‘We always thought you’d marry young Atholl.’ Seth perched on the stool he’d sat at the night before, his neck craning so he could see past Beatrice and direct his remark at Kitty, a mischievous whiskery smile making his eyes shine.
Beatrice heard Kitty laugh and witnessed the muscles flex in Gene’s freshly shaved jaw, almost imperceptible, but there all the same.
‘Och, no, Seth.’ Kitty let her glass settle on the bar as she wiped her mouth with a napkin. ‘It was never Atholl I had my eye on back then.’ This was addressed straight at Gene with a challenging grin before she returned her attention to her glass, the ice cubes chinking.
Now Beatrice understood what he was up to. Seth chuckled and sipped his dram, and a slow pink blush spread across Gene’s neck. Beatrice caught sight of it just before he snatched at Seth’s money and turned his back on them all to stab at the cash register’s buttons, long enough for a flash of inspiration to hit her.
She glanced at Kitty for the briefest moment and saw the dimples form in her cheeks and her lips pursing in a sly smile confirming her suspicions; she had liked Gene once upon a time, and there was still some lingering affection there, if she wasn’t much mistaken.
‘You’re not married or seeing anyone, are you, Kitty?’ said Beatrice, trying to sound as natural as possible, not helped by the little chuckle from Seth by her side.
‘Free as a bird,’ Kitty smiled, her straw still between her teeth.
Gene suddenly slunk away into the back room, telling Seth to ring the bell if anyone wanted serving, and Beatrice and Seth exchanged cautionary glances, but Kitty didn’t seem to mind their questions.
‘The bar certainly looks smarter, doesn’t it?’ Kitty said to Seth.
‘Eugene must have taken a long look at himself this last day or two since you arrived back in town, Kitty Wake,’ Seth replied.
Beatrice’s head snapped round at this. ‘Your name’s never kittiwake, is it? Like the bird?’ She was delighted.
‘It’s Catriona, the Gaelic version of Katherine, but my parents shortened it to Kitty, our surname being Wake. And it stuck, and I like it.’
‘It suits you,’ Beatrice beamed, her glass almost empty now.
‘I think so.’
‘Do you know what I think? I think Gene might have taken a shine to you in the years since he was an indifferent young man, Kitty Wake,’ Beatrice blurted, suddenly transported to a time when teenage hormones rampaged and high school matchmaking and gossip could set her up for days.
The rush that accompanied this regression was like the same sudden exuberance that follows teenage woes. Beatrice briefly wondered when the hormonal rollercoaster effect of her recent grief and sadness would wear off. It occurred to her it might be here to stay and she delved back into the bottom of her gin glass to slake away the notion.
‘Not likely. He had his chances back in the day,’ said Kitty.
‘But he was such an obtuse laddie,’ Seth added knowingly. ‘He’d run a mile if ever a bonny lassie told him she liked him.’
‘Were there many?’ Beatrice tried to imagine a younger Gene shrugging off the attentions of queues of Highland lassies. Somehow she couldn’t quite picture it.
Kitty shrugged and drained her glass.
‘And he married someone else?’ Beatrice pushed. The idea that this sullen Scot could have his pick oftwowomen; one a stunning university-educated language expert and the other a culinary genius, struck Beatrice as outlandish, but this was Port Willow after all, maybe miracles happened here as well as magic in the skies.
‘He was different back then. He was brighter… happier. He never knew I liked him, I’m sure, and I was only seventeen or maybe eighteen when I gave up having a crush on the daft beggar. He would never even have looked at me, anyway, what with the age difference. I was just a kid. Then he married his Canadian girl and soon after, I stopped coming to the village for summer holidays – too busy doing my doctorate by then.’
‘The brothers were the most eligible laddies in the village then, you know?’ said Seth, packing his pipe with tobacco and getting ready to leave, adding with a chuckle, ‘Asides from yours truly, of course.’
‘You’ve got a son, didn’t you say, Seth? Did you marry?’ Beatrice asked, enjoying his company and hoping to delay his departure.
‘I did.’ Seth settled on the stool once more. ‘Mary and I were married fifty-four years altogether. And I’ve missed her every day these last nine years she’s been gone.’
‘Oh, Seth, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be, lass. I was one of the lucky ones. Most of the lads in the village never married, or they went off down south or off around the world and Lord knows what happened to them, but they never returned to Port Willow so I imagine they found partners elsewhere. We’ve always had a problem of too many laddies and not enough lassies in this place. There’s no’ enough here to keep our smart, bonny lassies at home.’ Seth nodded his head to show he really was leaving, hopped off the stool and turned for the door. ‘Yes, I was one of the lucky lads,’ he said again with a smile as he left, letting the door swing closed behind him.
‘I remember Seth when I was wee,’ Kitty said, leaning her head conspiratorially towards Beatrice, though there was nobody in the bar to overhear her. ‘He and his wife didn’t get on, and she moved to the other side of the island once their son was at the high school. And every day he’d ride his bicycle over to visit her, and on Fridays he’d take a posy of flowers to her. They got on like a house on fire once they’d separated. It was quite the love affair, apparently.’
‘And they never moved back in together?’
‘And risk spoiling their romance? Goodness, no.’
