Sealed With a Kiss

by Rachael Lucas

  ‘Not that you’re looking, but you could meet someone very nice through that kind of job, darling. Ellen Lewis at my yoga class told me her daughter went to work as a PA and married her boss. She lives in Barbados now. Gorgeous villa by the beach.’

  Kate had rolled her eyes.

  ‘Mum, you said yourself there was no rush, and that the last thing I needed to do was end up in a relationship again. I don’t want to end up being the trophy wife to some divorced millionaire who’s decided to marry the hired help.’

  ‘Yes, I know, darling, but there’s no harm in keeping half an eye out, is there? Time passes very fast, you know, and you’ll be thirty before you know it. And – well, you know what happens then . . .’

  ‘No, Mum, I have no idea. Am I going to have a little sign above my head saying “Past sell-by date”?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, darling. Just take a look.’

  ‘It’s been a matter of weeks since Ian and I split up. I hardly think I’m on the shelf just yet.’

  Muttering under her breath, she’d taken a cursory glance and had snorted at the thought of herself as ‘Personal Assistant for Family: Regular Travel to Dubai required’. Her organizational skills were pretty hopeless, for one thing. She’d managed to wing it through her temp jobs with a large helping of ‘Oops, I think I just redirected that call to Peru’ jokes, never staying long enough for her lack of confidence to become a real issue, but the truth was that she didn’t have much faith in her own ability. A job that involved keeping a rich family organized as they flew back and forth across the world didn’t really appeal, although the lying-around reading books on the beach sounded quite nice. Kate suspected, though, that the job would bore her to tears. She’d been stuck in offices since leaving university, bored to tears doing admin work (badly). Arts graduates were ten a penny, and despite pressure from her mother to ‘Do the right thing, darling, and take a postgraduate teaching course’, she’d resisted.

  Kate had promised to look at the magazine, just to keep her mother quiet. The following night she was reading it in the bath with a large glass of wine. As she smiled to herself at her mother’s kind, but as ever slightly smothering, attempts to get her settled in a suitable position – preferably one with a suitable relationship attached – an advert caught her eye:

  Serviced cottage available, free of charge, in exchange

  for Man or Girl Friday (3 working days per week)

  on country estate on Scottish island.

  Write: Box No. 2314.

  There was something about the old-fashioned nature of the advert that had amused Kate. Did anyone write using Box Numbers any more? More to the point, Kate wasn’t quite sure what a Girl Friday would do in this day and age, but it had to be better than another position as Admin Assistant (read: glorified office slave) or any more temping jobs (read: lots of hanging-up on important people while flicking through a magazine).

  She had slopped out of the bath, wrapped herself in a towel and curled up on her bed to write a response, explaining that she had lived in Scotland while at university, and exaggerating her organizational skills quite a bit. She’d put down Sam, and another old boss (who had had a soft spot for Kate because he’d worked with her father), as references. At least Girl Friday sounded interesting; it implied a bit of everything, she thought, but hopefully wouldn’t result in her having to work in an office. Any more filing and phone-answering and she would go insane.

  The reply, which had arrived by post a few days later, was printed on the most delightful engraved notepaper. She opened it, expecting to discover that she’d been let down gently. But no: the cottage and the position were hers, subject to references, and would be available immediately.

  Suspecting that her family and friends would consider her to be irresponsible at best, and taking her life into her own hands at worst, she’d lied about a telephone interview and had satisfied them with fuzzy images of the Auchenmor estate on Google Maps. Kate had decided that, if nothing else, it would be a chance to escape reality for a few months, assuming that her employers didn’t kill and eat her. And even then, she supposed, she’d be escaping another tedious office job or the prospect of her mother trying to marry her off to one of her friends’ nephews.

  Leaning across and peering at the screen of Emma’s huge computer, Elizabeth had tutted. ‘But there’s nothing there, darling,’ she’d pointed out, looking at the images of the island.

  ‘Yes, there is, Mum, there’s plenty there. There are beaches, and an ice-cream parlour, and . . .’ She paused, trying to rack her brains. There wasn’t really much else, actually. Emma had spent a morning on Google, with Kate sitting beside her drinking tea. They’d established that the island hadn’t really embraced modern life and was a bit behind the times, in comparison with the tourist-savvy islands like Mull and Arran, with their visitor websites, downloadable walking maps, lists of hotels and restaurants. ‘Anyway, I don’t want shops. I want stamping along the beach in the rain, and taking my dog for a walk on a frosty morning. I want lying in bed reading a book all day and doing all the things I couldn’t do because Ian thought they were lazy, or untidy, or pointless. I might even take up painting. Or write a book.’

  Her mother had raised her eyebrows. ‘Maybe a bit of time away from reality will be a good thing. But I’ll be checking up on you, you do realize that? No running away and wallowing in self-pity. And if you’re not happy, I’ll be coming to rescue you.’

  ‘It’s the west coast of Scotland, not the North Pole,’ Kate had laughed, handing Emma yet another tissue. ‘Stop crying, silly. You should be glad to get me out of your hair – you’re the only newly-weds I’ve ever known who’ve been stuck with a lodger to cramp your style.’

  ‘The girls do a good enough job of that, anyway.’ Emma blew her nose and took a deep breath. ‘But you can’t call round for a cup of coffee when you live a six-hour car journey away, not to mention an hour-long ferry crossing, too.’ Kate squeezed her friend’s shoulder. ‘On the plus side, maybe I can sneak off for girly weekends.’

  ‘You can. We can hit the town. I hear there’s a monthly ceilidh at the village hall – just don’t forget your sporran.’

  Kate did a little Highland jig, making Katharine look up from her Barbie dolls and giggle.

  ‘Seriously, though, what exactly are you going to do? I mean, apart from build a house for Robinson Crusoe, or whatever Girl Fridays are supposed to do?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea. And believe me, after five years of living with a man who had a spreadsheet to manage everything, that feels pretty amazing.’

  ‘Not everything, surely?’ Emma’s eyebrows rose in horror.

  ‘Not that, no. But he was the one who’d tell me when my period was due. I suspect that was more because he was terrified I might get pregnant. That’d be just my luck.’

  Emma flinched, almost imperceptibly. Kate watched as her friend reached for the pile of washing on the table and started refolding it, automatically.

  ‘Sorry. You know I don’t mean it like that.’

  ‘I know. But it’s . . . hard. I feel like it’s never going to happen.’

  Nearly two years ago Emma and Sam had decided – helped along by a lot of nagging from the girls – that they’d like to have a baby. So Emma had come off the pill and had waited. And waited.

  She’d searched every website, read every book, visited specialists first at the hospital in Cambridge, then down in London, taking the train with her heart full of hope, convinced each time that they’d find the answer. But, Emma explained to Kate sadly, unexplained infertility is exactly that: every month they hoped, and every month their hopes were crushed. She loved the girls with all her heart, but they desperately wanted a little brother or sister, and so did she. Having to explain over and over again that babies don’t come to order was excruciating. Emma found herself staring at photographs of the girls’ mother in their bedroom, wondering how it had felt to carry not one, but two little lives. Sam didn’t really und
erstand: he was so full of love for Emma, and happy to have found love again when he’d least expected it, that for him another baby would be an added blessing. For Emma it was a desperate, primal longing.

  ‘It will happen. I promise you.’ Kate gave her friend a kiss on the cheek. ‘And it’ll be a lot easier to make it happen without me lurking around the house all the time, getting in the way.’

  She had planned to sneak off to the island alone, but her mother and Emma had other ideas. Emma drove them to Scotland, all five females together, in a hopefully never-to-be-repeated six-hour journey in their people carrier. Jennifer had been sick after three miles. She had spent the journey pale green and silent on the front seat next to her mother, holding a plastic bag in her hands. Katharine had played a computer game that appeared to have no volume control. Kate’s mother, as usual, tried to second-guess every situation that Kate might encounter on the island and plan how she should deal with it.

  ‘If you get there and you don’t like the cottage, call me and I’ll fly up and get you. Or if the job isn’t right . . . you know, I’ve never heard of anyone taking a job with such a vague title. Do you even know what you’ll be doing? You don’t, do you? It could be anything. I hope you don’t mind, darling, but I took the number and gave Mrs Lennox a call myself, just to see how the land lies. She’s meeting you off the ferry.’

  Kate caught Emma’s eye in the rear-view mirror. Emma’s pop-eyed expression of horror made Kate snort with laughter. ‘I know. She told me on the phone. And then she presumably told you the same thing. She’s probably expecting me to arrive wearing a luggage tag, like Paddington Bear.’

  ‘I only wanted to make sure you were going to be all right, darling. Mrs Lennox completely understood. She said she has a daughter herself. You know, you take these notions and disappear to the other end of the country and, even if you’re twenty-six, you’re still my child.’

  ‘I know, Mum, it’ll be fine.’

  Poor Emma, thought Kate. At least I get a reprieve when I get to the ferry. Emma’s got an overnight stay with friends in Edinburgh, then another six hours in the car with Mum again tomorrow.

  Kate smiled, remembering the look on her mother’s face. She felt a knot of fear in her stomach as she climbed the narrow stairs that took her up onto the deck of the ferry. What kind of lunatic gets on a boat, to live in a house on an island they’ve never visited, four hundred miles from home? she thought, with sudden panic.

  The urge to get off the boat and go back to everything safe and familiar was sudden and overwhelming. She grabbed her suitcase and her holdall and ran forward onto the slippery metal deck. This whole idea was insane. Faced with another boring temp position and another pile of rejections for decent jobs, she’d grabbed this chance on a whim. But she didn’t do things like this. She’d always taken the safe option, avoided risk. This was madness! She’d tell them she was coming back – tell them it was a mistake. She would start afresh back home. Moving in with her mother wouldn’t be that bad, would it?

  But then she thought of Ian, and of moving in with him because it made her feel safe. And of being twenty-six and living with her mum and getting excited about an EastEnders special, and having Aunty Linda round for tea. Life in Saffron Walden with her mother breathing down her neck wasn’t an option – it couldn’t be. The thought of her dad’s photograph in the hall popped into her head suddenly. She could hear his voice in the hall the last day she’d seen him, big shoulders shrugging into his raincoat, picking up his battered briefcase. ‘When your time’s up, my darling, your time’s up.’

  He’d been talking about their favourite writer, who had died that morning from cancer. The words had stuck in Kate’s head, spinning round and round on a perpetual loop for what felt like months. He’d never come home, hit by a motorbike and killed as he dodged the Cambridge traffic on his way to the office.

  ‘You only get one chance.’ Kate echoed her dad’s words aloud, reassuring herself.

  The ferry shuddered and she grabbed the railing in front of her. ‘Welcome aboard the 3 p.m. Caledonian MacBrayne sailing to Kilmannan. Please listen carefully to the following safety announcement . . . ’

  One chance. She looked down at the shoreline. Her mum was wiping her eyes and passing Emma a tissue, which was received with a rather damp smile. Katharine and Jennifer ran into sight, squawking like the seagulls above, arms out and hair flying in the sea breeze, brave and bold and beautiful. And her mother, her best friend and her two best girls looked up at her and smiled their biggest, bravest smiles.

  ‘Love you, darling. Be careful and have fun!’

  ‘Call me when you get there. No – before!’

  ‘Send us a postcard, Aunty Kate; send us lots and lots!’

  The engines were growling into life, and the boat was turning around with unexpected speed and grace, leaving the mainland behind. The crisp salt air was so clean it almost hurt to breathe. It was fear catching at the back of her throat – fear of the unknown, of stepping outside the narrow circle of her comfort zone. There was a knot in her stomach, but Kate told herself it was to be expected. She closed her eyes against the tears and swallowed hard.

  ‘You’ll be Kate Jarvis, then.’

  It was a statement, not a question. She hadn’t heard the woman approaching. Kate had stood in the wind and the sea spray for long minutes, watching as the people she loved grew smaller and smaller, becoming tiny dots on the shore and then disappearing. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even noticed the beautiful scenery, but on looking up, she realized that while the mainland was nearly out of sight, there was a cloudless blue sky, and in the distance were the purple shapes of distant island hills.

  ‘Come away inside and we’ll get you a cup of tea. That’s a long way you’ve been travelling.’

  The woman was tall and straight-backed. Her dark-grey hair was firmly sprayed into a short, bouffant helmet. Kate suppressed a nervous giggle. That hair had probably been the height of fashion in 1982. The island was even more behind the times than she’d realized.

  ‘Sit yourself down there. I’ll bring a tray over.’

  Kate looked around, taking in her surroundings for the first time. The ferry lounge was surprisingly modern. The boat hummed soothingly, and she found herself closing her eyes for half a second, only to be woken by the clatter of teacups and spoons.

  ‘You’ll be needing your bed tonight.’

  ‘I will. The rest of my things should be arriving tomorrow. I spoke to Mrs Lennox, who works on the Duntarvie estate. She said she’d made up my bed, which was kind of her.’

  ‘She has done indeed. And she’s baked you some shortbread and set the fire, and made you a pot of soup as well.’

  Kate looked at the woman, puzzled. Everyone had told her about the hospitable nature of the islanders, and that everyone knew everyone else’s business, but this amount of detail was unnerving. Maybe everyone on the island knew she was coming?

  The woman’s grave face allowed a small smile. ‘Jean Lennox,’ she said, holding out her hand and starting to laugh. ‘Very good to meet you at last. I don’t mind admitting we were all a wee bit worried you’d be a mad axe-murderer.’

  Kate realized she’d been staring, open-mouthed. ‘Sorry, I think I left my brain back in Cambridge. You must think I’m a bit vague.’

  Jean shook her hand and then poured out strong, dark tea, adding milk and handing the cup and saucer across the table. ‘Not vague, no, but you’ve got to be a wee bit unusual. There’s not many people these days would travel four hundred miles to the Western Isles to take a job and a cottage, on the strength of a couple of letters and a phone call. That’s not to say we’re not glad that you have. Roderick doesn’t like to see the houses sitting empty, and there’s hardly any young people staying on the island these days. They all head off down south as soon as they’re eighteen.’

  ‘And here I am, coming in the opposite direction. But don’t worry – I don’t have my axe today. It’s arriving wi
th the rest of my stuff.’

  They both laughed, Kate thinking that Jean seemed as relieved as she was to discover that she was reasonably normal. Jean took a sip of tea and looked Kate up and down. ‘Those boots will no last long, with the mud on our estate,’ she said, inclining her head towards Kate’s pale suede fur-lined footwear. ‘Up here there’s mud from September until May. In fact, we’ve a saying on the island: if you don’t like the weather, wait an hour.’

  ‘I heard the same when I visited the island of Arran when I was at university. It was a bit unpredictable then, too,’ Kate smiled. ‘My mum brought me this waterproof coat. I think she’s worried I won’t be able to look after myself, so far away from home. She forgets I’m twenty-six, not six.’

  ‘Aye, she called and spoke to me yesterday.’

  Oh God! Kate had temporarily forgotten about that phone call. What exactly had her mother said?

  ‘We had a nice long chat. She was telling me how she thinks a little break will do you the world of good.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Indeed. I told her a wee bit of fresh island air and some hard work would do you good. You’ll forget all about that Ian, before you know it. Oh, and she warned me I was to stop you from falling into the arms of the first man you meet.’

  ‘That makes a change, for her. She’s probably worried I’ll end up living here permanently, and she’ll not be able to keep tabs on me.’ Cringing with embarrassment, Kate looked at Jean. ‘Did she give you my whole life story?’

  ‘I think she’s a wee bitty worried about you.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Kate hid her irritation with a smile. Thank the Lord there were no flights onto the island, so at least if her mother was planning to swoop down and start smothering her with well-meaning advice, she might have a few hours’ notice. Kate leaned her head against the window, eyes drooping for a second. She nodded, lulled by the restful hum of the boat’s engine. Mustn’t fall asleep, she thought.

  ‘You must be worn out. We’re nearly there now, dear – time to go down to the car.’