‘And Tom, can you get as much fresh fish from your place as you have?’
‘Right-o,’ his brother replied, already understanding what was going on without needing to be told. ‘I’ve some fresh bass, some brown trout and there’s plenty mackerel in the freezer. What else do you need?’
‘Bring as much of the parsley that’s growing in Dad’s herb bed, and anything else that looks good and green? The Siren’ll have the rest.’
With that Tom turned into his cottage gate and waved Monty off on his way down the slope, where there were lobsters and crabs, mullet and squid, and whatever else there was in the morning’s catch waiting in his pub’s kitchens, plus all the butter and loaves he’d need.
Bursting through the swing doors of his kitchen, Monty was surprised to find a stranger standing there, all dressed in black chef gear and with their hands pressed together nervously.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the new cook, I think. Kit Keating, they/them,’ replied the young person, probably in their early twenties, a little bewildered to have arrived and found nobody to welcome them other than the cleaner and a note telling them the pub was shut for two hours and to make themselves at home if they should happen to arrive before Finan got back from the wedding.
‘And not a moment too soon!’ Monty shook Kit’s hand. ‘I’m the other chef. Monty. He and him.’
Kit smiled at that. ‘Should I, uh… start preparing anything, Chef?’
Monty had never been treated like the head of a kitchen before. It felt odd. ‘You could run up the steak pies? Finan was going to do them ahead of evening service. Twenty of them, individual?’
‘OK, you’ve got it, twenty of my special steak bakes coming up. Can I add my blue-cheese twist, makes them super savoury, very umami?’ Kit added.
Monty had to smile at their enthusiasm, something he’d never been able to muster for a steak pie. ‘You can add anything you like, my friend. And you don’t need to call me “chef”. The kitchen’s yours too. Only, I’ll need to take all the fresh seafood we have, sorry.’ Monty hauled open the fridges. ‘And ice. Can you help me with the ice, Kit?’
Together, they tipped all the ice bags the kitchen had into trays and Kit said, ‘Uh, I should have mentioned, the phone was ringing when I got here? I thought it might be Finan or Bella, so I picked up. Turns out it was somebody already staying here? They wanted to upgrade their single room to a twin with a roll-away? Needs it for another night, apparently. Anyway, I wrote it all down on the pad by the phone, told them someone would call them back later. Hope that’s OK?’
‘Sure,’ Monty shrugged. ‘Leave it for Finan to deal with when he gets here.’ He had his nose in the fridge, pulling out the ingredients he needed, not thinking one bit about the inn and its guests.
Soon, Monty was on his way up the slope, dragging three lidded polystyrene fish crates on the pub’s sled behind him, dripping melting ice as he went. Meanwhile, Kit rolled up their sleeves and turned for the stove with a determined grin.
‘Jesus, this slope gets steeper every day,’ Monty muttered, glancing up at the sky, clearing a little now, with glimpses of blue behind the rain clouds.
‘Next stop, bricks,’ he told himself, preparing to make the turn off the slope towards the bookshop.
He kept his head down, not wanting to look at the shut-up shop, not wanting to see the darkness and emptiness there.
All he needed to do was wait for Mr Moke and they’d dismantle the barbeque in the bookshop’s backyard and transport the whole thing up the hill.
With a couple of additional grills borrowed from Minty’s Aga, they’d be able to reconstruct a decent barbeque. It would be wide enough to cook a decent meal for all the guests. ‘Hope they like fish,’ he told himself, as he picked his way through the blue café chairs and tables in the square, trying not to let his sadness come for him.
He’d expected it to be quiet, prepared himself for it, in fact. The whole village was up at the wedding. He’dexpectedit to be still and full of happy spectres from days ago. He hadknownit was going to hurt being back here, and he’d steeled himself against it as best he could.
What he hadn’t expected was to round the corner into the bookshop’s garden to hear a plaintive voice asking itself, ‘How exactly do you order a replacement passport, for god’s sake?’
Monty stopped in his tracks, dropping the sled ropes at his feet at the sight of her. ‘Joy?’
She jumped up from the spot against the back wall where she’d been scrolling on her phone, slumped and muttering.
All she could do was stare back at him now, her mouth open.
‘You’re still here,’ Monty told her, blinking.
‘Why aren’t you at the wedding?’ Joy asked, pointing at Monty’s suit.
‘Oh,’ Monty looked down at himself and then at the sled by his side. ‘Been a bit of a wedding disaster, really. I need the, uh… bricks.’ He gestured behind her.
‘Oh.’ Joy looked back at the barbeque, not thinking clearly enough to suppose this was quite an odd thing for Monty to be doing.
‘Your flight left at half-ten,’ he said.
