15 #2
And today there is a clear blue in the air, and the wind has dropped. The wind doesn’t ever really drop in Edinburgh; the whole place is effectively a wind tunnel, designed that way to keep the English out, someone once said, in which case it has been quite spectacularly unsuccessful.
‘I thought you were setting me up,’ she says, but not in an angry tone.
‘I know I’m a terrible mother,’ says Janey, ‘but even I would not inflict Owen on you. I’m just surprised he works in a hospital rather than running the prison service.’
‘What does he do in the hospital?’
‘Why, you interested?’
‘From a psychological standpoint, sure.’
Janey laughs. ‘Guess.’
‘IT? Or would that be too obvious?’
‘It would,’ says Janey. ‘Owen looks after the fax machines.’
‘The fax machines!’
‘The NHS is the largest user of fax machines in the world. Our IT systems don’t talk to each other and faxes are relatively secure.’
‘He’s the world’s last fax repairman! That’s actually quite romantic when you think about it.’
As they turn back along the harbour, Essie looks back up to Seagate, their tiny street full of cottages. The trio for sale really do look like they’re falling down.
‘I can’t believe Dwight’s bought these,’ Janey muses.
‘Dwight?’ says Essie, who hadn’t thought much of him the night before apart from cringing at his stupid hat.
‘Yeah, he’s bought them.’
‘What do you mean, bought “them”?’ She stares at the For Sale sign at the end of the row.
‘He’s bought all three of them, to do them up. Some kind of local arrangement.’
‘Why did they put the For Sale sign up, then?’
‘I’m not sure,’ says Janey. ‘Maybe it’s like banns?’
Essie shakes her head and moves closer. ‘Unbelievable,’ she says.
‘What?’ says Janey.
‘He’s bought . . . three houses!’
‘Well, three wrecks,’ says Janey. ‘I mean, seriously, look at them.’
But Essie seems wretched suddenly, and Janey is genuinely worried by the look in her eyes.
‘What’s up?’
‘I . . . ’ Essie shakes her head. ‘I don’t .
. . ’ She suddenly can’t go on. She finds herself almost in tears.
‘I’m never going to be able to buy a house.
Never! And he’s bought three! And he doesn’t even .
. . he doesn’t have student loans, he’s got no brains in his head except .
. . line dancing ! I can’t believe I’m never going to live anywhere except stupid shared rentals while that lughead—’
‘What?’ comes a voice suddenly.
Essie whirls round in despair. ‘What?’ she says, panicking, her heart dropping through the floor like a plummeting lift.
‘What will that lughead do?’ comes the voice.
Dwight is standing there, thumbs entwined in his jean belt loops, which must be a childhood boot-scooting habit, and looks completely mad. Although at least he is sans hat today. His hair is scruffy.
‘Hey, Dwight,’ says Janey. ‘Sorry. Essie was just venting.’
‘I was,’ says Essie. ‘Sorry. I just . . . I can’t afford . . . ’
‘You’re in Edinburgh, right? No wonder. Crazy prices there. Nuts.’ He shakes his head. ‘But then again, what would I know? I’ve got no brains in my head.’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Essie again. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ shrugs Dwight. ‘I heard from my sister that things had gone totally to shit for you.’
Essie shrivels inside. What has Shelby said? She doesn’t have to wait long to find out.
‘She says you’ve had some kind of breakdown. Had to come home with your tail between your legs.’
‘Shelby seems to know a lot about me,’ says Essie, trying to reclaim some dignity.
Dwight shrugs. ‘Well, you’re here, ain’t you?’
‘Did you just say, “ain’t”?’ says Essie, her voice icy.
‘There’s a lot of work to do on the houses,’ says Janey quickly, figuring that the fastest way out of this conversation is changing the subject.
‘There is,’ says Dwight. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work.’ He jangles a set of keys in his hand. ‘Want a peek?’
‘No,’ says Essie sulkily, at the exact same moment as Janey, genetically incapable of not having a look around someone else’s house, says, ‘Yes, please!’
Essie nudges her hard.
‘What? Come on. I visited Mrs MacAleese there, you know. I want to see what you’re going to do. And how much it’s going to disrupt me, in particular.’
‘Sure,’ says Dwight equably.
‘Am I right in thinking,’ says Janey, catching him up, as Essie dawdles behind, furious with everything, ‘that Mrs MacAleese didn’t have indoor plumbing? That’s how it seemed back when I was here, but surely they sorted it out?’
‘They never did,’ says Dwight. ‘She didn’t like the thought of it, said it was unhygienic to go to the bathroom in the same place as you ate your meals.’
‘Ha,’ says Janey. ‘My grandad thought that. But won’t you need, like, en-suite bathrooms to every single room including the other bathrooms? If you’re going to let it out.’
‘They’re going to be holiday lets?’ says Essie icily.
‘Haven’t decided,’ says Dwight, unlocking the first door.
Janey pokes her head inside. The house smells very unpleasant – cold and unoccupied, with the suspicion of rats – and, as the door creaks open, a bird rises up to the rafters and disappears.
‘Well, it’s getting out somewhere,’ says Dwight, following her gaze upwards.
The floor is littered with old magazines and pieces of stained carpet, and there is a boarded-up fireplace. Wallpaper has been pulled off the wall, and the spray-painted signs on the far wall indicate that this place has seen some use, presumably by local teens.
‘Goodness,’ says Janey. ‘You’ve got your work cut out. This is worse than the state mine was in, and mine was bad.’
Dwight scratches his head. ‘I know,’ he says.
‘But there’s a load of lads doing two on, one off, yeah?
’ He is talking about the men who go on the rigs; tough, hard grafters, the lot of them.
They work two months on for every month they have back at home, with their families, or, sometimes, in the pub. ‘They can do with a project, aye?’
‘I know,’ says Janey. And she does; she sees them all the time.
The constant roar of the drill is hard on the men’s ears.
They’re issued with protectors but they won’t wear the damn things; they’re young, they think they’re untouchable.
She sees them at fifty, when they can’t hear the TV, when the world feels like it is becoming unreachable.
She tries, always, not to make a big deal out of how preventable it could have been.
The money on the rigs is good, but she never wanted Alasdair to go.
‘Make them wear their ear protectors, okay?’
Dwight looks at her. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Janey glances around. The house is laid out like hers, only the other way around.
‘Think how many generations lived here,’ she says. ‘It’s two hundred years easy, just like mine.’
‘Two hundred and thirty,’ says Dwight, not without pride. ‘Every stone put in by hand.’
Janey peered into the ancient fireplace, charred black. ‘I think she still cooked in a pot.’
Dwight smiled. ‘Aye, you’re probably right about that. Probably why she lived until she was ninety.’
‘Probably is.’
Essie is looking around, taking in the beautiful old walls, the rickety floor.
Nothing has been changed or replaced here over the years.
She shivers, thinking of the blur of humans who have been born, grown old and died here.
She glances out of the filthy back window of the very basic kitchen.
You can see the sunlight glinting off the waves, right from here, through a crack in the big houses on the front, which you can’t from her mum’s.
‘How are you doing the decor?’ she says.
Dwight shrugs. ‘Dunno,’ he says. ‘Just going to clean it up a bit, figure it out. Probably nip down to B this is indisputable.
‘Yes, but if it’s stuck?’ says Janey.
‘One less seagull in the world, oh, no,’ says Essie, but she knows when she’s beaten. ‘Are the stairs safe?’
Dwight shrugs. ‘They carried Mrs MacAleese, and she was the size of a Highland coo.’
‘Dwight!’
‘What? I’m estimating. It can’t have been far off. Took me long enough to clear the Tunnocks teacake wrappers out.’
‘Actually they’re surprisingly low-calorie,’ says Janey.