Chapter 10
Chapter 10
M orag turned up early at the flat viewing because Peigi was fussing around trying to make her go to church and she couldn’t bear it anymore, plus she needed to catch the Inchborn ferry. Gertie turned up early because the timing of breaks was very strictly regulated after the whole staff night-surfing incident of 2022.
It was an old red sandstone building, common around these parts. The downstairs held a little antique shop, which was open at frankly impossible to predict times of the day and month. Gertie had rarely glanced upstairs, her gaze normally fixed to the ground as she wandered familiar streets in a dream. But the upper floor was solid Victorian architecture, and the rooms were surprisingly large and bright. There was a sitting room, with not much in it except for a working fireplace and a couple of old sofas; a small kitchen, two nice-sized bedrooms overlooking a communal garden with washing lines flapping in the wind, and a tiny box room.
It was the box room that Struan had used to store his guitars in. It was modest, but it was home and had been for a little while, and Struan found himself uncharacteristically reflective as he did what Saskia had told him and brewed coffee for the smell. Saskia’s new flat had double glazing and underfloor heating and all sorts of things like that, but it overlooked lots of other places that were all exactly the same. Whereas from here, you could sit and tinker with your guitar of an evening and look down the street and see everyone coming and going, and sometimes you’d see your mates going into the pub and in fact sometimes they’d look up to the window and wave if they saw you and you could just take yourself off for a pint. It was great.
And you could see the holidaymakers traipsing up and down and buying fudge, and if you fancied a bit of fishing, which sometimes Struan did, having the enviable job of being a teacher who never had any marking, you could follow the cunning fishermen who knew where the good spots were and when the fish were biting, even as they tried to skulk up the road in secret.
And whilst the sitting room faced northeast, the window in his bedroom faced southwest, which meant you could watch the sunsets if you wanted, from bed in the summer, when the sun didn’t set until after 11 p.m. He ran his fingers through his unruly hair. Yeah. He was going to miss this place.
The bell rang. He glanced at his watch, yawning. It was only quarter to ten. He’d been playing a wedding the previous night and hadn’t got home till late. Which was fine as he didn’t have neighbors to speak of so he could come in, heat up some food and put the TV on. He probably wouldn’t be able to do that at Saskia’s, he thought, slightly glumly. There were people all around and lots of passive-aggressive notes up in the hallways about removing shoes and not using washing machines after 8 p.m.
Oh well. Better get on with it.
G ERTIE HAD BEEN, as usual, staring at her shoes as she approached the address, and Morag hadn’t noticed her until they were both more or less there.
“Oh!” said Morag, surprised. She’d been so annoyed with Peigi on the way down and now seeing someone else—who might get the flat before her—at the door so early too was extremely annoying. Then she realized it was Gertie. “Hey again!” she said.
Gertie looked up at Morag, feeling intimidated as usual.
“Oh hello,” she said. “Uh.”
They both looked at the front door.
“Did you want the flat?” said Gertie. “It doesn’t matter. I just... I was just looking.”
“Well, come and have a look,” said Morag, encouragingly, wondering just why this girl was so timid. She had bolted after lunch the other day, whilst she and Nalitha were still trying to get their heads around whether someone who’d never been in a plane before could work for an airline.
“Well, you were first,” said Gertie. Morag looked at her hand, which had just about gone out to press the doorbell.
“I... I don’t think that’s how it works,” Morag replied and Gertie looked even more embarrassed, as she’d never been flat-hunting before and in fact had, as Jean told everyone all the time, been born in the sitting room of the house she now lived in—“the last time Gertie was in a hurry to do anything.” She didn’t mean it to be cruel; she thought it was funny.
“Okay,” said Gertie, face pink.
Morag rang and they stood back.
“Did you... did you find anyone for the job?” asked Gertie, timidly.
Morag turned to her. “Not yet.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then the door opened. And both the girls’ mouths dropped open.
“S TRUAN?!” YELLED M ORAG. “Oh my God!”
“Mores! I heard you were back in town.”
They hugged.
“Oh my God, you haven’t changed at all,” said Morag, smiling. “You’re still dressing like a student.”
“I thought you were a fancy-pants pilot now, far too important to remember your old mates?”
“That’s not true. I see Nalitha all the time. And she phones you and you’re always playing a gig.”
“I am,” said Struan with a grimace. “Guilty as charged. Why do you need a flat?”
“Long story,” said Morag. Then she wrinkled her nose. “A scary witch moved in with Gramps. Oh, there you go, not that long.”
“Coffee?”
“Yes! Do you still take nine sugars?”
Gradually, Struan realized there was somebody else on the doorstep.
Gertie stood there, trembling. It had been so long since she’d seen him—which seemed strange in a tiny town with one supermarket, where she worked, but Struan was always on the road, shopping from the garage or eating school dinners; he simply never went there.
Struan caught her eye, and everything came rushing back to her: how obsessive she’d been over every single thing about him; how she had memorized his timetable and drawn his name over and over again in the back of her jotters, surrounded in hearts and outlines and stars; how she had dreamed of him night after night, watched him perform at school shows like she was watching a young Elvis.
“Oh, hi,” he said casually. “I’m Struan.”
“Struan!” Morag admonished him. “You remember Gertie! She was a first year when we were third years.”
Struan blinked a couple of times. “Uh, sure?” he said.
“It’s okay.” Gertie’s voice sounded twisted and hysterical. “I was in a different year.”
“Can you remember your kids’ names now?” said Morag, following him inside and up the narrow stairwell.
“Yeah,” he said. “But I think I’m giving it up. Teaching, I mean.”
“Nalitha told me you really liked it.”
“I do! It’s just... my girlfriend thinks I should give the music another shot... I have a big audition for a touring show and I’ll probably get it so...”
Gertie’s heart dropped at the term “girlfriend,” although she didn’t know what she’d been expecting. She had tried for a very long time not to think about him at all; it felt very odd, like she was in a room with her thirteen-year-old self. She almost smiled when she thought how excited she would have been back then to be walking into Struan McGhie’s apartment.
“Ooh,” Morag murmured as they reached the top of the stairs. A cold sun came through the landing window and filled the apartment with light. “This is nice.”
“I don’t know why you’re sounding so surprised.” Struan laughed. Then he paused. “Hang on, I heard you got with that weirdo hermit Gregor who lives on Inchborn. God, no wonder this looks nice.”
“He’s not a hermit! That’s just his job.”
“So, just weird then.”
“He’s not... so anyway what’s your rule on pets?” said Morag.
Struan shrugged. “What kind of pets?”
“Uh. Goats?” said Morag in a very quiet voice. “And possibly the occasional chicken.”
“Oh man, he totally is weird.” Struan went over and pushed the plunger down on the cafetiere. “So, are you girls looking for a place together?”
Morag was already busying herself through the place. “You’re renting out the whole flat?”
“Yeah, it’s got two bedrooms... I was going to pick two people, I suppose... hadn’t really thought it through.”
Morag rolled her eyes indulgently. “The ad was really unclear. You have not changed at all .”
“Neither have you. You’re still a bossy pot.”
“I am not a bossy pot! Stop plunging that coffee, it’ll be a disaster...”
Struan looked at her.
“Oh, come on. Yes, what you want in a pilot is people who don’t know their own mind... Where are you headed?”
“I’m moving in with my girlfriend in Inverness.”
Morag winced. “That’s a heck of a commute.”
“A pretty one, though.”
“What if it doesn’t work out and you have to move back five minutes later?”
“Thank you for your exceptional faith in me,” he said, laughing. His mother had said exactly the same.
M EANWHILE, G ERTIE WAS wandering around the two bedrooms. They were both big. She was so used to the cramped little cottage. Not that she didn’t love it, she did, but it was so teeny and so full of stuff: wool and old crockery and, well, the entire town’s knitting circle and the bags and needles and bottles of prosecco they generally traveled with.
The room at the back, where the afternoon sun would pour in, with its view over the greens behind the flats, was so quiet, and clean, and empty. Even as Morag and Struan caught up next door, she wanted to lie down on the bed, and just enjoy the headspace and peace. It was strange; suddenly she wished she’d brought her needles with her. Knitting helped her think about things, freeing up her brain to drift, or to focus. She looked at the bed. It could use a lovely patchwork bedspread—or perhaps something classy in her beloved stripes, cozy but soft, like a gigantic baby blanket...
Could she really just move here? She had money saved; Jean wouldn’t take board money. Gertie had just never really considered it. But... could she?
She went to the door of the sitting room. The sofas looked comfortable and there was a little table where Morag and Struan were sitting drinking coffee. She beamed.
“It’s nice!”
Struan smiled back. “Thank you! Do you have any really disgusting habits?”
“I knit a lot,” said Gertie.
Struan blinked. “Do you knit... like, spiders and turds and things?”
Gertie laughed. “No.”
“Well, then that should probably be okay. Why do you knit so much?”
“Why do you have six guitars?” retorted Gertie, gesturing around the room.
Struan shrugged. “Well,” he said. “Sometimes I like to play something different... it depends on my mood. I find it...”
His voice grew more reflective.
“Music takes me away from myself... does that sound super lame?”
Gertie shook her head. “No,” she said. “That’s it exactly.”
“What do you do like that, Morag?” asked Struan.
Morag frowned. “I never relax,” she said. “You two are weird.”
“Come on,” said Struan.
Morag thought about it.
“Flying over snow,” she said finally. “And I like watching Gregor with his birds.”
Struan raised his eyebrows at Gertie and she stifled a giggle.
“Well, each to their own,” said Struan. “If I did let you this place though... I mean, Nalitha says that his goat is in love with him.”
“She’s exaggerating.”
“He doesn’t have a goat?”
“No, he does, but she’s more... in lust?”
Struan pursed his lips. “Okay. Well. Could we have a no-goat rule?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” said Gertie.
“You’ve obviously never lived with a goat,” said Morag darkly.
There was a sudden loud buzzing to the door, repeatedly. They went to the front room to peer down and see who was there.
A huge line of people snaked all the way down the street, some with large dogs or children or, in a couple of places, with full suitcases.
“Oh my God,” said Morag. “The housing crisis is... bloody hell.”
“Yeah,” Struan said. He turned to them. “Look, can you guys just take it? I don’t think I can deal.”
Morag and Gertie looked at each other. Gertie suddenly felt a bolt of excitement. Her own place?
“Sure,” said Morag.