Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Kieran slurped what was either his fifth or sixth coffee of the day. Considering he’d been awake since five, that didn’t seem too bad. Until he realised only two hours had passed and his stomach felt as if he’d ingested battery acid.
‘Focus,’ he muttered.
But the lines of code on his laptop swam and twisted, refusing to settle into anything intelligible. On a good day, coding flowed through him – logic, structure, clarity. Today it looked exactly like the gobbledygook most people assumed it was.
His stomach rumbled in protest, loud and insistent. A quick inventory of his kitchen revealed a packet of digestives, one lonely teabag and a fridge emptier than his social diary.
‘Miaow.’ Prom sat at his feet, tail flicking like a metronome set to disdainful.
‘Don’t worry. There’s always food for you.’ Kieran had packed cat kibble. He dished out a helping, only slightly tempted to eat some himself.
It became painfully clear he wasn’t going to get any productive work done while surrounded by chaos. He shut the laptop and surveyed the cottage with a critical eye. Spartan didn’t cover it. The place looked like a cross between a student bedsit and a warehouse clearance.
Right. Step one: make it habitable.
He ordered a few essentials online – a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a couple of bookcases – because the idea of trekking through a migraine-inducing Swedish furniture labyrinth made him want to weep. Delivery in two days. Better than nothing.
Next, food. He could drag himself to Janette’s corner shop, but that risked conversation.
Questions. Stories. Enthusiasm. Kieran was in no condition for enthusiasm.
He googled supermarkets instead and snagged a delivery slot for that evening.
Half an hour later he’d completed an uninspired but functional shop: bread, milk, pasta, veg, coffee, cat supplies. Enough to survive a week, maybe more.
What next? The cottage still looked bare and unloved. Lisa knew how to add homely touches: an artfully draped throw or a scatter of multi-hued cushions. Strategically placed lamps which added warmth, and always the aroma of freshly brewed coffee or baking bread filling the air.
‘And bloody yoga mats I kept tripping over, and incense sticks that stank to high heaven.’ Kieran tried to balance the good with the bad – the yin and the yang, if that made sense – but still his heart faltered whenever he thought of Lisa.
‘The pub,’ he said aloud. Food, noise, warmth – all preferable to wallowing in his own misery. Not conversation: he had no intention of ‘peopling’. But he could sit in a corner and rejoin the world from a safe distance. Not run away from it as he had before.
The Jekyll and Hyde. He remembered the sign – the reference to Stevenson’s story, all about the split in human nature. Light and dark. Good and not-so-good. Do I have a dark side? he wondered.
Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, lad. His grandad’s voice echoed in his head. Five years gone yet still popping up whenever Kieran veered off course.
The walk to the pub was short and pleasant.
June sunlight filtered through the trees, dappling the pavement.
When he stepped inside, warmth enveloped him instantly.
The place had a comforting, lived-in charm, with its polished wood, soft lighting, the faint scent of old fires and good food.
Customers chatted in low voices, glasses clinked, and the atmosphere murmured with an ease he envied.
‘Hi there!’ A smiling woman approached, as bright and welcoming as the sun outside. ‘Welcome to The Jekyll and Hyde. I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. I rarely forget a face.’
Kieran tried to mirror her smile, but his mouth refused to cooperate. ‘I just moved here. I bought—’
‘The cottage! Next to Brae Cottage. I always wonder why yours doesn’t have a name, although I guess it doesn’t matter. Maybe you should come up with one.’ She laughed lightly. ‘I’m Angela, by the way.’
‘Nice to meet you. I’m Kieran.’ He recalled Janette mentioning an Angela who’d taken over the pub, along with Tom. Or was it Ted?
‘I hope you’re settling in OK,’ Angela said. ‘Janette said you lived in Edinburgh before and you’re a tech genius.’
‘Did she also reveal my blood type, inside-leg measurement and social ineptitude?’
Angela’s smile dimmed. ‘Janette means well. She’s got a heart of gold.’
Kieran considered reversing out of the door. He could wait for his supermarket delivery and order it on repeat for maybe the next six months. Or…
‘Sorry. I have a pathetic sense of humour and no filter. I didn’t mean to be rude. But I’m starving, so…’
Her smile returned, softer this time. ‘Then you’ve come to the right place.’ Angela gestured to an empty table and Kieran sat down. ‘The menu’s on the blackboard and everything’s freshly made by our new chef. We’re keeping it small for now, but early feedback’s brilliant.’
Kieran ordered a pint, scanned the menu, and settled on Hyde’s haddock with triple-cooked potato fingers and a side of terrifying tartare and graveyard purée. Right. Fish, chips and mushy peas.
When the meal arrived, he dug in with embarrassing enthusiasm. The fish was crisp and perfectly cooked, the chips glorious, the peas rich and buttery. He wiped his plate clean and sat back, sated for the first time in days.
‘Did you enjoy that?’ Angela reappeared, this time juggling a squirming baby.
‘I did.’ The fact that the plate looked dishwasher-clean might be a massive giveaway.
‘This is our pride and joy, Ruairi,’ Angela said. Ruairi kicked his chubby little legs like a tiny chorus-line dancer.
‘He’s, erm, cute.’ Kieran cringed internally at how awkward it sounded. How do normal people talk to babies?
‘Our friend Jinnie just dropped him off. She’s got one too, a darling girl called Dahlia.’
‘I’ve met Jinnie,’ he said, then blinked as another woman joined Angela. An apron-clad woman with flushed cheeks and an ‘I’d rather be anywhere else’ expression.
‘Kieran, this is Beth,’ Angela said. ‘Our culinary wizard, shaking things up at The Jekyll and Hyde.’
Beth nodded a tight hello. Kieran reciprocated. Angela nodded too. No one spoke.
Then a disturbance interrupted their brief exchange.
‘Ed, give me a blinking second,’ Angela snapped at someone behind her, trying to decipher frantic waving from across the room. ‘What? I can’t hear you!’ Flustered, Angela turned to Beth, holding out Ruairi. ‘Can you hold him for a minute, please?’
Kieran saw Beth stiffen, eyes widening as she took a step back. Panic flickered in her face, shockingly raw. ‘Sorry, I… There’s something I need to do in the kitchen. Urgently. Sorry.’
They watched as Beth took off at a gallop, nearly colliding with a woman carrying a tray of drinks.
Angela sighed.
‘I can help.’ Kieran reached for Ruairi before his brain could veto the decision.
The baby was heavier than he looked and more fragrant than he expected. Prom never smelt that pleasant.
Angela frowned slightly. ‘Are you sure you’re OK with this?’
‘I think I’m holding him the right way up, but if he fills his nappy I’ll dump him in a wheelie bin. Joke. Deal with whatever needs doing.’
Ruairi blinked at him, solemn as a judge. Kieran gently stroked his head, unexpectedly moved. What went on inside this tiny mind? Probably not existential dread. More likely: food soon?
Beth’s reaction replayed in his head. The way her face had changed at the sight of the baby. Fear, yes, but something deeper too. Pain.
‘You’re a star,’ Angela said, and hurried to Ed. When she returned minutes later, she reclaimed Ruairi with coos and kisses. The baby giggled, as if nothing in the world could ever go wrong.
Across the room, a young woman staggered towards the door shrieking profanities.
‘Who’s that?’ Kieran asked.
‘That’s Kylie.’ Angela sighed. ‘Who has nothing in common with the Aussie singer apart from a fondness for tight hot pants. Poor old Jimmy over there’ – she gestured at an elderly gentleman nursing a whisky – ‘nearly had a heart attack when she bent down in front of him one day and he saw more than he bargained for.’
‘The toilet’s fixed.’ Ed appeared, looking dishevelled. ‘And Kylie’s barred for a month.’
Kieran smiled. ‘Well, now that calm has returned, I’d better head home and do some work.’ He said his goodbyes and felt a pang when Ruairi, with a little parental help, waved a chubby-fingered farewell.
Back at the cottage, he reopened his laptop and stared blankly at the screen. Code stared back, uncooperative. His thoughts weren’t on ClosetAura, algorithms or anything logical. They were on Beth. On the way she’d recoiled from the baby. The flash of anguish she’d tried to hide.
‘It doesn’t bloody matter,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘ClosetAura needs your brain, not a stranger with … whatever that was.’
But the image lingered anyway.
And for the first time in a long time, something tugged Kieran out of his self-absorption. Something that wasn’t coding, coffee, or a cat named after a mythical troublemaker.