Chapter Eight
Without telling Ezz, Thea or Dev, Valentina had booked dinner at the Broadford Hotel to celebrate her being in Rothach for the weekend. Ezz had never felt less like getting dressed up for an unexpected treat, despite a stunning festive menu and their table being near the most sumptuous Christmas tree she’d ever seen. It looked as if it had been draped in crystals.
Hopefully the surprise element accounted for Thea’s air of discombobulation, which Ezz was sure she wore too, though she tried to add a smile for Valentina’s sake and say things like, ‘This is ace.’ Grief at leaving Rothach Hall lay like ice in her stomach and she was sure Thea felt the same.
Dev, freshly shaved and his dark curls tamed, looked as if he’d pinned his smile on with an effort.
But Valentina was busy drinking prosecco that shimmered with glitter, in an off-duty mood as Barnaby and Gary were miles away with Gary’s family. ‘I’m so excited,’she enthused, easing aside an elegantly Christmassy table decoration of white candles and red-berried holly. ‘My goal’s to have the refurbishment of the cottage complete by early June, so we can spend the summer holidays here. When our annual leave’s used up, we’ll just work from home. Do you think there will be a good, local registered childminder for when you can’t help with Barnaby?’ she asked Ezz.
‘Bound to be. We’re excited too. It’ll be fabulous to have you here for weeks at a time.’ Ezz couldn’t look at Thea or Dev for fear of seeing their gazes haunted by the knowledge that they might have relocated by the time the summer holidays arrived. She’d already spotted kind, concerned Dev giving Thea quick, consolatory hugs and dropping kisses on her hair. Luckily, there was no longer any trace of the tears Thea cried when Ezz had broken the news that they’d been so disastrously overheard.
Eventually, Valentina looked over her glass of glittery prosecco. ‘Is something up? My big-sister senses are pinging.’
Ezz sent Thea a look that she hoped saidleave this to me. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I had a problem at work this afternoon that involved a frank exchange of views with one of the Larsson sons.’ She remembered how jokily he’d begun the interview – getting her defences down, she now realised. ‘He’s an entitled arsehole.’ She was acutely aware that she couldn’t tell Valentina she’d resigned without telling her why.
Continuing the fabrication, Thea made a show of patting Ezz’s hand. ‘It’s not just you. I don’t like him.’ She made an apologetic face at Valentina. ‘We didn’t mean to bring the party down, but we’ve been so happy at Rothach Hall and now this knobhead’s making life difficult. Let’s not talkabout him.’ She raised her orange juice. ‘Let’s toast your new second home, Valentina. I’m hoping to join you in the morning to check it out.’
Dev toasted with his pint, his dark curls falling towards his eyes. ‘To Valentina’s new cottage.Lang may yer lum reek– or good luck and good fortune for the future.’
‘What Dev said.’ Ezzie raised her tonic water, quite impressed that between her and Thea they’d conjured up a reason for their subdued demeanours.
Valentina returned the toast. ‘OK. But let me know if you need any help.’
Half-heartedly, Ezz thought about heading off any involvement from Valentina with,I know my employment law, thanks,but that seemed like inviting a heated discussion about whether a manager needed advice from a lawyer, instead of dancing lightly over the subject, so she said, ‘Are you coming to look at the cottage too, Dev?’
Dev slipped one arm around Thea. It wasn’t an unusual display of affection from him, but Ezz thought it particularly protective, and was glad her little sister had such a fantastic partner. ‘For at least part of the time, I hope,’ he said. ‘But I have an online meeting with a client. As a start-up I can’t afford to turn even weekend meetings down.’
Seeing an opportunity to create a stepping stone to Thea and Dev having a plausible reason to leave Rothach village if they had to, Ezz asked, ‘Have you told Valentina about being approached to lecture to students on sports business courses?’
As she’d known she would, Valentina leapt on this interesting development, and Ezz could relax and eat her steak and chips. When Thea sent her a grateful look, she was able to grin back.
OK, so she and Thea had resigned without notice, but it was a gnarly problem rather than the end of the world. Thea and Dev could sell Thistledome and move somewhere near a city. And Ezz? She’d decide what to do when she’d recovered from the immense blow of losing her position at Rothach Hall. Ezz was a calm, competent person. She could start again somewhere else, even if Grete and Erik wouldn’t provide a reference. Her tenancy at her cottage could be ended. Furniture could be sold, transported or stored. She’d always fancied the cruise ships. She could probably get an admin job on one of those. Or she could simply circulate her CV around the hotels on Skye and continue to live on the island.
No, it definitely wasn’t the end of the world.
It was just the end of working somewhere outstandingly beautiful in a job she adored.
At just after nine on Saturday morning, they congregated outside Overlook Cottage, the last of the row at Fishermen’s Cottages. Skye was living up to its name of the Misty Isle and Ezz, Valentina, Thea and Dev were enclosed in a cloud that allowed them to see no further than the top of the Causeway or the rocks at the end of the Quays. At the edge of the mist, the sea was a shifting sheet of pewter, though its shushing and sighing seemed muffled.
‘Ta-dah!’ Valentina brandished the key and then tried to use it in the lock, as they all huddled into their coats and pulled their hats over their ears. ‘Grr,’ she growled, as the key refused to turn.
‘Let me try.’ Dev was able to turn the key after a struggle, but then had to put his capable shoulder to the door to force it open. ‘Oops,’ he said ruefully when the woodwork gave an ominous crack.
‘No problem,’ Valentina laughed. ‘Keith the builder’s coming at eleven to measure up for a new door and frame. This one wouldn’t keep the mice out.’
‘It kept us out,’ Ezz observed, following her into a dim and musty interior. The wooden stairs rose before them, painted at the edges, as if a carpet runner had covered the rest. They coughed at the dust coating every inch of chipped paintwork and the filthy wallpaper bestrewn with faded pictures of boats.
‘Why do empty houses always have screwed-up newspaper on the floor?’ Valentina demanded, nudging a ball of it with her toe. ‘Apparently, the old guy who lived here wasn’t house-proud. After he died, his daughter and son couldn’t agree on whether to put money into doing the place up before selling, so it’s been just mouldering away while they bickered. Come look at the kitchen.’
Gingerly, they followed, careful of a frayed rug with a curling lino surround as they passed through the living room to a cramped area where ancient cupboards buckled from damp around an cracked pot sink. They paused to peer over each other’s shoulders.
‘Phew,’ Thea complained. ‘Stinky.’
But Valentina was smiling. ‘Keith thinks I should be able to knock into the bathroom behind this and create a bigger kitchen, with skylights.’ She waved grandly at the sagging ceiling above them, then led them through the back door into a patch of jungle.
Deadpan, Thea observed, ‘Ezz, this is even wilder than your garden.’
Ezz laughed. She liked her garden untamed for the bees and other wildlife, and Thea’s gardener’s soul was offended that Ezz’s idea of ‘doing the lawn’ was to sprinklethe grass with wildflower seeds. She huddled into her blue ski jacket. ‘Barnaby will have a great time making dens in these bushes.’
