by Kiley Dunbar
‘I just don’t know how we’ll manage,’ she said weakly.
‘We’ll manage somehow.’
‘That’s not a plan, Jonathan. Do you even have your work visa?’
‘I’m covered for the Stratford run of Love’s Labour’s Lost from April to June next year. That’s a start, right?’
‘But it’s not a promise that we can stay together, and it’s not a home we can share, and if I’d known you get seasick I might not have spent the past few days imagining us living on the barge together and…’
‘Kelsey, it’s OK. Just breathe it out. We’ll find our way. Just like we found each other. And all this waiting and insecurity? It’s temporary. We will find our way.’ He said each word slowly and calmly and Kelsey pressed the phone closer to her ear, waiting for her anxiety to subside.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Tis one thing to be tempted [… ] another thing to fall’
(Measure for Measure)
Down at the Yorick pub on the riverside, Mirren – who had made her way into town along back street pavements dotted with giggling vampires and tiny spectres all clutching pumpkin buckets brimming with sweets – was ordering herself a double shot of Jack Daniels and wondering if she had enough money left in her bank account to pay for it.
She’d been sure to top up her mum’s gas payments before she left for England, and had put a little money by the washing machine, as well as filling the fridge so she could be sure Jeanie wouldn’t skip any meals – and she’d searched the house for twenty minutes before finding two whisky bottles secreted in the airing cupboard, tipping them down the sink before she sneaked out to the train station. Buying that last-minute train ticket from Edinburgh to Stratford hadn’t left her with much to live off this month but at least Jeanie had everything she needed to get by, once she’d got over the shock of Mirren’s sudden departure.
Today marked one week until her payday and she assumed she’d already forfeited that money by walking out, failing to work her notice period, and of course she’d prematurely aged Mr Angus by a decade with her home truths.
She stared at the words ‘transaction pending’ on the device in the barman’s hand and brazened out the moment of tension, followed by instant relief as she watched the payment go through. Her jaw sent a little pang of pressure to her brain reminding her to drop her shoulders and loosen her bite.
The busy barman bustled off to serve the white-bearded, rosy-cheeked barfly in the red cravat at the far end of the bar who had been watching her since she arrived. There was a full-sized plastic skeleton draped in cotton cobwebs on the barstool beside him. She briefly thought the pair looked like a Renaissance memento mori, a reminder that death is always near but she dismissed her morbid thoughts as the effect of All Hallow’s Eve and the worry of her increasingly dire financial straits getting to her.
She knew the barfly’s type instantly. It was only a matter of seconds before he’d start asking her if she was on holiday and where she was from. She’d subconsciously resolved to ignore his eyes boring into her the instant she became aware of them, an automatic response she’d instinctively developed, like so many of her friends, as a young teen and which was now second nature.
Lifting her drink she was relieved to see a group of four holiday-makers vacating a table partly set inside a tall inglenook chimney niche. She slipped inside the towering fireplace, all whitewashed brick and cosy with cushioned benches, and quietly set to work on her drink, keeping her eyes cast down on the striped paper straw. If she didn’t look at anyone, then no one could see her, she told herself, like a child hiding, eyes closed under the duvet, so the boogieman leaves them alone.
So Kelsey was feeling cooped up and tired too? Mirren had suspected as much all along of course and she’d done her best but her plan to get out of Kelsey’s hair hadn’t exactly worked out.
She checked her phone knowing what she’d find there. Nothing. Even her friends – fellow reporters at other papers – had stopped replying to her queries about job openings. They were probably too embarrassed to tell her that they had dutifully mentioned her predicament to their bosses and been met with incredulous looks. As if they’d hire the shouting, boat-rocking Mirren Imrie; the woman who’d accused a respected journalist of harassment. She’s a trouble-maker and a liability.
A thought crept in, unwanted and bitter; she’d have to go back to her mum’s and soon. How could she have fallen from being an award-nominated full time newspaper staffer with a home and a loving boyfriend to being skint, homeless, unemployable and single in the course of two months? ‘Ugh!’ the sound escaped her lips as she hunched over, arms crossed, head on the sticky table, her glass pushed aside and already empty.
‘Are, uh… are you all right?’
Snapping her head up, suddenly hyper aware there were tears in her eyes and that her mascara was filming over her vision in a greasy slick. The white cocktail napkin clung briefly to her forehead before detaching and drifting down to settle on her left boob. ‘I’m fine,’ she said hurriedly with as much dignity as she could scrape together.
It was not the cravat-wearing barfly at all, and not one of the tourists queueing for drinks either, but instead she was looking at the concerned face of someone not quite a stranger. She’d seen him before though only for a moment, and she hadn’t noticed then his deep, dark brown eyes or the muss of near jet-black hair falling over his forehead.
‘Adrian?’ His name came back to her and was in the room before she could contain it.
‘Yes?’ He cocked his head.
‘Oh, you don’t know me, I just know who you are. You’re from the Examiner, right?’
‘That’s right.’ His full mouth twitched into a half smile that spread in a flash to his eyes. ‘So, um, are you OK?’
‘Well, honestly, no, but I’ll be fine. Thanks.’ The last word was supposed to tell him she was done talking, but he didn’t move.
‘See, I don’t want to be that guy,’ he lowered his voice now, ‘but you had your head on the table and you seem upset. Is someone bothering you? Are you on a date from hell and you need a leg-up to get out the loo window? I can help with that.’
She begrudged the smile this prompted. ‘Don’t make me laugh, for God’s sake. I’m being miserable and self-sufficient all by myself over here, and I’m not trying to be rude but I don’t want to talk, OK?’
‘I understand, I’m sorry.’ He took a step back then turned away, having thrown her one last apologetic smile. Mirren had to admit she was surprised he’d backed off so readily.
He was sitting on a barstool now and she watched his back as she lifted the straw to her lips. He was all in black; a leather jacket and high-necked jumper, strapped leather boots and skinny jeans, all of which gave the impression of a French cologne model who lived off cigarettes and air. Even with his back to her, the neat stubble round his full Cupid’s bow lips and the slight hollow of his cheeks beneath high cheekbones stayed in her mind. He didn’t look like any guy she’d met recently and he certainly didn’t behave like any of them. He was writing in a notebook now and drinking from a freshly pulled pint.
Mirren noticed he’d turned his shoulder a little on the white-bearded barfly who was loudly regaling a tourist – who had been innocently queuing to place a food order before he was accosted – with a story about how he’d acted alongside Judi Dench and they’d shared digs while on tour in the seventies. Nobody in the snug bar room could avoid hearing him. Something in the angle of Adrian’s shoulder told her this old actor was a regular at the bar and he’d learned from experience not to engage him in chatter.
That’s when it dawned on her she was idly sucking air through her straw. She needed another drink and dammit, if the only open spot by the bar wasn’t right by Adrian, the guy she’d just sent packing. She looked at her empty glass, then at him. Her need was greater than her pride. She didn’t have to sidle over tail between her legs; she could style this out. Sail in, order her JD and retreat. She was on the move.
No need for talking, don’t make eye contact. This isn’t awkward at all.
‘Me again. Drank it all,’ she found herself saying out of a horrible compulsion to explain herself and tipping her empty glass to show him. What was with her tonight?
He nodded respectfully and cast his eyes back to his notebook and his good manners only made her feel stupider. Where was that barman?
The beardy barfly was now deep in conversation with another aged luvvie, presumably an old friend, and their booming, theatrical laughter broke out every now and then. Mirren was sure she could feel Adrian flinching beside her every time it did.
‘Nobody taking orders,’ she muttered to herself, spinning her credit card around between her pinched finger and thumb and wondering why she couldn’t stop herself speaking.
‘Hmm?’ Adrian looked up.
‘Nothing, just talking to myself.’ She clamped her lips, annoyed with herself.
‘He said he was going down to the cellar for a minute,’ Adrian remarked, keeping his eyes on his notebook but his pen was now immobile in his hand.
Her mind started working, looking for something to alleviate the awkwardness. She wouldn’t have asked if it hadn’t occurred to her this was an opportunity not to be squandered: ‘So you’re a reporter. Are there any jobs going at your paper, by any chance?’
She’d already emailed Mr Ferdinand – even though Kelsey had warned her he wasn’t inclined to pay his freelancers – and of course, she’d had no reply, but maybe this guy had the inside scoop.
‘Pfft!’ He’d put the pen down now. Mirren wondered if he’d rolled his eyes a little. ‘Some chance. I keep asking Ferdinand if we can bring more people on board, resurrect the paper. I mean, we’ve got the circulation and the advertising revenue, but he’s so…’
‘Crap?’
‘Resistant to change.’ He was frowning now.
‘Sorry, I don’t know him. I just heard…’
‘I know what people have heard. Our reputation precedes us. But you know, we were a proper theatre paper not so long ago.’ He lifted his pint to his mouth, suddenly dejected.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Mirren reminded herself of the other very good reason she shouldn’t be here saying things to him, or any guy for that matter, but especially not this one with the sharp jaw, dark penetrating eyes and fine, strong nose like a marble figure in some gallery, and she shouldn’t be finding it so hard not to look at his hands gripping his pint glass, either.
She reminded herself she wasn’t having anything to do with blokes from now on. She was self-protecting, hunkering down, ready to rise from the ashes of her failed relationship and career. Any day now. She just had to work at it and wait.
The barman returned and took her order. Mirren turned her attention away from Adrian and pressed her stomach to the bar, waiting in silence for her drink. Another half hour sitting by herself at her little table and she could walk slowly back to St. Ninian’s. That would have given poor Kelsey at least some time to herself.
‘You’re a writer?’ Adrian interrupted her thoughts.
‘Yes, well, I was. I’m taking a sabbatical.’
‘Doesn’t that mean you have a job to go back to?’
‘Umm, well… it’s more of a career-break kind of thing. I was with the Edinburgh Broadsheet. Court reporter.’
‘Nice gig.’
‘Hmm,’ was the best she could offer in response.
The barman offered up the contactless card machine again and she made a little prayer to the overdraft gods as her payment processed.
‘There’s nothing available at the Examiner, sorry,’ Adrian said, looking at his notebook again. Mirren felt the little pang of having wounded him by telling him she didn’t want his kindness a few moments ago then almost immediately changing her mind when she figured out there might be a job up for grabs.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I’m not always like this. I’m Mirren, by the way.’ She lifted herself onto the stool beside him at the same time as her drink was placed before her. Adrian closed his notebook, saying nothing. ‘I, uh, I kind of made a promise to myself not to get chatting to guys in bars, or anywhere really.’
‘OK?’ He waited, lifting his pint to his mouth.
‘I’m kind of on a sabbatical from men too.’
‘I see.’ A little impulse moved the corners of his lips. He wanted to smile but was holding back. ‘I wouldn’t want you to break your rules. I mean, they’re obviously working; you looked so happy when I came in.’ He nodded his head back to the inglenook table, which was now, Mirren noticed, occupied by a vacationing family studying their menus.
‘I haven’t given my rules much time to take effect yet. I’ll start feeling the benefit of them any day now.’
Now he did laugh and it sounded hearty. ‘You don’t even know if I have a partner. Who says I was chatting you up?’
‘True.’
‘Well then.’ He nodded self-righteously and drank his pint again, his eyes narrowed and bright with good humour.
‘So, do you?’ Mirren rewarded her curiosity with a mental kick at her own shins.
‘Have a girlfriend? Nope. Not that you care, right?’
‘Obviously.’
‘So why the no men rule?’
‘You really want to know?’
He’d left his notebook on the bar now and turned his body a little more towards her on his stool. ‘I’m a reporter, aren’t I? This sounds like a human interest story to me.’
‘Well, it’s hardly front page news. It’s the usual story, I’m sure you can guess.’ She shrugged and took a quick drink. There was no way she was about to confess what a bad girlfriend she’d been, or how even her virtual dating life had gone belly up. ‘I just needed a break from it all. I’m going to put myself first, do some personal growth stuff.’ She quirked her lips now, letting him know she wasn’t moping and that she could at least keep her sense of humour about her disastrous personal life.
‘Like Love’s Labour’s Lost but gender-reversed?’
‘Huh?’
‘The Shakespeare play? Where the king and his retinue swear off the company of women for three years in the name of their studies and self-improvement.’
‘In that case, yes, just like that, but less regal.’
‘They fail, you know? They can’t help falling in love.’
‘They’re also fictional. And who said anything about love? As if that’s an option these days.’
‘Wow.’ He pulled his neck back, raising his brows. ‘That’s really…’ He hesitated.
‘What? You can say it.’
‘Bitter.’
‘Pfft! OK, you can’t say it, I’ve changed my mind. That was just mean.’
‘You’re the one sitting here telling me you won’t so much as talk with a guy in case he turns out to be a rotten apple. That’s mean. And you say you’re a journalist.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘All I’m saying is a journalist would investigate any new potential dates properly, evaluate the evidence, carefully consider their response before…’
‘But you didn’t ask me on a date. There was nothing to scrutinise.’
‘I might have offered you my number eventually… if I hadn’t made a similar promise to myself.’
Mirren’s mouth opened then closed with an exasperated huff. She was still smiling, but her eyes were wary. ‘OK, it was nice to meet you, Adrian. I’ll take my drink over…’ She cast her eyes around the packed room. No empty seats to be had. Why had she let herself get caught up in this conversation? She shook her head, not minding if he saw.
As she looked around for an escape route a handwritten poster at the end of the bar caught her eye.
Bar Staff Wanted. Evenings, Weekends and Dayshifts Available.
Adrian was backing off again. ‘It’s OK,’ he was saying. ‘I’ll get on with my work. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘I’m not upset. I’m just looking
out for myself. You’ll understand if you really have given up on dating too.’ Her eyes still lingered on the poster.
‘Imagine if there had been a job at my paper,’ he said, drawn back in and tipping his head trying to get Mirren to look at him. ‘We might have ended up working together every day. With your court reporting skills and my knowledge of the town, we’d have been quite the team! Then where would we be?’ He held his notebook up, obscuring his face as if to deflect his irresistibility and Mirren didn’t even think it big-headed because he had a point; he was stunning to look at. Working with him would bring nothing but trouble her way. He was still talking, only his laughing eyes showing over his notebook. ‘And then there’s Mr Ferdinand. How would you have resisted him? He’s got most of his own teeth and a nice collection of stained, beige cardigans. You wouldn’t know where to put yourself to avoid the temptation.’
They both smiled and Mirren felt her armour drop a little. ‘You know, on the topic of Mr Ferdinand. He owes my flatmate some money for a job she did for the paper. Any chance of nudging him for her? I promised her I’d help her get paid.’
Adrian sat up taller on the stool. ‘I’m not sure I can be much help there either. He’s notoriously badly organised when it comes to freelancer payments. Your flatmate will have to join the queue, or try the small claims court. Sorry to say it.’
‘Really? You’re saying he’ll never pay?’
‘I think your mate should chalk it up as a lesson learned and steer well clear of him in future.’
‘But he pays you?’
‘I’m a permanent staffer on payroll so that’s all handled by the newspaper’s parent company. We’re one of twenty-eight regional papers and we’re all semi-autonomous. Mr F handles the advertising revenue, the freelancer payments, bonuses, petty cash, that sort of thing, but not my salary, thankfully.’ He sniffed, his expression wry and deliberate, before sipping his beer.
The old barfly behind him was getting ready to leave, throwing an inky-coloured mac over rounded shoulders and reaching for a felt fedora with a red pheasant feather stuck jauntily in its band. His elbow nudged Adrian’s and it all happened so quickly after that: the beer splashing onto Adrian’s notebook and across the bar and the sudden flash of anger which darkened Adrian’s eyes. But Mirren caught it all.
