A Lion and a Unicorn
‘You down there, are you all right or am I calling the coastguard?’
Even through the fog of tears and the headache that crying her heart out always brought on, Beatrice registered how the harshness of the woman’s words were softened by the trilling Highland accent.
‘You’re not dead, are you? I’ve no mind to be hauling a body up the sea wall today, I’ve got my fish supper to eat.’
Beatrice craned her neck and looked directly above her. Red hair tumbled over the Port Willow bay sea wall like Rapunzel, and a broad, kind smile greeted her. The sun shone behind the woman’s head in a halo. It was the woman from the bar last night, the one Atholl had been so friendly with. Beatrice shielded her eyes and cleared her throat. ‘I’ll be all right, thanks. I’m fine.’
‘Righty-o.’ The woman pulled her head back over the wall and disappeared from view.
‘Oh! She really has left.’ Beatrice might have imagined that when someone happened upon a strange woman blubbing over an abandoned lobster pot against a sea wall at low tide they’d be a bit more insistent about helping out.
She wiped the tears away with her sleeves and pressed the heel of her hands into her tired eyes. Maybe if she sat still long enough the headache would eventually clear and she could drag herself off this beach and into the inn behind her where she could sleep away the rest of the day in peace.
The approaching footsteps over sand and shingle and someone coming to a stop a few feet away told her she’d have to pull herself together sooner than that.
‘Here, I didn’t know if you were a tea or a coffee girl, so I got one of each.’
The redhead had walked along the sea wall and down the steps to her rescue after all. Before Beatrice could say anything her companion was sitting beside her, mirroring Beatrice’s position by resting her back against the wall.
‘There’s a coffee shop here?’ Beatrice asked in surprise, reaching for a cup. ‘I’m most definitely a coffee girl, if you don’t mind. Thank you.’
The takeaway cup was handed over and Beatrice took a long, appreciative drink.
‘There’s a café in the back of the general store along the front. Haven’t you been in yet?’
‘Not yet,’ she said with a sniff and knowing she wouldn’t set foot in the place in the future either. ‘This is just what I needed.’
‘Nothing like a cuppa,’ the woman smiled sagely, crossing her long legs at her ankle boots and looking out to sea.
There was kindness in that, Beatrice thought. When someone’s been ugly-crying and has the blotchy red face and snotty nose to show for it, the nicest thing to do is sit close and avert your eyes.
‘I’m Kitty,’ the woman said to the blue sky.
‘I’m Beatrice. I don’t normally do this sort of thing.’ Beatrice ran through the number of times she’d found herself doingexactlythis sort of thing in recent months; crying in the supermarket aisles, in the queue at the bus stop, and that time she’d worried the dental hygienist by sobbing in the waiting room for no discernible reason.
‘Everybody needs a good weep sometimes,’ Kitty soothed. She let Beatrice drink her coffee and the pair watched a boat bobbing at the entrance to the bay as a young man threw a fishing line from its prow.
‘Hungry?’ Kitty asked.
‘Famished, actually.’ How strange, Beatrice thought, after Gene’s big breakfast this morning. ‘It must be the sea air.’
‘Good, because I’ve got these and there’s no way I’ll manage them by myself.’ Kitty unwrapped the paper parcel and the smell of fish and hot vinegar swirled around them.
‘Nowthatis what I call fish and chips.’ Beatrice turned to her companion with a smile. ‘Thanks, I might just try one or two bites.’
Kitty nodded contentedly and they made a start on their impromptu meal, listening to the gulls spreading the word there were potential fish supper scraps to be had.
‘You’ll be lucky,’ Kitty called to the largest and boldest gull, who was side-eying their lunch a little way off down the sand, making Beatrice laugh.
‘I won’t pry,’ Kitty said eventually, after licking salt from her fingers. ‘But I’m a very good listener if you have a sorry tale to tell.’
Something in her quiet warmth told Beatrice that Kitty would also be good at keeping her tale to herself, but there was no way she would blurt it all out, not to a stranger, and especially not when her spirits were reviving under the noon sun and blue sky.
‘I’m OK, honestly. Just had a bit of a morning.’
‘Och, tell me about it. I’m supposed to be starting my Gaelic lessons next week but that daft Eugene Fergusson has messed up the bookings and I’ve no one to teach.’
