Chapter 8
I’d been in Carlinsrest for barely an hour and I was probably already a source of gossip.
Fuck’s sake. Get it together, Tamsin.
I didn’t care where I was going. Just as long as it was away from the river.
Up the side streets and into the back alleys, Carlinsrest shucked off its tweed jacket and rolled up its sleeves.
Garages, work yards and storage units lined the narrow road.
At the end, a long, squat stone building hunkered against the back of the main street.
Two small, dark windows were crowded with a display of practical odds and ends: hacksaws, shears, citronella candles, midge nets, fluorescent work vests, bags of tinder, seeds.
A long blue sign ran the length of the building, reading in blocky white letters: CARLINSREST HARDWARE & SUPPLIES.
I stopped in front of it.
It was the sort of place that promised practical solutions to life’s problems. Life isn’t miserable, it seemed to say.
You just need to replace your terrible washing machine, fix the kettle that scalds your hand with steam, or brighten your front step with flowers.
Yes, this was what I needed. Maybe they had someone I could ask about whatever the hell was supposed to be heating my house.
And I did need a replacement for the clotheshorse.
I stepped inside.
An electronic chime announced my arrival, a two-tone beep which probably cost more than the real bell it mimicked.
Strip lights hung over a long, wide space filled with white metal shelves carrying everything from chainsaws to camping stoves.
There was a smell of petrol, wood shavings and that outdoors-scent people bring in with them on their skin after they’ve been in the cold.
It was cluttered, but clean and warm. All practicality and no style.
See, here people are comfortable. They don’t need to blind you with flashy point-of-sale and froofy window dressing.
But would the sales staff be as equally fluff-less? Would they roll their eyes and tut when I didn’t know what to ask for? I imagined them taking one look at my face and then fleecing me as the clueless tourist I was.
As if on cue, a man straightened up from behind a counter plastered with business cards and small notices. He was tall and broad, towering over the shelves. I imagined meeting him on a dark road and crossing to the other side. He lifted a large cardboard box up and placed it next to the till.
Then he saw me and smiled.
“Hello, shout if you need anything.”
It wasn’t the over-friendliness of city shop staff, who I always felt suspected me of shoplifting, but not the long-suffering sneer I’d half-expected of a tourist-tired local.
“Will do,” I said.
His hair was dark, thinning at the front into a widow’s peak and flopping over his tanned, lined forehead.
His beard had a few sprinklings of grey, and he wore a checked blue shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, tucked into his jeans but undone round the neck.
Neat enough to be ‘at work’ but without trying too hard about it.
Everything about him said ‘lived in’. Worn.
Like he’d been through the wars, once upon a time, and had come out the other side.
He returned his gaze to the contents of the cardboard box.
Pocket-sized torches. He gently lifted one out of the box, softly pinched between large fingertips.
He double-checked the computer screen then raised a pricing gun.
Suddenly, there was a cheery bleeping. Not the door this time. The man stopped what he was doing and reached into his jeans pocket. It was his phone. He rolled his eyes, swiped the phone then came round the other side of the counter and got onto the floor in a plank position.
He looked up at me and smiled self-consciously.
“Sorry, my other half has a habit of putting reminders in my phone,” he said, gritting his teeth with the exertion. “Planks. Stretches. Drinking water. He thinks everything can be solved with an alert on your phone.”
I stifled a laugh at the oddness of it all. The way he grunted as he got into position. The frown of concentration. All earlier intimidation suddenly felt silly.
“Uh.” I cleared my throat and tried again a little louder. “Actually, once you’re done, I was wondering…”
He let down his knees with a grunt.
“Yep?”
I froze for a moment, then stretched a smile onto my face.
“Do you have something for drying clothes?”
“Sure, there are wire dryers in the corner there.”
I thought of the clotheshorse dancing off my windscreen.
“Do you have any washing line?”
“Washing lines are a bit fiddly. You sure you don’t want a—?”
“Yes,” I said, a little too loud. “A washing line is fine. Thanks.”
“Alright. Um, I have some over here, I think.”
He stood up and walked to a shelf loaded up with spools of wire, string and rope.
Come on, Tamsin. Be brave.
“Thanks. Um. I’m new around here and…” I waved my hands helplessly. “I’m a bit lost about some stuff. And you seem like someone who is capable and local and…” I sighed, genuinely, to my surprise. “I could do with some help.”
He gave me a look for a moment, like he was weighing something up. Then his warm face slowly split into a smile.
“What do you need?” He reached out a hand. “Rowan.”
Rowan, I thought, a tree. This is the place where people are named after the land.
Cliff. Glen. Ivy. Rose. I wondered if his parents were thinking of a particular rowan tree when they named him.
The thin green leaves. The red berries promising autumn while the world was still in the height of summer.
Witchwood. They used to plant it in graveyards.
Either the bane or the blessing of witches. I couldn’t remember which.
How much better would you be at everything if you didn’t have all this useless knowledge bobbing about your head?
I took his hand and shook it. Good business-level firm, like I’d practiced before every interview of my life. His hand was dry and warm.
“Tamsin.” I shrugged. “Mum’s choice. I’d change it if I could think of a name I like.”
“Is that what you need help with? Picking a new name?”
I took a moment. Then laughed. Then snorted. Then, horrified at the snort, threw a hand up over my face. I checked his face for disgust, but no, he was smiling. He wasn’t put off by the snort. In fact, he seemed to be smiling wider. Amused. Delighted by it. Perhaps he thought I was adorable.
“Sorry.” I dropped my hands. “I’ve just moved into this place, and I have a biomass heating system.”
He waited for me to elaborate.
“And I don’t know what that is. And my house is cold.”
Rowan nodded ruefully. “Ah, you’ve got a wood-fuelled boiler. They’re just being fancy about it to appeal to the Greens in the cities.”
“I couldn’t see a boiler in the house.”
“It’s probably down in the basement. Maybe close to your fuse box, mains switch, that sort of thing.”
The mains switch. Electricity!
“I don’t think I have a basement.”
“Do you have a set of doors outside by the wall? Or a door under the stairs?”
The door under the stairs, cut at a slant.
“I thought that was a cupboard.”
“It’s probably the way down to your basement.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, things were starting to look up.
“Okay, so what do I do with a—a wood-fuelled boiler?”
“You put wood in it.” He grinned at me.
I mock-smacked my forehead. Idiot.
“Of course. Sorry.”
“That’s alright. Can’t blame yourself for not knowing if you’ve not used one before.
” Rowan wiped his forehead with the back of his arm.
“If your seller was any good, they should have left you some firewood in the house somewhere. If not, you’ll need to buy some.
At least until you’ve figured out where you can cut your own and dry it out.
As you’re new here, I can throw in a bundle of wood and kindling with your axe. ”
“An axe?”
“You’ll need an axe. For the wood. You’re not going to want to keep buying it at”—he put a hand up over his mouth—“tourist prices.”
“Oh, oh yes. Of course.”
“See, a local already.”
He’s just being kind.
“Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t think… what with… never mind. Just thank you.”
“No problem. You’re not the only transplant up here.”
He led the way to a range of axes. I never realised there were so many options. In my head I’d always imagined the red-headed, pale-handled type I’d seen in cartoons. Rowan had all sorts. Short, stubby handles. Black rubber handles. Square heads. Arched heads.
“Which one should I get?” I asked.
“Well, it depends. What are you doing? Splitting or chopping?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Different heads do different jobs—” He stopped himself, thought for a second, then said, “You’re probably going to want a bit of both. These ones are good all-rounders. Which one do you like?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
“Um, which one should I like?”
He frowned, then laughed. Then the smile faded.
A flash of something I didn’t recognise flickered across his face.
He licked his lips, customer service manners coming back into play, and considered the range in front of him.
He picked out an axe with a pale handle, brand burned into the wood, and a bright steel head, black leather cover buttoned over the edge.
“I think you’ll like this one,” he said. “But I’ll write you up a receipt in case you later realise you don’t.”
He rang me up. I paid for the axe and the washing line.
“So, whereabouts is your place?” he asked. “Are you up or down the valley?”
“I don’t know. I’m in one of the Sgàthan Sìth cottages.”
“Sgàthan Sìth?” He stopped writing up the receipt. “You’re in Sgàthan Sìth?”
“Um, yes, 1b,” I replied.
He sucked in his lips and raised his eyebrows.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He handed over the receipt. “Well… okay, before someone else gets in and spooks you or something. It’s had a couple of owners, but no one ever seems to—”
A clang interrupted him. His head flicked to the back of the store where a young man in a denim jacket had dropped a chainsaw display model onto the ground.
“Aw shit, sorry, I have to—”
I packed firewood, kindling and washing line into my backpack. There was no room for the axe so I just held it and turned to leave.
“Wait, before you go”—he turned back to me—“you should come to the Curtyard tomorrow.”
“The Cut Yard?”
“Head up the alley between Maggie’s Café and the tapas place then take a left. That’s where the locals hang out in the evenings. As you’re a local now, you should come say hi.”
Then he half-jogged to catch the heavy chainsaw just before it slipped again out of the young man’s hands.