by Kiley Dunbar
The other woman reached out a hand graced with silver rings and long, fiercely pointed, coral-pink fingernails. ‘I’m Jillian, by the way; and she’s Cheryl.’
‘Beatrice. Good to meet you. I’m not really a crafter though. I’m signed up for willow-weaving lessons but, between you and me, I’m not exactly keen. In fact, I’m thinking about heading home again tomorrow.’
‘And do what? Regret you’ve missed your holiday?’ said Jillian, reaching for the menu, and Beatrice realised with some relief – followed by a hot wave of anxiety – that she wouldn’t be dining alone after all.
If she was going to be making small talk with these women over dinner she’d have to be on her best behaviour and try to act normally. And just how did she do that, again?
Her new dinner companions were examining her, she knew, trying to work out why on earth she was here. She had no intention of telling them. The only good thing about this mad dash to the Highlands was the anonymity it offered. Nobody knew her and that made things so much easier. Beatrice changed the subject.
‘Did you get in today too? Done any sightseeing yet?’
‘This morning,’ Cheryl replied, and Beatrice wondered if she saw disappointment cross her face at her evasiveness. ‘We’ve been walking all day. A bit too long a walk!’ Cheryl reached under the table to rub her foot.
‘And we got soaked,’ Jillian added. ‘But the scenery around here is stunning. Breath-taking, you might say.’
That was when Beatrice realised Jillian was looking over at Atholl behind the bar and smirking while Cheryl nudged her in the ribs to shut her up. So they had seen her staring at Atholl.
The beauticians’ laughter drew Atholl’s eyes to their booth. The look of confusion and ire on his stern face as he broke off from his conversation with the pretty woman made Beatrice stifle a laugh too and the women huddled their heads closer together.
‘Hold on a minute!’ An idea suddenly struck Beatrice, lighting a fire behind her eyes. ‘I knew I recognised you both.’
Cheryl and Jillian exchanged satisfied smiles.
‘You were on the telly, weren’t you? That fly on the wall salon show? Ooh, what was it called… Geordie Shorn!’
‘Eee, I’m surprised you remember that, it was a while ago now. We were a lot younger then.’ Jillian touched the spot behind her ear and raised her eyes with comedic fake modesty.
Beatrice grinned back. She didn’t want to admit she’d seen just the one episode on one of the more obscure channels and that had been only a few weeks ago during yet another sleepless night when she’d had little more than channel-surfing and Walnut Whips to get her through the lonely hours until sunrise.
Relieved she now had a topic to grill them about, Beatrice asked all about the salon and what it was like being a local celebrity and the talk flowed. Mrs Mair reappeared to take the women’s orders and soon all three were sipping ginger beer and the atmosphere in the restaurant warmed considerably, in spite of the rain falling outside.
The easy chatter and smiling made-up faces of her new friends reminded her just how much she had been starved of company recently. Her hands shook a little with the novelty of spending time with other women, a sensation that felt like stress and elation all at once. The strange excitement made her worry she was being too effusive and the women might think her a little odd, and her nerves loosened her tongue and made her unguarded.
The food arrived just as Beatrice was in full flow commenting on the state of the nicotine-stained bar ceiling. ‘How long is it since the smoking ban? A decade? Longer than that? Are these landlords just lazy, or hopeless, or what? Give me an hour, a paint roller, and a tray of white emulsion and I’d have it sparkling.’
Atholl Fergusson settled the plate in front of her with a pointedly steely silence which sent her sinking into the padded bench. After he’d left, she explained how she had got off on altogether the wrong foot with Atholl and now she couldn’t seem to stop annoying him.
‘He looks like the broody type, love. I wouldn’t worry,’ Cheryl soothed.
The three looked down at their steaming plates simultaneously. ‘Oh,’ exclaimed Jillian, prodding the food with her fork. ‘Eee, I knew it was pub grub, but I was expecting something a bit…’
‘Fancier?’ Beatrice said, looking at the sad oven chips and slim piece of battered cod, obviously the frozen variety and not the bubbly-battered fresh from the sea type that Scotland was supposedly famous for. The shrivelled peas, limp lettuce and dry lemon wedge did little to make the meal more appetising. ‘Oh well, dig in,’ Beatrice said with a shrug. ‘It might taste better than it looks, and I don’t want to complain, again.’
As the women ate, without much enthusiasm, Beatrice filled them in on what Seth had told her about poor heartbroken Gene and his runaway wife, the one-time resident gourmet, immediately feeling guilty for sharing gossiped details of someone’s private life, but anything was better than talking about herself.
Seth had by now settled himself at the bar and was chatting with the beautiful woman with the laptop. Atholl was topping up her coffee mug. So he can be friendly, Beatrice thought. Maybe he reserved the smiles for his favourite customers.
Beatrice tried to focus on her dinner companions and her uninspiring meal again, but she couldn’t help getting distracted when Atholl’s face broke into a broad grin as he greeted the bar room’s newest occupant.
A man in a white coat and hat had struggled inside carrying a polystyrene tray of ice liberally topped with coral-pink crustaceans and gleaming steely blue and pearl white shells. Beatrice caught the smell of the sea as the man followed Atholl into the kitchen and she heard Atholl calling Gene’s name.
‘If I’d known they were expecting a delivery of fresh seafood, I’d have held off ordering,’ Cheryl said, following Beatrice’s gaze.
‘Something tells me that’s not on the menu,’ Jillian added, pointing at the blackboard above the booth emblazoned with the chalky words, ‘No Specials Today’, which she read aloud.
Seth, who seemed to have supernaturally good hearing, caught the exchange and after checking that Atholl and Mrs Mair were in the kitchens, called over the heads of the other diners. ‘Nor any other day, either, more’s the pity. Not so long ago the Princess was legendary along this coast for its Cullen Skink and its mussels in garlic cream. Legendary!’ He lowered his voice to add, ‘Us locals know to order Mrs Mair’s homemade Scotch broth followed by the shortbread wi’ a wee nip for pudding.’
The men sitting around the bar all agreed in a rumble of ayes and he’s no’ wrongs and Beatrice realised every one of them had a bowl of broth in front of them. Seth bit the stem of his pipe to punctuate his point and lowered himself from the stool, readying himself for another rainy smoke outdoors.
The pretty woman at the bar beside him raised her head from her paperwork and looked as though she were about to speak when sudden cries from the back room stalled everyone in their tracks.
‘I willnae have you interfering in my business, Atholl. You cannae fix everything ye ken!’ Gene loped into the bar room swinging a waxed jacket over his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, Patrick.’ This was addressed to the bemused fishmonger who followed behind him, still carrying his box, with Atholl at his heels. ‘We won’t be taking in any seafood when there’s naebody to cook it!’ The bar door swung as Gene slipped out into the street.
Suddenly everyone in the restaurant became utterly absorbed in draining their drinks as Atholl surveyed the room through narrowed eyes – everyone excepting the table of Sussex crafters who all loudly clucked their disapproval at the disruption to their evening.
The pretty red-head stood up as though she were going to make after Gene, but decided against it, and sat down again.
Beatrice watched on as Atholl collected himself and apologised to the fishmonger, helping him out the door with his catch. ‘He’ll come round one of these days, just not today,’ Atholl said, his voice thin and weary.
The altercation had stripped away all the atmosphere in the restaurant and Beatrice found herself gathering her book and saying goodbye to Cheryl and Jillian. Seth was still outside with his pipe, she supposed, and Atholl was clattering glasses behind the bar with his back turned to the room. The woman at the bar smiled a quiet goodnight too as Beatrice padded away.
She wouldn’t be seeing any of them again, what did it matter if she headed to bed early, or if these near strangers thought her oddly antisocial? She wasn’t here to make friends. She was only an accidental holidaymaker and tomorrow’s departure would put that right again, and yet it had been good to talk and laugh and remember that the world was, if nothing else, interesting.
Chapter Five
Three a.m., up in the air
Even though she was aware it was only a dream and that it would hurt all the more when she awoke, Beatrice refused to allow her waking consciousness to rouse her fully.
She let herself luxuriate in the lovely delusion a little longer, running her hands over her great round belly, spreading her fingers over the warm bump, solid and soft at the same time, muscle spread thin, flesh taut like a drum, and inside, the vital warmth of the little curled thing, heartbeat resounding, sharing blood through paper-thin skin.
But it didn’t last. Beatrice felt the dream slipping away, the night encroaching, and the heavy realisation that her hands were clamped across her flat stomach.
She hadn’t dreamt like this before and cursed her brain for conjuring up such realistic feelings of fullness and contentment. She reached for Richard on his side of the bed and finding nobody there, curled reflexively onto her side, already crying, and slowly becoming aware of where she was.
The darkness in the room was cut through with silver moonlight below her. Below her? Springing up in bed, her head met with the velvety material of the canopy that hung between her and the ceiling. Of course, it was all coming back to her, how she’d fought with the red-haired innkeeper so she could sleep here, just to spite his smiling eyes. Just to spite herself.
Swiping at her tears with her pyjama sleeve she cursed the new irate, awkward streak she’d been lumbered with lately; it was apparently not something she could do anything about. It seemed bound to her like a suit of armour, and yet it offered little in the way of protection and she seemed only to wound herself when she lashed out from under it.
She’d worn the armour ever since the night Rich had left her. Late coming home from work, he’d eventually called to say he’d checked into a hotel and that he was sorry, he couldn’t do this any longer and that she had to face her feelings and get help. He’d cried uncontrollably and sounded truly unhappy. Beatrice had found, after begging and bargaining until all her pride was gone, that he was resolute in spite of the tears.
She peered over the side of the bed only to be hit by the full realisation that she was up in the air, in the dead of night, in the middle of nowhere, curiously precarious.
She’d been so tired as she’d hauled herself up the creaking ladder into bed after dinner and all the effort of being cheerful and chatty that she had forgotten to draw the curtains in the low windows. Now the moonlight was spilling across the dark, polished floorboards.
What a ridiculous room. Why would anyone choose to sleep here? Unless they were trying to spite a smirking, eagle-eyed Scotsman who found her ridiculous. She wouldn’t admit to herself that the bed was comfortable and warm like a nest, or that the moonlight carried with it the rippling effect of the water in the bay beyond her window and spread a kind of shimmering, silver magic over everything it touched in the princess room. No, she wouldn’t let herself be charmed by the outlandish room she’d insisted on taking just to rile and punish haughty Atholl Fergusson.
Atholl must have some kind of sixth sense which meant he could see her armour. He had instinctively detected her prickliness and for some reason he wanted to tease and test it, to feel out its boundaries. Not fair, and not kind, thought Beatrice with a sniff. Well, she resolved, she’d made her towering bed and she’d just have to lie in it a bit longer. She’d be out of here soon.
Over by the door stood her suitcase. There were chocolate biscuits in there if she dared risk the perilous descent to get them.
‘As if I haven’t had enough of men interfering and cajoling. Face your feelings,’ she harrumphed as she made her way down the ladder slowly in the half light. ‘Face my bloody feelings. I’m going to eat my feelings, thank you very much, Richard Halliday.’
Huffing a deep sigh as she padded across the floor and unzipped her carefully repacked case, her mind drifted back and forth between the ache of being forced to think about Richard’s sudden, uncharacteristic abandonment of their ten-year marriage and the wave of irritation that thinking about Atholl Fergusson’s antagonism brought on.
She pulled the biscuits from the suitcase, taking them over to the moonlit window before sitting cross-legged on the floor and tearing the packaging open. It was far easier to think of Atholl than Richard, so she did, and her annoyance grew. She absently snapped a biscuit in two and took an angry bite.
Seriously, who would think a Princess and the Pea themed room was a good idea? It was a stupid story anyway. The spoiled prince of a faraway kingdom had his pick of beautiful women, but his family were so worried none of them were suitably genteel enough for him, they devised a test to see just how much discomfort one woman could put up with. The queen (because there was always a meddling parent, wasn’t there?) put a pea under the prospective princess’s piled mattresses. Presumably it was one of those big, dry, wrinkly ones that English grannies used to keep in jars and never eat and not a fresh one or it would have been a flat green splat by morning. When the poor woman awoke she was stiff, bruised and unhappy, far from home, knowing something just wasn’t right, but unsure exactly what. The princess’s universe was thrown off kilter by something as tiny as a pea and that was all the proof the stupid prince needed that she was the woman for him.
Beatrice sighed, watching the waves from her window which were now right up against the sea wall, thinking how her own world had been turned on its head by a thing as tiny as a pea, only her Happy Ever After wouldn’t be waiting for her when the morning came.
In fact, nothing happy remained in her life, apart from Angela, Vic and her little niece, and thank goodness for them. She’d have been lost without them when it happened back in March. Her eyes drifted out to the dark horizon as the memories dragged her back to the spring.
Everything had been fine that morning. Rich had gone to work and Beatrice got on with her usual morning routine, only slower because she had been so sleepy lately. She had searched the arts jobs pages, even though she knew that at twelve weeks pregnant her chances of being offered a job at any point that year – maybe even for a year and a half – were practically non-existent.
In the afternoon Rich had picked her up and they’d gone to the hospital. Already this felt like a familiar routine, since they’d visited for an unscheduled ultrasound weeks before when Beatrice had seen a spot of red when she went to the loo and her heart had sunk. But all had been well. The sonographer had showed them a jump-jiving heart and they’d heard a thin beat over the hospital noises and collapsed into each other’s arms in relief. The sonographer printed out the scan image for them to keep, a little white peanut wriggling in the dark, and Rich had handed over his mobile and asked the sonographer to take a picture of them, Beatrice’s gelled-up belly on show and all.
Beatrice loved the picture, loved how it captured Rich’s toothy smile and bright, wide eyes, his arm clasped around her shoulder as she lay on crinkly paper on the big trolley, and there by her side the sonogram monitor with their peanut frozen in that moment, Beatrice’s eyes fixed upon it.
The nurse had told her to take it easy and let them know if there was any more blood, which there hadn’t been, and so the routine twelve-week scan had rolled around; the day they’d find out if they were having a boy or a girl. Richard whistled all the while he was driving
.
They had been disappointed to find it was a different sonographer this time, less smiling and, they suspected, less likely to help them pose for a picture with Beatrice’s small bump on show. Rich had chattered and joked and said something about a daughter wrapping him around her little finger, but Beatrice couldn’t quite hear over a sudden cacophony of panic and dizziness that she didn’t like to mention to anyone.
Looking back, Beatrice realised she had known what was coming, but the blankness on the screen and the silence where there should have been a heartbeat still hit her like a bomb blast. The sonographer had cried too.
The next day after the horror of the anaesthetic and the awful, empty awakening with the cannula in her hand and her heart cut open, she cried into the hospital pillow, gripping it until the joints in her fingers ached. She heard the doctor tell her in cool tones that ‘it’ hadn’t grown for a week or so and there was no way she could have known, and that he was very sorry, and Beatrice had curled up on her side again while the other women in the ward watched her from their beds and she screamed out for her mum. One of the nurses pulled a blanket over her and rubbed her back and offered in a kind voice to phone her mum for her, and Beatrice couldn’t even breathe through the heaving sobs to let her know that her mum was gone too.
Staring out at the rain hitting the motorway tarmac on the way home she told Rich she thought maybe she could remember the moment, a week or two before when she’d been lying on the sofa napping and felt the strangest sensation of movement and a sudden, gentle falling away, but then there had been nothing and she had put it down to her imagination or the possibility that she had felt the first kick.
Rich held the wheel tightly as she told him that the whole horrible hospital procedure now felt somehow like a theft, and that if she could, she would have parcelled up all their hopes and dreams and love in crisp brown paper like the precious bundle it was and kept it close forever. But they had left the hospital with nothing.