‘Hi, Lillis. I know you weren’t to start until tomorrow officially, but we’re short of staff in the bistro tonight. Any chance you’d come over and dig in?’
‘I’ll get changed and be there in ten minutes.’
‘You’re a life saver,’ Struan says, and claps his hands. ‘Excellent.’
He walks down the corridor, shout-singing ‘Everything I do, I do it for you.’ Struan Torrance is the way I thought he would be but older; he is a lean fifty-something, nearly bald, full of chat and energy. In his advertisement he called himself ‘an artisan hotelier’, which made me think his place might be interesting even if he sounded like a bit of an eejit. The Strathcorry Inn is more of a lodge than a hotel and there is a smoky, den-like feel to it. Odd artefacts, like fossils and geodes, sit on rickety antique furniture all around the hotel. It has a small art gallery. Verity would love it.
I go through the reception area to get to the bistro and Struan is at the desk; he jumps out of his chair, waving an envelope.
‘Lillis, this came for you, I’m so sorry, I forgot; it’s a telegram.’
‘A telegram?’ I grab it and tear it open: Happy 21st, sweetheart, love Verity, I read. ‘Oh Jesus,’ I say.
‘Not bad news, I hope?’
‘No, no.’ I laugh. ‘My mother is such a drama queen – it just says happy birthday.’
‘Is today your birthday?’
‘It is.’
‘Och, well then, happy birthday. We’ll have a drink tonight.’
I’m not sure if the ‘we’ means him and me, or everyone on the staff, or what; I thank him anyway and rush through to the bistro to start work. There are only two of us waiting the tables – me and a Scottish girl called Sam. The head chef, Dulcie, is slow and crabby and all I can do is tip-toe around her bad humour.
‘It’s my bunions – they’re killing me,’ Dulcie shouts, then laughs and points to a waiting order; I am not sure if I am meant to laugh too. ‘Hey, new girl, chop, chop,’ she barks, and I hoist the plates and swing through the kitchen doors.
Sam tries to train me as we go. She is patient and officious, but it is so busy that I can only muddle along after her, sweating and nervous. I try to carry a plate on my wrist and one in each hand like Sam shows me, but I am terrified of dropping the lot so I revert to the safety of carrying a pair. I attempt to answer questions about the menu from the diners, but Sam has to rescue me every time. Struan helps us out when we get swamped and the night passes quickly in a fug of burnt fingers, the waft of venison and clanging plates. By the end, my feet feel like someone else’s feet and all I want to do is lie down. It is a while since I have waitressed and I had forgotten about the aching, overheated feet and the go-go-go.
When the last guests leave, Sam and I clear the bistro tables and set up for breakfast. Struan comes back in.
‘Will we jog down to The Windhorse for a drink or will we stay here? It’s Lillis’s birthday.’
‘Oh, happy birthday,’ Sam says. ‘What age are you?’
‘Twenty-one,’ I say.
‘Aw, hen, why didn’t you say?’ asks Struan. ‘That’s a proper birthday. And it’s Midsummer’s Night. Twenty-one on the twenty first. That’s special, eh?’
He clears the dishes from one of the breakfast tables and tells Sam and me to sit. He goes to the wine locker and takes out champagne; he gets glasses from the bar and pops the bottle.
‘These are Martini glasses,’ Sam says, wiggling hers by the stem.
‘Aye, right enough, Sam, but they’re fancy,’ Struan says, and he pours. We lift our glasses. ‘To Lillis. Happy birthday, wee hen.’ He kisses the top of my head and I giggle. I see Sam looking at me; I smile but she doesn’t return it. We all drink and Struan pours again.
I am lonely as all fuck. I thought I was lonely when I got here, a few evenings since. The bus rattled up from Inverness and, when it stopped on the pier, I looked at the loch and the hills – everything so still and clamour free – and wondered if I would survive more than a few weeks. Struan met me off the bus and walked me up to the inn. He introduced me to some of the other staff and they nodded and I smiled, but none of their names have stayed with me. Now I am disgustingly homesick and I am not sure there is any cure for that. I even miss Verity.
I left Dublin airport thinking Ya-boo-hiss, I don’t give a shit if I never see this place again, but I would do anything to be back by the Liffey now, soaking in its brewery and weed stink. I am looking out the window of my tiny staff bedroom: below there is a street of white houses, and beyond that I can see the edge of the sea loch where the water is the plum colour of veins; I can hear ropes thwacking off boat masts and the wheening of gulls. If I crane further, I can see where the hills huddle over Loch Brack and lead it out to sea. I would go for a walk only I have been around the village three times already and I know there is nothing new to see. I can’t seem to lift my hand to anything.
Verity warned me I would be lonely.
‘You’ll miss home, Lillis – the city, Robin, everything,’ she said. She was putting the finishing touches to one of her art works – sewing silver buttons onto a tiny waistcoat – and I was standing over her. ‘You’ll even miss me.’
‘I don’t think so, Mother.’ She reared her head and looked at me. ‘No offence,’ I added and hugged her. Her body closed against me like a bird folding itself under its wings. I put my hands into the hair at the nape of her neck the way I always did when I was a kid; I sniffed deep on her patchouli and glue smell.
‘Come home if Scotland doesn’t agree with you,’ she said, ‘if it doesn’t work out.’
‘Why would it not work out?’ I said. ‘It’s a waitressing job, Mam, not a career move. I only want to escape for a while.’
‘I’m just saying. You’re not yourself yet. Dónal’s not long dead and you’re not back to normal; you couldn’t be. And it’s a big deal, anyway, going abroad.’ She put her sewing down, pulled her hair into a ponytail and smiled. ‘Ah, go and enjoy it,’ she said, ‘you’re young. The young are blessed.’
Yes, I do miss her; I miss our sparring. I miss Robin too. And I miss Dónal something rotten.
Chapter Two
Kinlochbrack is a fishing village with a Presto supermarket, a gaggle of craft shops and cafés, and obedient seals that bob in the sea loch for the tourists. There is a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry to take you across Loch Brack and the open sea to the Isles, smaller boats provide pleasure trips, salmon farms clutter up the bay, and the rampant smell of fish hangs over everything. Four pubs sit in front of the harbour wall and a group of frowsy B&Bs vie with each other for business. The village swells in the summer with visitors and seasonal staff from all over the world. Struan opened the Strathcorry Inn five years ago and, he says, it is doing better than he could ever have hoped.
I take my camera out early in the morning to catch sunrise over the loch, hoping for dramatic light. The streets are empty. A vanette pulls up beside the bakery and I see Tom the delivery man hoiking baskets of bread and trays of buns in the door; he waves and I salute him. He has been down to Inverness and back already for the bread and it occurs to me that he must never sleep because he was in The Windhorse until midnight with the rest of us. A few herring fishermen in orange waders heap their nets on the pier and call to each other; their laughter lilts like music across to where I sit on the harbour wall, waiting for the sun. I watch them load their gear and smoke cigarettes before chugging out to sea, unzipping the water with their boat.
The loch is flat calm and the navy humps of the hills opposite are like whales, huge and motionless; the air is sea-reeky and cool. When the sun finally pushes up from the horizon it is hidden because of a bank of cloud, but the sky changes from slate to a watery grey. A dazzling line of white appears at the top of the cloudbank. The clouds move up and the sun appears, orange-shimmery, huge and rising fast. I s
nap and snap, standing on the harbour wall then jumping off it to move up and down Shore Street, looking for the best angles. The sun is a broken wavering blob and I hope some of the weird effects will come through in my photos. The sky turns from salmon to deep yellow and, too soon, to an ashy white. I put the lens cap back on the camera, feeling that disappointment that always settles over me in the aftermath of a beautiful sunrise; the grey morning is, by then, always too grey. But the shots will be good, I think.
Cold has seeped into every part of me so I go up to the inn. I sit in the staff hut that squats in the yard behind the kitchen, to read and drink tea before my shift starts. The Superser, which is always on, burbles in the corner like a contented animal; I enjoy its queasy heat and flickering blue flame. Struan comes in, balancing a scone on top of a mug, a cigarette in his other hand. He sits opposite me and grins like he has something he wants to say, but he pulls on his cigarette and doesn’t speak. I look up from my book.
‘Yes, Struan? I’m waiting. You look like you’re going to explode.’
‘I’ve just realised what it is that your hair reminds me of,’ he says, waggling his cigarette, before taking a long drag. ‘I have been trying to figure it out for weeks. It’s Medusa.’ He blows the smoke sideways.
‘Medusa? With the snake hair? Wow, thanks.’ I look at Struan and he laughs. ‘No, really, I’m flattered. What girl doesn’t want that comparison made?’
‘You’ve a fine head of hair, Lillis: all those tumbling waves, snaking out from your head.’
‘Well, Struan, all I can say in reply is that you have a fine head of skin.’
‘You cheeky Irish wench.’ He throws a piece of scone across the table and it lands on my book. ‘Do you know the Rubens painting Head of Medusa?’
‘We studied that in art; it’s fairly grim. Are you saying I look like her?’
The hut door swings wide and Sam troops in. She is a closed-off girl, I have discovered, superior and watchful. I haven’t had to work with her much but, when I do, she is mostly silent. I had thought that we might become friendly but I can see she doesn’t want that.
‘Is this a private convo or can anyone join in?’ she says, sitting beside Struan and looking up into his face; she bites into a piece of toast and talks through it. ‘How are you finding the work, Lillian? Feet still sore?’
‘Her name is Lillis, Sam. I think you’ve been told that about a hundred times already,’ Struan says.
‘Lillis, Lillis,’ Sam says, testing my name in a bored way. ‘Is that French?’
‘Greek,’ I say.
‘Greek indeed,’ Struan says. ‘Go on, Medusa, you have cutlery to polish and breakfasts to serve. Get thee to the bistro.’
‘Yes, off you go,’ Sam says, lighting a cigarette and staring at me. She sucks a froth of smoke up her nose then blows it out through her lips.
‘I’m gone,’ I say, getting up and squeezing past Sam, who has pushed her chair in front of the door.
Struan follows me out. ‘Some girl Sam, eh?’
‘She can be a bit rude.’
‘Complicated love life,’ he says, holding open the kitchen door for me.
‘My heart bleeds.’
‘Now, now, be nice. Hey, do you fancy a drive later? I got my car fixed and I need to take her out for a run. We could head up north, towards the peaks.’
‘Sure,’ I say, delighted at the idea of a spin; an hour or two away from the village, a chance to see what lies beyond Kinlochbrack. ‘Just don’t refer to the car as a she anymore and we’ll be laughing.’
We park above Loch Lurgainn and sit looking at Stac Pollaidh, a lone mountain with a scooped peak. It squats – a huge, immoveable tent – blood-dark against the white sky.
‘Totally gorgeous, isn’t it?’ Struan says, stretching his body.
‘It’s red,’ I say. ‘The same as Uluru.’
‘Sandstone.’
I take photos through the windscreen, feeling too lazy and warm to get out of the car into the windy afternoon. The lake below us is black and I watch a line of gulls follow each other like sheep along its shore. Inside the car the air smells earthy, like a greenhouse. Struan takes two dream rings from a paper bag and we eat them in silence; the white icing makes my teeth ache. I pull the sweet, bready halves apart and lick at the baker’s cream that is liberally painted on both sides.
‘Fucking yum,’ I say. I suck the cream off my fingers. ‘Look at me, I’m a total mess.’
Struan holds up his sticky hands. ‘Me too; like a wain.’
I lick the sweetness from my skin and mop at the wet with a tissue. ‘Tell me something interesting, Struan.’
‘Em, let me see,’ he says, tapping the steering wheel, ‘something interesting. Oh, I know: my father had webbed fingers.’
I look at him and laugh. ‘Did he really?’
‘Honestly.’ He stretches out both hands and dips his index finger through the valleys of the fingers on his left hand. ‘They were as webbed as any duck’s foot.’
‘Jesus, that is interesting.’
Struan smiles at me. His looks don’t make a great first impression, I think, but they soften as you spend time with him. He is porcine, in ways, with his small eyes and almost bald head, but he is definitely one of those men who, the more you look at him, the more attractive he gets.
‘You tell me something now, Lillis. Something entirely fascinating.’ He lights up a cigarette and rolls down the window a crack.
‘Oh, God, pressure.’ I think for a moment. ‘Well, when I’m reading a book, I always notice when I’ve reached page one hundred. That page number dances up to my eyes but none of the others do.’
‘Hmm. That’s sort of interesting,’ he says. ‘Another thing now.’
‘Well…what? Oh, I know, the smell of lavender oil makes my throat close up.’
Struan frowns. ‘I have one, this is a good one: there are three golf balls on the moon.’
I laugh. ‘No way! That’s bollox – no way is that true.’
‘It is true. I read it in the Reader’s Digest, so it has to be true. Can you imagine the sound they’d make if you hit them?’ He swings an imaginary club. ‘Phluck, phluck, phluck.’
‘I have one now: my mother stuffs dead animals for a living. She’s a taxidartist.’ I smile and prod him in the belly. ‘Is that fascinating enough for you?’
‘It is, actually. What kind of animals?’ He squints at me, scratching his cheek.
‘She’ll use anything really. People know about her now, so she’s always being offered road kill and dead pets. Though she usually refuses pussycats and Jack Russells because of what she does to them.’ I look down at the lake and wonder how cold it would be for a swim; I shiver.
‘Why? What does she do to them?’
‘She skins and mounts them and dresses them in costumes. She turns them into works of art. Ultimately, she sells them.’ I laugh. ‘It sounds a bit obscene when I explain it like that.’ I look at Struan. ‘She was presented with a monkey recently; she gave it a pipe, a pinny and high heels.’ I smile. ‘People want to see their pets as they were in real life, not morphed into something weird. So she usually says no to pets and general taxidermy work. Verity prefers oddities.’
‘I love it. When do I get to meet this artistic genius? Would she sell me a piece for the Strathcorry?’
‘I don’t know. She might come over to Scotland sometime to visit me; she’s often busy with exhibitions and things.’ I wave my hand absently.
‘Maybe she’d show in the gallery at the inn? Her work sounds great. She sounds great.’
‘My mother has her moments, believe me.’
‘So much for me and my web-handed dad. He was a bus driver who rarely spoke. I think he thought speech was a kind of affectation. What does your father do?’
‘University lecturer; Marine Science. My parents are separated.’
‘My mum was a tea lady. The glamour.’ He flicks ash out the window. ‘Now she’s half mad.’
‘In fairness, your folks were probably a lot better at being parents than mine ever were.’
‘Maybe. No, I doubt it.’
Struan stabs his cigarette butt into the ash-tray. He turns to look at me, leans across and gathers handfuls of my hair. He lifts it to his mouth and nose and sniffs.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I fancy you, Lillis.’ He leans over and puts his mouth to mine. His lips are firm but soft and we kiss slowly. He pulls away. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.’
‘Me too.’ We both giggle and he puts his head on my shoulder; I stroke his neck.
‘I love your voice, your accent. It comforts me. My mother had an Irish friend when I was a boy; I can’t remember her name – it might have been Maura, something like that. Nora, maybe. She was exotic, like a woman from a film. Her nails were always pink, like the inside of a shell, you know? Listening to you talk reminds me of her.’
I move my shoulder so that he has to lift his head and I take his cheeks in my hands; I kiss him. ‘Glad to be of service.’
Struan pecks me on the lips, laughs and starts the engine. ‘We’d better start moving so we’re back in time for the evening shift. We don’t want our Lady Sam in a sulk.’
We are quiet on the return drive; the road is narrow and Struan drives fast, swerving into the passing places when other cars approach. The road winds and dips through valleys of rock where sheep teeter, chewing contemplatively. He takes hairpin bends like a rally driver and I cling to my seat. The mountains rise and fall with the meander of the road, sometimes looming hugely, other times seeming smaller, less domineering. Struan names them for me: Bein an Eoin, Cul Beag, Cona Mheall. I spot Highland cows here and there, their faces stuck downwards in never-ending grazing; bog cotton sways festively in dark ditches full of water. I can taste Struan on my tongue and I glance sideways at him while he drives. My mother would approve of him, I think; she is a sucker for a confident man.
The Closet of Savage Mementos Page 2