Sealed With a Kiss

by Rachael Lucas

  ‘Oops.’ Susan slipped sideways on the kitchen floor. ‘I think someone’s had a little accident here.’

  She laughed and grabbed a piece of kitchen roll, wiping up the mess with a practised hand. ‘I can sympathize, Willow. Two children later, my pelvic floor’s not what it was.’

  ‘Away with you! You’re only young,’ Morag scoffed. ‘Susan, have you seen what’s on the front of the Auchenmor Argus this week? Come and have a look here – it’s in my bag . . .’

  Kate stood waiting for the kettle to boil, gazing out at the autumn morning. She was already learning that rumours and gossip made up the main fabric of island life, and she’d been initiated this week. Morag, keen to check she was settling in, had popped in daily. Susan and Jean were in and out too, passing by with just-baked scones and little gifts to make her feel at home. Kate had sat for hours, quietly listening, marvelling at the complicated interwoven relationships. Most of the time she hadn’t a clue who Susan, Jean and Morag were discussing. But she’d been made welcome by the women of the Duntarvie estate, and it was clear they were keen to make her feel she belonged.

  ‘Let me take that tea through to the sitting room for you.’ Morag broke through Kate’s thoughts, gathering together the pot, a jug of milk and some sugar onto a tray.

  ‘Are you all ready for Jamie’s party tomorrow, Susan?’

  Kate sat down on the sofa, still guarding her sore shoulder. The painting had probably been a bit much, if she was honest with herself.

  ‘Well, I’ve cleared out the bunker in the back garden, and I’m planning to hide in it, if that’s what you mean.’ Susan winked at Morag.

  ‘Tom tells me you’re covering the whole place with dinosaurs?’

  ‘For my sins, yes. I’m nearly done. And I’ve cheated – they’d a perfect ready-made dinosaur cake in the supermarket, so no doubt there’ll be words in the nursery-school playground about my domestic failings.’

  Despite her jokes, Susan had worked hard to make Jamie’s party perfect. Glad of a friend within walking distance, she’d been spending evenings in Kate’s sitting room, painting giant dinosaur cutouts, occasionally stopping talking long enough to pause for breath. Then she’d say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m talking your ear off, aren’t I?’ and would carry on being gloriously indiscreet.

  Over the last few evenings, sharing the odd bottle of Chardonnay, Kate had heard about Susan and Tom’s love life. Susan was an open book at the best of times. Once she’d had a glass of wine, her brain-to-mouth filter was non-existent. The unfortunate side-effect of this was that whenever Kate bumped into the gamekeeper, she flushed scarlet with embarrassment. She had thought it best not to mention to Susan that she’d swooned the first time she’d seen Tom. Susan seemed to be fairly matter-of-fact about the effect her husband had on women.

  ‘As long as they’re looking, not touching, I don’t mind. I quite like other women perving over him.’

  ‘And to think people accuse new parents of being staid and sensible and boring.’

  ‘Never!’ Susan had giggled, and poured another glass of wine for them both. ‘We tend to take our fun where we find it. Mind you, it did ruin the mood a bit when Jamie started yelling, ‘Daddy, I need a wee’ outside the bathroom door when we were having a quickie.’

  Kate shook herself, realizing she’d been daydreaming again. Morag was preparing to leave.

  ‘I’m going over to the mainland to pick up a youngster.’

  Kate could see the outline of the Range Rover and horse trailer through the trees. Morag pulled on her coat.

  ‘I’m away as well.’ Susan rinsed out her mug and left it in the sink. ‘I’ll come down later after the little ones are in bed and get the decorations, if that’s okay?’

  ‘Perfect,’ agreed Kate. ‘I’m going into town to pick up some house-decorating magazines. I’m daydreaming about the cottages.’

  ‘I’m not sure Roderick is thinking Country Living style; more “youth hostel for geography teachers”.’

  ‘Ah. Well, maybe I’ll just have to persuade him.’

  ‘Oh yes? Will you be using your womanly wiles?’ Morag grinned. ‘Taken a wee shine to our boss, have we?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ Kate was indignant. ‘First of all, I’m having a year off men.’

  Susan nodded, eyebrows raised, and looked disbelieving. ‘Right you are.’

  ‘Secondly, he made me feel about five years old when I did this,’ and she motioned towards her shoulder.

  Morag and Susan exchanged glances. Oops! Kate remembered she was talking about their friend.

  ‘Sorry. I mean he definitely defrosted over a drink . . .’

  ‘Yes, he’ll do that,’ said Susan, with a knowing look.

  ‘. . . but I’m not even remotely interested in getting involved with anyone. Least of all my boss.’

  ‘Ach well, you’ve not met Finn yet. Never mind Roddy Maxwell – you’ll be under Finn’s spell in a second. You’re exactly his type.’ Susan pulled on her coat and slipped her woolly-socked feet into green wellington boots.

  ‘Out!’ laughed Kate, shooing her through the front door. ‘I mean what I say. Noooo men.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ Susan, and her cackle, disappeared up the driveway, echoing in the trees.

  She returned at eight o’clock that night, blown in through the door by a sudden gust of wind, bringing a pile of the first autumn leaves with her. Willow barked excitedly and skittered around on the wooden floor, chasing them. A moment later she collapsed onto her bed, exhausted.

  ‘She’s just like a baby.’

  ‘Aye, but she doesn’t get you up in the night five times, like Mhairi did last night. I’m like the living dead.’

  ‘Three times last night, so she’s not much better,’ said Kate, opening the fridge. ‘I got us a little something to celebrate all your hard work.’

  Susan had the corkscrew out of the drawer in a second. ‘It’d be rude to refuse, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  They drank the first bottle of wine while piling up the dinosaurs in the hall. The glasses Kate had brought from Cambridge were huge and the wine soon disappeared. Opening the second bottle, she put on some music.

  ‘Roddy loves The Killers, too, you know,’ said Susan, with an angelic expression.

  ‘Him and about five million other people.’

  ‘I’m determined to get you paired off. A gorgeous girl like you, living in a romantic cottage like this, with a roaring fire and all this lovely orange carpet?’

  ‘Mmm, nice.’

  ‘Okay, we need to get you a furry rug.’

  ‘Seventies. Even nicer. Am I going to be starring in a Barry White video?’

  ‘Anyway. Stop changing the subject. You can’t spend the next year on your own. It’s not natural.’ Susan was bobbing along to the music, slightly out of time, and flicking through a magazine.

  ‘We don’t all have the libido of a . . . of a . . . a thing with a big libido.’

  ‘You’re twenty-six. You’re single,’ Susan was pointing at her, or at least trying to, but the effect was ruined because she was aiming at the wall instead. ‘You’ve spent the last five years of your life with a man who probably noted down on a spreadsheet how many times you had sex—’

  Kate burst out laughing. ‘You’re not the first person to accuse him of that. I’ve got to get Emma over here, you’d love her.’

  ‘And she’d agree with me. You need some nice therapeutic s—’

  The doorbell rang.

  Looking extremely windswept, very handsome and rather disapproving, Tom was standing on the doorstep with a baby-monitor in one hand and a torch in the other. It had come as a surprise to Kate how dark the darkness on the island was.

  ‘It’s half-past bloody eleven, they’re going to be up at about five and I’m knackered.’ He picked up the bags of Susan’s paintings and passed his wife her coat. ‘Sorry, Kate, but I know what this one’s like. If I hadn’t nipped out and got her just n
ow, she’d be on the whisky and singing bloody Kylie Minogue songs at 2 a.m.’

  ‘Karaoke! Ooh, we have to do that . . . ’ Susan’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Maybe not tonight though, eh? Let’s get you home.’

  Tom set off up the path to their cottage, with a meandering Susan tottering on his arm. Kate watched them as Willow circled round the garden, chasing invisible night-time creatures. With the moon hidden, and no street lights outside the town, the island was blanketed in a velvety darkness. She whistled and Willow rushed to her heel. Kate locked the door and climbed hazily up the stairs to bed.

  She was asleep, but someone was licking her face. And something had died in her mouth. And her head was pounding.

  ‘Willow, ugh – stop it.’ Kate half-opened her eyes. The puppy had managed to scramble onto her bed, complete with a half-chewed object.

  ‘No! Oh no, Willow, my boot.’

  Every night Kate had been scrupulous about putting anything remotely tasty out of reach of the razor-sharp spaniel teeth, but last night she’d staggered upstairs in her wine-soaked haze without doing the usual checks.

  ‘Let’s go and see what damage you’ve done.’

  Willow’s energy was exhausting to watch with a hangover. Kate followed her downstairs, only to discover that the puppy had also devoured a pair of shoes and Morag’s leather gloves, which she’d left on the hall table yesterday.

  After a jug of coffee, some toast and marmalade and a small lie-down on the couch, Kate felt almost human. Time to get ready for Jamie’s birthday party, she thought, and hauled herself off the chair. She attempted to burn off the hangover with a scalding hot shower, which left her flushed and uncomfortable.

  She rubbed at the misted-up bathroom window. The waves in her dark hair had sprung up with the steam of the shower. Kate twisted them up with a hair clip. She rubbed some foundation into her face, hoping it might stop her looking half-dead, and smudged black kohl eyeliner around her eyes.

  ‘That’ll do.’ She felt a bit sick, and the steamy bathroom wasn’t helping.

  She grabbed last night’s jeans from the chair in the corner of the bedroom and pulled them on. Perhaps sharing two bottles of wine hadn’t been the best idea. Ugh! She pulled on a grey-and-white-striped top and covered it with a grey cardigan.

  Her beloved boots were in pieces; it would have to be wellingtons. God! Her stomach churned, amplifying the hangover with a sudden feeling of dread at meeting a whole houseful of new people. She’d been lulled into a sense of belonging, pottering here at home, sharing chats with Jean, Susan and Morag. All the island gossip had been about other people, but she was suddenly hit with the realization that she was going to be on show – the new girl working at Duntarvie, another fly-by-night English girl who’d last a month, before giving up and going home.

  Better make sure the socks are respectable, she thought, rejecting the first two pairs as unsuitable. If I’m going in, it’s with my best socks on.

  Kate stood on the narrow path outside the cottage, watching as Willow investigated the fresh scents of morning. Around the base of the trees, leaves lay in drifts. The puppy launched herself into them, barking with delight. The air was full of the scents of autumn; a bonfire was lit somewhere in the distance, and the faint smell reminded Kate of home, and of last year’s fireworks in Emma and Sam’s garden. She pulled out her phone, hit by a pang of homesickness:

  Trying to subdue hangover before facing dinosaur-fest with four-year-olds. Urgh!

  Emma’s reply flashed back, instantly:

  Ha! No escape from birthday-party hell. Grit teeth and think of gin. Or Colin Firth. Works for me, every time.

  Kate laughed, surprising Willow, who rushed back from a particularly interesting smell to check on her mistress. It was the most beautiful, crisp late-September day. The cool air was the perfect hangover cure. She clipped on Willow’s lead and walked up to the drive.

  Cars were parked along the grass verge outside the long row of whitewashed cottages. A bunch of balloons tied to Susan and Tom’s front door announced the birthday party. She opened the door, bracing herself.

  The wall of noise hit her. Above her head were green, blue and yellow helium balloons, curled ribbons hanging beneath them. The walls were decorated with Susan’s huge dinosaur pictures.

  ‘Katie-Kate! It’s my birthday. I am four,’ Jamie rushed up to her, covered in chocolate, curls bobbing, green eyes sparkling with excitement and sugar overload. ‘I’m big now – look.’ He stood on tiptoe, wobbling.

  ‘Let her get in the door first, Jamie,’ said Tom, appearing from the kitchen and handing Kate a glass of orange juice. ‘I’m assuming you don’t want champagne, if you’re in the same state as Susan?’

  ‘I am not in a state. I’m just slightly delicate.’ Susan, looking grey, emerged from the sitting room, closing the door on what sounded like a bloody massacre, complete with shrieks, whoops and yells.

  ‘They’re trying to break into the piñata. It’s like the Battle of Culloden in there.’ She leaned back against the door, pinning it shut. ‘My head! I think my eyes are trying to burst forward out of my skull. I’m never drinking again.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows at Kate. ‘Slightly delicate, you say? I thought we Scots were the hardened drinkers?’

  ‘All right, I admit it.’ Susan slumped into a chair, head in her hands. ‘I feel like death.’

  ‘That’s more like it. I’ll make you a nice bacon roll when all this is over.’ He leaned down and picked up Willow. ‘I’ll put her in the back room. She can stay there with Oliver.’

  Oliver was their ancient golden retriever, an excellent nursemaid to Willow because he encouraged her to sleep. He wouldn’t deign to spend time in the kennels with the working dogs, considering himself part of the family.

  ‘Help!’

  A muffled voice emitted from the sitting room. Susan held the door open for Kate.

  ‘Ladies first.’

  Kate walked into the room. There was an amorphous mass of small people, mainly boys, lying on the floor. The source of the sound couldn’t be seen at first. She realized that underneath it all was a very squashed adult.

  The mass swayed, then parted. Long legs appeared. Rumpled, with his dark hair sticking out untidily, Roderick emerged.

  ‘Oh. Um, hello.’ Well, this was unexpected.

  ‘Do excuse me, I was being a diplodocus. The T. rexes were eating me alive.’ He stood up, a rueful smile on his face. He ran a hand through his hair in a fruitless attempt to look less dishevelled. His collar was standing up on one side and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing toned, tanned forearms.

  He was her boss. She shouldn’t be looking at his arms, and definitely should not be wanting to reach out and fix his collar. Kate found herself tongue-tied. A small girl was gnawing at his leg, apparently unaware that the game was over.

  ‘That piñata is impossible to open. We’ve tried beating it with sticks, but it didn’t work.’ Susan entered the room, carrying an axe.

  ‘Have you lot never heard of health-and-safety rules? You can’t just—’ gasped Kate, as her friend swung the axe forward, splitting the piñata so that the contents spilled out onto the floor.

  ‘I just did. Now get out, quickly, or they’ll really eat you alive.’

  Kate and Roderick backed out rapidly as the children swooped down on the sweets and toys, squawking with delight. Marching back to the kitchen, Susan handed Kate the axe as she passed. She stood in the hall, holding it, nonplussed.

  ‘Birthday parties are a bit more, er, vigorous on the island then?’

  ‘Oh yes. They breed them tough up here.’ Roderick lifted the axe out of her hand. ‘Let me put that back outside.’

  He strode out through the back door, leaving Kate standing in the hall, mouth open. When he acted like a real person he was surprisingly lovely.

  ‘I’d make a run for it, if I were you.’ Susan popped her head out of the kitchen door. ‘You’ve shown your face, and Jamie’s so hi
gh on sugar he won’t notice.’

  She was holding a plate of mini sausage rolls. Popping one in her mouth, she offered the plate to Kate.

  ‘Ugh, no. Still feeling a bit delicate.’ What she needed was a bit of fresh air and a bacon roll, a duvet, a gallon of orange juice and Calamity Jane on DVD – that would do the trick.

  ‘Me too. I’m hoping stodge will soak up the worst of the hangover.’ Susan rearranged the sausage rolls into a spiral pattern, disguising the patches where she’d sampled her own cooking.

  ‘Oi, you! Hands off.’

  Roderick reappeared, pinching a couple more. He was followed by Tom, who helped himself to one.

  ‘Every time – I don’t know why I bother making party food, it’s never the kids who eat it.’

  Tom leaned over, kissing Susan on the cheek. ‘Because it’s delicious, and we get to have miniature sandwiches while they overload on cola bottles.’

  They were revoltingly in love – it was adorable, but Kate sensed that Roderick was feeling as much of a spare part as she was. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Would you mind if we did a runner then, Sus?’

  ‘But I’ve only just arrived! I haven’t even been subjected to all the school-gate mothers yet, and I’ve got my best socks on, too.’ Kate’s protest drew an expression of confusion from Roderick and Tom.

  ‘Nobody’s going to notice if you two disappear – and you need a decent cup of coffee. Get out now, while you can,’ Susan said firmly, handing Kate her coat. She gave Tom a sideways glance.

  ‘If you’re sure?’ The prospect of curling up on the sofa was tempting.

  Susan pushed Kate towards the door with a laugh. ‘Get out, you two kids, and go have some fun. Leave us old married gits to do the boring stuff.’

  ‘She’s not going to take no for an answer.’ Roderick helped Kate into her coat. Despite her protestations, the deeply ungorgeous present had already become a permanent fixture.

  ‘I wouldn’t argue with Susan when she’s on a mission.’ Tom opened the front door. ‘Take that girl out, Roddy, and get her something to cure her hangover. I’ll drop Willow off later.’

  The door closed behind them.