As he ladled their cups with squash (since Carenza was barking into her walkie talkie over by the bonfire, leaving her drinks cauldrons unattended), Peaches told herself this could have been a lot worse. Felton seemed nice enough, and he was definitely pretty to look at. She could probably hang around for another half hour or so before excusing herself and that would be her daughterly duties discharged. Maybe then she could track down Euan and clear things up, especially if her mum stayed as distracted as this all night.
‘Cheers,’ Felton said, holding his paper cup to hers. ‘Here’s to a memorable May first!’
She tapped his cup and drank, but not without scanning the darkening rec, unsure if she secretly hoped to spot Euan in the crowd, or whether she dreaded seeing him.
‘We’re gonna have fun tonight,’ Felton said, brimming with self-assurance, as he pointed their way over to the drama unfolding by the bonfire. ‘Your mom looks like she could use my help.’
Peaches must not have felt the eyes upon her back from over by Sachin’s DJ decks, but there crouched a figure all in black, his hoodie covering his head, his face obscured by a black mask. He’d been hiding, unsure what to do, ever since he’d strolled down to the rec, excited to see her again, and then, uncertain about what this was he was witnessing, he’d dropped down into the shadows to watch Peaches… on some kind of date, was it? Why hadn’t he the good sense to ask her out for real, in person, last night? When he’d tried ringing this afternoon, he couldn’t get through.This number is not available. As though she had blocked him.
When he’d gone to fetch his costume from the repair shop, Carenza had been stomping around in town, and for Peaches’ sake, in case he made the trouble she seemed to be in at home any worse, he’d given up on the mission.
Peaches had told him that Carenza didn’t like her hanging out with guys. He’d already got her into hot water, that much was clear. Still, he should have found another way of reaching her today after he’d followed her at a distance at dawn, making sure she’d got home safely. Clyde would never more have called him his grandson if he hadn’t seen her safely home, even if it was without her knowing.
He should have knocked at her door, but she’d been adamant he shouldn’t show his face at her house, so he’d done as she’d asked and taken his bike and gone back to Clyde’s to sleep and dream of her a little longer.
Now, his eyes stayed fixed on Peaches and the big buff guy who’d approached her wearing his cloak! Why was she smiling up at him like that, touching his arm?
It didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t she called this off in favour of spending time with him, when only a few hours ago she was coming undone in his arms, fully dressed and from nothing more than his kisses?
He shivered to remember how beautiful she’d been in that moment, how her voice had shaken as she’d gasped his name against his mouth. His skin raised in goosebumps all over again at the memory. How had she forgotten him already?
Frozen to the spot, anonymity making him masochistic, he stayed where he was, and watched, and suffered, as the loud American giant announced, ‘I’ll take care of this!’ and gathered the crowds’ torches in his hands and plunged the whole lot into the bonfire’s heart. Crackling sparks burst from the stack’s core and within seconds the pyre was catching light and the crowd roared in a way that suggested something ancient and buried was working loose within them.
The cheers rose with the smoke into the sapphire sky and Carenza McDowell vigorously hugged the American in gratitude and admiration while Peaches, her white outfit glowing ethereally in the firelight, stood placidly by like a sleepwalker.
21
‘You’re late,’ Carenza crowed as McIntyre scurried through the crowds, arms laden with piled boxes. ‘You missed it! Someone else took your job, I’m afraid,’ she shouted after him, not afraid in the slightest now she was back behind her big black cauldrons and chalking the words ‘pear and apple squash’ and ‘non-alcoholic ginger ale with orange’ on their rounded sides, and thinking how well everything was going, in spite of her chief bonfire-lighter having gone AWOL.
McIntyre wasn’t listening. He was running from stall to stall. ‘Has anybody seen Roz? Sachin, have you seen her?’ He peered up at his old friend, glum behind the spinning record on his turntable. ‘Where is she?’
Sachin shrugged. ‘Havenae seen her at all. Have you been home yet?’
‘No, I was busy…’ Distractedly, he weaved his way back across the rec, bumping into people with his boxes, not thinking to apologise.
‘You’re in trouble!’ Senga called in greeting from behind her stall as he approached.
‘Am I?’ He’d already suspected this. It made his heart pound to have it confirmed. ‘Is she no’ here?’
‘You weren’t there to accompany Rosalyn to the bonfire,’ Mrs Hoolit said, drifting by, her adult children and grandkids around her. ‘You must attend to your wife, Mr McIntyre.’ She was gone again, leaving him gulping in realisation.
He really was making a mess of things. Roz had warned him, and he’d still carried on like an oaf.
‘I’d run if I were you,’ Rhona said, in the middle of serving up a bag of rum balls to Reverend Meikle.
‘She’s not been herself recently, Mac. You must have seen that?’ the minister, of all people, said in a sermonising tone.
‘I’ve been busy!’ McIntyre protested, raising the piled boxes as evidence.
‘Too busy,’ said Senga in a voice that set his feet moving again.
The Gifford sisters shook their heads and tutted, watching him run. ‘I hope for his sake he isn’t too late,’ said Rhona, introspectively. ‘Even the most patient woman can run out of kindness, and a love can sour.’
Her older sister and the vicar both looked to the perennial spinster with surprised looks.
‘Oh, aye?’ probed Senga.
‘So I’ve heard it said,’ Rhona added hastily, and she turned her reddening face away, enough to stop Senga prodding her younger sister for any long-buried romantic secrets.
