to wear? She badly needed a haircut; she’d given up on her nails altogether; she had absolutely nothing at all to wear . . . dammit dammit dammit. Not that she wanted t
o impress him – she’d passed that stage a long time ago – but she wanted to show him she was doing fine. Not so fine that she didn’t need money but . . . okay. Fine.

  Could she just ask him straight out? She’d text Surinder, see what the situation was maybe?

  Oh God, why did he have to do this to her? She stomped down through the quiet house, her arms wrapped round her – why did it have to be so cold? – and into the blessedly heated kitchen. She could have hugged the stove. She barely noticed that Ramsay was already in there, dressed in a checked shirt, reading the TLS, the kettle boiling.

  ‘Shackleton, could you finish supper?’ she managed to ask, then beat a retreat until they were done and she could put the boys to bed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I never thought,’ Kirsty said as they sat sheltering inside the van in Kirrinfief the next morning, ‘that I would be giving beauty tips. I am quite proud of myself.’

  ‘I know,’ said Zoe. ‘I’ve just completely given up.’

  ‘What does he look like?’ said Kirsty. ‘I’m genuinely interested. I’ve been married for six years. He picks his nose.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘ALL. THE. TIME.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Zoe.

  ‘So. A bit of excitement is definitely worth it. Let me have a look.’

  Zoe pulled up Jaz’s Insta.

  ‘Ooh,’ said Kirsty. ‘Ooh, look at him. He’s very handsome. I like his beard.’

  ‘These are very flattering photographs,’ said Zoe.

  ‘I realise that. I’ve already taken off the Instagram thirty per cent. I look like a size eight in all of mine.’

  ‘Why?’ said Zoe.

  Kirsty sighed. ‘I do not know. Probably to bamboozle an evil girl I went to school with who lives in Australia now.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Zoe, nodding understandably.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Kirsty, ‘here’s the full sample range.’

  ‘I can’t take all this,’ said Zoe as Kirsty opened up a full Avon box.

  ‘You can,’ said Kirsty. ‘It’s Mum’s. Her best mate got divorced and became an Avon lady and my mum felt sorry for her and bought up absolutely everything and now her house is full of it. I’m doing her a favour really.’

 

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