Page 11 of The Moon Sister
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I spent the rest of the morning down with the cats – or, in reality, without them, because no matter how much I looked for them in the dens carefully concealed in the foliage, I couldn’t spot them.
‘What a disaster it would be if my charges died in the first week,’ I said to Cal when he popped into the cottage at lunchtime for one of his mega sandwiches. ‘They’re not touching their food.’
‘Aye, that it would be,’ he grunted, ‘but they looked like they had enough fat on them tae sustain them for a few days at least. They’ll settle down, Tig.’
‘I hope so, I really do. Anyway, I need to do some shopping for food and cleaning supplies,’ I said. ‘Where’s the nearest place for that?’
‘I’ll come with you tae the local shop now. Give you a driving lesson – Beryl takes some getting used tae.’
I spent the next hour navigating Beryl and learning her eccentricities as we drove to the local shop and back. The shop proved a disappointment, selling goodness knows how many varieties of shortbread for passing tourists, but not much else. At least I was able to get potatoes, cabbage and carrots, some salted peanuts and lots of baked beans for protein.
Back at the cottage, Cal left me to it, but having searched for a mop and a broom with no success, I decided there was nothing for it but to go up and ask Beryl if she had some equipment I could borrow. I walked across the courtyard towards the back door of the Lodge. Knocking brought no response, so I opened the door and stepped inside.
‘Beryl? It’s Tiggy from the cottage! Are you here?’ I called as I walked along the passage towards the kitchen.
‘I’m upstairs, dear, sorting out the new daily,’ came a voice from above. ‘I’ll be down in a few seconds. Go and put the kettle on in the kitchen, will you?’
I followed Beryl’s instructions and was just searching for a teapot when she walked in with a whey-faced young woman, who was wearing an apron and a pair of rubber gloves.
‘This is Alison, who’ll be keeping the Lodge spick and span when the guests arrive at Christmas. Won’t you, Alison?’ Beryl spoke slowly, enunciating her words, as if the girl was hard of hearing.
‘Yes, Mrs McGurk, tha’ I will.’
‘Right, Alison, I’ll see you tomorrow morning at eight sharp. There’s a lot to be done before the Laird arrives.’
‘Yes, Mrs McGurk,’ the girl repeated, looking positively terrified of her new boss. She nodded a goodbye then scurried out of the kitchen.
‘Dearie me,’ commented Beryl as she opened a cupboard and pulled out a teapot. ‘Not blessed with brains is our Alison, but neither am I blessed with a wide choice of staff round these parts. At least she can walk to work from her parents’ croft, which – during the winter – means everything.’
‘Do you live close by?’ I asked Beryl as she spooned tea leaves into the pot.
‘In a cottage just across the glen. I presume you don’t take milk with your tea?’
‘No.’
‘Is a piece of my homemade Millionaire’s Shortbread allowed? It does have butter in it.’ Beryl indicated a tempting rack of biscuits covered in thick layers of caramel and chocolate. ‘After all, the local dairy is on the doorstep and I can personally vouch for the fact that the cows are very well cared for.’
‘Then thanks, I’d love a piece,’ I said, deciding now was not the time to try to explain it was the fact that newborn calves were torn from their mothers, who were continually kept pregnant to provide unnatural levels of milk for humans, that I objected to. ‘It’s mainly meat and fish I absolutely won’t eat. I do have the occasional lapse when it comes to dairy; I love milk chocolate,’ I admitted.
‘Don’t we all?’ Beryl handed me a slice on a plate with a glimmer of a smile and I felt we had taken a tiny step towards bonding, even if it was at the expense of my principles. ‘So, how are you coping at the cottage?’
‘Well,’ I said, savouring every bite of the fabulously buttery shortbread, ‘I’ve come to ask if you had a mop and broom and possibly a vacuum cleaner I could borrow so I could give it a good clean?’
‘I have indeed. Men do seem to enjoy living like pigs in their own muck, don’t they?’
‘Some men, yes, though my father was one of the most fastidious people I’ve ever known. Nothing was ever out of place, and he made his own bed every morning, even though he had –wehad – a housekeeper to do it for us.’
Beryl eyed me as though she was reassessing my status. ‘So you’re from gentry, are you?’
It was a word I wasn’t familiar with. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Sorry, Tiggy, your English is so good that I forget you must be French, from that accent I hear.’
‘I’m Swiss actually, but my native language is French, yes.’
‘I meant that I was wondering if you come from nobility,’ said Beryl. ‘Given the fact that you say you had a housekeeper.’
