Page 19 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘I would not,’ says Essie serenely. ‘Taylor and I would make friends straight off.’

13

‘So, all it took,’ says Janey quietly to her friends, as they all give her meaningful looks at seeing Essie up and about, ‘was for me to keep completely silent and hide in the next room.’

They are in the End of the World bar – the name of the place makes both Essie and Al roll their eyes, which annoys Janey, because at least someone is making an effort. It’s hard up here. Shelby had the little low white house painted up nice and fresh, and the doors and windowpanes are pale blue; it looks lovely, even though it faces the sea so will need to be painted every five minutes to have a hope of staying that way.

‘Look, sis,’ Al is teasing, pointing at a chalked-up menu. ‘They have avocados! You’re alright! You haven’t been kidnapped!’

Essie gives him a look. Considering how dire she’s been feeling, having a shower and getting dressed, even if it’s only in jeans and a top, has made her feel a little better, as has putting make-up on, as has the prospect of the local gin and tonic Al is currently buying her. She looks around, feeling edgy as she waits to see Scary Shelby McFlynn. When she appears, behind the bar, Essie feels a sudden chill.

Shelby does look well, as her mum said. She’s bigger than she was at school, but she’s bosomy and shapely, so it rather suits her, particularly working behind a bar. Her brown eyes have been further enhanced by huge false eyelashes that curlup, and she has a deep tan, which isn’t really the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the winter just past in Carso.

Essie blinks and tries to slow her racing heart. She hasn’t thought about what she might say – well, that’s nonsense: she has thought about it loads, mostly along the lines of effing off out then effing back in again so she can eff off once more, and ideally it would have taken place while she, Essie, was swanning down George Street in a ballgown and lots of handsome friends on their way somewhere exotic (she’s not quite sure where), while a now acne-ridden and miserable Shelby has come up to seeMenopause the Musicalat the Playhouse and can only stare after her wistfully.

And yet, here they are. Back in Carso. And Shelby is looking straight at Essie with a look on her face that is almost defiant; as if she is daring Essie to say something, to bring it up. She recognises her, alright; she’s practically reading her mind.

Essie realises she can’t do it. She isn’t going to speak to her school bully. She can’t. Instead, she turns around and folds her arms and looks defiantly around the room, at the groups of gossiping knitters and cheery quiz teams, and makes her face into something not exactly like a sneer, more a kind of pitying glance.

Al comes up, wondering why she hasn’t ordered.

‘Hiya, Shelby,’ he says, and Shelby turns to face him with a huge, sticky lip-glossed grin. Her teeth are very white and even, again slightly belying Hector, Carso’s only dentist, a well-meaning man but not exactlyau faitwith dental fashions.

‘Hiya!’ she trills, as if lit up. Essie smiles gratefully at Al, while looking over at the tiny wooden table with her mum’s friends from the hospital. Their team is called the Ancillary Justices. Nobody understands this except for one intense young mancalled Owen, with long, greasy black hair, who sometimes manages to look skinny but have a potbelly at the same time. She keeps an eye on Al.

‘Can I get a bottle of white and two G&Ts? How’s Dwight?’says Al.

Shelby and Dwight’s parents were big fans of line dancing, hugely popular in Scotland. Essie remembers them at the village ceilidhs, persuading the band to play ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ and then all doing their special walking-about dance while the old folk found it adorable. Some years they got a few people to do it with them. Essie remembers being very small and feeling jealous of Shelby in a white lace shirt, pink cowboy boots and lip gloss. And Dwight, all freckles and cowboy hat.

‘He’s alright, yeah. He’s coming in.’

‘What’s he up to these days? Roping cattle?’

‘Ha bloody ha, Alasdair Munroe. He’s just come in off the rigs, if you must know. Made a fortune.’

This was said loudly enough for Essie to hear, and was almost certainly deliberate, thinks Essie gloomily.

‘Good for him,’ says Al, meaning it. It wasn’t an easy life, on the rigs.

‘Not sitting in a nice warm office like you.’

‘I resent that remark,’ says Al. ‘Sometimes I have to go out with a crossbow.’ He nods at Essie. ‘You remember my sister.’

Shelby turns towards her as if she’s just noticed her for the first time.‘Gracing us with your presence from the big city,’ she says, not pleasantly, but with a big grin to cover that up.

‘Something like that,’ says Essie, trying not to sound over-eager, or over-anything, in fact.

‘You went to the university, aye?’

‘Yeah,’ says Essie, unwilling to elaborate, so the conversation dams up like water slowing to a trickle.

‘Well, alright for some,’ says Shelby, serving up the G&Ts.

‘Wow,’ says Al, as they head back to the table. ‘Okay. You were right and I was wrong. She really does hate you.’

‘I neverdidanything,’ says Essie.

‘You went off far away to university and shook everyone off your shoes like they were cat poo!’ says Al, grinning.

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