‘Oh, OK, good.’ Beatrice made a note. ‘Food?’
‘That’ll be me.’ Gene raised a bony finger. ‘It’ll be shortbread and sandwiches. And Mrs Mair’s gonnae bake ten loaves o’ her famous black bun this afternoon.’
‘Perfect.’ Beatrice ticked at her list, aware that Atholl was watching her over his coffee cup. ‘And drinks?’
‘I’m no’ too late, am I?’ Seth had let himself in the pub door and was pulling off his bicycle clips.
Beatrice watched him shuffle in, his eyes bright behind his spectacles, and still wearing his green woollen beanie even though the sun was streaming in through the bar windows.
‘Is that for me?’ Seth asked, lifting a whisky and sipping it before anyone could answer.
Atholl met Beatrice’s eye and smiled meaningfully. She grinned back.
‘What are we talking about?’ Seth asked, squeezing in beside Atholl, forcing him to shift around the table a little. Beatrice jolted at the sensation of Atholl’s booted foot coming to rest up against her own, bare, foot. She had slipped off her black summer pumps under the table at the start of the meeting. Instead of moving away now, she crossed her ankles, letting her bare arches softly press against Atholl’s boots. Their eyes met in sudden heavy silence.
Kitty was talking to Seth, saying something about making Gene’s Highland punch recipe but Beatrice couldn’t hear a thing.
Atholl’s eyes, suddenly heavy-lidded, followed Beatrice’s hand as she raised it to her ear and nervously lifted a strand of hair, tucking it behind. She hoped the long silver earring she’d exposed was shining against her throat, drawing his eye all the more, and yet, all the while, she was beginning to wish he’d tear his eyes away before she lost her cool and melted onto the floor.
‘Bea.Bea? Earth to Chairperson Bea,’ Kitty called through the heat haze.
‘Oh! Yes, where were we? Right…’ Beatrice tried to concentrate on the notes in her hand, but dammit, if Atholl wasn’t hitching up the sleeves on his Breton top and his wrists were just right there flexing in front of her…
‘New clothes, brother?’ Gene interjected, suddenly alert to Atholl’s new look.
‘Oh,uh, aye.’
‘Boden, is it?’ Kitty didn’t even try to hide her delight.
‘Eh… well, yes,’ he flustered. ‘Beattie mentioned she liked them and I needed some new things, so… Can we no’ get on wi’ this meeting!’
Beatrice sat upright again, feeling Gene and Kitty’s leery smirks burning her cheeks. Shifting her feet away from Atholl’s she was struck almost breathless to find him stretching his legs beneath the table searching for her once more and gently slipping a boot between her feet.
‘So… other entertainment!’ Beatrice said in an unexpectedly pitchy voice, intently consulting her list, peering at the words through exaggeratedly narrowed eyes. Shewouldconcentrate. Meetings were her thing. She was good at this. Then again, she was normally sitting across the table from Helen Smethwick or nice but dim Ben, the twenty-year-old Hub intern who was forever bored and fiddling with his phone, making everyone wonder how he’d got the job until it came out that he was Helen’s nephew. Beatrice was definitely not used to working opposite distractingly handsome Scotsmen with all the muscles and the rough-skinned, crafty hands and the tight red curls and long auburn lashes…
Seth was looking expectantly at her. ‘I said I’ll be reciting my poetry. You’ll be wantin’ to write that doon.’ He nodded at Beatrice’s notepaper.
‘Jist make sure it’s something tasteful,’ Atholl warned. ‘Like Robert Burns, and no’ that filthy limerick about the young lady from Ecclefechan that you did last year.’
Seth wasn’t exactly convincing when he promised he would keep it clean. Then Atholl had surprised everyone by announcing he’d play his fiddle. Beatrice had noted this down too, her eyebrows raised and wondering if there was no end to his talents.
Before long the other whisky glasses had been claimed. First, by Mr Shirlaw from the stores who dropped round the first prize for the raffle, a fine fishing rod.
‘It’s for charity,’ Atholl told Beatrice, watching her scribbling her notes. ‘For the lifeboats.’
In came Patrick the fishmonger, and Davy McTavish the builder, followed by Tam from the chippy, all asking if the inn still needed their spare chairs and tables to line the road outside with and each one was rewarded with a dram from the tray.
Just as Eugene was explaining that there would be so many people coming to the ceilidh that the drinkers would spill out onto the streets to find seats, and so the roadside would be decorated with bunting strung from each window and streetlight, the silversmith dropped by with a thin twisted ring in a pretty box, and the owner of the tartan mill called in with a kilt pin to raffle, both of the visitors effusively praising Atholl for supplying the sudden boost to their businesses with his clever crafting holidays idea. Atholl met their warm embraces and slapped their shoulders and handed out the tumblers and not a man refused.
Finally Mr Garstang called by, offering a skilfully made watercolour of Port Willow harbour as a prize. Beatrice grabbed the opportunity to ask how Jillian and Cheryl were getting on with their lessons.
‘Aye, they were making guid progress at first, before they got hold o’ the notion that I needed a… what did they call it?’
‘A makeover, by any chance?’ said Gene.
‘Aye, that’s the one. Said I was a secret silver fox, whatever that is, and now look at me.’ He swept his very arty black beret off his head to reveal choppy cropped locks, definitely the handiwork of the Bobby Dazzler girls. ‘They’ve paintings they wanted to donate to the raffle too, but they’re no’ quite finished them yet. Anyway, I’d best be making tracks, we’re doing thermal mud masks this afternoon. Oh, and Beatrice? That’s you, isn’t it?’
She nodded.
