‘Oh, this is going to be good, Birdy. I can’t wait,’ she replies. ‘Nice dress, by the way. Who did you steal it from?’
Behind me, waiters are struggling to remove cleared plates, and I want us to get out of the way.
‘Can we talk, please,’ I beg.
‘I’m waiting for my taxi to return and take me back to Inverness.’
‘You can’t go in this weather,’ I say, as a gust of wind blows us hard enough to make us both uneasy. I grasp at my dress, billowing wildlynow, and look to the sky as lightning shoots across the dark clouds and brightens the valley for a moment. ‘Come on.’
Thankfully, she follows me over to an awning by the side of the house – still outside, but further away from everyone. I wrap my arms around myself, and then the verbal diarrhoea begins.
‘I know I lied. I know I did. I’m so sorry. It’s just that I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t go to my parents, and my cousin has a partner now and he wouldn’t let me stay, and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to worry you. And I went to the Wine Awards and I was wearing your name badge; and then Irene came up to me, and I couldn’t tell her the truth and so she believedIwasyou, and it snowballed. Totally snowballed. And since you said you didn’t want this job and that this place was an isolated shithole, I thought it wouldn’t be a problem.’
‘Well done, Birdy, you’ve already made itmyfault.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ I reply, putting my hand on her folded arms, but she shrugs it away.
‘I’m just saying you called it a dumb placement in a shithole, so when you pulled out, I thought I’d come and do it. I did some waitressing a million years ago, and it seemed easier to pretend I was you than reapply as myself.’
‘I’m a fucking trained sommelier, Birdy. FUCK! What the hell? You wouldn’t have got the fucking job yourself, and you know it. Don’t minimize my years of hard fucking work.’
‘Okay. Yes, I know. Look, I didn’t let you down, Heather. I worked really hard. I learned as much as I could. Though I could never know as much as you, of course.’
I’m all over the place. I don’t know how to explain my stupid actions, and I just want to say sorry. I want to hug Heather and screamSorry, over and over and over until I’m forgiven.
‘I loved learning about wine, but you must be so amazing to know what you do. It’s so hard. Oh, Heather, you were in Italy, lying low. It seemed mostly harmless. I’ve beenyoubefore. You’ve let me pretend to be you heaps of times.’
‘At parties I couldn’t go to! At the odd concert. But, Jesus, this is outright fraud!’ She’s full-on shouting now, though the wind and rain are helping to conceal it from anyone within earshot.
‘No. Not really. Irene paid me cash. Like, there’s no legal issues here,’ I say quickly, as though that could absolve me of some of my crime.
‘I am so fucking angry, Birdy. This is the worst thing you’ve ever done, and you’ve done some crazy shit over the years.’
‘Please, Heather,’ I plead. ‘If you could see it for what it was. It was a bit of harmless fun. No one has been hurt, really.’
‘Oh, no one has been hurt,’ she says, and now she’s got glassy eyes. ‘Why here, Birdy? Why did you have to do this here?’
Wait, am I missing something?
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask again.
She looks up at me, and then I see the wild rage in her eyes.
‘Don’t FUCKING worry about it, Birdy,’ she shouts. ‘Don’t worry about me or anyone else. Just you fucking worry about you, okay?’
Right then we are blinded by the lights of a taxi pulling up, and I can see the rain starting to fall in the beams of its headlights.
‘Taxi for Heather Jones?’ booms a voice, and Heather turns to go.
‘Don’t go,’ I beg. ‘Please stay. We need to talk about this. What’s going on? Please, Heather.’
She breathes out, tears in her eyes, and something in her softens. ‘It’s fucked, what you’ve done, but for more reasons than you know.’
‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘I’m so fucking sorry.’
‘Pleasedon’t interrupt,’ she says as the rain turns heavy, and we crouch as far into the awning as we can.
‘Okay, okay, sorry,’ I reply, feeling a rising dread.What is coming?
