by Judy Jarvie
“Nick here?” Andy asked leaning on the doorframe and flexing his biceps. “Any chance of a cuppa? Ailsa, since you’re making?”
Ailsa narrowed her eyes. “You could try making it as payment for lodgings. This is my home. Lisa’s my tenant. And somehow we’ve managed to pick up a new pet called Andy Ferguson.”
Just then the phone rang on the kitchen wall beside him. He picked up the receiver like he really lived there. “Chez Ailsa and Lisa, Andy speaking. The ladies of the house are busy overthrowing the Earth with their evil plans for universe domination.”
They watched him handle the call after rolling their eyes. “Hi Nick. You watching the match? Poor passing in general but the goal in the nineteenth minute was a triumph. Yes Ailsa’s here. But she’s ratty. Kid gloves required, mate.”
Ailsa glowered at the phone and then Lisa. Then made pleading eyes.
Lisa sighed and took it. “She’s just left. Can I take a message? You’ll wait? Er, she’s having a bath. Some of Ailsa’s soaks are longer than a marathon in clogs.”
Ailsa walked from the room and jostled Andy on her way out of the door.
“When we have sufficient water,” Ailsa whispered hoarsely as she passed.
“Okay. Okay.” Lisa was scribbling notes from Nick’s message on the pad by the fridge. “I’ll get her to call. See you. Take it easy. Bye then.”
After replacing the handset Lisa tore off the page and read aloud, “Says whatever you think, it’s not his wife. And never has been but he has a son who is seven. He wants to talk; he was going to tell you about Jake. Here’s his mobile number. He says he won’t give up.”
Ailsa thumped upstairs in her slippers. “Men do go on so.” The retort was aimed at Andy as much as Nick Palmer.
Too scary. Don’t go there, a reprieve is better than a mistake, said her inner nun voice.
“You should call him,” Andy opined from the kitchen where he was still standing like the lord of the manor. “You shouldn’t sleep on an argument, dearie.”
“Just go and make tea yourself,” she shouted. “Before I resort to building you a kennel at the bottom of the garden.”
***
As it turned out Jake, Nick’s son, broke an arm turning skateboard tricks.
It hadn’t been a big scary hospitalisation but Amanda, as usual, over-reacted and opted for maximum dramatisation. Sadly the reception clerk at Chez Angelle had taken the message wrong or Amanda purposefully promoted herself to ex-wife.
He and Amanda never married; she’d turned his offer down. It hadn’t left him devastated. They’d never been a forever pairing from the off.
And the ‘Jake in Hospital affair’ had been a quick in, out, fix him up and cuddle him scenario. Nick talked to his son who told him he’d regarded the whole affair as a great adventure and the arm cast was upping his cool cred no end.
Nick turned out of the hotel lobby and started to pound the Royal Mile, dodging the sightseeing tourists on steady hard Palmer jog pace. He felt the sweat build and coat his body. Felt the breathing come hard and fast from his chest.
As Nick couldn’t get Ailsa out of his crazy, sense evading mind there was but one answer; full on jogging that punished the body. His conscience needed a good battering because Nick knew he should have told her about his circumstances and Jake long before he’d got her up to his room.
She didn’t call. The message was crystal clear. She didn’t want to see him. She’d decided it was a bad move.
It grated inside him that he couldn’t even explain about the amicable arrangement he’d had with Amanda since Jake was born. That Ailsa wasn’t interested in his long suffering single Dad status. It further irritated that the mention of Jake was the kiss of death to his sex appeal.
Jake was his wonderful, handsome, bright, funny boy child; the miracle outcome of an unfortunate brief fling gone pear-shaped.
And while Nick couldn’t regret something that brought him something so wonderful, there were times he’d regretted hastiness. Ailsa didn’t want to know about his personal life apocalypse turned salvation.
She did not view Nick’s fatherhood history as a ‘must hear’.
But just remembering Ailsa’s addictive, captivating crazy mix of innocence and drop dead sexy diva, he was hooked. Even though he’d no hope of ever making it up to her.
Then there was Sally. She was fragile right now for knock backs. That was why he was here.
Sally’s Hotelier husband Alan walked out on Sally a year before. The one time man of her dreams, Nick and the rest of the family thought it would be a temporary glitch. They were three years married but even deep rosy love could wane.
“Dirty double-crossing waste of space,” he’d called Alan privately when he’d learned about his new French girlfriend.
“It’ll pass. All partnerships have their quibbles,” his Mum had opined.
“She says he’s gone abroad, to work in France. Sounds serious to me.”
Bridie had just poured him lemonade and handed it to him. “He’s nuts about Sally, he’ll be back. Anyway, any love news from you? More to the point.”
Nick tried his best to conceal his irritation at his Mother’s one track match making mind. He could still remember that day because she had arranged for an eligible female, leggy and available neighbour to ‘accidentally’ on purpose drop by.
How very Mother. But while luckily the neighbour didn’t linger, sadly Nick’s hunch about Alan had been right. He was still gone months with Sally making a dismal effort of running the restaurant and failing badly.
“I’ll go to Scotland.” Nick assured. “I’ll get her on track. Get her home.”
Alan and Sally had been food gurus. They may have turned the place into a select bistro but these days Sally’s confidence was at an all-time low. She didn’t want to get out of bed let alone keep up her eatery's reputation without Alan.
‘The Witches Nest’ may be a historic landmark in Edinburgh’s ancient Royal Mile but right now the restaurant had slumped. And the good name garnered from hard work was waning because of Sally’s personal problems.
“Sell the place quick,” Bridie, his mother told him. “Make her see sense.”
Nick had instructed. “Leave it to me.” The plan was to bring her to London to make a fresh start only now she was talking about staying. Something about not letting Alan win. Not something Nick planned for.
He pounded the Royal Mile top to bottom four times at good pace. He’d stopped only to take in the views from the Castle Esplanade. Breathtaking and not just from the whip of the wind. He’d looked across the Forth to Fife, spied the rugged rock of Arthur’s Seat. Then he’d watched the planes land at Turnhouse and felt nature’s gusts fill his lungs with a cold bracing reality check.
He had two options; he could sit back and let things slip.
Or seize the moment and take charge. Nick didn’t do passive when it mattered.
Once back at his hotel he picked up the phone to dial Ailsa. Then he stalled.
Would his call really make the difference?
She’d evade, she’d decline. She wasn’t interested. And a sex rematch would never be on her ‘to do list’. He needed to be stealthy in his pursuit.
He picked up his mobile and dialled Andy.
“Hey,” said Nick. “I need a favour. What’s this job Ailsa does at night? Where am I going to find her?”
Nick was taking the aggressive lead. He jotted Andy’s directions down and for the first time in hours the knots of fraught tension eased. He wouldn’t give her up without a fight.
***
Ailsa called her boss Johnny Deans later that day to confirm she’d cover the Ghost Tour shift vacancy.
Johnny had masterminded ‘City Ghost Tours’ years before she’d got onboard part time as his all round administrator and lifesaver. These days business was doing a bomb, they were getting press coverage for ‘try out and see’ innovative new business development ideas (a lot of which was actually down to Ailsa). They’d
piloted Saturday night leaflet drops in key City venues; cloaked spooky tour guides would hand out money off vouchers at City cinemas. Bookings were on the up.
Yet she was still part time. And still she was supplementing her income with the Sofa City work to make it all pay.
As colleagues, Ailsa and Johnny worked well together, sparked off each other and respected the fact that they each grafted hard for business success.
“Have a good New Year?” asked Johnny. “Bring it in in style?”
“Okay,” she skimmed. “You?”
“Great. But I’ve a corker of a January lined up. How do you fancy concentrating on an exciting new project? A chance to get you on board full-time and up your influence in the company.”
Ailsa perked up. This was so typically Johnny. He’d been ‘off work’ over Christmas and New Year and now here he was limbering up for some fresh business offensive. To think the year before he’d been devastated at his break up with his long term love, Cindy. He’d amazed Ailsa the way he’d stoically dealt with a bad situation and thrown himself into work.
“I’ve something lined up for you. How’d you fancy developing a 'Dine With The Past' idea? We’ve an interested restaurant lined up that wants to take it on.”
Something from her New Years Resolution clicked in Ailsa’s head. On auto zap. Full on, no backing down.
“Full-time and a raise in wages,” she stated, firm, astute, take no excuses. “I know I’m worth it. I won’t settle for less.”
Johnny paused. She waited. “You serious?”
“I’ve given you good years of hard work, Johnny. Maybe It’s time to start looking elsewhere?” she said it with conviction and sipped her tea.
“Okay, if those are your terms I agree,” he said surprised but sounding impressed. “You push hard these days. But that’s a good thing for the business. I like hard-nosed initiative.”
Ailsa liked the sound of the new project idea too. It sounded brilliant. Okay it would need work to devise the programme, work on the script, get the players together. But it could be a successful new direction. It was ripe for her experience. This was one initiative she’d love to be in sole charge of.
“We’ll talk tonight. I’ll pop by when your tour’s winding up.”
“See you later,” she placed the phone firmly down and punched the air.
See, thought Ailsa. Getting over bad situations was all about attitude. Positivity. Grasping opportunities. Johnny had done it. And each day she’d think about Nick less. Maybe, by next Christmas, maybe by the time she was fifty and a yoga master, he’d be less than a speck on her list of regrets.
And her job would be on the up even if she never dated men again because a single interrupted night of passion with Nick Palmer had left her regretful and traumatised. No biggie.
***
In a floor-length black hooded cape and a long petticoated frock, Ailsa became Meggie Masters, City Ghost Tour Host from beyond the grave and expert on ghost lore from the past.
“Let me take you back in time to Edinburgh’s macabre past,” she invited her assorted throng of guests. Her trademark red hair was bunned up high befitting the period look with a bonnet tied securely under her chin.
She even wore artfully blacked dental work (so ‘come hither’ it wasn’t true). Some women would have taken the vapours at the mere suggestion. Ailsa had gone for three tastefully darkened front teeth tonight. And her smile was knockout. Light years apart from the Sofa City ultra glam image.
The tour takers came from all walks and destinations. Europe. America. Japan. Cagoule and baseball hat clad to keep out the evening chills and drizzle. Cameras at the ready to record their historic tour.
“Are you a historian ma’am?” a friendly participant called Chip asked her before the tour started. He asked more questions than a three-year-old.
Ailsa just smiled. “No, I’m in Futures,” she lied. “Everyone needs a day job. Even ghosts.” It always got her a laugh.
There were always smiles stuck to the nervous faces of her participants. Even when they got to the spookiest parts of the tour. The caverns, the dark, quiet claustrophobic corners by candlelight. It was only when the eerie noises and the lights started to flicker on the last lap that the smiles began to fade.
She loved doing this. It gave her such a kick. Holding the crowd hanging on her every word. Taking them to the very boundaries of their imaginations.
“So are you ready to hear of the City’s misdeeds?” she probed. “Have you the stomach for the ghoulish truths of Edinburgh’s ancient under belly? Then follow me…learn of the murders, the punishments, the spirits that lurk. And watch your backs okay?”
How many workers got this kind of variety from their jobs? This kind of buzz from getting right down to their customer experience. It was the only way to truly understand what made her market tick surely. Part of Ailsa’s contract was a once a fortnight Ghost Tour appearance. Sometimes she filled in for sick cover and most of the time she worked as administrator in the ticket booking office and did promotional work for her boss, Johnny.
“Days of terror. Of retribution, brutal crimes paid in full by bloody deeds. Of public hanging and extreme punishment. When death stalked the Royal Mile; its creepy Closes and cobbled paths. The plague, the hangman’s noose, the town gibbet. The cat o’ nine tails.”
Ailsa swirled her cloak around her for effect as she said cat o’ nine tails letting gazes rest on a fake but convincing wound above the neckline of her dress. She was rewarded with gasps.
A hush descended.
Ailsa continued in a husky voice, “Pain that was real. Raw. And clamoured for by the masses that enjoyed nothing better than the spectacle of someone being hung.”
She smiled a gappy smile before continuing, “It was here beside the Old Town Cross that public flogging was habitually conducted. Imagine…the anguished cries.”
A shriek burst forth from a ‘set up’ passer by and sent the hearts of Ailsa’s audience skittering madly off into cardiac territory.
Granite eyes greeted her.
Boring deep into hers when Ailsa looked into the panicked but avid faces around her.
It was Nick.
Why had he come?
And why oh why had she let it affect her?
Nick stood before her in a long dark coat and a black scarf up to his nose. More gorgeous than double mocha milkshake at Mackie’s. He didn’t even smile, just cocked his head. Broody, irked, challengingly attractive.
Ailsa pulled her cloak tighter, steeled her resolve and started her soliloquy again. Steadied herself.
“Let’s begin with a tale of betrayal of the highest order,” she let the comment hang, her gaze met his on purpose.
She was a professional she could do this. And she did.
She told her tale.
She pretended Nick Palmer just wasn’t there. It was just a sea of identity less faces. No one she knew; just like an exam where you focused on autopilot.
She told them of the Mercat Cross’s past. The gory practices, the uncensored delights from past centuries. Then she took them to the City Chambers. Told them about Mary King’s Close, the city street closed up at the height of the plague, inhabitants and all. She told them the tales they’d all come to hear. Heard them gasp, felt their intrigue palpable in their huddle in the drizzly night.
“I have to speak to you,” Nick whispered in her ear as they walked back towards City Ghost Tours HQ to finish the tour. “Urgently. Properly.”
She was leading her party down to Fishmarket Close for a tale of murder and retribution. Nick dodged onto the pavement to keep up, his shoes shone in the moonlight.
“Ailsa are you listening?” She didn’t meet his gaze. “Don’t blank me.”
She so loved the desperate, slightly angry edge that crept into his voice.
“I’m working.”
“I love the teeth. They suit you.”
Ailsa went to cross the street and they collided as Nick didn’t anticipat
e her movements. They brushed with each other awkwardly.
“When then?” he asked and stalled her with his hands.
“Sshh,” she rasped, pushing him off.
She could hear the chatter from her party as they took in the Royal Mile’s ambience. Then the small crowd began to reassemble at her assigned place.
He repeated, “At least let me see you for a minute.”
“Gather round,” she commanded in her best dramatic voice. “For the tale of Fishmarket Close and its past misdeeds.”
Turning to Nick she whispered, “There are drinks at the end for the guests. Five minutes and that’s all.”
“This is a place, that after tonight,” she said seamlessly raising her voice and addressing her small crowd, “you are never likely to forget. So take heed and those of a nervous disposition grab a comforting arm and be sure not to go home alone…”
***
Her brief tales of the Royal Mile over Ailsa led her tour participants via backstreets and steep cobbled lanes to her HQs cavern headquarters. Johnny had turned the hollow support structure of a bridge and disused cellars and basements into the spooky epicentre for City Ghost Tours operations.
As usual with all things Johnny, it proved a stroke of genius.
Johnny bought the space seeing its spooky, ethereal potential. Initially he’d planned to turn it into a bistro and wine bar. Then he’d seen the potential for tours. The rest was history.
These days it was a confined, unwelcoming space. Full of atmospheric arches and deep stony caverns. Full of natural spider’s webs that needed no enhancement other than candles and gothic touches to unsettle paying visitors. He’d built a function suite and bar as well as a labyrinth of movie style ‘ghostly rooms’.
Visitors didn’t see the dry ice. The ‘falsely created’ stale smells. The sound system authentically creating unnerving noises that interspersed the silences during her tales. They didn’t suspect the odd shapes and angles that so perplexed them were carefully lit to induce the kind of shadows that made them feel uncomfortable.
It promised spirits and ghouls by nature of its very shape.
