‘If you see them, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I wanted to show our costumes to the young ones coming in today for my Beltane crafting session.’
McIntyre lifted his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. ‘I’ll keep an eye open, but I cannae really remember what they looked like.’
‘You can’t remember? Mac!’ If he was trying to play on her last nerve, he’d succeeded.
Roz McIntyre rarely lost the rag, yet today she couldn’t be certain her irritated feelings weren’t about to tip over into rage.
‘I feel like you’re avoiding me,’ she challenged.
This stopped his attempts to get his wife back down onto the ladder.
‘Roz, no! Not at all.’ He looked genuinely hurt and was blinking in astonishment.
This only fanned the embers of resentment smouldering within her.
She reached for another source of annoyance. ‘I’ve been asking you for weeks what you want to do for our anniversary—’ she began.
‘Do?’ He cut her off, like this was the first time he was hearing it.
‘Yes! To celebrate us?’
His blank stare confirmed he hadn’t been planning on doing anything at all. ‘We can do whatever you want,’ he offered feebly.
‘I want you to want to do something.’
‘Eh?’
‘Oh, never mind.’ If she didn’t stop now, she might scream, or shove him off the mezzanine and onto Senga’s impressive display of rock buns on the café counter below. ‘Are you coming to help with the mask making?’
‘Aye, I would have, but I’ve that many other things need doing…’ he began.
‘Youareavoiding me.’
‘Of course not, I’m just busy, what with Clyde’s sidecar and all the repairs that keep comin’ in, and everything else that’s always going on.’
‘What’s got into you lately? And what’s all this with the new clobber? New overalls that you bought yourself the other week? And is this a new shirt?’ Roz rubbed the tip of the collar between her fingers. These were the first clothes he’d ever gone out and bought on his own. She was firmly established as the clothes-shopper of the marriage. She’d learned long ago that, without her interventions, Mac would simply patch up and re-wear his shabby old clothes until they were more patch than anything else. Where had he even gone to buy the new stuff? Plus, he’d taken himself to Ozan the barber’s the other day, entirely unprompted, and arrived home freshly shorn and clean shaven. Normally he’d need prompting umpteen times about making an appointment.
‘I just thought it’d be nice to make an effort.’ He shrugged.
‘And now you’re saying you don’t even remember my May Queen costume?’
‘You know I’m not good with these things. I’m sorry.’
Down below them, a small but noisy crowd was gathering in the café seating area. Peaches was setting out the sewing stuff and heating the glue gun, and the barn doors slid open and shut as more locals arrived, ready to benefit from Roz’s Beltane costume making know-how and free craft supplies.
She lowered herself onto the ladder, stomping heavily on its rungs in her annoyance. ‘You know, Mac? Something’s seriously got to change around here,’ she hissed, before disappearing beneath the parapet.
Her last glimpse of her husband’s face told her he was still confused, and a little afraid, and possibly a little guilty, but he said nothing.
In that moment Roz knew if things were going to change in their lives, she had to be the one making it happen.
Not long afterwards, once McIntyre had shifted boxes and rummaged around up on the mezzanine, he sheepishly slunk down the ladder, disappearing among the storage shelves on the ground floor, and Roz was left tipping out onto the café tables her craft materials, including the collection of sticks, branches and handfuls of dry gorse and lavender she’d foraged over the winter, spreading them out alongside the green wool and scrap material she’d been thrifting all year long. Peaches added to the craft materials her own fabric offcuts and decorative odds and ends left over from creating her fashion collection. She’d also torn the newspaper scraps and poured out a dish of PVA glue for papier-mâché making.
‘That ought to be enough,’ said Senga, looking over their Beltane offerings while taking off her café apron and coming to sit down. She brought with her a dish of ‘top hats’ for the crafters, her own favourite party treat from when she’d been a bairn: a big marshmallow standing upright on a chocolate disc to give the appearance of a dapper hat, and with a colourful chocolate bead on top, also stuck on with a wee blob of chocolate.
‘Remember the paper plates,’ said Rhona, placing the pile of white plates next to the scissors, green poster paint and bobbins of thick white elastic. ‘For the kiddies’ masks.’ Then Rhona sat down too with a loud sigh of relief that the café was now closed for the day.
Craft sessions were things the repair shop did well. They drew the families and the repair shop regulars alike, and this one was no exception, not when there was Carenza’s lauded Beltane Bonfire and Sausage Sizzle to prepare for. Under her leadership the event promised to be bigger and better than ever.
