‘What?’
‘You don’t think he’s trying to reach me because he wants me to sign divorce papers? I know he’s been in a rush to move on but he can’t be so callous as to chase a divorce already, can he?Ugh, my head’s spinning just thinking about it all. Clarity’s all well and good but, ouch, it’s dizzying too. I feel like I’m stepping off a bumper car ride that’s lasted two years and I have the bruises to prove it.’
‘So what do you want to do?’ said Kitty, gently.
‘I need to do all the things I’ve learned to do while I’ve been here. I need to calm the heck down and stop fighting against life’s riptides. Instead of getting carried away trying to right every wrong, I have to let life carry me along for a while. I can’t fix everything, so I’m going to go home on Monday and see where life takes me after that.’
‘Will you come back to the inn? See Atholl again? Port Willow’s awfy bonny at Christmastime, you know?’
‘I don’t know what I’ll be doing after tomorrow…literally, let alone what I’ll be doing in the winter.’ Beatrice’s heart sank at the thought of the dark, short days to come, and remembered with a sigh which she couldn’t suppress, the mortified call she’d made to her sister that morning, asking if, what with the sale of her house and everything, she could move onto their sofa for a few weeks until she could find a little place of her own.
The call had set her thinking that with the money from the sale she could afford a small place, and with a little cash in the bank and no job to tie her down she was free to look for work anywhere in the country now. She’d be at the mercy of the job markets.
Angela had read her some job ads she’d cut out of theGuardianfor her. The pickings were slim but there was a charity fundraising job going in Barnstaple in Devon, and a community campaign manager for a hospice a bit closer to home in Coventry. Funny how she hadn’t missed trawling the job pages one bit while she’d been here. Whatever was in store for her, she wasn’t going to fight against it. She’d find out soon enough where she was supposed to be.
But for tonight, there was a white dress with a muted blue tartan sash hanging on the door of her wardrobe, thanks to Mrs Mair’s daughter Louisa, who had long since emigrated to Cape Town, and tonight Beatrice was going to twirl in that dress under the bonny decorations at The Princess and the Pea Inn and try not to upset anyone else. And tomorrow… well, she’d think about that on her way back to England while Port Willow slept off its hangover.
‘There! All done.’ Kitty brushed her hands together and folded the stepladder up.
‘It’s perfect,’ Beatrice replied, scanning the bar, now a bright confection of coloured crepe, bunting and balloons. ‘That’s five o’clock. The band should be here soon. Atholl’s been gone for ages collecting the piper from Fort William, hasn’t he? Wasn’t he meant to be here an hour or two ago?’
‘He’ll be here soon enough. He had to collect the whisky too, remember? Have you not spoken to him today?’
‘I saw him briefly at breakfast, but he had the barrels to change in the cellar and then he was busy with Gene prepping the buffet, so just a quick chat, really. I’m pretty sure he’s avoiding me.’
‘Be sure you speak to him before you go. Some things can only be said face to face. Just tell him everything you wanted to say to him yesterday.’
Before Beatrice could come up with a reply about how she wasn’t planning on antagonising him any longer and she was going to keep her mouth firmly shut, Gene appeared from the back kitchen, taking off his apron.
Seemingly mirroring his brother’s awkwardness that morning, Gene appeared to have forgotten how to act in front of Kitty too. Today was his wedding anniversary and he knew he was being observed by everyone who knew him. They were all wondering if he was going to bolt this year too.
He ran a nervous hand over the shorn hair above his right ear, barely making eye contact with the woman he’d spent almost every second of the last week with.
‘I’m,uh… I’m away to walk Echo. And then,uh…’
His skin paled at the look Kitty gave him and he turned away. She wasn’t going to plead with him to stay and dance with her at the ceilidh, but her face flushed and her eyes burned with hurt. The women watched him skulk out the bar and onto the seafront leaving the door swinging behind him.
‘He’s not coming back tonight,’ Kitty said. ‘He did the same thing last year, and the year before that, Atholl told me. God knows where he gets to, but he doesn’t have it in him to face the ceilidh. Once he told Atholl he couldn’t stand the music; it brings back images of him and Lana dancing at their wedding reception.’
Kitty sighed as Beatrice crossed the floor to put an arm around her friend and lead her to the booth to sit down.
‘I was at the wedding, you know,’ Kitty continued. ‘And he was so happy. And Lana was so beautiful, but maybe just a wee bitlesshappy than Gene. She was young. Too young to be marrying a man she barely knew and changing her citizenship and leaving her family behind in Canada. But Gene wooed her, poured his heart and soul into their relationship, and he was so ecstatic. A dancing fool, Seth called him. Seth could see it wouldn’t last, maybe we all could. I stopped coming to the village after that, so I didn’t see it all breaking down, but I can see the impact it’s had. I just hoped that he’d be able to face the ceilidh if I was there with him. Looks like he can’t.’
‘Oh, Kitty, I’m sorry. This is all my fault.’ A flash of optimism lit Beatrice’s face. ‘But he seemed so happy when we had our planning meeting, remember?’
‘That’s what I thought, but he’s gone now, hasn’t he?’
Beatrice watched the door he’d left through moments ago. ‘You never know. Maybe he really is just walking Echo.’
At the sound of his name being spoken, the dog strolled into the bar, the slow sweeping of his tail sending balloons scattering across the carpet. The two women’s eyes met in a knowing, defeated glance.
‘I’ll pour us a drink,’ Beatrice said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Ceilidh
The gulls squawk from their lookout on the sweet damp thatch of the But and Ben roof high above the coral beach where once in a harvest moon the tides swirl in treacherous currents beneath a calm surface.
