The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
“ Arthur is cleaning the spout of the espresso machine. There’s a bit of bad-tempered banging, and I think I hear him swear beneath his breath
W hen I catch Arthur’s eye, he just smiles and picks up his tongs to load more cakes onto a white plate.
I hope they aren’t for me. The hot, steamy atmosphere is making me queasy.
“It’s early days, but they’re saying that Reuben could be out quite soon.”
My tongue lingers secretly, hungrily, on his name. “He’ll have to have intense physio, and probably another operation on his leg.”
“That seems quite positive then,” says Mac. “Your sister will nurse him back to health. It’s what you do, isn’t it?
“In sickness and in health, all that stuff. That’s what you sign up for.”
Mac’s voice has a bitter edge that I hadn’t been expecting. She turns sharply to the counter.
“Aren’t I getting a coffee? Actually, make it tea. If I have coffee at this late stage I’ll be up in the night, peeing on the carpet like the bloody dogs.”
Arthur is cleaning the spout of the espresso machine.
There’s a bit of bad-tempered banging, and I think I hear him swear beneath his breath.
“Ma, you’ve been here since this morning. We’re trying to get finished up.”
Mac widens her eyes at me. “Did you hear that? I have been working.
“I bet JK Rowling never had to put up with this abuse at The Elephant House.”
Anticipation
She pushes at her notebook. It’s sitting between us, the pen placed neatly on top.
I hadn’t noticed it, but now a faint flush of anticipation perks me up like a caffeine hit.
“Have you been working on your stories?” I’ve been pestering her for ages to finish that one about the castle, but she’s been procrastinating.
She inclines her head, as if she has a secret and can’t voice it.
I make a grab for the notebook, but she gets there first and sweeps it into her bag.
“Stories have to play out in their own good time. Now...”
She gets slowly to her feet.
“Since I have outstayed my welcome, I will take myself off and leave you two to chat.”
She begins muttering about keys, and all the rubbish she carries in her bag – notebooks, pens, cough sweets, a compact umbrella – is hauled out and dumped on the table in front of me.
Mac surfaces with the key, a twinkling, elusive fish. “Got it! My mother used to pin it to my knickers, and no wonder.”
Behind the counter, Arthur groans. Anita seems to have disappeared.
The thought of being alone with him is scary, but I don’t quite know why.
Mac
A sudden squall of rain blows out of nowhere as I trudge up the road. I should have asked Anita to drop me off.
She’s always bombing around in that old banger of hers, even though she lives not 10 minutes from the village.
She’d been talking about going to meet friends, so maybe she was running late. She certainly didn’t linger.
One minute she was taking her pinny off and the next she was gone.
So Arthur has Lucie to chat to. She’s not the easiest of folk, but she seems to unbend a little when he’s around.
There’s a gentle spark between them, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
He’s been lonely since Nancy left, but I’m not certain Lucie is the right girl to fill the gap.
I zip my anorak up as far as it will go, and bend my head into the squall, letting the rain belt off my waxed hat.
Productive
It’s been a good writing day, productive. Bella and Elspeth have grown today.
A young man has come on the scene; courting the father, before he can pay attention to the daughters. Things are hotting up.
I come to the bad bend. After my conversation with Arthur, I’d been looking out for the tyre tracks in Clark’s field.
I saw them on my way to the café; great gouges cartwheeling into the pasture.
The car had ploughed through the hedgerow and taken the fence with it.
I’ve been complaining about that fence for months.
The stock were always getting out onto the road, and I wonder now if that has some significance.
Did the driver swerve to avoid a stray bullock? Or was his mind taken up with other matters?
The car is long gone, towed away by the local garage on the instructions of the police.
Clark has been out fiddling around with fencing wire, but even in the gathering dusk I can see that the field is empty.
The two old ladies in the café had seen it being towed away.
They thought I might know something and they’d asked me in a whisper, as if there was a breath of scandal attached to it all.
It was a strange car, and a young man driving it. A stranger. What would I know, I told them.
There are more houses than mine up that road. If there was a stranger in town he most certainly had nothing to do with me or mine. End of story.
Arthur hates me gossiping, so I made sure it was all tied up while he was out the back.
Staring
By the time he returned I was sipping my soup and ignoring the two old bats in the corner.
With a jolt, I realise I’m still standing in the road, staring at the tyre tracks. Such an out-of-the-way place to come to grief.
The driver, whoever they were, must have been in quite a hurry. I plod on.
Only five minutes more and I’ll be home.
I can just about see the end of the drive. There’s a little whimper from the direction of the hedge, and Floss comes scampering to meet me. I rub her damp ears.
“What are we going to do with you?” I say to her fondly.
“You should be in the kitchen with your brothers. You’ll never settle.”
At least she seems none the worse after her chocolate feast. We walk the last few yards to the gloomy house.
In my mind’s eye, I am already pottering about the kitchen, plugging in the kettle, reaching for the biscuit tin.
There are warm furry bodies against my cold legs, damp snouts in my hand.
More on Monday.