by Emma Baird
“Lochalshie doesn’t welcome wife beaters,” she adds darkly, “and Jack hated being part of a celebrity couple when it resulted in cockroaches crawling out of the woodwork.”
This is all too fascinating and a very revealing insight into the man who takes up too much space in my head. No wonder he hated Kirsty uploading pictures of them so much. Unfortunately, the hill-walker who’d considered himself the soul of wit with his question about Scottish stereotypes decides he fancies his chances with Jolene. He sidles up to her, and she turns to face him, grin in place. It’s my cue to leave.
On the way out, I spot Stewart at the bar.
“Gaby!” he exclaims, startling Scottie who’d been sleeping at his feet and who barks at me. I like to think it’s a ‘thanks for rescuing me the other week’ woof. “Have ye seen ma Jolene?”
I shrug. “No.“ His girlfriend probably isn’t interested in the hill-walkers, but her eyes had lit up when Mr Thinks Himself So Witty sidled up to her. I put it down to the window shopping thing women who’ve been in long-term relationships like to do from time to time. If she has any sense, she’ll let the hill-walker talk his (merino wool hill-walking) socks off, and then retreat, buoyed up by enough flattery and attention to last three months.
Back in the house, I feed Mena some left-over ham she goes mad for and phone Katya. Thanks to the Blissful Beauty launch and all those Instagrammers who will need to post updates, Dexter has had words with people in high up places. The phone reception and Wi-Fi now works everywhere. Three months after moving to Lochalshie, I can finally phone my friend while sitting on the couch in the house. It crosses my mind I could transfer my iMac so I could work here, but I park that thought. Besides, traipsing back through the village with all that heavy hardware would be tedious.
Right?
“Katya! How are you!”
“Have you been drinking?”
I (almost) never lie to my best friend, though I’m often guilty of omission. I press the phone harder to my ear and tap the cushion on my leg to encourage Mena to jump up and join me.
“No. I mean yes, a tiny bit,” I say. “I phoned you for a catch-up. Jack, Dexter, tonight. Is that okay? And also to repeat the question—when, when, when are you coming to visit me?”
Awkward silence. It stretches out one, two, three seconds too long.
“So busy,” she mutters. “Can’t take time off. That’s what freelancing is like, isn’t it?”
“No,” I say. Freelancing allows flexibility you don’t get with a nine-to-five job. Is it the Blissful Beauty stuff that’s taking up all her time, or what about the ghost-writing book job, I ask? I hear breath drawn in. I’ve hit the truth.
“The book job, then!”
I’ve badgered her for weeks about it, tell me, Katya, speculating wildly on who she’s ghost writing for. I ran through various celebrities and reality TV stars—even bloomin’ Caitlin of Blissful Beauty—asking if that was on whose behalf she was writing and coming up with wacky titles for their autobiographies.
“If I ever tell you I’m considering ghostwriting for someone again, please break my fingers. Honestly, pain in the digits is preferable to pains in the neck, arse and everything else this wretched job has turned into. I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop for so long now, I’m square-eyed, and my shoulders are stuck up around my ears. I have to write using this celebrity’s voice, and she insists on exclamation marks everywhere, even though I hate them and they have no place in a non-fiction book, especially one that’s meant to be taken seriously.”
“Katya,” I say. “I will never allow you to ghostwrite again.”
I tell her the plans for the Blissful Beauty launch and about Dexter and his suggestion we hook up post event.
“NO! Did you get the capital letters there? I’m worried you might think I’m kidding around. I decided when you finished with Ryan, thank all the heavens and stars, that I’d vet any prospective boyfriend of yours from now on.”
“You did?” Mena hears the startled sound to my voice and tips her little head up to look at me. I stroke her under the chin and she purrs.
“Gosh, is that the cat? I can hear her from here. Yes, Gaby. I did an incredible job of holding back my opinion of Mr Douche-bag for years, but I vowed I wouldn’t let my best friend make such a momentous mistake ever again.”
How? How did she hold back?
“A guy who puts you in a schedule is a no-no. He’s a workaholic too, by the sounds of it. And I’ve spoken to him. He’d critique your girlfriend abilities. Do you really want that?”
Well, that chimes in with what I feared.
“What was it Bridget Jones said,” I say. “I’m going to end up dying alone and being eaten by an Alsatian. Or Mena, though I’m probably not good enough for this fussy puss.”
There’s a sigh at her end. “Far, far better alone than with the wrong person, I promise.”
Heartfelt advice. My best friend has had many short relationships over the years. Her long list of do’s don’ts mean that sooner or later whoever she is dating does one of the don’ts and ends up an ex toot suite. Katya is always telling me a woman has plenty to find a keeper, and she enjoys singledom. She’s a thousand times better at it than I am.
“What about Jack? That photo of you and him together was cute. You could always ask him out. Women can do that nowadays. They’ve been allowed to for a while, thanks to feminism.”
I (almost) never lie to my best friend. “No. Too much like hard work.”
Mena looks at me. She knows a lie when she hears it. Or perhaps this phone conversation thing diverts too much of my attention when I should settle myself in the optimal position for a cat to settle in your lap and purr her head off. Car lights flash past, reflected from the front window that faces the high street. One set of them looks mini-bus shaped, the lights flashing as if they laugh at me and my lies.
To distract myself and Katya, I tell her about the Outlander trips website and how no-one has booked through the site.
“Hang on. Let me look at it,” she says. “If Jack wrote the text, maybe he hasn’t made it exciting enough to attract people. I’m the words expert around here.”
There’s a minute’s pause. “Er, what did you say the URL was?”
I repeat it, and she tells me there is no sign of it. Website not found.
“He knows how to publish a WordPress site, doesn’t he?”
Duh. I forgot one of Melissa’s sacred rules about clients. Never assume they know anything. It’s better to patronise people than to think your own knowledge is also theirs. No doubt, Jack looked at the site I’d hidden behind a password, said it was fine and thought that was that. He wouldn’t have known to disable the password. No wonder the flaming bookings haven’t flooded in. It’s not visible.
Bothered as I am about the man who doesn’t care enough to phone me and check I’m still alive, at least I designed a great website capable of generating bookings—or it will as soon as Jack presses ‘publish’. I’m tempted to drop the phone and run to his house, “Jack, Jack switch my iMac on. Let’s get this thing live.” But it’s eleven o’clock at night. Nine more hours of the world not knowing about Outlander tours won’t make that much difference.
“I advise you to go after Jack with every weapon in your arsenal. Do you need me to list them?” I might have known I couldn’t distract Katya for long, but the last list ended up on Twitter and resulted in the implosion of my relationship. I should steer clear of anything list-related again when it comes to my love life. My friend, however, disagrees and promises me she will detail every single thing amazing about me and send it through.
The promise makes me tearful, though I sense Katya roll her eyes when I tell her she is the best friend a girl ever had the fortune to stumble upon and the universe should also know her stupendous, delightful, remarkable, amazing qualities, like seriously.
“Is that so? And by the way, you ‘re hilarious after too many Pimms. But I will visit soon, promise! Mhari and
Jolene sound like threats to my Gaby’s best friend status, and it’s time for me to eyeball the competition and warn them off.”
That makes me laugh so hard Mena jumps off my lap in disgust, appalled that I’ve disrupted her comfort.
“Bye, Katya,” I say, vastly cheered up.
“Ciao, Gaby. And remember, Jack McAllan is yours for the taking. Go forth and conquer, girlfriend.”
The doorbell wakes me far too early the next morning. Despite everything swirling around in my head—the website, Kirsty and Jack, the futility of Jack and me—the three Pimms worked their magic, and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Mena jumps from the pillow next to me and yowls. “Too right, Mena,” I groan, throwing back the covers and wondering who on earth is as uncivilised to call on a Saturday at nine am. Last night, I decided removing my clothes before going to bed was a challenge too far, so a quick once-over with a brush to tame the fingers stuck in an electric socket effect, and I’m a quarter presentable.
The bell goes again, someone leaning too hard on it and I tell whoever to hang on, forgetting for the moment that Kirsty’s super-fancy house includes soundproof insulation.
I swing the door open. “Okay, okay I’m—Ryan! Good grief! What time did you leave the house?”
CHAPTER 21
Seriously, Gaby? Your ex-boyfriend and week-long fiancé is standing at the door, and all you can think to ask is a query about the details of his journey?
Ryan blinks and then grins, whipping a massive bunch of flowers from behind his back. He’s chosen all my favourites—Carnations, Alstroemeria and Gypsophila—and the flowers cover about half of his body. This is one super expensive Interflora purchase. I take them from him and stare at the man I used to see every day, who now seems like a total stranger. He doesn’t work in this setting. I’m too used to seeing... other men in this place and Ryan’s neat appearance is out of sorts here. He is thinner than he was too but it suits him.
Across the street I spot Mhari on her way to work, her mouth rounded in an ‘o’ and her attention half on the scene before her and half on the phone. Terrific. Another update to the Lochalshie WhatsApp group.
“Um, come in,” I say, anxious to get him off the doorstep before Mhari wanders over to join us and introduce herself.
Mena sees the flowers and Ryan, and hisses, arching her back. Her fur stands on end, making her twice the usual size. “Woah,” Ryan stares at her. “What a horrible animal!”
“Shush!” I put a finger to my lips, afraid Mena will overhear and be hurt. Besides, I am a changed woman. Mena, the cat I used to nickname Little Ms Mean, captured my heart some weeks ago and I’m now a paid-up member of the crazy cat lady club. I busy myself switching the kettle and feeding Mena. Ryan puts the flowers on the table in the kitchen and moves about the house, speculating on its price. I pour boiling water into mugs and panic. I’ve forgotten what Ryan, the man I lived with for years, takes in his coffee.
Milk. Of course. And I’ve none, seeing as I don’t. I hand the mug over anyway, and he grimaces and then resets his face to the devoted ex-boyfriend visiting estranged ex-girlfriend expression.
“Do you want a seat?” I ask, deciding to show off Kirsty’s house’s best feature—the chairs in the living room that allow you a perfect view of the loch. It’s a beautiful morning, the sun high in the sky already and although clouds take up two third of the sky, they are the white fluffy kind and not the too-usual dark-tinted ones that signal rain isn’t far away. A gentle breeze ripples the surface of the loch, and we watch birds crest and dive the waves.
As a salesman, Ryan isn’t short of words most of the time, but I see him put his coffee down and twist his hands together. Perhaps the seven-hour drive up here wasn’t enough time to rehearse whatever he wanted to say. “Gaby, I—” he begins at the same time as I jump in with a ‘how are you’ inquiry and another apology for the pros and cons list Katya posted online. It was that, or I would ask what time he left the house again. I’m interested. Ryan hates early mornings.
“It’s been a funny few months,” he says. “Not having you in the flat. I’ve missed you. A lot, it turns out.”
Here’s the weird thing about Ryan. He’s a car salesman, albeit part-time as in a small family business you do all sorts, and therefore he ought to have the gift of the gab. If you can charm people enough to persuade them to splash out tens of thousands of pounds on a heap of rusty metal, doesn’t it go without saying you’re able to speak the words of love and want without difficulty? Not so with Ryan. His proposal had the feel of someone who’d asked Google ‘how do you ask your girlfriend to marry you’, and he and I rarely bothered exchanging of ‘I love you’s’. I thought that was because we didn’t need to say it or that we weren’t saps, but since then I wondered if we didn’t say it because it didn’t apply. Habit’s a hard thing to break and me being with Ryan was comfortable, easy and routine. When you’ve been with each other since school, you can’t picture what adulthood without someone by your side is like. I found out it wasn’t half as bad as I’d once feared.
He turns his hands up. They tremble, which touches me. Or he might just be shaky after a long journey and an early start. “Do you want something to eat?” I jump to my feet. Cooking will serve as a distraction from a conversation I’m not sure I want to have. He nods and then stands too. “Though I could do it? I’m a dab hand at scrambled eggs these days.”
My face must show shock.
“When you left, I realised how much I’d taken you for granted.”
He opens my fridge and takes out eggs and a packet of smoked salmon. When I shake my head at that and say it’s Mena’s, he manages to keep the incredulity to a minimum. And he’s as good as his word. The scrambled eggs he presents me with a few minutes later on top of toasted sour-dough are fluffy and perfectly seasoned. Last night’s Pimms have left me ferociously hungry, and I put away my helping in double quick time. When Ryan pushes aside his half-finished plate, I take it from him and wolf that down too.
“Kayleigh,” I say. “Can you explain that?” Fortified with vast amounts of protein and carbs, I can ask this question. When I say the name, I remember something my mum used to say when I was a teenager: never ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to. My body doesn’t tense up when I ask about Kayleigh, which means... well, whatever he replies won’t bother me. I also remember a Katya point made to me when she was ghostwriting a guide to detection skills for new members of the CID at Norfolk Constabulary. Bullet points listed the signs to watch out for when someone lies to you. Too much eye contact was one as the person tries to convince you they are trustworthy and for men, they often keep their feet entirely still. I’m on eye and foot watch.
Ryan looks away, the light catching him in profile. Once upon a time, I knew that face as well as my own, and now Jack’s profile keeps imposing itself on top of Ryan’s features. I have to blink to get rid of it and concentrate on my erstwhile boyfriend whose feet tap out an agitated rhythm.
“A mistake,” he says. “I thought I was missing out because we’d been together since we were teenagers. And she threw herself at—”
He breaks off as I glare at him. As excuses go, the ol’ ‘forgive me my male genes, m’lud. I couldn’t help myself’ is at the top there with the dog ate my homework one.
The doorbell sounds again. Dear heaven. This is my morning for shocks or should I say surprises? The woman at the door throws her arms around me, and I’m pushed up close to a heavily scented body in impeccable clothing. Behind me, Mena yowls—a different miaow than her usual one, and the woman steps back and claps her hands delightedly.
“Mena sweet-pea! I knew you’d be torn in tiny pieces when I left you!”
The fabled Dating Guru then, and every bit as gorgeous as she looks on film and in photos close up, though I can’t help thinking the painting Jack has wildly flatters her. She’s taller than me, Jack’s height, I’d say, and her hair thick and glossy, styled in an ‘I woke
up like this’ way, but one I suspect takes an hour with a heavy-duty hair-drier and straightening irons. Wide blue eyes framed with thick lashes sweep me from top to bottom. I sense the assessment makes her let out a giant sigh of relief.
Mena stays behind me. Perhaps she finds it hard to forgive those who abandon her and I give her a silent cheer. Ryan has moved into the hallway too, and the woman notices him behind me.
“Gaby!” she says, “I didn’t want to let myself in in case you were entertaining. And you are.” More relief this time and a double helping of delight. I’m not sure of the etiquette here when someone returns to the house and the cat they wanted you to look after. Do you offer them a cup of tea and then make it, even though they know where the kettle and mugs are kept? And the place is a tip too. As the weeks have gone by, I’ve gone back to slob standards. The house isn’t dirty, but I’ve left clothes lying around upstairs, empty mugs, glasses and plates in the kitchen and magazines and books all over the living room floor. The agency brings in a professional cleaning company at the end of the cat sitting contract, and I’ve started to rely too much on it
“Er, come in,” I say. “I was just about to tidy up. What brings you back then?”
Kirsty walks past me, a tinkle of a laugh. If she objects to the state of the place, she says nothing though her eyes sweep the place and she purses her lips. “Oh, a surprise! A lovely one for Jack and one for you!” I pull the door shut and spot Mhari once more. This must be her morning coffee break. I’m tempted to ask her to join us. Mhari shakes her head furiously and uses her forefinger to score across her throat, rounding her mouth into an emphatic ‘no, no!’ at me. Flippin’ heck. Is Kirsty a serial killer in disguise? I shut the door. Kirsty seems to be on first-name terms with Ryan. She greets him with a “Hello again! I told you this would be brilliant, and I was right, wasn’t I?”
I do a double take at that. What does she mean? The three of us stand in the living room, me all too conscious that the carpet in there hasn’t been vacuumed for a while. Kirsty glances out the window and remarks how much she has missed the still beauty of the place and its peace. She moves a magazine from one chair, pointedly holding it between thumb and forefinger, and places it on the coffee table before sitting down. I take that as my cue to do so too as does Ryan.