Page 22 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘No, not at all . . . how’s your daughter?’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Uh,’ he says. ‘It’s complicated.’

And Janey feels immediately that she’s crossed a boundary. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says quickly. ‘None of my business, of course.’

‘No, no, not at all.’ He has that slightly clipped way of speaking, as much English as Scottish, with an accent you don’t hear much on television these days. It sounds as if it is from a slightly different age. ‘Verity is wonderful. She’s great. Thriving.’ He bites his lip.‘Her mother isn’t crazy about me, that’s all.’

Shelby comes to serve them.

‘Is that . . . is that the only white wine you have?’he asks, with a slightly pained expression, and Janey wants to smile; maybe Essie has a point.

Shelby folds her arms and looks at him as if he’d just asked if she was serving squirrel juice. ‘Yeah.’

‘Okay . . . a couple of bottles of that, then.’

‘That’s very generous,’ says Janey, surprised, but Hector is already starting a new round, the first question of which appears to involve listing rugby teams, and Milton is gesturing for Lowell to come over quite urgently. Owen is sullenly taking dictation with his special quiz pencil.

‘How many Doctor Whos . . . ’begins Hector, and Owen’s eyes slowly begin to close. This is turning into the worst quiz night of all time.

‘Are you okay?’ asks Essie, slightly worried about him.

‘This is . . . an impossible-to-answer question,’ says Owen. ‘I feel I should start the steward’s enquiry now to save time.’

‘Why?’ says Essie. ‘Count up the number of actors.’

‘Audio, film or television?’ says Owen immediately. ‘And what about Doctor Moon?’

Essie does not have a clue what he’s talking about, only that he looks as if he might get some spittle on her. She remembers, very briefly, going to the launch of a new perfume on the fourth floor of Harvey Nichols on St Andrew’s Square. There were amazing-looking people there, and lots of Scottish celebrities. It had been extremely exciting and there had been a speciallycreated cocktail just for the occasion. Alright, so a haggis martini probably wasn’t going to catch on everywhere, but, even so, it had been so very jolly that evening, looking down from the glamorous balcony on to the wet punters on the square below.

Just as she is thinking perhaps she should just sneak out on her own, as Owen has now counted up to two dozen Doctor Whos, Al leaps to his feet.

‘Yo!’

14

The new arrival is not particularly tall, walks with a swagger as though he owns the place, and looks slightly annoyed, as if he hadn’t expected so many people to be in his living room. Essie looks up at him. There is something familiar about him, but then she always sees something familiar in this town: faces repeating, generation after generation. He is the most ridiculously dressed person she’s ever seen, and she wants to laugh. Simon Cowell-style cowboy boots under incredibly tight Levis, and, of all things, a cowboy hat. At first she thinks he’s a stripper sent as a joke; but Al is already moving forward.

‘Dwight, man, how’s it going?’

The man nods. ‘Al. Alright, aye. Shelby, can I get a beer?’

‘No!’ says Shelby. ‘This isn’t your bar. You can wait in a queue like everybody else.’

Dwight frowns crossly, and Essie realises who he is: Shelby’s brother. Of course. Both their names are completely mad. But he can’t . . . he can’tstillbe dressing like this. Oh, my God. It’s the most embarrassing thing she’s ever seen. He’s not big, but he’s wiry, and his clothes absolutely cling to him. She looks away, only to be confronted with Owen scratching a pimple that’s peeping out through his moustache. Oh, lord.

‘How you doing?’ says Al to Dwight.

‘Well, beerless, mostly,’ says Dwight, still frowning. His eyes rest momentarily on Essie and he nods quickly, and she nods back just as quickly. Then he actually tips his hat to her. She stifles a giggle, which her mum notices, crossly.

Janey comes over to the boys. She’s always had a soft spot for wee Dwight, with his silly name and cowboy boots and enforced line-dancing. He’d always taken it all in reasonably good part, and even when he was small he used to tip his cowboy hat at ladies he passed, which made her laugh. He doesn’t have freckles any more, but you can still see the cheeky little boy within the man. And now she is far too old to have useful opinions about it, she thinks he fills his jeans out rather nicely, if anyone would ever think to ask her, which they wouldn’t, in her sensible hospital lanyard.

‘Hello, Dwight,’ she says warmly.

‘Howdy, ma’am,’ he says, because he knows she likes it, even though it makes her feel about a hundred also.

‘You off the rigs, I hear?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ he says, brightening.

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