Chapter 6
On the other side of the bridge, the village of Carlinsrest congregated along the bank of the river and the road that ran alongside it.
There were three cafés, which were hard to tell apart, one post office, three restaurants—one tapas, one earthy organic-looking place and a squeaky-clean steak restaurant promising one hundred per cent Aberdeen Angus beef—a tartan shop, one large pub and a green-painted butcher’s.
A war monument stood next to the village-end of the bridge accompanied by three gloss-painted benches.
Past the few main streets of the village, a handful of cottages and small hotels branched off into the forest and the hills beyond.
There was a hardy practicality to the place, all rough-hewn stone and cattle grids.
I pursed my lips. From the descriptions online, I’d expected more bunting and hanging baskets and cheery community centres and jam jars.
It was still early in the season though.
Maybe they’d decorate the place properly later in the summer.
I stopped at the corner shop by the bridge to pick up some supplies.
Milk, cereal, bread, cheese, some crackers, a couple tins of beans, soup and chili, and a tin opener.
Things I could eat without gas or electricity if needed.
I’d found a saucepan in one of the kitchen cupboards back at the cottage, and a set of two forks and a spoon in a drawer.
I promised myself I’d do a proper shop later. For now, this would do.
Okay, I thought. Time to go say hello.
I wandered down the road along the river and ducked into one of the cafés.
Maggie’s Café was clean and cheery. It had white painted wood panelling halfway up the wall and everything above that was a pale duck-egg blue.
A chalk board listed the various tea and coffee options, and cakes were proudly displayed on ceramic stands with glass covers.
I took a deep breath and strode up to the counter.
“Morning,” I said.
An older woman with a plastered-on smile and unsmiling eyes looked up at me from the till.
“Morning,” she said. “What can I get you?”
“What do you recommend?” I’d read that was a good question to ask in new places. Shows curiosity, interest. Starts a conversation.
The plastered-on smile faltered for a moment.
“What kind of thing are you looking for?”
Oh shit. I hadn’t thought of a thing to ask after.
Quick, think of a thing.
“Food,” I blurted, my shopping still clearly on my mind.
The woman with the now-decidedly-unsmiling eyes glanced over at the wide selection of cakes on their stands, the traybakes and scones in the glass-fronted cabinet, and the menu full of hot food up behind her.
‘Food.’ Way to narrow it down, genius.
The woman sighed. “Well, if it were up to me, I’d go for the macaroni pie. It’s not the fanciest, but it’s the best I’ve seen around.”
Thank God! Macaroni pie!
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes to the macaroni pie?”
“Sorry. Yes,” I said. “Oh, and a latte. Please.”
The woman nodded. “I’ll bring it to your table.”
I paid and escaped the rest of the interaction unscathed.
Avoiding the round painted tables, I made for the bar at the window with its single stools and—more importantly—plug sockets.
I tucked myself into the corner of the window, plugging in my laptop and my phone, hoping no one would question me taking up both sockets.
The bright familiar screen of my laptop immediately anchored me.
There were a few freelance opportunities I’d hoped had got back to me by now—old clients I’d contacted before I’d left Edinburgh.
I’d never had the entrepreneurial spirit of my colleagues when it came to side gigs.
Technically, it went against our contracts, but everyone did it, from the designers to the developers.
Everyone except me, that was. I was always convinced I’d be caught the first time I took work on the side.
I’d have to catch up quick, though I’d never been comfortable selling myself, which was ironic given my line of work.
Back at the office I’d been a writer for their eCRM Services.
CRM meant Customer Relationship Management.
The ‘e’ bit meant electronic. In reality, this all just meant email marketing.
My job was to create emails that no one really wants to read, only I’m not supposed to say that.
A brand needs just zero point zero five per cent of recipients to click through to their website to consider the email a success, so I spent my career writing to the five in one thousand.
It had often felt like screaming into the void.
I flinched at a sudden noise outside. A gaggle of teenagers walked past the window, excitedly gathered around one of their phones. Probably some prank video or whatever the kids were into these days. Definitely not one of my promotional emails.
Still, I happened to be pretty good at it.
I could mimic brand voices with ease. I just had to pretend to be them.
Holidays, clothing, banks, nappies, I’d written emails for them all, shifting between serious conversations about insurance to quirky puff-pieces about fruit-flavoured yoghurts.
It was a lucky line of work to fall into in my twenties.
The job market had been poor at the time, and I couldn’t go home, so I’d held on to the position as if it were a life raft.
A group of young women wearing rucksacks came into the café and grabbed a table behind me. Their happy conversation, along with the general bustle of the other customers, disrupted my thoughts more than I’d like to admit.
I’d struggled with the office environment too, with its constant chatter and coded culture that I could never get my head around.
That and the expectation that a single email might perform some black art of persuasion.
And the impression that most of my clients didn’t seem to care about their customers or their products even, just some min-max calculation to increase their shares by a point.
And the audacity of trying to get strangers to like the brand you’re writing for when you can’t even get anyone to like you.
But now I was out of the office and away from all those problems. I’d be able to work in an environment that suited me, pick my clients, do work that mattered.
Do what you have to do to survive.
The group of women behind me laughed.
So what if sometimes I hated it? So what if there were mornings where I’d sit on the end of my bed just willing myself to get up and go to the office? Everyone hates their job. There’s nothing unusual about that. We all just have to pretend we don’t.
And I’m very good at pretending.
The same woman who’d taken my order delivered my pie and coffee. The pie was huge; golden crispy cheese and pasta spilled over the top of the high shortcrust sides. I was suddenly aware of how little I’d eaten lately.
The woman wiped her hands on her apron and left before I could say thanks. Probably too busy to start a conversation.
See, everyone’s just pretending. That’s what work is. Pretence.
I logged into the café internet and checked through my emails. My heart sank. No one had got back to me. I quickly calculated my finances in my head and eyed the gently steaming pie on the bench in front of me. I would be eating out a lot less over the coming weeks.
Maybe, now I was here, I could pretend myself into another job.
New life, new job. Why not? Long before this move, I’d had the fantasy of disappearing to a rural town, where folk did honest land-based work and didn’t care for cities and CVs.
I’d imagined the kind of person I’d be if I could just escape and start over.
Perhaps I would be a stoic gardener of a great house now fallen into dilapidation.
That woman in the flannel shirt, wellies, and waxed coat that’s never been washed, hair pulled back in a sensible bun, flyaway hairs catching the autumn light and ringing my head with a fuzzy halo, carting barrow-loads of fallen leaves and dead wood to a fluttering bonfire, flames barely visible in the daylight, white smoke flying over the dew-laden grass.
I’d wipe my forehead with the back of my arm, stand and stretch out my lower back, carry a rake over my shoulder, nod tersely to friendly greetings.
That’s just how she is, they’d say—whoever they were—grounded, a mystery, full of hidden depths, trust her to the moon and back.
Sure, invite her to the dance; if you’re lucky maybe she’ll come.
She’s quiet at first, but stick with her; she’s worth it in the end.
Or maybe I would be the plucky fidget who resurrects the neglected community library being kept on life support by a small group of older folks who are running out of steam.
That girl who brings new energy to old ideas, perhaps with a well-meaning folksy handmade decorating scheme to brighten up the shelves, or a scrappy marketing idea that draws new users—parents looking for children’s groups, teens looking for a place to study, older folks wanting to get online.
That girl whose mix of boundless enthusiasm and verbal diarrhoea—off-putting and a little intense at first—casts a spell on those who meet her.
She’s charming really. Humour her oddness; she’s worth it in the end.
Or maybe I’d be that enigmatic woman with the knowing smile who takes over an empty shop on the main street.
I’d paper up the windows while I did up the store, setting all the neighbourhood gossips’ tongues wagging.
Locals would try to peer between the sheets to see what I was up to, claiming glimpses of hand painted murals and incense smoke.
Eventually I’d open my shop selling… handmade soaps?
Handspun wool? No, flowers. Healing flowers.
A magical florist. There’d be some disappointment at first amidst the curiosity—perhaps hoping for a phone shop or something.
Get their laptops fixed without having to trek to Stirling or Glasgow.
But over time I’d win them over with carefully selected blooms that make them feel inspired again, fall in love again, feel safe again, help them reach out to lost loved ones and find them again in the weeds of some old long blown over argument, the treasure lost now found.
And I’d be skittish and damaged and react to loud noises in a way that seems unhinged at times but echoes some hidden trauma no one can see.
But they’ll get the idea. Be gentle with her, they’ll say, she seems flighty but hold your nerve; she’s worth it in the end.
Choices ahead of me, I picked up my pie and went to bite.
There was a ding.
My eyes flicked back to the screen. I put down my lunch and searched through my tabs looking for the notification, before settling on a social media site I’d left open.
Floating up on a little friendly tile was a comment from an old school friend I hadn’t spoken to in years.
“Congrats on the move!” it said.
My blood chilled. How did she know I’d moved?
The comment was on a post from the estate agents who sold me the house. They’d tagged me in a cheery smiling house photo with the message:
We hope you love your new home!
I probably missed the box to opt out when I skimmed the contract. I quickly untagged myself and hoped the damage was limited.
I watched the road outside the window, suddenly feeling eyes on me.
This was the worst thing about the internet.
No matter how far you travelled, no matter how quiet you stayed, you couldn’t get lost anymore.
I’d read about missing persons groups on Facebook.
About how they’re causing problems for people genuinely trying to disappear.
Adult children. Abused partners. Special witnesses.
Folk just trying to start over where no one knows who they are or where they’ve been or what they’ve done.
My fresh start, my transformation, would be in jeopardy if I was found out as the person I am—was.
If I wasn’t careful, that would be the ‘me’ here too.
My reflection in the window stared back at me.
There’s the person you think you’re going to be. And then, poof, there you are. Undeniably you, for better or worse.
No. I couldn’t let that happen.
I deleted my old friend’s comment, blocked her, then slammed my laptop shut.
The noise echoed around me. The slam had been a bit more forceful than I’d intended.
It took a moment for the high-pitched tone in my ears to settle long enough for me to notice the rest of the café had gone silent.
I looked around. The young women behind me turned away suddenly, eyes averted to their coffees and cakes, mouths curling up a little at the corners, eyebrows raised.
The woman who’d taken my order huffed and went back to her work.
I saw myself as they must see me, hands shaking, muttering at my laptop, body practically humming with residual frustration.
Uh-oh, watch out for the crazy lady.
My cheeks felt hot. Oh God, I was going to cry.
Before embarrassment could completely take me over, I quickly packed up my things, keeping my head ducked down.
I ripped my phone from its charger on the third try.
Only thirty-seven per cent charged. That wasn’t going to last me a day.
I left with my inadequately charged phone before I caused another scene.
I was out on the street before I realised I’d left my macaroni pie.