Although all three offer to help, Michael insists that everything is in hand. He sets the table with charmingly mismatched china, and lights the cluster of creamy candles sitting in a bowl surrounded by holly sprigs. Chatter flows easily as their glasses are topped up. ‘You’ve brought way too much,’ Michael insisted earlier as he unpacked their gifts. ‘But thank you.’
Now he’s back at the stove, busying away without an iota of fuss. Shelley can’t help observing, in the manner of an examiner at a home economics practical exam, as first a whole baked salmon emerges from the Aga, surrounded by perfectly roasted fennel and tomatoes, to be scattered with fresh herbs.Top marks!A tray of roasted baby potatoes follows, and a green salad is tossed and served in a huge earthenware bowl.
There’s no banging or crashing or swearing here at Shore Cottage. Crucially, the kitchen hasn’t been destroyed in the process.Excellent presentation and thoughtful, methodical processes. A-plus!Somehow, Michael seems to be capable of cooking, serving and clearing up after himself, all while sipping wine and chatting with his guests.
As they eat, Shelley replays Joel’s performance in making that mountain of over-fired cheese on toast the other night. There’d been an explosion of crumbs, a liberally buttered worktop – and a bleeding finger, for crying out loud, as if a toddler had been let loose with a knife. But then, this is Michael’s job, she reminds herself. Clearly, he is well practised at welcoming in strangers, and asking everyone about their jobs, families and lives. She also notices that, while he tops up their glasses, and makes sure there is a chilled bottle of wine on the table – they are on their second already – he is spinning out a single glass.
‘Have some more,’ Pearl urges him. ‘It’s only us. You can kick back yourself tonight.’
Michael hesitates. ‘Oh, why not? This is a night off for me.’ He chuckles. ‘I tend to forget what that actually is.’
‘It must feel like you’re alwayson,’ Lena suggests, ‘when you have guests.’
‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘It’s funny, because most of them are lovely and we keep in touch. And I have my regulars who’ve come back again and again. But even so…’ He tails off.
‘You’re still hosting,’ Shelley suggests.
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘But d’you enjoy it?’ Pearl probes him. ‘Running this place, I mean?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he says, and she catches a moment’s hesitation. ‘Like I said, most of the guests are great. But there’s the odd rudeone, you know? Demanding types. A bit, “Hey!”—’ He clicks his fingers sharply, mimicking a rude customer in a restaurant.
‘I hate that,’ Lena exclaims. It had been a trait of her ex-husband’s and she’d pulled him up on it many times. All through university Lena had juggled numerous waitressing jobs and was familiar with diners forgetting that she was an actual person.
‘Oh, it’s par for the course,’ Michael says lightly. ‘I guess I’ve become pretty immune to it.’ A small pause settles, and Stan stretches and yawns, limbering up as he gets up from his basket. When he potters over it’s Shelley he makes for, nuzzling her hand.
‘Stan,’ Michael starts, but Shelley assures him it’s fine. Keen to have someone at home who’d be happy to see her, she has mooted the suggestion of getting a dog. The kids were keen and immediately checked out some rescue centres’ websites. But Joel proclaimed that, as the home worker, he’d be lumbered with all the walking and care. So she let the idea drop.
‘So, Michael,’ Pearl says, emboldened by wine now, ‘please tell me if I’m being nosey here.’ She pauses. ‘But I just wondered?—’
‘How come I’m running this place by myself?’ His brows raise and he smiles.
She squirms a little. ‘It just seems like a lot to manage.’
Michael sips his wine. ‘It wasn’t planned like this,’ he starts. ‘Can you believe I’d never been to the Highlands before I saw this place?’ Pearl shakes her head. ‘It was all Rona’s idea,’ he explains, looking around at all of them. ‘We were still young, mid-twenties, neither of us massively happy in our jobs down south. She’d always had this fantasy of finding a little place in the middle of nowhere and turning it into the perfect B&B?—’
‘And it is!’ Shelley beams at him and raises her glass.
Michael laughs. ‘I don’t know about that. But we started looking around, and we had a sort of exploratory holiday up hereand we found this cottage. We took it on as a rental at first, and then the owner asked if we’d be interested in buying…’ The ‘we’ hangs significantly. Clearly, there is no ‘we’ now. ‘…We’d become friends with her by then,’ he continues to his rapt audience. ‘Lovely lady, she was. She didn’t have any family of her own and I think she’d become pretty fond of Rona and me. So we bought it at a bit of a bargain.’
‘Sounds like it was meant to be,’ Shelley offers, and he smiles wryly.
‘We thought so at the time. But for Rona, it wasn’t. She hated the isolation here, the constant cooking and gardening and ironing of sheets?—’
‘You iron sheets?’ exclaims Lena, who doesn’t iron anything at all.
Michael chuckles. ‘A necessary evil, I’m afraid. So Rona started commuting to a job in Inverness, but that didn’t work out either. And then she headed back south – that was around ten years ago – and that was the end of us really. And it’s been a one-man operation ever since.’
The three women allow this information to settle. ‘And how long have you been here?’ Lena asks.
‘Over twenty years altogether,’ he replies. ‘God, that’s scary.’ He gets up from the table, and as everyone leaps up to help, it’s clear that they are getting in the way, and that Michael is perfectly capable of stacking the dishwasher himself.
Politely, he ushers them through to the cosy low-ceilinged lounge where a real Christmas tree is decorated with multicoloured glass baubles and twinkling lights. The mantlepiece is decked with pinecones and sprigs of fir and holly, with strings of tiny warm white lights twisted through.
‘Oh, this is so gorgeous,’ Shelley announces, briefly remembering buying this year’s tree from the guy in the old launderette and hauling it home by herself. And how was shegreeted, after all her efforts? With mockery and criticism that she hadn’t managed to put it up straight. Here a real fire is flickering, and Stan flops onto a floor cushion in front of it with an audible sigh. Like the kitchen, this room is a delightful mishmash of old and new, with a softly worn leather sofa and stylish contemporary easy chairs. There are deeply tufted woollen rugs and more exposed stone walls.
Minutes later Michael joins them with the wine in an ice bucket, and sets it on the low table. ‘So, I’m guessing you’ll all be up for a full Scottish breakfast,’ he says. ‘I mean, the full works with Shore Cottage eggs.’
