‘Ah… that might be my fault… I had another one of my ideas.’
Beatrice explained the plan to resurrect the lavender field and bring both it, and Eugene, back to life again, all the while standing on the bar and helping Kitty twist long red crepe paper ribbons before securing them in cheerful strands across the ceiling. Kitty took it all in.
‘I appreciate you helping him, and me, I really do, but you might just have gone too far this time. His feelings are still very tender where Lana’s concerned.’
‘I know that now.’ Beatrice clambered off the bar to hand Kitty the end of a white crepe strip, before starting the task of twisting and pinning it into place again. ‘Does,umm… does that bother you? That he’s still so sore about his wife? I mean, it’s not like he’d take her back if she did come wandering in, is it? Not that it’s any of my business.’
Kitty’s laughter surprised Beatrice. ‘Look, I know you want to help Atholl by relieving his burden here at the inn, and you want to rehabilitate Gene, but you and I will be leaving again – you far sooner than me – and then where will the Fergusson brothers be?’
‘You’re leaving?’
‘Of course. Term starts again at the end of September. I’ll stay here ’til then but I’ll be lecturing at the uni again soon enough. I’ll visit Gene during reading week, if he wants to see me, that is, but I think we both know he needs time to process his feelings for Lana. He’s no use to me while he’s still pining for her, no matter how sweet and romantic he is to me in private.’
Beatrice pulled her neck back, the surprise showing on her face, as she made a start on the canister of helium and a pile of blue and white balloons.
‘What?’ Kitty said. ‘We’re very fond of each other, yes. And he’s soft and kind, as I imagine Atholl is to you.’ At this, Kitty delivered a sly smirk at her friend. Beatrice focused on knotting a fat, squeaking balloon. ‘And I like Gene more than any man I’ve ever met, but he’s had to face up to the end of his marriage in getting closer to me and that’s caused him some pain. Did you no’ think it would when you set us up on our surprise date?’
Beatrice felt the sting of Kitty’s gentle chastising. ‘I didn’t, no,’ she sighed, annoyed with herself. ‘Though I really should have done. I’m in the very same boat myself.’ She saw Kitty cocking her head, confused, but pressed on. ‘I saw an opportunity and wanted to get you two together as quickly as possible.’
‘But, Beatrice, love takes time. As does healing. You can’t rush these things.’
Beatrice watched Kitty’s face for any sign that she might know the reasons behind her Highland dash, but saw nothing disingenuous in her expression. No, Kitty was still in the dark.
‘I might have spoiled things for you and Gene before he’s had a chance to heal, you mean?’
Kitty shrugged. ‘If he likes me enough, he’ll come around.’
‘I hope he does; you two are lovely together.’
‘I think so. I’ve been teaching him some Gaelic, and he’s been teaching me how to cook. It’s been a lot of fun, learning new things.’ Kitty was smiling again. ‘I thinkyou’vepicked up some new things too, this holiday?’ She reached for a large honeycomb paper ball decoration and climbed up her ladder again, fixing it in place at the centre of the room, her expression all innocence and wickedness at once.
‘Hmm. I’ve learned a bit about willow-weaving if that’s what you mean?’ said Beatrice.
‘That’s no’ exactly what I meant, no.’
Beatrice was throwing inflated balloons onto the bar room floor and they bounced and floated around her. For a second, she considered working away silently at the canister and hoping Kitty would drop the subject but she knew she’d have to tell her the whole story, and so she did. It didn’t take long at all, her whole sad story compressed into a few minutes’ telling, and it all culminated in kissing Atholl then getting caught in the tide.
‘And so I almost drowned. And Atholl got us out of the current. If he hadn’t known what to do we’d both have been dragged out to sea. You can’t swim against tides like that, apparently. You have to go with it. That sounds a lot like my life recently. One minute I’m a wife and a mummy to be, next I’m alone in the Highlands, and then I’m kissing a man I only met, what, just over a week ago? The next thing, he’s saving my life! When I woke up after my long sleep, I thought to myself,that’s it, that’s the answer, you just have to learn to go with it.And yesterday I went up to the But and Ben to tell him all this, and how I was ready to see how things might go here with him – offer to stay a while longer maybe, and I don’t know, I kind of just wanted him to kiss me again and see how it felt this time.’
‘And?’
‘And he told me to go home to Rich.’
‘But you like Atholl, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘And the kiss in the water? What was it like?’
‘What was it like? That kiss! I needed that kiss. I definitely deserved it. But there was a little niggling of something not quite right, even though it wassoright. And Atholl’s absolutely correct; that thing was Rich. Up until now, hiding my head in the sand about the separation and the house sale seemed to be all I could do to get through. But I know now, after telling Atholl about him and saying his name out loud and recounting all our failings there’s still so much unfinished business there and so much left unsaid. Rich was, after all, the father of my baby and we had all those years together, and you can’t just throw all that away without once looking back.’
‘You miss him.’
‘Sometimes. Maybe not the heart-broken kind of missing him, but a simpler kind of missing. I loved him enough to marry him and I miss telling him daft things about my day, and I miss having someone who just knew me. We could talk in shorthand. We had something between us that deserved to be salvaged, at least some of it did. And it’s as if the universe knows that too, because – talk about timing! – Atholl had given me a parcel and I didn’t get round to opening it until last night, and it was a phone.’
‘A phone? To replace the one you dropped in the sea?’ Kitty said.
‘And he’d charged it and swapped in my old SIM card and everything, which is so like him, I’m realising. Anyway, there were messages,lotsof messages from Rich, going all the way back to last Sunday. They were pretty tough to read. The first ones were all about the paperwork of selling the house and dividing up our joint bank account and the life insurance, and all that stuff, and then I could tell he was getting worried, wondering where I might be and why I wasn’t answering, and the last one was all concern too, but with something extra. He said he misses me, he’d “really love to talk if I can face it”, and then there was a message saying he was going to ring Angela to ask her where I am. Oh God!’
