Hearthstone Cottage

by Frazer Lee

  Just as Mike was taking his shot, the two men slapped each other on the back and clinked their glasses in loud agreement.

  “Oh, but now he’s gone and fouled on the black,” the first old man said.

  Mike’s heart sank into his stomach as he watched the curveball rebound off the cushion, potting the eight ball – and losing him the game. Mike saw something unpleasant in the old fellow’s gap-toothed grin before his face reverted to a ruddy-cheeked mask of soft inebriation again.

  “Let’s hope he’s better with a shotgun!” he said, chuckling.

  “Aye, for all our sakes,” his friend said, “or we’ll all be dead!”

  To Mike’s dismay, Alex joined in with their laughter.

  “Loser gets the next round in, mate. Just a half, I’ve got to drive you back,” Alex said. “Hey, can he get you anything, gents?”

  “Well, if he insists,” joked the first old man, “a stout for me, and a scotch and a splash of soda for my pal here.”

  “Aye. I had a bit of a turn the other week.”

  “Oh, sorry to hear that,” Alex said, taking the bait.

  “The doctor said I was dehydrated,” the old man went on, “and ever since then, I’ve been taking a little drop of water in my whisky.”

  They fell about with laughter once again, and, to Mike’s immediate annoyance, Alex looked to be in cahoots with them.

  Mike nodded as politely as he could through his grimace and trudged over to the bar. He ordered a pint and a half for himself and Alex, and the stout and scotch for the old locals. When the scotch arrived, it smelled so good that he ordered a chaser for himself. His mood had soured after losing the pool game, but Mike knew that the graveyard had rattled him most of all. Must be losing his mind. He blinked away the unpleasant memory of seeing his name engraved on tombstone after tombstone. After downing the whisky in one desperate gulp, he delivered the drinks to the old men, who took them eagerly but without thanking him. Passing Alex his half pint, Mike watched the eldest of the two men breaking the colorful triangle of balls.

  “Shouldn’t the winner break?” Mike asked.

  “Aye,” Alex replied, “but try telling this pair of jokers that.”

  Mike took a sip of beer. It cooled the whisky-induced fire at the back of his tongue. He could do this all day. Just as he thought it, though, the door to the saloon bar opened and he heard the familiar voices of the girls.

  “Surprise, surprise! Told you they’d be boozing in here,” Helen said to Kay and Meggie. She walked past the pool table, under the watchful gaze of the two old men, and gave Mike a kiss. Mike kissed her back, relieved that her mood seemed better than it had been earlier.

  “How many have you had?” she asked.

  “This is only my second,” Mike replied, and set his pint glass down. He swayed slightly on his feet, despite willing himself not to.

  “Liar,” Helen said. “You stink of whisky, you old drunk.”

  An eruption of laughter came from the two locals by the pool table. Mike couldn’t tell if they were laughing at him or just in general. He craned his neck around Helen to see that the one playing pool had missed his shot, and also caught his friend eyeing up Helen’s backside.

  “What is it? You seem rattled.”

  “It’s nothing,” Mike said, pretending not to see the old man’s beady eyes.

  “He’s just a sore loser,” Alex cut in, making an ‘L’ shape on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger.

  “Aw, did the nasty man beat you?” Helen asked, giggling.

  Mike felt himself blush and reached for his pint. The act of taking a sip put a distance between him and Helen and the men at the pool table with their unwelcome glances.

  Over at the bar, Kay was ordering vodkas. “Still off the sauce?” she asked Helen, who nodded and asked if she could have a lime and soda. “Sure,” Kay replied, and Mike detected a sharp look in her eyes, the same jealous disdain he’d witnessed during their walk in the woods.

  “I’m all right, hun,” Alex said from across the pool table.

  “You bet you are, mister,” Kay said flatly. “You’re driving us girls back just as soon as we’re done with these.”

  “Don’t mind, do you?” Meggie asked. “You know I don’t like to drink and drive.” She was already sipping her vodka.

  “Like I have a bloody choice,” Alex growled as he cued up his next shot.

  * * *

  Mike noticed the poster he had affixed to the church advertising board outside Saint Andrew’s had disappeared. He thought the wind must have snatched it away, though the afternoon air was now still. As he followed the others back up the lane toward the general store, he saw that the fat cat was absent too. It was as though it had been window dressing, arranged to amuse tourists on their way to the pub. The street was deserted once more, as it had been earlier, and an empty feeling hung heavy over the slate roofs, which were as drab and gray as the clouds above them.

  The warm, fuzzy feeling from the booze helped Mike up the steep part of the hill. After reaching the general store, the girls went inside to collect the groceries the shopkeeper had put aside for them. Mike helped carry a couple of bags laden with tins and packets to Meggie’s car, which was parked around the corner in the only occupied parking bay. The venerable hatchback could just about carry three passengers, but with all the shopping in tow, four were too many. Helen offered to wait with him, but Mike said not to bother; he could wait until Alex returned to pick him up. He put on his best and brightest smile in order to conceal his true intent. No sooner had the car disappeared from view than Mike ducked inside the shop.

  The interior gave the impression someone had stopped the clock circa 1973. Mike suspected some, if not all, of the stock had originated in that decade. Many of the shelves were half – or even completely – empty. The others displayed seemingly random pairings of goods. An empty carton that once housed hot chocolate sachets rubbed cardboard shoulders with a stack of lurid pink-and-green sponge scourers. An assortment of different fruit-flavored jelly cubes occupied dusty shelf space with a stack of glue-backed envelopes, the kind you had to lick in order to seal. Mike pondered that the jelly could come in handy if you had the misfortune to lick one of the envelopes, which appeared wrinkled from the advent of a few too many wet autumns.

  Frowning at the musty smell emanating from the envelopes, Mike made his way toward the rear of the shop. He gave a carousel of dubious-looking dried meat products a wide berth. Each was shriveled beneath its shrink-wrap, giving the pinkest of the snacks the disturbing aspect of severed tongues. One, paler and more yellow in hue than the others, looked like a pig’s ear. After glimpsing what looked like a tuft of fine hair beneath the clear plastic, Mike hurried past the display.

  Tucked away behind the gruesome carousel, Mike located his prize. Wall-mounted shelves groaned beneath the weight of dusty bottles, which Mike investigated eagerly, wiping away the dust with his thumb to reveal the labels. Cheap red wines stood alongside bottles of port and sherry. To his delight, this dark little corner with its dusty bottles was also the most generously stocked part of the shop. He stood on tiptoes to survey the lineup on the top two shelves, where the bottles of spirits stood proudly above their cheaper associates. There were a few blended whiskies and fairly decent brands of gin and vodka on offer. But it was the good stuff that Mike craved. He was on holiday, after all.

  “Help you at all?”

  Mike almost cried out in surprise at the sudden intrusion. He turned to see a diminutive shopkeeper standing next to the dried meats. She too looked like she had been preserved here in the shop since the earlier Seventies. Her greasy and gray-brown hair was clamped away from her high forehead with a hairclip, revealing a line of acne scars above her eyebrows. The National Health frames of thick spectacles framed her doughy face. Her hands were tucked firmly in the front pockets of a burgundy tabard, whic
h she wore over a beige sweater and dark green trousers. Mike noticed a pair of scissors poking out of another pocket at her breast.

  “I’m…just looking for a good single malt,” he said.

  “Ah, after a wee dram, are we?” She smiled, revealing a row of crooked and discolored teeth. “I keep the best behind the counter.”

  She turned and headed back to the front of the shop, turning the carousel of dried meats with one fat little hand as she did so. The display squeaked against its rusted old baseplate, and Mike was reminded of a turnstile at a rainy fairground he had visited as a child, as he navigated his way past the disturbing shrink-wrapped packages.

  “Now,” the woman said in a high-pitched voice, “was it the twelve, the fifteen, or something even older you were after?”

  “Depends on the price,” Mike said brazenly, his eyes scanning some out-of-date mint chocolate bars stacked in little wooden compartments beneath the counter.

  Perhaps sensing a premium retail opportunity, the shopkeeper turned her back on him and began rummaging on the lower shelves behind her. He noticed her spine was crooked beneath her sweater and tabard. Her deformed back had forced her shoulders to lean toward the left. The unfortunate outcome was that she had a slight hump beneath her left shoulder. Mike found it at once repulsive and comical.

  She turned sharply, holding a bottle in her hands, so sharply that she made him jump. Recognition flickered in her drab eyes behind those thick spectacles, and Mike wondered if she knew he had been staring at her twisted back.

  “My husband made this, at his own still not two miles from here, where the old village well still stands. It’s twenty years old now, the perfect age at which to enjoy it.”

  Mike began to wonder why the village well would be two miles away from the actual village, when she held out the bottle for him to take. It was heavy in his hands and had no label. He lifted it up to the dirty light of the shop window and saw that it had a beautiful golden color. The cork had been fixed into place with dark green sealing wax.

  “Not much older than you, I’d wager,” she added, and Mike felt queasy to see a flicker of scalloped tongue poke out from between her thin lips.

  “How much?” he asked, craving fresh air. He needed to be out of this shop, with its dust and dandruff.

  “Twenty-five,” she replied. “Just over a pound a year. Not a bad price for a tried-and-true local malt.”

  “I’ll take it,” Mike replied. He fished out two notes from his pocket and handed them over. He winced as the shopkeeper’s greasy fingers brushed his when she took the money from him.

  “I’ll wrap it up for you, so you can deliver it home safely,” she said, pocketing the money in her tabard where she kept her scissors. She first wrapped the bottle in a sheet of brown paper before putting the scissors to use by snipping a length of twine. She tied the package off with a limp bow and handed it over to Mike. “If you like it, perhaps you’ll buy some more to take home with you? A souvenir of Hearthstone Cottage.”

  “How did you know—” Mike began to ask, then saw that crooked, toothed smile again.

  “The girls who came in before you said that’s where you’re all staying,” the shopkeeper replied. “Nice girls,” she added, managing to make it sound slightly like an insult.

  “I’m sure I’ll be back for more,” Mike said, trying to sound friendly. He felt relieved to be leaving the shop and hoped Alex would not be too long picking him up. Maybe he would crack open the seal on the whisky and give it a taste.

  “I haven’t much left anymore,” the shopkeeper said, then sighed. “Twenty years. One for every year since my poor husband passed.”

  “Oh, I’m – I’m sorry,” Mike said.

  “His last batch.” The woman’s eyes darkened behind the lenses of her glasses. “Enjoy it,” she said as Mike slipped out through the door and onto the dusky street.

  He heard the bell chime as the door swung shut behind him. The sound of the creaking door made him think of the groans of a dying old man. Glancing up the lane, he saw the top of the church bell tower looming shadow-gray above the slate roofs of the houses, the saltire flag hanging limp and lifeless. He found a low wall to perch on a short distance from the shop and cracked open the whisky.

  * * *

  “Found this sorry excuse for a university graduate drinking whisky at the roadside.”

  Alex chuckled and slapped Mike on the back. Helen took one look at the unlabeled bottle in Mike’s hand and rolled her eyes.

  “What on earth have you got there?” she asked. “Hooch?”

  Mike held the bottle aloft proudly. “Actually, it’s a fine local malt. The shopkeeper’s husband made it at his own whisky still, she said. It’s bloody delicious and bloody strong stuff. Anyone up for a wee dram? Not you, of course, babe.…”

  Helen scowled at him.

  Meggie laughed. “Can’t believe she duped you into buying a whole bottle of MacGregor’s Death Juice.”

  “MacGregor’s what?” Mike felt the color drain from his face.

  “Did she tell you her husband’s dead?”

  “She did. That’s why she only has a few bottles of the good stuff left.…”

  “A few bottles!” Meggie laughed again, and Alex laughed along. “She’s got dozens of them stashed behind that counter of hers. She can’t give them away.”

  “How much did you pay for this?” Helen asked.

  “I’d rather not say,” Mike muttered.

  Helen groaned, and Alex laughed mockingly.

  “Did she tell you how her husband died?” Alex asked matter-of-factly.

  “No, she didn’t. To be honest, she gave me the bloody creeps, that woman. Couldn’t get out of the shop quick enough.”

  Alex took the bottle from Mike’s grip and waved it at him. “He died from drinking this stuff,” he said, chuckling.

  “Give that back,” Mike said. He was sure MacGregor had simply been getting too old to take a drink. He was younger, with an Olympian liver.

  “Don’t,” Helen pleaded from across the room.

  “Buzzkill,” Mike said. “Quitting smoking is one thing, but you never said anything about going bloody teetotal too. What kind of holiday is this?”

  “I don’t know,” Helen replied, “you tell me.”

  An awkward silence fell between them. Mike could feel three pairs of eyes on him. He wished he could just take his bottle of MacGregor’s Death Juice and finish it off down on the jetty. By himself.

  “I’ll tell you what kind of holiday it is,” Alex said, raising his voice as if to purposely break the awkward silence. “It’s the kind where we have grouse for supper tomorrow – if Mike can shoot straight after drinking so much firewater.”

  “Oh, no,” Meggie groaned. “Tell me you guys aren’t going out on a shoot.”

  “Oh indeed we are. Sorry, sis, but we just din’nae do tofu for supper.”

  Mike saw Meggie glance around the room, possibly looking for moral support. Finding none, she turned her attention back to her brother. “Fuck’s sake, Alex. What have those birds ever done to you that you want to go around shooting them dead?”

  “It’s nothing personal, just good sport.”

  “It’s a bloody…blood sport is what it is,” Meggie spat, almost tripping over her words.

  “They’ve had a really good life, those lucky old birds. Fresh Highland air, the best grain to feast on—”

  “To fatten them up, you mean, so they can’t fly too far from stupid men with their stupid guns.”

  “Hey, I resemble that comment,” Alex said in jest, but Meggie wasn’t laughing.

  “All meat is murder,” she replied, drawing a line under her point.

  “Tasty, tasty murder,” Alex taunted.

  “You’re going too?” Meggie’s words to Mike were less of a question and more of an accusation
.

  Mike didn’t know why, but her words made him feel uncomfortable. “Maybe you can…use the feathers in one of your artworks?” he ventured.

  The look on Meggie’s face showed him he had spoken out of turn. She skulked out of the conservatory and into the garden. Seconds later, Mike heard her calling Oscar’s name and whistling to him. “Come on, boy!” Her voice sounded cracked and desperate. He tried not to think of the dead dog, its torn belly undulating with maggots beneath the burial mound he and Alex had built.

  “Give me some more of that whisky,” Mike said to Alex.

  “The Death Juice? You sure?”

  “Just get me a glass, will you, mate?” Mike replied.

  “Think I’ll bloody well join you,” Alex said.

  At that, Helen and Kay marched toward the conservatory door.

  “Hey, where you going?” Mike asked. “You’re not offended by grouse shooting, are you? It’ll be amazing if we bag a couple for our meal.”

  Helen paused at the door and fixed him with a stare. “Fresh air,” she said, her voice icy. “You should try it sometime.”

  “Worry not, laddie, we’ll get plenty of fresh air tomorrow,” Alex said, pouring two generous measures of whisky into their tumblers. “To the shoot.” He raised his glass in a toast.

  “To the shoot,” Mike said.

  They clinked glasses, and Mike enjoyed the sweet burn at the back of his throat. He saw the distant shapes of the girls as they walked toward the loch. Above the water, dark clouds were gathering as though eager to bring the day to an early close.

  Chapter Eleven

  The day of the shoot began in a bit of a haze for Mike. Firstly due to the weather, which had turned overnight into a gloomy, autumnal chill. And secondly because of the additional dram – or three – of MacGregor’s Death Juice that he had put away after the girls had gone to bed. Alex had joined him for a while but had called it a day after his second glass and had advised Mike to do the same.

  Mike just hadn’t been in the mood to cut short his partying, so Alex’s good advice had fallen on deaf ears. And aside from that, Mike had been reluctant to go to bed in case Helen was still awake. She would only have made a scene about him staying up drinking if he blundered into bed while she lay there reading. He had poured himself another ample measure of whisky and had savored each sip while staring into the fire in the hearth. Putting aside all of the nightmares and hallucinations – for that was what they must have been – he had decided there and then to enjoy the rest of his stay at the cottage as much as he could.