The Guest House

by David Mark

  We’ve gathered some big rocks from the beach and managed to cobble together a little circular table and chairs. We take plastic cups and saucers down there when the weather allows for it and the two of us sit there pretending to be fairies, sipping imaginary tea and making “mmmm” noises as we chew on invisible scones and talk about the adventures we’ve had riding on the backs of squirrels or making children’s dreams come true. I do a lot of the talking, but Lilly’s very good at telling me when I’m going wrong. She shouts at me a lot. I shout back. She’s my third, but she’s the hardest to deal with. Cleverest, if I’m honest.

  Atticus and Poppy, nine and seven, are pretty smart but I can’t help thinking I’ve already lost them. They’re screen junkies. If they’re not watching Netflix they’re playing Xbox or glaring at some godawful tripe on YouTube. I try to show an interest, because the parenting books say you should, but I’d honestly rather watch a baked potato rotate in a microwave than give my eyeballs to the kind of dross that makes them giggle like they’re not quite right. At least Lilly still has a bit of imagination about her – even if she does look annoyingly like her bastard of a dad.

  ‘It’s a bit rainy to play Fairy Garden, Lilly,’ I say, looking through the huge glass windows and wiping the snot and smudges off with the hem of my nightie. I see myself looking back in the darkened glass. No trace of Mum in my reflection yet. Not Dad either. I’m a bit of a cuckoo in my family, which means that at thirty-five I’m still okay to look at. Bit bigger around the middle than I’d want but not so big that exercise or restraint are starting to appeal. I’m still pretty strong and on the rare occasions I get to take the canoe out on the water I feel physically capable of keeping pace with the inquisitive seals and dolphins who raise their steaming heads above the cold water. I certainly don’t look like anybody else on the peninsula. I’m dark, even in winter. Dark eyes, dark hair, eyebrows that look like moustaches if I don’t keep the tweezers handy.

  ‘Nor raining,’ says Lilly, shaking her head. ‘Me not inside. Fairy Garden. Nice.’

  She’s got that pouty look on her face again, spoiled a little by her runny nose. Her eyes are a bit glassy, like sucked humbugs. She didn’t sleep well last night. We’re still fighting about the sleeping arrangements. She’s meant to fall asleep in her own bed, which sits at the foot of mine. I’ve never had a problem with her joining me before the morning, but when I booted Callum out I started letting her join me from the off. I needed somebody to cuddle, and so did she. A proper Daddy’s girl, is our Lilly. Four months he’s been gone now and still she expects him to be there at breakfast to butter her toast and kiss her head and tell her she’s his princess.

  I’m trying to get her back into her own bed but she’s not having it, and I haven’t got the strength for the fight. She seems to remember a different man from the one who has torn me to bits. She remembers the funny, kind, silly soul he used to be. I can only think of him this past year: cold, distant, forever on his phone or popping out late at night to pick up things we didn’t need; coming back glassy-eyed and breathless.

  ‘Lilly love Mummy.’

  I can’t take her outside. The weather’s frightful. The air’s the colour that wet wood chuffs out when you throw it on a fire. The wind is blowing in great lazy pirouettes, bending the trees and picking up the fallen leaves that carpet the soggy, overgrown garden. I’d be a terrible mother if I took her outside when she’s not well. Too much to do, anyway. Things to plan, stuff to organise, errands to run…

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘Lilly, please – you said. You said you’d be a good girl for Mummy today. You remember Grandma and Grandad are coming, yes? And my friend might be coming over tonight and it would be nice to make the place look at least a bit presentable…’

  ‘’Sentable? What ’sentable?’

  I glance around. I live in a nice house. It’s a converted croft, but there’s not much about it to suggest its humble beginnings. It’s two-storey, Scandinavian-looking and glass-panelled at the front and back: big Velux windows and sliding doors offering an extravagant view out across Loch Sunart: picture-postcard perfect whatever the weather. The barn out back has been converted into three little guest apartments and renting them out to hikers, bikers and ornithologists manages to keep a thin buffer between bankruptcy and me. It’s a buffer that’s been getting thinner since Callum went. He’s trying to pay me maintenance and spousal support but I’d rather accept pieces of silver from Judas Iscariot than let Callum think we can’t cope without him.

  He earns okay money, taking on casual work on whichever oil rigs or wind farms need geological surveys carrying out, and when he’s not there he takes people for canoe trips out on the loch. Took people. I’m having to work hard to put him in the past tense. It’s over. Absolutely, totally over. The lying, cheating, conniving, back-stabbing bastard can rot in his love nest with Kimmy until he realises just what he’s lost. And when he comes crawling back he’ll find I’ve moved on, I don’t care, and he’s thrown away his only true chance at happiness.

  I just wish I could get a job that brings in some decent cash. That way when he comes crawling back he’ll see just what I can do without him. But Lilly’s a handful, and running the guest lodges is a full-time job, and I really can’t see how I can go back to doing what I used to do living in an isolated place like this. There’s still a need for good probation officers, but on this saw-toothed peninsula, the demand is pretty much zero. There’s barely any crime, the population could be relocated to a football pitch and still find space to mill around, and “being on probation” means watching your step for a bit so that Big Denis the Fisherman doesn’t come and give you a hiding for stepping out of line.

  So I run a guest house. I’m a landlady. I cook, and handle the bookings and the correspondence, and I order the supplies and make things pretty and deal with the website and the weird demands of my guests. I take it seriously. The lodges gleam. Every five-star review on TripAdvisor makes me strut like a Siamese cat. But I haven’t the time to keep the family house to the same standard and the living room is a catastrophe of abandoned footwear, school uniforms, toys, books and food-smeared plates. They’d still be wearing crisps and crusts and pizza cheese if not for the attentions of Barrel, our fat cat. She’s a big help with the housework, though she does leave a snowstorm of dandruff and white hair on every fabric surface she can find.

  ‘Where Atticus?’ asks Lilly, and my heart sinks as I realise we’re about to go through the routine.

  ‘At school, baby.’

  ‘Poppy?’

  ‘At school.’

  ‘Daddy?’

  ‘Away.’

  She nods, satisfied. ‘Nose ’sgusting.’

  ‘Sorry, darling?’

  She’s pointing at her face, where the twin trails of snot are starting to inflate like bubbles of chewing gum. She goes cross-eyed for a moment, staring at them, and when she giggles, they pop like a frog on a hotplate. I use the hem of my nightie to wipe her up, telling her she’s “gross”, but laughing while I do it so she doesn’t get a complex. I check her out, still in her onesie and wearing a sock as a mitten. She’s got a crust all the way up one cheek to her eyebrow.

  ‘Niclas.’

  I give her a smile, pleased at any variation. I’m pretty good at speaking her language and cotton on quickly. ‘Nicholas? You mean Mr Roe? He’s probably out on the water.’

  ‘He ’sgusting.’

  ‘No he’s not,’ I say, though she can tell I’m lying. Nicholas Roe has been with us for three weeks now. He’s not exactly a looker, and while I keep telling the children that looks don’t matter and that it’s rude to stare, I’m every bit as guilty as they are. He looks like a vampire who seriously needs to feed. He’s probably around sixty, though it’s hard to tell with his yellowed skin and the mottling of moles and ruptured blood vessels that work their way up his neck towards a swoop of limp hair: the same shade of brandy brown as his fingernails and teeth. He’s a good guest though. Ke
eps himself to himself, eats every scrap of his breakfast and doesn’t complain when the older kids forget that Mummy runs a guest house and make enough noise to wake the dead.

  I see him through the window, scowling out into the swirling rain. He always has his teeth bared, like a rat poked with a stick, but he’s been nothing but polite since he arrived. He’s trying to find a hobby, or so he says. He’s come to Ardnamurchan to see if he can develop a love of wildlife photography, though the way he says it suggests that he has serious doubts about the whole affair. I get the impression he’s not been well. I try not to pry. People invariably tell me things in their own time.

  ‘Mummy phone. Phone, Mummy. Daddy? Daddy talk Lilly?’

  It’s buzzing away on the table, merrily vibrating between the dirty dishes and the debris from Atticus’s sports bag. Letters, reports, requests for donations. Packed lunches, reduced to component parts. There’s a thing that used to be a banana, slowly evolving into intelligent life. A sports sock, containing a handful of dead batteries: a weapon he fashioned having watched a YouTube video on self-defence. He’s not doing PE today. He’s got the same cold as his youngest sister and probably shouldn’t have gone in, but I’m trying to keep his attendance up so that if Callum starts making a fuss and demanding better access or full custody, he hasn’t got that to throw at me. That’s why I’m keeping Bishop quiet too.

  I’ll admit it, I get a bit of a thrill thinking about him. I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was seventeen. He’s no Callum, and that has to be a good thing, even if he sometimes does seem as though he got through school without anybody giving him a dead leg and telling him to stop being so bloody big-headed. He’s a bit fond of himself, though I can’t help wondering if it’s all an act. He does have a tendency to only tell stories that make him sound good, whereas I have no shortage of anecdotes in which I’m hopeless, hapless or helpless. I cringe if I have to tell a story in which I come across as a bit of a hero.

  Still. I’ll do my best.

  2

  ‘Hello, er… you,’ I say, awkwardly. I feel fizzy inside, as if I’ve been shaken like a bottle of fizzy orange. I cringe instinctively, knowing I’ve misjudged it. I’m not sure we’re at the “hello you” stage of the relationship. Not sure we’re having a relationship. Not sure about any-bloody-thing.

  ‘Hey yourself. I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘Yeah? Ha! You’ll go blind.’

  A hiss of static: bacon sizzling in a pan. Then he’s back. ‘Sorry, Sweetheart, lost you there. What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter. You good?’

  ‘Best you’ll ever have.’

  We can talk like this for a while. He’s one of those people who talks a lot without ever really saying anything. “Glib”, that’s the word. He’s charming, in a roll-your-eyes kind of way. I don’t think I’d have fancied him on looks alone but he’s definitely got a confidence that makes him attractive as a package.

  ‘Did you want something specific or were you just calling to flirt?’

  ‘Bit of both,’ he says, a smile in his voice. ‘Checking you’re home, actually.’

  ‘Yep. Epic battle with Lilly over her shoes. Place is a pigsty. I’m sort of dressed. Still got the breakfast baskets to clear and dinners to chuck in the slow cooker and I’ve got parcels waiting at the Post Office. All in all, it’s as rock and roll as ever.’

  ‘Cool. I’ll see you in ten.’

  I feel a little twist of panic. I haven’t shaved my legs. The place is a mess. Lilly’s in a foul mood and I’ve got loads to do. God, I hope this isn’t the big seduction. It’s all been a bit teenage so far – nothing below the waist and lots of sweaty, tremulous promises about what it will be like when it happens. Truth be told, I’m not ready. He says he won’t push, but he has a way of not pushing that makes it clear how hard he’s trying not to push. I’ve only ever been with Callum. I’m pretty sure we’ve been doing it right, but I thought I was genuinely good at singing up until the point Dad took a hammer to the karaoke machine.

  ‘Oh, okay then, you’ll have to take us as you find us.’

  He blows a kiss and hangs up. I look at Lilly, who’s awaiting an update. ‘Daddy?’

  ‘No, baby. Bishop. You know Bishop. He’s Mummy’s friend.’

  ‘Shibop?’ she asks, looking distinctly unimpressed. ‘No. Funny theech.’

  I can’t work that one out. ‘Theech?’

  She points at her mouth. ‘Theech!’

  ‘Oh right. Teeth. Don’t be mean, Lilly. They’re expensive.’

  She looks at me as if I’ve let her down in some way. I must admit, the gold teeth are an acquired taste and I haven’t completely acquired it yet. Three of them on the lower row, gleaming like Mr T’s chest. He doesn’t look like a gangsta rapper – more like somebody who runs the waltzers on Princes Street at Hogmanay.

  ‘Can you help Mummy, darling? Tidy up a bit? Brush your hair…?’

  She looks up at me with a face that says “Mum, I’m two” and we both start laughing. I swing her onto my hip and plunge into eight minutes of full-on whirling-dervish mode. By the time I’m done, the big open-plan living room looks cleaner but anybody opening a drawer or a cupboard or peering under the rag rug runs the risk of causing a small explosion of clutter. I look a bit more presentable too. Jeans, vest, a woolly jumper. It’s only as Bishop’s Mercedes crunches into the driveway that I realise I’m dressed almost exactly the same as Lilly.

  He opens the back door like he owns the place. He looks like he always does. Fur-lined parka, a hoodie over a black shirt, and jeans that taper down to grubby white trainers. He’s in his forties and would have an air of Liam Gallagher about him if not for the bald-head-and-beard combo. If he’s ever wanted by the police, it will take the coppers an age to find enough people for an identity parade.

  ‘Hey you,’ he says, and he kisses me without preamble. He tastes of strong coffee and mouthwash. He looks around, pretending to search for Lilly, even though she’s still sitting on my hip. ‘And where’s my girl?’

  I don’t know how I feel about that yet. She’s not his girl. I don’t like the idea of anybody belonging to anybody.

  ‘Shibop,’ says Lilly, somewhat joylessly. ‘Funny cheeth.’

  He looks to me for a translation. ‘She’s just being silly,’ I say. ‘Can I get you something?’

  ‘Coffee would be good,’ he says, taking his coat off and slipping it over the back of the chair. We’ve got an open-plan kitchen, which means the rubbish from one room frequently overspills into another. The table and chairs are in what passes for the living room but we also have a breakfast bar with a sparkly granite top, and I’ve never worked out which area to usher people towards when they visit. He makes it easy for me by jumping up and perching himself on the breakfast bar, the way I would have done if I were still twelve. He rubs his hands together like he’s got something on his mind.

  I put Lilly down and she runs off to do something undoubtedly dangerous in the living room. There’s a fire burning and she isn’t daft enough to touch it, but she does seem to enjoy pulling the heavy books off the low shelves and creating a little tower that she can climb up and fall off. She puts a lot of effort into hurting herself.

  ‘You look a bit stressed,’ he says, watching me as I bang around in the kitchen, filling the kettle and trying to find the filters for the coffee machine.

  ‘Stressed?’ I ask, hoping it’s not going to turn into one of those conversations. He likes me being “chill”. Likes me to just slow down and forget all the pressures of life. It takes a great effort of will not to laugh. He’s got no kids and only works around four months of the year – heading out to the Middle East to provide training in corporate cyber security, which is not at all what I’d expected him to be into. A roadie, perhaps. Part-time dealer, maybe. There’s a scally look about him, and he tells me damn little about his life before he moved up from Nottingham. He lives in one of the little houses looking out towards Mull. It’s
decorated to the taste of the previous tenant and the only personal items I’ve seen have been a record player and a trunk full of vinyl, and a couple of fixed-screen computers set up in the kitchen.

  ‘Anything I can do?’ he asks. ‘Shoulder rub? Foot rub? Anything-you-like rub…?’

  ‘You fancy helping me make some soup for tomorrow’s packed lunches?’ I ask, answering the way I would if Callum had asked the question.

  ‘No, not really,’ he says, laughing, as if it had been a joke. ‘Don’t suppose the little terror needs a nap, does she? Would love a bit of time just you and me.’

  I close my eyes. Here it comes. ‘Sorry,’ I say, keeping things light. ‘Wide awake. She doesn’t really get daytime naps now. I’ve tried to get her down to just getting booby feeds at night and first thing but she’s not cooperating and can’t self-soothe…’

  ‘Booby feed?’ he asks, cocking his head. ‘Oh, breastfeeding? Not my area. Bit grim, isn’t it? Bit weird too. I mean, you can make a drink with your body. That’s way out there.’

  ‘It’s bloody painful, is what it is,’ I grumble, and hand him a mug of rather crap coffee. He takes a slurp and grimaces but doesn’t make a verbal complaint.

  Awkwardly, feeling distracted, I lean against the sink and raise my eyebrows expectantly. ‘So,’ I ask. ‘You just wanted to feast your eyes on me or was there something…?’

  He purses his lips and puffs out a sigh. Takes another swig of coffee and puts it back down. Pulls a face. ‘This isn’t easy…’ he begins.

  ‘You don’t want to see me anymore,’ I say, finishing the sentence. I feel a mixture of disappointment and a weird kind of relief. It’s all been a bit inconvenient anyways. I should concentrate on the kids. On the guest house. Just concentrate on being myself for a while…

  ‘No,’ he says, surprised. ‘No, not at all. The opposite, in fact.’

  I flinch as if I’ve suffered an electric shock. I know so little about him and here he is about to pop the bloody question!

  ‘Mummy!’