Wildflower Bay

by Rachael Lucas

  ‘It’s lovely.’ Jinny smiled. ‘Until it’s hideous, when it’s absolutely the worst thing ever. I seriously thought I’d escape to the mainland as soon as I could leave school, but when they made the basement into a little annex for me I decided I’d hang around for a bit. Then I ended up working weekends at Jessie’s place, and I just sort of got stuck.’

  ‘You don’t want to be a hairdresser?’

  ‘Oh, no –’ Jinny looked worried that she’d offended Isla – ‘it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just I like the other stuff more. The head massages and the therapies and stuff. I keep hoping Jessie might let me do a bit of experimenting on the clients. You’re the first person who’s talked about aromatherapy and all that stuff I like.’

  Isla nodded. ‘I think maybe if we try not to talk about it as experimenting, we might get somewhere with Jessie. They’re clients, not lab rats.’

  ‘Good point,’ Jinny agreed. ‘And I’ve been going off the island at the weekends to do my Reiki training and I’m almost ready to do my level three and then I’ll be a Reiki Master,’ she put her hands together in a prayer position and bowed, solemnly, before looking up with a giggle. ‘I’m going to do a reflexology course next.’ The words tumbled out in excitement.

  ‘She talking about all that hippy-dippy stuff again?’ Shannon set three drinks down on the table.

  ‘Oh – I didn’t want anoth –’ Isla began, then held her tongue. It was kind of Shannon to buy her one. She didn’t have to drink it all, anyway.

  ‘It’s no’ hippy-dippy – you said yourself the Reiki helped your back.’ Jinny leaned forward to take her drink, elbowing Shannon in the ribs.

  ‘Aye, fair enough, but you’ll have a hard job persuading Jessie to let you loose on any of her clients with it. She’d have trouble getting her head round giving a head massage during the shampooing.’

  Isla felt herself exhaling in exasperation. There were more than enough people on the island to sustain the salon, and Jessie didn’t seem to realize that if she just let go of the reins a little and let Shannon and Jinny do what they were capable of, she could relax and enjoy her time with Pamela and the grandchildren, leaving the place in their hands. Perhaps if . . .

  ‘I’ll sort Jessie out,’ Isla heard herself saying. ‘You two have done a wonderful job this last fortnight, and you don’t really need me here at all.’

  ‘You’re not about to leave us, are you?’ Jinny looked alarmed.

  ‘No, I’m not going anywhere just yet. I’ve got another five weeks and four days,’ said Isla, in a singsong tone, laughing.

  Shannon raised an eyebrow. ‘No’ that you’re counting down the days or anything?’

  It was Isla’s turn to blush. ‘Well, it’s nothing personal,’ she began, taking a drink to give herself a moment to think. The truth was that she was beginning to enjoy the company of the two girls, their teasing camaraderie, and working together to make a success of Jessie’s salon in her absence. She loved watching the girls learning – seeing their confidence grow after this short time was a real boost. She’d always enjoyed teaching the junior staff back in Edinburgh, but doing so had meant surrendering cutting time to one of the other stylists, all of whom were snapping her heels, determined to prove their worth and impress Kat. Without that element of competition and stress, she was relaxing and appreciating her work even more.

  And she loved running along the seafront here in the evenings, with the salt-fresh air and the silence. Her runs were punctuated only by the sound of seabirds wheeling overhead – the silence that had seemed so alarming for the first few nights had become something she looked forward to. She’d stopped running with her headphones in, realizing she didn’t need music to drown out her thoughts.

  ‘It’s just, I’ve got a deadline. I need to get back and get my career sorted out.’

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’m thirty in September,’ Isla found herself admitting. ‘And I want to be at the top of my game by then.’

  ‘But you were head stylist at Kat Black!’ Jinny looked confused. ‘Top stylist in the poshest salon in Edinburgh. You don’t get much higher up than that, do you? Unless you’re about to take on your own place – in which case, any chance of a job for us two?’

  Shannon clinked her glass against Jinny’s with a snort of laughter. ‘Aye, I wouldn’t mind a job in one of those posh salons on George Street. And a big fancy flat in town, and all.’

  Isla winced.

  ‘I had both,’ she began. She’d finished one gin and tonic, and found herself sipping the second as she told the girls a truncated – and slightly downplayed – version of her story.

  ‘. . . So I ended up getting the sack from Kat’s place, and ended up here.’

  ‘Good for us, mind,’ said Jinny. ‘No’ so good for you. But there’s no rush, is there? You’re not about to turn into a pumpkin if you haven’t got your dream job by the time you’re thirty, are you?’

  Isla shook her head. ‘It’s not that.’ How on earth could she explain what had driven her all this time? She took another drink. The recent rekindling of her friendship with Helen seemed to have opened up some part of herself that had been closed off for so long. Back in Edinburgh, she’d never have opened up about how she felt. She’d lived with Hattie for years without ever discussing anything of consequence.

  ‘Have you made a pact with the devil?’

  Shannon looked at Isla over the top of her glass, her rainbow hair vibrant in the low evening sunlight that shone in through the window.

  ‘No.’ Isla took another sip. ‘It’s just –’ She reached into her handbag, pulling out her purse, flipping it open.

  ‘Awww, look at that. Is that you?’ Jinny leaned forward, looking at the photograph that sat behind a plastic casing.

  ‘Aye, it is. Look,’ Shannon traced the picture with a crimson nail. ‘I recognize the eyes. Is that your mum?’

  Isla nodded.

  ‘She’s gorgeous. Looks like you.’ Jinny looked up at Isla, who was surprised by the unexpected compliment.

  ‘She died a few months after that photo was taken,’ Isla began, cautiously. ‘Cancer. She was thirty.’

  ‘Ahhh,’ said Jinny, with a single nod of understanding. Shannon looked at the two of them, nonplussed.

  ‘Mmm.’ Isla acknowledged Jinny with a small smile.

  ‘I’m really sorry about your mum, Isla. That’s horrible.’ Shannon shifted in her chair awkwardly.

  Isla, who had spent years making people feel better about the fact she’d lost a parent, gave her the same reassuring line she always trotted out. ‘It’s fine – it was a long time ago.’

  It was a long time ago. That didn’t stop it hurting, though, unexpectedly. Not on the obvious days like Mother’s Day, when she’d expect it to sting; but when she worried about her dad’s health, or when she heard a piece of music that sent her back in time to her childhood, or ate a cheese sandwich and drank a cup of tea and remembered the feeling of Sunday-night-ness when they’d all sit together, plates balanced on knees, and have tea in front of the television. And of course when she’d been at school and the children had picked her out, isolated her for being different, circled around her calling her names and being casually cruel, not for a second thinking how it might feel if they were the ones who didn’t have a mum any more – then it had hurt. A hurt so raw in Isla’s chest that she’d closed herself off against it, and against everyone else.

  ‘You know,’ Jinny began, choosing her words carefully, ‘I think if something happened to my mum, she wouldn’t want me living in a state of “what if”.’

  She was, Isla reflected, surprisingly astute for her age, underneath the whirling exterior and giddy nature. Maybe it was being the eldest of eight children that did it.

  ‘It’s not really “what if”.’ Isla’s voice was quiet. ‘It’s more that – I want to get everything done that I can. I want to prove I can make it. I want to be able to turn around and say “Look what I achiev
ed by the time I was thirty.”’

  She wasn’t quite sure who she was proving it to. She could picture her dad’s face, smiling at her fondly across the kitchen table. ‘You do whatever you like, hen, I’ll be happy.’ He’d been cheerfully accepting when she’d decided to move out, take the place in the New Town with Hattie. He always maintained that all he wanted was for her to have a good life, enjoy herself. He never mentioned Isla’s mum, though. She was the great unspoken, a silent presence. And he’d stayed single all this time.

  ‘Who are you turning round to?’ Shannon sat back, an unexpectedly thoughtful expression on her face. Isla half turned in her chair, watching Shannon as she poked at an ice cube in her glass, fishing it out with a finger before crunching it up in her mouth.

  ‘Gross,’ said Jinny, pulling a face.

  ‘Aye, but my dentist loves me,’ said Shannon, in reply. ‘Anyway, Isla –’ she wasn’t going to let it go – ‘who exactly are you proving yourself to?’

  Isla looked down at the photo of her mum, arms tightly wrapped around her chest. In the picture she was wearing a blue anorak with a fur lining. She could still remember the smell of it, and the smell of her mum’s perfume, and the moment that picture had been taken, because afterwards they’d gone to the miniature railway and ridden on the train and had an ice cream and everything had been lovely, and she’d been treated to anything she wanted. It hadn’t been for a long time afterwards that she’d realized: her parents knew by then. That the perfect day had been one they’d created deliberately, to preserve memories and leave them there for the future – for an Isla who’d have no mother, no siblings, nobody but her dad to look after her.

  ‘It’s not her, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was wonderful.’ Isla smiled at her mum. ‘But I need to prove I’m worth something. I spent years at school being treated like –’ She stopped. That was a step too far, opening up too much. They didn’t need to know that stuff.

  ‘It must’ve been hard for you.’ Shannon looked at her appraisingly.

  ‘Mmm.’ Isla nodded, taken by surprise. Working in a salon, though, Shannon must have heard so many stories over the years – and you couldn’t do the job well unless you had the ability to listen, empathize, and do it all without judging.

  ‘I was a right bitch when I was at school,’ Shannon continued. Jinny got up, motioning to the now-empty glasses, and set off for the bar.

  Isla, who had already looked at Shannon through the eyes of her teenage self and decided that she’d have steered well clear, tried to make an appropriately surprised but non-committal sound. It came out as a slight snort, which she turned into a cough. Shannon, undeterred, continued.

  ‘Yeah, I’d have ripped the shit out of you, likes.’ No kidding, thought Isla, looking at Shannon’s sharp-edged face, the planes of her cheekbones standing out in the filtered late afternoon light. ‘I wasnae all that nice to a couple of lassies in my class. Still feel bad about it now.’

  ‘Really?’ Isla, thinking of Jamie Duncan and Allison Graves and the whole gang who had made her life a misery, wondered if they were sitting somewhere having similar regrets. Unlikely, she thought.

  ‘Yeah, the thing is – I was reading a thing about this in Cosmopolitan – we pick on anyone who isn’t quite the same as us, don’t we? I reckon you must have had a hard time, with having lost your mum and that.’ Shannon gave a nod of acknowledgement as Jinny returned with a drink.

  ‘It wasn’t that much fun,’ Isla conceded.

  ‘Aye, well, you come across as dead stuck up and that, but you’re actually quite nice, don’t you think, Jinny?’

  Jinny’s face was a picture as she tried to simultaneously warn Shannon that she was being profoundly tactless, and emit sympathy and understanding in Isla’s direction.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Isla with a wry smile. Shannon meant well, even if she did have a habit of galumphing in with both feet.

  ‘She means we’re glad you’re here, and we’re having a great time without Jessie – not that there’s anything wrong with Jessie, of course, because she’s lovely, but we’ve learned loads from you, and –’ Jinny paused for breath.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Shannon with a broad smile. ‘Here’s to a good night out, and no hangovers the morn’.’

  Isla, who had sworn after The Incident that she wasn’t ever drinking anything again, had somehow drunk two stiff gin and tonics and was facing up to a third. She felt pleasantly warm, her limbs had loosened up, and she felt a huge wave of affection for these two funny girls – their odd ways, the fact they’d tried to make her feel welcome in their own unique manner. She raised her glass to Jinny and Shannon. ‘Here’s to us.’

  The third drink finished, they decided to head on to the Anchor Bar, which overlooked the harbour. Thursday night in Kilmannan was surprisingly busy for such a tiny place and the pub was already filling up, the bar lined with customers. Standing alongside a girl in a pair of skin-tight shiny plastic trousers and a voluminous, gauzy top was a ruddy-faced farmer, still wearing a blue all-in-one overall, the trousers smeared with – well, Isla hoped it was nothing more disgusting than oil. There was a tractor parked outside, alongside a collection of cars as motley as the clientele. A battered old Volvo stood beside an immaculate silver Jaguar, lined up beside a rusty moped with the key still in the ignition.

  ‘Two ciders and a gin and tonic, and can we have three bags of cheese and onion, Andy?’ Jinny yelled over the top of the men who stood at the bar, then she somehow managed to dodge her way into the corner, where she beckoned Isla and Shannon to join her on the remaining three empty stools that sat around a stripped wooden table. The Anchor was clearly the place to be: there were signs suggesting that later on there’d be live music playing, and the place was filling up.

  ‘Edinburgh’s got nothing on a night out in Kilmannan.’ Shannon ruffled her hair carefully, applying a further layer of dark-red lipstick using a tiny hand mirror that she pulled from her pocket.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Isla. ‘I can’t remember the last time I went out.’

  ‘With all that stuff at your fingertips? Clubs and bars and restaurants and pizza at three in the morning?’ Shannon sighed enviously. ‘I’d be out every night if I could.’

  ‘I go out once in a while with Hattie, my flatmate,’ Isla backtracked. It sounded a bit tragic even to her ears to admit that the last time she’d been out before the drunken texting episode was months ago. Back when she’d first moved in with Hattie, she’d gone through a phase – when she was Hattie’s new thing, she realized, thinking back – when she had gone out most weekends, watching as Hattie got plastered on prosecco, making sure she got home in one piece. She’d had fun, cautiously, and there had been more than a few occasions when she’d ended up in bed with some charming trainee architect or other, and even a few months when she’d dated Philip, auctioneer son of Hattie’s mother’s best friend (or something like that – everyone in Hattie’s world seemed to know everyone else, and they were all related and owned vast tracts of land in the Highlands). But it had fizzled out, and so had Isla’s star. Hattie had moved on to Minnie, the ‘absolutely darling’ girl who was working alongside her in the dress agency, and Isla had returned to her normal Friday night routine of bath, beauty products, book and bed.

  ‘Well, a night out in this place will be a bit of a shock to the system, I reckon.’ Jinny’s eyes were bright now, three ciders down, and she was scanning the place over Shannon’s shoulder, looking to see who else was around. ‘I’ll give you the low-down.’

  ‘That’s George MacKay, he’s got the big dairy farm over the hill as you go out of town,’ Jinny pointed to a stocky man in his late twenties, bright blue eyes above ruddy, wind-weathered cheeks. He was roaring with laughter, a pint in his hand. ‘And that one with him is Jock Jamieson, he works at the forestry for the estate.’

  The mythical Duntarvie Estate that everyone had mentioned. Isla was yet to meet anyone who lived or worked there. She’d driven out that way o
ne afternoon, bored and restless, discovering a huge sign below one of two stone lions that rested at the gates to a long drive which led off into the distance. She’d pulled the car over to have a look, but driven away as someone had headed up in her direction in a dark-blue Range Rover – she was worried she was going to be arrested for trespassing.

  Isla was having a good night. Not wanting to repeat the same mistake as last time, she switched to Diet Coke when she ordered another round of drinks, and watched with a vaguely maternal air (which surprised her) as Jinny and Shannon got happily plastered on cider, dancing to the music of a passable covers band.

  ‘I must get going.’ It was half past twelve, and she had to be up in the morning. So did the girls.

  ‘Aye, we’d better get a move on.’ Shannon, her rainbow-spiked hair drooping in the steamy fug of the pub, fished under the table for her jacket. Somehow in the noisy, friendly crowd they’d shifted sideways, and their stuff had been left behind.

  ‘Thanks for the drinks, Isla,’ Jinny said, as she reached across over the head of a man who was looking down at his phone, pointing something out to the guy sitting next to him. It was so crowded, it was like playing sardines.

  ‘Thanks for inviting me out.’ There was a smile in Isla’s voice as she spoke. The two men looked up as Jinny’s bag swung down between them.

  ‘We meet again,’ said the fair-haired cyclist. A week on from the accident, he had a couple of steri-strips across a gash on his forehead.

  Isla looked at him closely for a moment. Without the layer of mud, his hair was sandy blond and thick, pushed back from a tanned forehead sprinkled with freckles. His jaw was marked with stubble, and he had teeth Shannon’s dentist would presumably find incredibly impressive.