Page 37 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘So you’re the banker, are you?’ says Dwight, pinging his card without even looking at the total, which makes Essie frown even more.

‘Yes,’ she says. She may be bad with her own finances, but she’s watched a lot of good businesses go bad over the years. ‘Tell me you watch your building costs better than you watch your completely-strange-dog-that-is-nothing-to-do-with-you costs.’

He gives her a sidelong glance. ‘Huh,’ he says.

‘What?’ says Essie.

‘Nothing. This is my first project.’

‘Well, watch your costs!’ says Essie, slightly panicked for him.

‘Neh, it’s alright. I’ve got money, plus money from the bank.’

‘Yes, but people go through it like you can’t believe . . . ’

She doesn’t realise quite why she’s so concerned – who cares? But even so, she saw him helping Felicity and is less inclined to think he’s awful now. And it would be even worse for the village if the Seagate failed and got left to rot; her mum would basically be living next door to a slum.

‘Well, you don’t need to listen to me,’ she says.

‘Free advice from a banker? I think I will, actually,’ says Dwight.

‘Okay. Well. Watch your costs. Sit down with your accountant.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ he says, making a shrug.

‘You have got an accountant?’ says Essie, suddenly worried.

‘Neh,’ he says. ‘It’s just doing up some wee houses, yeah? I’m going to get some mates round, we’ll be done in a couple of months.’

‘Haven’t you ever watchedGrand Designs?’

‘Has it got Jason Statham in it?’

‘No!’

‘Well. No, then. Sounds boring.’

They leave the shop and are soon back outside the Seagate cottages. Essie looks upwards. The houses are adorable, but they are crooked and leaning up against each other. The coving is coming away, likewise the guttering.

‘And you want to let these?’

‘Yeah,’ says Dwight. ‘Or flip them for absolutely loads. Down to B&Q, quick bish bash bosh and I’ll be rolling in it.’

Essie frowns, torn. She has spent long enough in her last job looking for weaknesses in companies to exploit, in fact exactly like this kind of thing, to know a recipe for disaster when she sees it.

On the other hand, in this current climate, he’s probably right. If he throws a coat of Turnkey Blue over every surface he can find, he probably can flip them for a fortune.

But to whom? To nobody round here. These are poor cottages, built for people with next to no money at all, living a subsistence life from the vegetable patch, working their lives in all weathers. They weren’t meant to be a rich person’s plaything, popping in twice a year, complaining that the Scot Nor doesn’t stock saffron, or, worse, driving up with a huge pile of groceries they’ve already bought in their car so they don’t have to spend any money in the town at all; complaining they can’t find a cleaner, because cleaners have nowhere to live.

Essie realises she is sounding exactly like her mother. She’s only been back a couple of weeks and she’s been infected already. Why shouldn’t Dwight, who left school at sixteen and has done nothing but graft ever since, in some of the most difficult conditions known to man, make a killing? There are very few ways left for guys like Dwight to do well in life; most of the routes have been closed off, as she knows only too well, scrabbling in the sea of publicly educated kids in Edinburgh whose parents had got them sinecures and internships at the banks they and their lawyer friends all worked at; who had secured the tutoring necessary to get their dumbo children into the right universities, then given them a place to live in the city while they got a foothold. The system is totally rigged against the Essies and Dwights of this world, as she can see only too clearly, stuck back here by one turn of misfortune, while the Connors and Trisses of this world sail on regardless, happy that their rent is covered by Mummy and Daddy while they ‘make their own way’.

So yeah, screw them, and screw anyone who dares to tell Dwight what he can and can’t do with the meagre opportunities he has. The system is rigged, so he might as well get on board with it, and if some of those posh wankers from the city end up with a boiler someone’s mate stuck in on a free weekend from bevvying off the rigs, well, they’ve got it coming.

On the other hand . . .

‘Are you thinking about the puppies?’ says Dwight, as they push open the garden gate.

Essie doesn’t want to admit that, no, she’s been thinking about him, and his business. But she can’t help herself.

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