Page 38 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘If you like,’ she says shyly, ‘I could help. I’m on . . . gardening leave.’

She’s never quite understood what gardening leave is but has figured out that nor does anybody else, and it’s a good cover-all word to use whenever anyone asks what she’s up to.

‘I could . . . have a look at your accounts if you like. Just. Maybe. Help you out with your budget and stuff.’

He looked at her, shouldering the door. ‘Aye, Shelby says you were a right swot,’ he says, considering it.

Essie feels her fingers tightening into her palm.

He holds the door open for her behind him as they head back upstairs to where the puppies are. ‘Mind you, she also says you’re a stuck-up cow, and she was right about that.’

And he grins and lets Essie’s furious face follow him up the stairs.

‘That’s a yes, by the way,’ he yells back down.

‘You . . . you can STUFF IT!’ shouts Essie, loudly, as Janey and Lowell cover the puppies’ ears.

*

‘Hey, sweetie . . . ’

‘And there were pups! Born right away! Just there! Did you not look at my Insta?’

Connor laughs down the phone at Essie’s enthusiasm.

‘Sorry, I called to speak to Essie? Down-in-the-dumps, depressed-at-living-in-a-hole-in-the-sticks Essie?’

Essie glances out of the side window, to the end of the road, where in the distance she can just see the sun starting to set overthe fields, the wind blowing through the long grass, the lambs hippety-hopping up and down. On the street, closer by, she sees Struan McGhie, the local music teacher, pass with his girlfriend Gertie, who’s a famous knitter. He is wearing a knitted bobble hat, a knitted scarf and a knitted waistcoat and is carrying a knitted music bag, all in lovely, matching but different spring tones of blue and yellow. She smiles to herself. They seem pretty happy. Johnson the postie whizzes by. He has been given a new electric bike to help with the hills and is a frankly terrifying sight on it.

‘It was cool!’ she says, and tells him all about it.

‘Three houses, wow,’ says Connor. As for all Gen Zs, even comfortable ones like Connor, home-ownership is still pretty amazing: on a par with ‘and then a unicorn appeared, tapdancing on the Northern Lights’.

‘I know,’ says Essie. ‘There was a codicil in the will stipulating they could only be sold locally.’

There’s a slight silence on the other end.

‘Interesting,’ says Connor. ‘So, he’s not a professional developer or anything?’

‘No,’ says Essie. ‘He’s made money on the rigs and he’s putting it into this.’

‘Very interesting.’

‘How is that interesting to you? They’re basically falling-down sheds in the middle of Carso. The nearest cappuccino is miles away. It’s not three Georgian townhouses.’

‘I know, I know, I’m just interested in property.’

‘You and everyone else. Well, come up and have a look,’ says Essie, teasingly. ‘I really want to see you.’

‘I want to see you too,’ says Connor. ‘I’ll make a plan.’

And Essie feels better all over again, and applies for four more jobs, trying not to even mind that none of them will get back to her. Her mother doesn’t even realise employers don’thave to get back to you these days; that everyone ghosts everyone all the time.

To put her in an even better mood, as she is about to close her laptop an email pings – a new vacancy has been posted! With a capital management group! In town!! She is so happy she even goes downstairs and doesn’t look at Janey’s pasta, with the earliest green beans from the garden, which Janey is so very proud of, and fresh herbs from the window ledge, and forgets to even mention that she thinks she is probably gluten-intolerant. She doesn’t think she is gluten-intolerant; she is just annoyed that her mother doesn’t believe in it, so is striking a blow for truly gluten-intolerant people everywhere. Fighting the good fight.

*

Janey discusses it with everyone at work. There are vague plans to start a rota to make sure Felicity is alright – Lish’s kids are keen – but in fact it doesn’t prove remotely necessary: local Facebook page readers start popping in at all hours, lots of them to make their opinions known but also, it being Carso, lots to help too. Of course Fred Wilson from the butcher’s gets his usual snit on and starts wanging on and on about health and safety and rabies, which quickly degenerates into a shouting fight about dog vaccinations and foreign wars, but everyone is used to that and just ignores it. Morag the pilot comes down and tries to persuade Gregor, her other half, to get one. They puppy-sit for over an hour while Gregor patiently explains to her in English and in Gaelic that dogs and ornithologists are a terrible mix unless you get the breed exactly right, and whatever these deadly hellspawn are, they are not the correct breed.

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