‘Aye, really. Me, Ginny and Shirley did it together – thought it could be a laugh you know, the three witches out on the prowl? Brody’s very upset with us. You know what he’s like.’
I do. Brody is what you might call risk-averse. Being a cop for so many years, he’s seen a lot of bad stuff, and still looks for it around every corner. I wonder if he has a point with this. Ginny is in her seventies somewhere and runs the village shop, and Shirley owns the local pub, the Kestrel. She swears she’s still twenty-one but I’m guessing maybe three times that. Are theythe kinds of women who might get taken advantage of? Are they vulnerable?
‘Don’t worry, son,’ she says. ‘I willnae be giving away my life savings to a good-looking young waiter who swears eternal devotion! Truthfully, I know I’ll never find another Angus. There isn’t another Angus, they broke the mould. But I wouldn’t mind some companionship, you know? A friend. Someone to share my day with, go for walks with. Someone nice who makes me laugh. Is that too much to ask? Am I being a silly old moo?’
I reach across the table and take her hands in mine. ‘Absolutely not. You deserve the world, Moira.’
‘And so do you, Rory,’ she says, squeezing my fingers. ‘So do you. Life is short, darling, you only start to realise how short when you’re approaching the end.’
‘Rubbish! You’ll outlive us all!’
She gives me a sad little smile, one that I don’t like at all. Is she just feeling a touch of whisky melancholy, or is there something more to this? She pats my hand. ‘I certainly will not outlive you all, and that’s okay. That’s the circle of life and there’s not much we can do but accept it. But I’m at the age where I’m up against the clock, and I still have so much left that I want to do.’
‘Can I help? Anything at all, you know that don’t you?’
Her eyes meet mine, and for a moment I wonder what she will say. There’s definitely something on her mind. She shakes her head, and says: ‘I know that, my darling, and thank you. Right. Come on, we’d better go. But Rory – I’ll be lighting a candle for you tonight. Sending a prayer out into the universe. So watch out, because my prayers to the universe are potent things.’
‘And what would you be asking the universe for on my behalf then?’
‘A good woman, of course,’ she says, eyes going wide as though she’s surprised I have to ask. ‘A good woman, and love, and laughter. For you to stop all this lone wolf malarkey, and find your soulmate. Your other half is out there, Rory Callaghan, don’t ever give up on that. Your second chance could be just around the corner.’
I smile, and let her have her moment. If it makes her happy to imagine that statement is true, then I’m not going to argue. I admire her certainty. I hope she proves me wrong. I’m not so sure that love – the kind she’s talking about, the kind that lasts, that forgives, that endures – even exists.
Not for me. Not any more.
FOUR
JANE
I can’t believe I’m actually here. In Bonnie Bay. A place that is, it turns out, a very long way away from anywhere.
I’m not sure my Romeo and I would have even made it this far, back in the day – what were we thinking?
We weren’t, is the short answer. At eighteen, we thought we were all grown up, but we’d led sheltered lives – my parents were middle class, Dad was a GP and Mum a nurse, and I was always cosseted and ferried around everywhere. His were traditional and religious, big on control. We rebelled against both, but we had no clue what the real world was like. Even getting the train into London felt like a wild adventure, never mind escaping all the way to this little village in Scotland. It really is at the edge of the world.
Still, at least back then I had the excuse of being eighteen and in love – now? Now I’m forty-four and the only thing I love is my daughter, and on occasions the Domino’s pizza delivery guy.
I glance over at Beth. She grins at me, and I see that shine of excitement in her eyes. It makes her look like a kid again, and warms my heart.Sheis why I’m doing this, at least partly. ‘Ready?’ she says. ‘Or are we just going to sit in the car?’
I stick my tongue out at her. Cheeky, but nicely so – free of snark. Things have been much better between us since we had our heart-to-heart back in Stratford. She was a lot more keen to visit the Bookshop at the Edge of the World than I was, and tried to convince me that it would be good for me.
‘You know, closure,’ she’d said, nodding as though she’d just issued a High Court ruling. ‘Put it all behind you.’
‘Beth, I was eighteen – it’s so far behind me I can barely remember it!’
I was, of course, lying when I said that. I hadn’t told her the whole story about what had happened back in the year 2000. I’ve never told anybody the whole story. It wasn’t just getting my heart broken, it was getting my whole life broken – what happened changed everything.
I didnotwant to go to Bonnie Bay, and see how beautiful it was – it’s been hard enough not wondering ‘what if’ for all these years without coming face to face with the place where we were supposed to live our dream lives.
‘Why do you want to go so much?’ I’d asked her.
‘I just do. That card, the things it said… you know, about feeling lonely. About wishing you were living a rainbow?’
‘Yes?’ I’d asked, my stomach lurching at the idea that she feels so sad.
‘Well, sometimes maybe I feel lonely and broken, Mum! Sometimes I feel like everything’s a bit pointless, all right?’
She’d sounded embarrassed by the flurry of words, and I could hear in her tone that a Big Strop was heading our way. I hated the idea of dealing with a Big Strop. But even more than that, I hated the idea of my beautiful girl feeling so low. I knew not to overreact – most teenagers think life is pointless at some time or another, it’s a fairly logical response to existence – but her despair seemed real. In that moment, she meant it.
