by Kiley Dunbar
Then there had been those two brassy Geordies who’d made ‘remarks’ and been overly familiar with him, smirking as he found their keys. They were here for painting lessons with Mr Garstang in his little art gallery-slash-living room along the front.
And there had been a formidable band of posh ladies from Sussex in brand new matching lilac cagoules and blonde bobs, all set up for a week of silversmithing and stained glass workshopping in the next village. They had been quiet and observant as he checked them in. Too quiet for his liking. Their steady exchange of tuts, raised eyebrows and one or two busy dust-sweeping fingertips had told him exactly what they thought of The Princess and the Pea Inn. He’d let them carry their own bags upstairs, too afraid of what they might do when they saw their rooms to accompany them.
Beatrice could see the innkeeper’s mind at work as he rummaged in the pot and she braced herself for more of his confused chatter.
‘Kit… I mean Doctor Wake, the Gaelic teacher, hasn’t arrived yet. The Gaelic lessons are new, you see? She’s on her way, but isn’t expecting to teach anything this week. She’s planning on taking a week’s holiday first, and eh…’ The man gulped at the sight of Beatrice’s stony expression. ‘She, eh… she might no’ mind starting work early, though. But I know your willow-weaving teacher’ll be disappointed you’re no’ glad aboot taking their class…’
Beatrice’s glassy stare was making his fumbling even worse and he couldn’t seem to focus on the room numbers on the key fobs. All the while, she was wondering why the keys weren’t hanging on the little numbered key board with the brass hooks. Fighting hard, she resisted the urge to snatch the box from his hands and hang each one neatly in its place.
The sound of the entire tub clattering onto the floor by the man’s anxiously shuffling feet made Beatrice flinch, her nerves already tested by the long journey from Warwick to Port Willow, a journey she wasn’t adequately prepared for, to say the least.
Had it really only been yesterday she’d made the booking? It seemed like days ago, but she still had the white wine hangover as evidence of the teary, alcohol-soaked afternoon that had led to the sudden rash decision to just get away, to be anywhere other than her silent, empty house.
She hadn’t meant to do it, but that lunchtime glass of wine had been so cold and crisp in the airless English summer afternoon and so welcome after months without touching even a drop of alcohol. By the third glass she found she’d stopped crying and was suddenly swept up in one of the new fits of exuberant high spirits which she didn’t seem to be able to keep a handle on and which were always mixed with agitation and restlessness like she’d never experienced before. To ward off the lingering threat that at any second she might descend into tears and despondency again, she’d put on some music for the first time in a very long time and let Harry Styles’ velvety vocals and the wine whip up her mood into a higher pitch of off-key euphoria.
It hadn’t felt good exactly, but being drunk and suddenly caught up in a new idea was definitely better than the profound depths of sadness that had held her fast for months now. She was going to get away, book an impromptu escape, just for her. Alone.
Watching the man scrabbling on the ground for the keys and bumping his head not once but twice on the same jutting antique leg of the inn’s reception desk she felt the heaviness descending again, its sad weight pouring into the pit of her stomach and draining lead into her limbs. She’d made her escape, but now that she was here, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why she’d wanted to come in the first place.
‘Learn a new skill in a new place,’ the website had enticed. ‘Find a home far from home in the wild western Highlands,’ it boasted.
All it had taken was three clicks of the mouse and the six hundred pounds of her redundancy money that she’d been saving for the buggy with detachable car seat and matching nappy bag, which she’d secretly had her heart set on since Christmas, flew out of her bank account and into the coffers of The Princess and the Pea Inn.
‘Ugh, idiot!’ she scolded under her breath at the hazy memory of it.
The resounding bump of skull against wood and a whimper rose up from beneath the desk, before the exasperated face of the lanky Scot appeared, red-cheeked and puffing.
‘Begging yur pardon?’
‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean you, I was talking to myself… Look, never mind the key. I think I’ve made a mistake. I’ll just head back to the station. Can you issue a refund and I’ll get out of your…’ Her eyes fell on the man’s balding head and the thin, greasy, scraped-over strands barely covering the expanse of bare scalp. ‘Hair,’ she gulped. Biting her lip to stop herself wincing, she looked down at her suitcase, feeling, not for the first time today, utterly stupid.
‘You cannae git a refund now yur here. And besides, that wiz the last train of the day.’
Beatrice’s mouth fell open as the breath pressed out. Her lungs emptied and tightened as she berated herself.
What exactly had she been hoping to find here? Some sunshine? A sense of something fresh and exciting? A new Beatrice? Gaelic lessons, indeed. The wine and one too many lonely binge-watched series of Outlander must have ignited the sudden notion of running away to a remote part of Scotland where she could learn an ancient language and leave her old self behind.
Gaelic lessons in the Scottish Highlands? Ridiculous. She couldn’t even get her online booking right. How the hell had she managed to check the box for willow-weaving, whatever that was? Stupid, utterly stupid. She was aware of the sound of her inhalation rushing in through parched lips, but the breaths that followed were too shallow and too fast to calm her.
‘Ah, here we ur!’
Triumphantly, the man held out the key and straightened his spine to his full height, knocking the antlers on the wall so they now hung skewhiff and causing some of the cobwebs to detach and stick to the unbuttoned collar of his grubby grey shirt. Ignoring this and with a bright twinkle in his eyes that hinted he had more spark within him than Beatrice’s first unfavourable impression suggested, he asked, wickedly, ‘Do ye still want yur key? Or ur ye sleepin’ under the jetty the night?’
The insolence of the words was softened by the music of his accent, but still, Beatrice was in no state for provocation. She was either going to give him a piece of her mind or she was going to cry.
Her thoughts raced. It wasn’t too late to get a taxi back to civilisation. It would be expensive but she could be in Inverness in an hour or so, and from there she might be able to get a train South. She could be at Angela and Vic’s around midnight if she left now. They’d let her crash there for a night or two until she was over whatever this restlessness was.
The man extended the key out towards her and gave it an optimistic little rattle.
‘Now look here… Mister.’ Apparently she was going to give him a piece of her mind. Her nerves thrilled at the sound of her voice, shaky but fierce, and the poor man looked instantly terrified. She realised she was pointing her finger at him, and since she had called someone ‘Mister’ for the first time in her life she decided she might as well find out where this was going.
‘Look here,’ she said again, steeling herself but feeling tears prickling her eyes anyway. ‘I’ve been on three trains for eight hours today, and I’ve had nothing to eat but an extremely unappetising egg salad sandwich and a cup of tea hotter than the sun that scalded my lip…’ She was now jabbing her finger at her mouth, hoping for sympathy. The man peered closely, utterly perplexed, and too afraid to tell her he couldn’t see anything.
‘… And now I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I’m knackered and grimy and fed up, and I haven’t packed for rainy weather at all, and I just want to go home again, and I really, honestly don’t give a toss about learning Gaelic or knitting bloody twigs together or…’
‘Willow.’
‘What?’
It’s… willow-weaving,’ the man said blankly with a nervous blink.
She screwed her eyes tightly shut and let he
rself breathe. Shouting definitely hadn’t made her feel better. She just felt unkind, brittle, bone-tired and shipwrecked miles from the life she once knew. She hardly ever lost her temper, so what was with shouting at someone she didn’t know from Adam? Who even was she anymore? There was nothing else to do but apologise and make a run for it.
‘What’s this, Eugene?’
Beatrice’s eyes flicked open and her stomach muscles flinched at the sound of the deep, terse Scottish voice from the doorway behind her.
The owner of the voice appeared by Beatrice’s side. It was accompanied by narrowed eyes that told her he’d heard the whole thing and made her shrink with shame. He continued to talk. ‘Are you checking in? Let me show you to your room. I’ll thank you for those keys, Eugene.’
Beatrice looked between the two men, her curiosity sparked in spite of her frayed nerves by the similarities between them. ‘There’s two of you?’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘I mean, I mean… you’re brothers?’
‘Aye,’ the newcomer said through tense, pale lips.
And yet how different the pair were. What one brother had sacrificed in breadth and beauty, making up for in sheer towering height, this younger one had clearly gained, and yet both men shared fine high-boned cheeks, eyes the colour of the sea in summer and square set jaws.
‘I’m Atholl Fergusson, and this is Eugene. And you are?’
Thrown by the stiff formality of his words spoken in a clipped, heavily accented West Highland burr she could manage only a few words. ‘Umm, Beatrice, just Beatrice.’
Atholl Fergusson’s mouth set again in a straight line. Unlike his unfortunate brother, Atholl evidently adjusted his Scottish diction for the benefit of his English guests and his features were framed with thick waves of darkest red hair that skimmed the collar of his muted red and brown checked shirt.
‘Right then. Good,’ he muttered under his voice as he whipped the key from Gene’s hand and scooped up the suitcase. ‘Follow me, Beatrice,’ he said as he made briskly for the stairs.
‘Actually, I wasn’t sure if I was staying.’ She watched him, still rooted to the spot, thinning tartan underfoot.
Atholl paused, one boot on the bottom step. For a moment she watched his back heave as he let out a sharp sigh. Turning back, he transferred his gaze from Beatrice’s dark-circled, defiant eyes to Gene still clutching his pot of keys. He didn’t even attempt to hide the second great huff of exasperation that stretched his broad chest.
‘You’ll have tae forgive my brother, it’s been twenty years but he’s yet to understand he works in the hospitality trade. Eugene, will ye please send up some tea and shortbread for our guest. I’ll see she’s settled in.’
With that Atholl directed a sharp nod at Beatrice, and made his way up the wide, creaking stairs.
She watched Atholl climb before glancing back at Gene, who was attempting to avoid any further interaction with her by banging at the side of the computer monitor with a soft fist as though it would somehow fix the bookings glitch.
Letting her eyes roll, she clutched at the handbag straps over her shoulder. What was the use in protesting? How long would it take for a taxi to get here from the nearest town anyway? Hours, maybe? And she was too tired to repeat again her plans for a retreat back to England. She really was stranded here until morning. And besides, the only innkeeper who seemed to have his wits about him enough to help her escape Port Willow had climbed the stairs and left her alone. And hadn’t he totally disregarded everything she’d said about wanting to leave, anyway? That was plain rude.
In spite of everything, she found that most of her reservations about spending the night at The Princess and the Pea were temporarily outweighed by the thought of the tea and shortbread Atholl had mentioned. With a resigned shrug, she followed him up the stairs.
* * *
The door swung open and Atholl stood aside, letting her enter the low bedroom.
‘Oh,’ was all she could manage under the circumstances.
She took in the single bed, the small window framed with yellowing lace and a sense of the sea wall and the sand and shingle of low tide beyond, the small fireplace with its grate piled with dusty pinecones, the curious copper bath in the corner under the low eaves, and the painting of a mighty stag in muddy colours on the wall by the door.
‘Is it no’ to your liking?’ Atholl asked, his eyes passing around the room, scanning for the invisible thing that displeased his English visitor.
‘It’s fine. I’m not staying long anyway.’
Atholl received this information in silence, a pinched line forming between his brows which Beatrice didn’t see, preoccupied as she was wondering how she’d fit into the little bath without her knees touching her ears.
‘You don’t have anything a bit bigger, do you?’
‘No. We’re full. Not unless you want the princess room, but that’ll cost ye double what you’ve already paid, and it doesn’t get many takers these days.’
Money wasn’t too much of an issue, yet. She didn’t have much of anything else, but a little money she had. ‘I’d like to see it,’ she said, sending a prayer of gratitude to her mum who had, long ago, advised her to set up a secret bank account all of her own. During a whispered conversation in the kitchen at Beatrice and Rich’s engagement party, she’d said, ‘Remember, you mustn’t tell anyone about it, least of all Richard. A woman should have enough money saved to buy her independence if she needs it.’ The idea had seemed positively Victorian to Beatrice a decade ago but as the last of her redundancy money had run out she saw with crystal clarity what her mum had in mind.
Huddled there whispering over the party snacks while Rich blasted out a karaoke rendition of ‘Poker Face’ in the living room to much laughter from his work mates, it hadn’t quite filtered through to her that a similarly secret bank account must have been the reason her mum had been able to get her and her baby sister out of the house and away to safety from the volatile, shouting father she could barely recall and had never wanted to know better.
If only she’d asked her mum more questions when she’d had the chance. What had it been like, packing bags and getting in that taxi to the refuge? Where had her father been that night? Exactly how much had she squirrelled away that she could afford the rent on their little house in Warwick which had become a happy childhood home, the only one she and Angela could remember? There was nobody left who could answer those questions.
The forced sigh that roused her from her thoughts told her Atholl found her bothersome, but she could put up with that if it meant getting a better room.
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ she added impetuously.
Atholl’s neck stiffened and he hissed a breath through gritted teeth as he turned for the stairs.
She’d come all this way, seen the inside of three stuffy train station waiting rooms and cried in one revolting Pendolino lavatory; she wasn’t going to sleep in a tiny cramped room after taking a tiny cramped bath if there was even the chance of something more luxurious. It was the least she deserved, and, given her impression of the inn so far, it would still be far less than she’d been led to expect from the inn’s fancy website. She hadn’t seen mention of any princess room on there either. It sounded far more suitable than the gloomy, wood-panelled cell her new red-headed acquaintance had just shown her.
She heard the creaking of the stairs beneath Atholl’s feet and strained her ears to listen in to the exchange between the brothers as he reached the reception area below her.
‘Where’s the princess room key?’
This was followed by the sounds of rummaging in Tupperware once more.
‘Another one no’ like their room?’ Gene asked softly.
‘Hmph! This one’s surely the worst of the lot. Just arrived and wanting to leave, afore she’d even seen her room. Aye, they’re small rooms, but they’re clean and they’re warm. This isnae The Ritz. Och, for crying out loud, Eugene, can ye no’ get these keys back up on their hooks? The
inn’s almost fully booked for the first time in years thanks to the crafters and, honest to God, what do you look like carrying on with yur wee tub o’ keys in front of the guests?’
‘Aye, aye, I’ll sort it,’ came the brother’s dismissive, preoccupied reply in his feather light Highland brogue. ‘Take it easy, brother. You’ve got guests coming in, isn’t that whit ye wanted? Your idea’s working.’
‘It only works if they don’t think we’re some kind of joke. You have to take the inn more seriously now we’re busy again, for my sake, as well as our guests. It is, after all, your inn. Is that… are those cobwebs on your shirt? For the love of—’
‘Found it! The princess room,’ Gene announced proudly.
Beatrice who had craned her head over the balustrade to better hear them found herself smiling at the strange set-up between the pair, and could only imagine the tensions that must run between them, daily testing this Atholl Fergusson’s patience. No wonder he was so grouchy. She quickly rearranged her expression as Atholl bounded back up onto the landing before her.
‘Right, shall we?’ Leading the way along undulating floorboards that gave Beatrice a seasick feeling, Atholl pulled up at the ever so slightly crooked door frame with its brass plaque declaring this ‘The Princess Room.’
As Beatrice followed him along the corridor she stopped to do a double take at its faded pictures and movie posters lining the panelled walls and hanging squint on their hooks. Every one of them featured Gene Kelly.
Atholl caught her incredulous expression. ‘They’re, um, my mother’s. She loves the musicals. I darenae take them down.’ He grimaced awkwardly having made the confession.
Beatrice had no intention of pushing him for more details about this eccentric mother. All she wanted to do was flop down on a comfy bed and try not to think too hard about how exactly she’d wound up in this place.