Where Have All the Boys Gone?

by Jenny Colgan

  Harry smiled at her. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid your coming up with ideas part of the job is over. Now, you’re just helping us with crowd control. Come on anyway, we need to get to the office. Louise, we’ll drop you off.’

  ‘Show us your arse!’ shouted three girls at Harry from the street. ‘Is it blue?’

  ‘Crowd control and damage control.’

  ‘Oh my God, we have so much to do,’ said Katie, looking around the familiar office. Paper seemed to have piled up everywhere since she’d been away.

  ‘Hello Derek,’ she said. ‘It’s good to be back. How are you enjoying the influx then? Found a nice girl?’

  Derek didn’t look happy at all. ‘I suppose,’ he said. ‘They’re making a bit of a mess up at the caravan park.’

  ‘Good,’ said Katie. ‘Hopefully all those retired golfers will think it’s an encampment of travellers and run a mile. Gosh, I should have got some of my sister’s old cronies up here, to do naked dances around the trees in the moonlight. How could I not have thought of that?’

  ‘Because you were busy thinking up all the other naked things people could be doing?’ said Harry. He had a pencil in his mouth and was carrying huge sheaves of paper. ‘OK,’ he said. He took a slug of the coffee Katie had brought him. ‘You know, this stuff isn’t actually that bad when you get used to it.’

  ‘Horse piss,’ said Derek. The other two looked up, surprised. ‘Sorry,’ he said, hanging his head. ‘Haven’t been myself lately.’

  ‘OK,’ said Harry. ‘Here’s the to-do list. Number one: “have a ball”. Number two: “stop the golf course”. Number three: “save the forest”.’

  ‘You’ve never written a to-do list before, have you?’ asked Katie gently.

  ‘Uh, why?’ asked Harry, looking defensive.

  ‘No reason. OK, have you got a sub-list for the ball?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A list of all the things you need to sort out for the ball. Tickets and things like that.’

  ‘We’ve sold all the tickets!’ said Harry. ‘In fact, the town shop ran out.’

  ‘Ran out of what?’ said Katie.

  ‘Raffle tickets. That’s what I was using for tickets.’

  Katie took a deep breath. ‘So, for the most exclusive and exciting ball in Scotland…you were using tickets identical to those that can be bought for twenty pence in the local shop?’

  Harry thought about that for a second. ‘But people wouldn’t…they wouldn’t cheat like that, would they? Would they?’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Katie. ‘The rest of them, we’ll just have to see. At least you’ll have the stubs of the tickets, so we can compare serial numbers if we have to.’

  Harry looked at Derek in some consternation. Derek ducked out of the room.

  ‘Uh, yes. Of course we have. No probs. They’re just over…um…’

  ‘OK, what about the food?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry, looking anxious. ‘Aunt Senga is a bit worried. About the sausages and so on.’

  ‘What do you mean, the sausages and so on?’

  ‘Well, making food for five hundred people…that’s going to be a bit of a challenge, don’t you think? Even though Kennedy’s kitchen is gigantic…’

  ‘Hang on – Mrs McClockerty thinks she’s making breakfast for five hundred people?’

  ‘Well, she was going to rope in some of the local boys to help…’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Katie. ‘I think maybe we should call this off right now. Did you know Ewan McGregor’s coming?’

  Harry looked confused. ‘Is he local?’

  ‘Maybe we should just cut our losses and cancel this right now,’ said Katie in despair. ‘How are we going to get by on serving one thousand pieces of toast? Oh God. And I don’t even want to think about what you’re going to do for a bar.’

  ‘Oh yes, the bar,’ said Harry. ‘Yes, well, Kennedy has said we can put up the stalls from the fair.’

  ‘And serve what – squash?’

  ‘Actually, no, hang on…it’s here somewhere…’ Harry scrabbled amongst his pieces of paper.

  Katie sighed. This was going to be an absolute nightmare. She should have known coming back was a terrible idea. She couldn’t work with this man at the best of times, and these were emphatically not the best of times.

  ‘Ah, here it is.’

  He handed her a sheet of expensive paper, with an elegant-looking letterhead.

  ‘Dear Mr Barr,’ it said. ‘After watching your appearance on the Richard and Judy show, we at Tennent’s Brewery wanted to offer you our every support…’

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Katie. ‘Do you know what this is? They’re offering to sponsor us and give us loads of free booze!’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ asked Harry, looking mystified.

  ‘So they can get in the papers of course! It’s a great opportunity for them.’

  ‘Really? There’s one here from some whisky people too.’

  Katie fell on it with alacrity. ‘This is brilliant! You, Harry Barr, could not organise a ball in a game of cricket, but at this rate, they’ll be so drunk, nobody will notice that their four-course meal is actually a slice of bacon that’s only cooked on one side.’

  ‘Well, good,’ said Harry.

  ‘This is fantastic,’ said Katie. ‘Now, seriously, what on earth are we going to do about the food?’

  Harry looked at her with slightly puppyish eyes. ‘Well, of course, there’s always the bakery.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Katie, once she realised what he was thinking.

  ‘Well, there’s nobody else with, you know, big ovens and things.’

  ‘You ask them then! You know them!’

  ‘I know them enough to be very very frightened. Anyway, they hate you already. Whereas I’ve always managed to avoid getting my tyres slashed. This has never been a very tyre-slashy type of town. Please Katie. You know it’s our only hope.’

  And without realising how he’d managed to finesse her into it, Katie found herself agreeing to go the next day and speak to Kelpie about the food.

  ‘It’s like we’ve never been away,’ said Louise, staring around at the glum attic room as Katie arrived back at the house. Even with the sun out it still got no light. Mrs McClockerty had sent down Katie’s stuff, but had charged her for every night it had taken her to get around to it. Unpacking it back into the huge oversized wardrobe was a slightly chastening experience.

  ‘I’d forgotten there was so much entertainment potential in this one room alone,’ said Louise. ‘Let’s go out.’

  Katie felt nervous as they headed out towards the Mermaid. What if she saw Iain? I mean, it wasn’t like he had broken her heart or anything. Getting your heart broken implied love, and romance, and grand passion and all the other things she and Louise had somehow neglected to tick on their ‘Things I’d Like Out Of My Life’ questionnaire.

  But it was as if she’d been granted a glimpse; a crack through the door into what that kind of life could be like. And then, just as she was tantalisingly reaching out a hand, it had been slammed shut.

  Well, they couldn’t stay out of each other’s way indefinitely in this town. And, her nagging heart couldn’t stop reminding her, maybe – just maybe – it wasn’t too late.

  The streets were full of people; it was extraordinary. There were women simply everywhere; the air was heady with the scent of hairspray and fake tan. As they passed by, they raised eyebrows and shot knowing looks at Katie and Louise, as if to include them in the club.

  ‘This sucks!’ said Louise hotly. ‘We should get T-shirts made saying, “we were here first you rancid old slutbags”.’

  ‘Catchy,’ said Katie. She couldn’t believe the change in the place. Oh my God, if Harry had been selling tickets to everyone willynilly – well, they only had a week to the ball. How on earth were they ever going to sort it out?

  ‘Look!’ shrieked Louise. ‘They do have T-shirts.’

  Sure enough, opposite them were
two women who could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty, caked in make-up, favouring the bright red and pink style of Christine Hamilton. Over the top of their button-up shirts they were both wearing T-shirts that read, ‘Going like a blue-arsed fly to the men of Fairlish’.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Louise.

  Katie covered her eyes with her hand. No wonder Harry had called her; he really had been desperate.

  They paused briefly at the door of the Mermaid.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Louise. ‘If they’ve turned it into a theme pub we’ll just turn tail and go home.’

  It wasn’t quite that bad. In fact, as the evening light shone through into the bar, Katie realised that someone had washed the windows.

  ‘Hello Lachlan,’ she said.

  Lachlan’s little head was popping over the bar as usual, but there was something different about him.

  ‘Lachlan – are you wearing a Von Dutch cap?’ asked Louise, moving forward.

  The bar was absolutely spilling over with women. The men were lined up against the windows and the fireplace, with an expression of hunted animals on their faces.

  ‘Why, I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Lachlan. His little pink face was even pinker than usual. Two blondes of uncertain vintage were leaning against the bar, drinking the yellow wine and looking at him in an adoring way.

  ‘Hullo lassies.’

  Louise and Katie looked around nervously. Katie in particular wasn’t exactly sure how popular she’d be with the locals, now she’d brought hermageddon down on them. After all, everything had been just fine before they’d arrived, give or take a forest or two.

  Lachlan’s face, however, had broken into a large grin and he was already reaching up for the vodka bottles. As they moved forward, several of the chaps nodded at them and waved.

  ‘Louise!’ said a booming voice, someone leaped in front of them from the dartboard. Katie thought it might have been Iain, and took a nervous step back, but it was just Craig the Vet.

  ‘Craig!’ squealed Louise. ‘What’s going on? Have you turned half the men into women as some sort of grisly experiment?’

  ‘No,’ said Craig. ‘They all just kind of turned up one day. It’s a bit like that movie.’

  ‘What…if you build it they will come?’ asked Katie.

  ‘No…Dawn of the Dead,’ said Craig the Vet. ‘Can I buy you two a drink?’

  ‘Aren’t you getting me a drink?’ cooed a highly-pitched, instantly grating voice from the corner. There sat a pudgyfaced woman, whose more than ample form was poured into a milkmaid top which laced up at the bodice.

  ‘Um, in a minute,’ said Craig nervously.

  ‘Ah. The new Mrs The-Vet?’ asked Louise brightly.

  ‘No…no, just some woman.’

  ‘I’ll have a double please, Craig dear,’ yelped the newcomer.

  ‘Well, Craig, dear…what on earth has been happening?’ asked Louise.

  Katie, having ascertained that there was no sign of Iain in the bar (almost certainly off in the sand dunes having it away with one of the new residents, she thought immediately), had relaxed a little, and was looking around with interest. Who were these people?

  ‘It was after you were on television – you were very good, by the way,’ said Craig, even though Katie knew this was clearly a lie. ‘Suddenly all the caravans over at Lochmanagruich were booked, just like that. Then they just started arriving. They’re all mad.’

  ‘Craig,’ said Katie. ‘You don’t have a sniff of a woman for years and years, then you turn into every other man on the planet and insist we’re all crazy and you’d never commit to one. Next thing you’ll be saying you like curves on women, then only go out with sticks with grapefruits stapled onto their chests.’

  Craig looked at her. ‘Has being famous gone to her head?’ he said to Louise. ‘I didn’t understand a word of that.’

  ‘She’s ranting,’ said Louise. ‘Now, tell me, how are all the animals?’

  ‘What, all of them? Well, I’ve got this crocodile with dysentery…’

  Katie kept half listening in to the conversation, but wasn’t really that interested. Instead, she took a leisurely look around. There weren’t half the men she remembered from last time.

  ‘It’s great, you know, really,’ said Lachlan to her in a quiet voice. ‘Thanks for all the muff you’ve sent our way.’

  ‘Lachlan!’ said Katie.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Young ladies, that’s what I mean. Young and not so young ladies of course…yes,’ he said, serving two largish women pints of cider and black.

  ‘But, where is…everyone?’

  She meant Iain, but Lachlan didn’t know that of course.

  ‘Well, mostly they’re at home, up to their nuts in guts…sorry, I mean, entertaining some of our new guests. Particularly the techies. It’s been a godsend to them. Although probably a terrible drawback to medical science.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Katie.

  Lachlan mistook her glumness for being offended. ‘I’m sorry about the way I speak…not really used to lassies, you ken what I mean?’

  ‘ ’Course,’ said Katie, watching him beam with pleasure as a curly-haired girl patted him on the head and declared he was just the cutest thing she’d ever seen.

  ‘I think I’m going to bed,’ she said to Louise. ‘I’m knackered. Plus I need to phone Mum and Clara, make sure there’s the bare minimum of psychodrama and knife-fighting going on.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Louise, who was looking genuinely interested in Craig’s story of a deer that had been run over, much to the obvious annoyance of the pudgy blonde in the corner.

  ‘So, you think post-traumatic stress disorder…how fascinating.’

  Outside the pub, it was still sunny, even though it was past nine-thirty in the evening. It felt very peculiar. It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t freezing either, and Katie pulled her cardigan around her and decided. Two women passed by, asking if she knew where there was a nightclub. She shook her head.

  As if by magic, her feet took her straight down to the dockside, near Iain’s house. She wasn’t going to…she definitely wasn’t going to knock on the door or anything, or, heaven forbid, look through the windows. No. Not at all. It didn’t matter if she maybe ran into him on the street, that would be entirely normal, but she certainly wasn’t snooping. And if she saw him, it would be perfectly normal. A normal thing to do in a normal part of town.

  So, given she’d planned it all out so well in her head, it was quite surprising what a terrible shock she got when Iain swung around down the stairs of the narrow little alleyway with his arm around the shoulder of a blonde.

  Immediately Katie backed into the shadows, until she was actually hiding behind another house. She could feel her heart race, as if it had just had a bad shock. Oh, she had to stop being so ridiculous. What did she think, that Iain, a man with whom she had had unbelievably bad sex once, ages ago, was going to be mooching around, dreaming only of her, calling her name at night, waiting for the moment he could saddle up his big white steed and ride off to scoop her up? Life wasn’t like that. Life wasn’t anything like that. Not in Katie’s life. In Katie’s life you couldn’t find a boyfriend, and you got mugged, and your family was completely dysfunctional and you kept losing your job. That was your life. She remembered, horribly, the last time she was upset down by the docks, and who had cheered her up, then she turned around and ran all the way back to Water Lane.

  She couldn’t have wanted to face Kelpie less the next day. She felt terrible, far worse than – she tried to rationalise – their brief flingette deserved. This was pain out of proportion, and it stung, and the last thing she wanted to do now was face down some Valkyrie.

  She’d have liked to have roped Louise in, but she was absolutely nowhere to be seen. Probably off fixing crows’ broken wings or something stupid like that. Well, it wasn’t like she wasn’t getting used to being on her own. The morning’s headline had been, ‘HUGE TOURIST BOOST FOR FAIRLISH MAKES GOLF CO
URSE UNNECESSARY’. She bet he’d had a huge boost, she thought. Probably more than one. At the same time. She shook her head to try to get rid of the mental images, and steeled herself for the pie shop.

  The smell of fresh warm bread, and pies, made Katie breathe deeply in pleasure. Life couldn’t be all bad, she supposed, when you could smell good, fresh bread on a sharp summer morning. How could somebody who made such beautiful bread be evil? It wasn’t possible, surely. She pushed open the door.

  The shop was full, for starters. Full of women, who were pointing at cakes and doughnuts and Mr MacKenzie, and giggling amongst themselves. Suddenly, oddly, Katie felt very protective of her town, and wished they would all go away. She shook herself out of it: next, she’d be reading the Daily Mail.

  Kelpie was standing next to Mr MacKenzie, who was serving as usual; she had a face like thunder, and constantly muttered under her breath as she doled out scones and pancakes to the customers, replying with absolute scorn if anyone asked for flapjacks, foccacia or anything invented after the First World War.

  ‘Look at her,’ said one woman, who had harshly dyed red hair. ‘Bet she’s a bit annoyed there’s a bit of competition around now, huh?’

  ‘God, she’s probably been banged more times than a barn door,’ said a small woman, her voice a mixture of spitefulness and envy. Kelpie flushed to the top of her pinned-on white paper hat and slammed down the paper bag in front of them, muttering something.

  ‘Aww, what’s she saying?’ said the red-haired woman. ‘Do they speak English up here?’

  ‘Well, I’ve not come up to talk to the locals,’ said the short woman, to general laughter.

  Katie gritted her teeth. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, making her way through the crowd. Quite a few of them recognised her and started whispering amongst themselves, a peculiar but strangely gratifying feeling, Katie found. She went right up to the front of the counter, conscious that other people would expect her to be known in the area, and thus popular.

  ‘Um, Kelpie. Uh, can I have a word?’

  Kelpie eyed her suspiciously for a long moment. ‘Why? Hiv you got another coachload of useless fucking London tarts you need to offload on us?’