Chapter 12
Holly
‘Hey. Will you go in and buy us some cans?’
Holly and Lewis were outside the village shop. The boy’s accent was so broad that it took Holly a few seconds to figure out what he was saying. He looked like he was plenty old enough to buy beer himself, and so did the girl with him, the emo with the dyed-black hair and the thick eyeliner.
Holly recognized them, of course. Jimmy and Morag.
They’d been around ever since the Grants had first started coming here.
They’d looked ordinary the last time Holly had seen them, kind of square in fact, but now Morag looked like she’d rather be in her bedroom listening to My Chemical Romance.
Jimmy was alternative-looking, too, in a long black coat and black Converse below skinny jeans.
And he certainly wasn’t ordinary-looking any more.
He had long, thick hair and the most ridiculous cheekbones she’d ever seen.
‘Why don’t you buy them yourself?’ Lewis asked.
‘Because we’re skint.’
‘And you assume we’re not?’
Jimmy raised an eyebrow. ‘I know you’re not. But if you’re going to be a dick …’ He turned to Morag. ‘See, I told you they wouldn’t want to help us out.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Lewis said quickly. He was looking at Morag. ‘I’m amenable to the idea.’
Jimmy grinned. ‘Amenable, eh? That’s the kind of word Morag here would use in one of her stories.’ He laughed. ‘You remember us, right? Our mum runs the pub.’
‘Of course. Though if your mum works at the pub, why can’t you steal booze from there?’
Morag responded to that. ‘We could. But if she caught us, she’d kill us.’
That was how the two pairs of siblings became friends. Holly and Lewis, Jimmy and Morag. Lewis, who at eighteen was a year older than Holly, went in to the shop and came out with a six-pack of Tennent’s.
‘Maybe we can hang out up there some time,’ Jimmy said, pointing up at the manor house on the hill. ‘Your dad owns it now, aye?’
Holly and Lewis exchanged an awkward look.
‘Must be grand,’ Morag said.
‘What must?’
‘Being loaded.’
Holly inwardly winced. When they’d first come to Applecross, they hadn’t exactly been anonymous, but people left them alone, pretending not to know that Charles was famous.
But then, back at the beginning of the summer, Dad had stood up in front of the whole village and announced his great plans.
Started to flaunt how rich he was. Even though Holly approved of what her dad was planning to do with the money, it still made her cringe.
‘It’s kind of embarrassing, actually,’ Lewis said, trying too hard. ‘I don’t care about money. There are far more important things in life. Like art. And beauty.’
He looked right at Morag as he said this, and Holly was sure she blushed a little.
Did Lewis really think this girl was beautiful?
She was pretty, Holly supposed, beneath the make-up and hair dye.
Lewis had always liked alternative types.
He was also into the romantic poets at the moment, and Holly was afraid he might start quoting Keats or fucking Wordsworth.
‘Rich people always say that,’ Jimmy said. ‘That money isn’t important.’
‘I’m going to give all mine away,’ Holly said. ‘When I get access to my trust, I mean.’
The two Scottish siblings stared at her. Oh God, why had she mentioned her trust? She was such a dick.
‘Give it away to me,’ Jimmy said, and his laughter made Holly feel a tiny bit better.
‘Maybe I will.’
For the next couple of hours, they just wandered around, ending up in the graveyard between the visitors’ centre and the church. They sat on a couple of benches among the crooked gravestones, talked about the music and films they liked, and swapped life stories.
‘We had to get the bus to school, over an hour away,’ Jimmy explained, after Lewis had told them that he and Holly went to a grammar school in Birmingham.
‘Place called Plockton. Go Monday morning, stay in lodgings, come back Friday night. I’m glad I’m out of there.
Morag still goes. She’s the brainy one. Going to ace her exams and head to uni. Leave me all alone in this shithole.’
‘Jimmy said something about you being a writer?’ Holly said to Morag.
‘I like writing, yeah.’
‘She’s going to be famous,’ Jimmy said. ‘Go and live in Edinburgh or Glasgow. Get rich writing her books.’
‘London, actually,’ Morag said.
‘She’s got dreams. We both have.’
‘What are yours?’
He laughed. ‘I’m going to be a rock star, baby.’
The words came out before Holly could stop them. ‘You’ve got the looks for it.’
‘Why did you have to say that?’ Morag asked drily. ‘His head’s big enough already.’
‘I think it’s awesome,’ Lewis said, about Morag’s literary ambitions. ‘I want to be a writer, too. I’ve been working on my first book of poetry. I could, um, show you if you want?’
‘I guess,’ Morag said.
‘Maybe you could write lyrics for my band,’ Jimmy suggested.
‘What about you, Holly?’ Morag asked. ‘What do you want to do? After you’ve given away all your money?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Holly said, which was true. She didn’t have a clue what she wanted to do with her life. When she tried to see beyond exams and university, all she could see was a void. The great, scary unknown.
‘What’s going on with the arts centre?’ Morag asked, letting Holly off the hook. It seemed like she was trying to act more disinterested than she really was.
‘We don’t know. He’s been distracted recently. Stuff going on with our mum.’ Lewis’s voice caught, and both Jimmy and Morag lifted their eyebrows.
‘She’s dying,’ said Lewis.
‘Fuck.’ Jimmy frowned. ‘Sorry to hear that. What is it? Cancer?’
‘Yeah.’
They were all silent for a little while, until Lewis said, ‘We can definitely hang out at the manor house.’
‘Maybe the caves, too,’ said Morag. ‘Have you heard of them?’
She told them about the legend, both Lewis and Holly listening, enrapt.
‘You might be posh English twats,’ Jimmy said afterwards, raising his can of beer towards them, ‘but I think we’re going to be good friends.’
He winked at Holly, and she knew her face had gone pink. At the same time, she noticed her brother eyeing up Morag, probably composing a poem in his head.
More than friends, she thought, and a little shiver went through her. What was it Mum always said?
Like someone walked over my grave.