Anna smiled. She looked at the coffee eddying in her mug for a moment, contemplating. It wasn’t that she’d expected Liam to be exclusive. But she couldn’t help thinking that from now on, if they did carry on as they had been, she’d find herself wondering where Liam was when he wasn’t with her, what he was doing and with whom. She had a feeling it would be easy to get caught in that mental eddy again, being sucked down into a whirlpool of hurt that would have nothing to do with this relationship and far more to do with the fact that really, she was still recovering from the harm Geoff had caused her over the years. Her time with Liam had been good – great, even – and so far he’d shown her more respect than Geoff ever had. That’s how she wanted to remember him.
She reached over and squeezed Liam’s fingers. He turned his hand over so that he could grasp hers.
‘I don’t feel badly about you wanting to see this girl at all. But I think it would be for the best if we call it a day before you do,’ she told him. ‘This is a cliché, but… it’s not you, it’s me. You’ve been honest, and I appreciate that. And you’re right, we’ve had a lot of fun, and I won’t ever regret the time we’ve had. But I think it’s run its course. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’
The shadow of disappointment crossed Liam’s face. He looked down at their twined hands, and then lifted her fingers to kiss them, briefly.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, smiling again. ‘I’m fine. Really. Come and say goodbye before you go back to New Zealand. We’ll sit at this bench and have one last glass of wine.’
Liam smiled at her. ‘I’ll do that.’ Then he reached out his free hand to brush her hair back from her face and leaned in to kiss her. The touch was warm, but didn’t linger. When their lips parted, so did their hands.
Anna watched as he walked back along the path in the day’s fading light. They didn’t say goodbye, but it was enough of an ending. Then she turned to face the water. Slowly she probed the throb in her chest, checking gently for damage. There was a feeling of loss, of regret, but she had never expected Liam to be a permanent fixture in her life. As handsome as he was, she hadn’t wanted him to be, either. Her heart was aching, yes, but Anna didn’t think it was really him she was aching for. It was for a connection lost. She was alone again.
She leaned back against the bench and looked at the Fishergirl’s Luck, standing as steadfast as it ever had. Solid and of itself; alone yet never lonely.
A movement at the far end of the village caught Anna’s eye. She looked up to see Douglas McKean halfway down the sea wall, leaning on his walking stick as he watched her with a baleful eye. Anna stared back, a defiant kind of fury growing in her chest. Whether it was him that had made the call or not, it was Douglas McKean who had scuppered lunch club. What right did he have to meddle in her life aside from a ridiculous delusion that the Fishergirl’s Luck should really belong to him? As if it would be as it is now if he had. It was Bren MacKenzie who had looked at this tiny shack and seen that it could be lived in, Bren MacKenzie who had poured her hard work and earnings into making that idea a reality. And now this place was Anna’s, fair and square, just as it had belonged to Bren before her, and she could do what she liked with it. Bren hadn’t let McKean bully her, not for a second. Why should Anna put up with him, or the cronies that had joined in his bitter quest? She didn’t need McKean’s approval, nor anyone else’s either. She’d already wasted too much of her working life trying to scale that particular mountain.
Leaving the coffee tray where it was, Anna went to knock on the door of the Weaver’s Nook.
‘Frank,’ she said, when he answered with a mug of tea in his hand. ‘Could you spare me a bit of time this week? I need your plumbing expertise.’
Seventeen
By the end of the week, Anna was in possession of a brand-new sink and a five out of five rating from the health and safety branch of the local council.
‘Very nice,’ said Belinda Turner, when she saw the excellent job that Frank had done of fitting the double Belfast and swing tap. ‘I’m so glad that you’re going to go ahead with the lunch club,’ she added. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea. I’d like to come along myself. Are you going to start tomorrow?’
‘No, I’m going to wait until the bank holiday weekend, at the end of the month. That’ll give me time to prepare and will hopefully also mean there’ll be more visitors around,’ Anna told her. ‘First come, first served, first course ready at 1.15 p.m. It’d be nice to see you.’ Anna was no fool. Having the health and safety officer willing to eat at her table was an optic she could get behind. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, McKean.
‘I’ll be away, sadly. But perhaps sometime further down the line.’
‘Ah,’ Anna said. ‘Well, let me get through this one first before I commit to any more!’
‘Good luck,’ Turner smiled, as the two women shook hands in parting. ‘I’ll have my fingers crossed for you that the weather holds fair, at least.’
* * *
Anna spent the next week making sure she knew exactly what she was going to be doing when lunch club finally went ahead. The Usual Suspects were all delighted to hear that she was giving it another shot, as was Cathy, who lovingly revised the poster she had designed for the first one. Anna pinned this up on the Friday before the long weekend, taking a step back to admire the way it looked against the cornflower blue of the Fishergirl’s Luck’s front door.
Bring it on, she thought. This time, it’s happening, Douglas McKean be damned.
For a moment, Anna imagined Bren standing beside her, grinning, and smiled to herself.
* * *
Next morning, Pat appeared on Anna’s doorstep, declaring that she had come to provide help with prep.
‘I’ll be your kitchen urchin!’ she said, arms held wide as if she could hug the world, and Anna had no doubt that this woman would do it too, given the chance.
‘Thank you,’ Anna said, with a laugh. ‘Although I’m not sure there’ll be room for both of us.’
‘We’ll make it work, love,’ said Pat, as she came inside. ‘Needs must, and all that.’
The women moved around each other in the small space with efficient ease as Pat followed Anna’s instructions. Her friend’s steady, warm presence reminded Anna of cooking with her mother when she was young – it was a different energy from being in a professional kitchen and one that Anna hadn’t realized she’d missed so much until that moment. The knowledge shocked her, spun into her heart with a powerful physical pang as it occurred to Anna anew how very alone she was in the world. For all her new friends and new life, for all the fun moments she’d had with Liam, she had no family left. Pat couldn’t hug her in quite the way her mother used to. Her father wouldn’t come barrelling into the kitchen, making them all laugh as he lifted her out of the way to steal a biscuit, still warm from the oven.
Dad.
Anna looked out of the tiny window onto the ocean waves that were churning gently in the sunlight, her heart suddenly a heavy, thumping mass. She’d been so busy in recent weeks that her thoughts had turned to his loss less frequently, but now there he was, surfacing unexpectedly, his hair as untidy as ever, smile still in place.
She swallowed hard against the threat of tears, and then found herself thinking about Robert MacKenzie. How could anyone expect him to simply move on from his wife, whom he had loved so completely, however many years it had been since her passing? She couldn’t even let her father go easily. Anna herself knew so well, now, the hopeless ebb and flow of grief – the inevitable, inescapable undertow that carried one helplessly from anguish to guilt, from the temporary buoyancy of memory to the flat exhaustion of absolute depression, all in the space of minutes and often in the middle of something entirely unrelated.
‘Are you all right?’ Pat asked, apparently picking up on Anna’s change in mood.
Anna forced herself to shake off the sudden flood of grief. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much f
or your help, Pat, you’ve been wonderful. I think I’ll be fine on my own now, if you want to get back?’
Pat took off her apron and pulled Anna into a warm hug. ‘Try to enjoy yourself, love,’ she said. ‘This is what you do! You’re so good at it. I know whoever you end up serving today will love your food as much as we all do. Pop over later and tell us all about it,’ her friend added, giving her a final squeeze. ‘I’ve put a bottle of bubbly in to chill for the occasion.’
Once Pat had gone, Anna threw herself into the work, the hours slipping by in deep concentration. She’d chosen a risotto for the main course and was checking the seasoning when there was a knock at the door. Anna glanced up at the clock, which told her it was almost one o’clock.
Anna went to open the door and found a young couple in their twenties standing on the step.
‘Hi,’ she said, smiling. ‘Are you here for lunch?’
They both smiled and indicated the poster. ‘Yes! We were hoping to be, anyway,’ said the man. ‘It says first come, first served – does that mean we’re still in time?’
Anna ignored the sudden fizz of nerves. ‘It does! You’re my first guests.’
‘Wonderful,’ said the woman. ‘I know we’re early, but can we sit down now?’
‘Of course you can,’ Anna said. ‘I won’t be ready to serve for another quarter of an hour, but if you take a seat, I’ll bring you some drinks. I can’t serve alcohol, but—’
‘Water would be fine. Thanks!’
She left the door open as they headed for the garden, and was filling a jug with water for her guests when another much younger and very excited voice called to her from the step.
‘Anna!’ called the voice. ‘Anna, Anna, Anna! Guess what?’
Young Robbie MacKenzie was standing in the doorway, clutching his Dolphin Patrol exercise book in both hands and looking as if he were about to explode.
‘Robbie! What are you doing here?’
‘Dad said we were coming to yours for lunch. We’ve seen the pod – and they’ve got the baby with them!’
‘Robbie, stop yelling,’ came his father’s voice. Robert MacKenzie appeared beside his son and rested a hand on his excited head, looking through the door at Anna with an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry. It’s been quite a morning.’
Two more figures appeared beside him – another boy of Robbie’s age and a man that Anna assumed was the child’s father.
‘This is Fraser and Jamie. We’ve all been out on dolphin patrol, as you will have gathered,’ Robert MacKenzie explained, ‘and I thought we might be in time to join your lunch club. Have you got room for four hungry mariners?’
‘I – yes,’ Anna said. ‘Yes, there’s still space.’
‘You don’t mind?’ Robert asked. ‘Maybe you’d prefer to keep it for new faces…?’
‘Of course not,’ she told him, smiling. ‘It’s lovely of you to come. Take a seat, I’ll be out in a moment. There are two guests already there.’
Anna went back to the kitchen and picked up the water jug, adding it to a tray of glasses and a plate of gougères she’d made in case she needed extra time in the kitchen. Carrying everything out into the sunlight, she saw that Robert and his friend had seated themselves opposite each other in the middle of the bench, as a kind of buffer between her two other guests and the two boys.
‘Hello, everyone,’ she said. ‘Welcome to lunch at the Fishergirl’s Luck.’ She put the tray down in the centre of the table. ‘Please help yourselves. Lunch will be served shortly.’
‘Anna,’ Robert said, ‘let me quickly introduce Fraser.’
His friend got up and held out a hand with a warm grin. ‘Pleased to meet you, Anna,’ he said. ‘I hear you’ve got a bit of an adventurous spirit, which always goes down well with me. Can’t wait to try this food of yours.’
‘Oh – thank you,’ Anna said, slightly taken aback at this characterization. ‘You’re local too, then?’
Fraser sat down again, grinning. He was a big man, broad-shouldered with a hugely square jaw and a dark mop of wiry black hair. ‘Born and bred in Macduff,’ he nodded at his friend, ‘grew up with this reprobate. We live in Elgin now, though – it’s easier for my wife, she commutes to Inverness every bloody day.’
‘Dad!’ Jamie exclaimed, digging him in the ribs with a sharp elbow.
‘Oops, sorry,’ Fraser said, putting a finger to his mouth but smiling behind it all the same. ‘Don’t tell Ma, all right? I’ll be in the doghouse.’
Jamie squinted up at him. ‘What’s it worth?’
Robert laughed. ‘He’s got you there, Fraser.’
The young couple at the other end of the table laughed along too and Fraser turned to them with a dramatic, long-suffering sigh.
‘We should introduce ourselves as well,’ he said, holding out a hand to the young man, ‘since we’re eating companions. We promise not to be too rowdy. Well, the kids won’t be, anyway. I’ll try to keep Old Robbie in line but he’s a wild one at heart… Here, have one of these cheese things, they’re amazing.’
As Anna went in and out to the table, she gathered that the young couple were called Nathan and Kate. They lived in Aberdeen, but had come over to Rosehearty for an impromptu night away. The conversation had made its way around to occupations by the time she came out to clear their plates.
‘You’re really a cooper?’ Nathan asked Robert. ‘There aren’t many of you guys left, are there?’
Anna looked at Robert, interested herself. When she’d learned that he was on the lifeboats, she’d assumed that was his main occupation.
‘There aren’t,’ he agreed.
‘Which distillery are you at?’
‘Macduff.’
‘I didn’t even know there was a distillery at Macduff,’ Kate said, surprised.
‘There’s no reason you would,’ Robert told her. ‘It’s not a single malt producer anymore. Production is only for blends. And though I’m based there, I move around.’ Anna took his plate and he looked up at her, smiling. ‘Thank you. That was the best thing I’ve eaten for a long time.’
‘Yeah,’ his son agreed. ‘Dad’s a rubbish cook. He even burns beans on toast.’
Fraser gave a loud belly laugh that rippled around the table as Anna went back to the cottage to serve dessert. Her gaze was drawn to the figure slowly making his way towards them along the path. It was Douglas McKean. Her stomach did a sick spin. He wasn’t usually out and about at this time of day.
She busied herself with the lemon possets, taking them out of the fridge, unwrapping them and putting them on plates with the buttery shortbread she’d made alongside ramekins of fresh raspberries. Then she heard Old Robbie’s voice, slightly raised.
‘Douglas,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’
There was an answering grumble that sounded like thunder gathering on a hot day. Anna went outside to see that McKean was leaning over the fence. She could feel his eyes on her as she passed, heading for Nathan and Kate at the far end of the table.
‘Why don’t you join us, Mr McKean?’ she asked. ‘I made extra desserts and there’s coffee on. You’re welcome. I can bring out an extra chair for you.’
The old man didn’t even acknowledge that she’d spoken. His eyes were fixed on Old Robbie, instead.
‘The shame,’ he said, his accent thick but his words still clear to everyone sitting at the table. ‘The shame of you, Robert MacKenzie, breaking bread at this table when you know this place is rightfully mine.’
‘Ach now, Dougie, not this nonsense again,’ Robert said, clearly trying to keep the tone light and jovial. ‘Why don’t you come and eat with us, man? You’ve been invited.’
Douglas McKean shot Anna a look that was pure dislike.
‘As if I’d sit at this thieving harlot’s table. How can you sit here when I’ve been robbed—’
Robert was out of his seat so quickly that the old man actually took a step back. ‘Enough,’ he said, his voice darkly threatening in a way Anna had not yet he
ard from him. ‘That is enough, Douglas McKean. You will never speak of Anna or to her again. Never, from this day. Anna owns this place fair and square, as Bren did before her, and unless you begin to show some respect you’ve had the last help you’ll ever get from me, do you understand? Remember whose house it is you live in.’
The old man’s eyes widened and his gaze shot from Robert to Anna. A look of shock bloomed on his face, followed quickly by something that might have been confusion. He shrunk into himself. His face crumbled. Then he turned his back and stumbled away.
Robert turned back to the table. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, to everyone, before looking at Anna.
Anna turned back to the table, smiling and hoping that it seemed genuine. Even the children had fallen quiet, aware of the strange, unintelligible adult storm that had broken over their heads. Her heart sank when she saw that the only two actual guests at her table were looking on with faint horror, their desserts abandoned.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Please, do carry on. Can I get you some coffee? Boys, would you like another drink? I’ve got fizzy orange, or cola.’
It was Fraser who got the conversation going again, looking up at her with a warm smile. ‘Coffee would be fantastic. And I bet Jamie would love some fizzy orange, wouldn’t you? Saturday treat. Don’t tell Ma.’
The murmur of chatter slowly began to rise again around the table. Anna left it and went inside, the hot shame of mortification still burning in her chest.
The diners didn’t linger long over their coffee. Anna wasn’t surprised when Nathan and Kate made their excuses to leave. Kate shook her hand with a warm enough smile, however, and pressed a sheaf of notes into Anna’s hand.
‘Oh no,’ Anna told her, ‘please – I can’t take anything, not after that!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Kate smiled. ‘The food was more than worth it. As for the old man… that wasn’t your fault. Please, take it. And good luck – I hope you do more of these, I think it’s a wonderful idea.’
The House Beneath the Cliffs Page 13