Chapter Thirty-Four
Thirty-Four
Welcome
The shop window has a large sign saying, WELL-BEHAVED CHILDRENAND DOGS WELCOME, and Ted pulls to go in, as if eager to spend his pocket money. The entranceway to the shop is crowded with large cages containing beach balls, neon pairs of jelly shoes in the full range of baby-to-adult sizes, toy cricket sets and foam body boards that look as if they’ll last for about three waves before breaking and being dumped in the beach bins.
When I squeeze past and make it into the shop itself, I look around for milk and dog food, but only see an array of stuffed toys, along with lightly melted sticks of rock, which make my fillings ache just looking at them. Weaving my way past Loor-branded mugs, coasters and fridge magnets, I wander down an aisle of frozen pizzas and microwavable French fries, when I find a tiny refrigerator stocked with single pints of milk.
There are only three left.
I drink a lot of milk, and my first impulse is to take them all, because I know I’ll get through them in forty-eight hours, but on the other hand, what if some other parched soul comes in looking for milk for their evening cocoa and they find an empty shelf?
I’ll just take two of them, I decide, and make sure I don’t have any evening bowls of cereal. But what if two parched souls come in wanting milk? I can’t take two-thirds of the island’s milk supply.
I put down my second carton of milk and take just one up to the till, grabbing a box of dog kibble on the way, which Ted stares at as if mesmerised.
There’s nobody around, so I ding the little silver bell on the counter.
Nothing.
I turn to look around behind me – because maybe the cashier is stocking shelves in some remote corner of this crowded shop of tat – and I almost bump faces with a woman who is standing six inches behind me, so close that I can’t quite believe our noses aren’t touching.
‘Whoa,’ I say.
‘You’re the new petsitter.’ She nods to herself. ‘I recognise you from your photo.’
‘My photo?’ I say, confused, because there was no photo on my job application, nor any need for one. It’s not as if I’ve auditioned for the lead role in an off-Broadway play.
‘Your LinkedIn photo,’ she explains. ‘I looked you up – everybody did – once we heard you were coming. We wanted to see what you looked like.’
Everybody? Who’s everybody?
‘Oh…Why?’
She closes her mouth so firmly that I can’t help worrying that my question has offended her.
‘We wanted to see what sort of young woman would take the job, of course.’
‘Right.’
She breaks into a huge, beaming smile, as if genuinely delighted to see me in the flesh. Perhaps that’s why the woman at the harbour was staring at me. Am I somehow Loor famous?
I see movement in my peripheral vision and turn in time to see a red-headed woman disappear behind an aisle. She’s here again. It’s official: I have a Loor stalker.
‘Can I interest you in a frisbee for Ted?’ the shopkeeper asks.
‘You know Ted?’
‘Everyone knows Ted.’
‘I’m not sure he could pick up a frisbee,’ I say, looking down at him. ‘I don’t think he has enough mouth to get a firm grip.’
She looks at him too and says, ‘We have half-size ones, for the smaller specimens.’
Specimens? Ted is not even my dog and I’m offended by that. What is she planning to do to him? A bit of cheerful dissection?
‘Just the milk and kibble today, please,’ I say.
She walks around to the other side of the counter and sends a pink stick of Loor-branded rock skidding towards me.
‘That’s on the house,’ she says. ‘You’ll need the energy, what with all the work you’ll have to do.’
There’s something a bit gleeful and sinister about the way she says this, and it sets me on edge.
‘It’s all right, I’ll pay for it,’ I say, not wanting to be beholden to this woman for anything, not even a pink stick of sugar.
As if she can read my mind, she says, ‘It’s no bother. I’m Edie Hide.’ She smiles, as if this should mean something significant to me.
‘Halloon.’
‘Halloon? No, it’s my name on the sign above the shop. Didn’t you notice? Go and look now.’
I smile, confused, and go to hand over the money.
‘I’ll look on my way out.’
‘Just nip out now.’
She won’t take my money until I go to look, so I give in.
The name of this convenience store, this holidaymaker’s grotto, is Hide and Chic.
I go back in. ‘Very clever.’
‘Thanks,’ she says, looking pleased. ‘I thought it up myself.’
I take my dog food and my single pint of milk, which I’m already wondering how best to ration, when I realise I’ve left my sunglasses on the counter. Ducking back inside, I catch the back view of Edie. She’s looking at a wall of magazines that she appears to be having an animated conversation with.
‘Did you hear all that?’ she asks the magazines.
But when she turns around, I see she has earbuds in and must be on a phone call with someone. She looks a little sheepish when she catches my eye. I take my sunglasses and whisper to her, ‘These are mine,’ just in case she thinks that my Ray-Bans are stocked in her shop and that I’ve chosen this elaborate way to steal them. She nods, gives me a wave and waits until I’m outside the shop before she starts talking again.
Outside, I see the red-haired woman who seems to have been stalking me ever since I got to the island. She’s ditched the electric bike in the dirt and is sitting on a low concrete wall, next to an ancient-looking post-box from the reign of Edward VII.
‘I’m Betty,’ she says. ‘You’re Lindy Hougassian.’
She pronounces it, I note, perfectly.
‘That’s right,’ I reply, feeling my body tense up. Why does everyone here seem to know who I am?
‘You met Edie,’ she says, dropping to her knees to pet Ted, who has already assumed the position: tummy exposed, hindleg raised, waiting for tickles. He looks completely enchanted by her and the feeling is evidently mutual.
‘The shopkeeper? Yes.’
‘She’s our resident psychopath. Did you pick up on that? The wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing vibe? Humans are supposed to be able to sense it, you know, when they’re in the presence of a predator. Not that Edie is a predator in the traditional sense. She’s completely harmless; it’s just that she has absolutely no empathy or conscience.’
I stare at the woman, trying to keep up.
‘The lady in the shop is a psychopath?’
‘Yes, but she’s very nice. Not violent in the slightest. She’d be very handy in a crisis. That’s why humans keep breeding new psychopaths – they’re helpful for the species. They do all the stuff that people with consciences don’t like to do – but stuff that has to be done. I think Halloon has a touch of psychopathy too. You met Halloon earlier. He was the one who drove you in the cart. He’s Edie’s son.’
‘Oh, his name is Halloon,’ I say, blushing. ‘I thought that was a Loor greeting.’
I cringe as I remember saying it to the sexy surfer dude. No wonder he looked at me strangely.
She rolls her eyes.
‘So how do you like your new home? Nice view from that place.’
‘It appears to have an occupant. With a dog. He’s down with the flu.’
‘Ted has the flu?’ she says, looking worried.
‘His owner does. I don’t think dogs get the flu.’
‘He’s not Ted’s owner. He’s just looking after him for a few days. We didn’t think you were coming until Thursday.’
‘Yeah, Halloon didn’t warn me about that. There must have been a mix-up somewhere, but I’m sure it’ll all be fine.’
I’m not remotely sure about that. Something has obviously gone seriously awry somewhere along the line, but I have no idea how. All I know is that I have to get that sneezing man out of my bed, out of the beach house, and then I need to bleach the whole place from top to bottom.
‘Bye then,’ I say, but she’s already picked up her bike and is on her way.
Ted and I walk back to the beach house, stopping every now and again to stare at the view, which is breathtakingly beautiful. Turquoise sea lapping into coves, craggy cliffs strewn with wildflowers, gannets diving into the sea in neat little explosions of water.
Things may be less than optimal in my living situation, but whatever happens next, however it all shakes out, this place is a wonderful fresh start and I’m not going to let anything mess it up – a resolution that lasts the whole forty seconds it takes for me to walk to the cliff path, because there he is.