Chapter 21
Chapter 21
J ean was fizzing with excitement that Gertie had gone missing—missing! Gertie never went anywhere! Where could she have gone? It wasn’t like Carso was full of options. She was disappointed that she hadn’t been introduced to whoever the mystery man was—that there was one, Jean was in no doubt. Gertie had been mooning about for weeks, Jean recognized the signs—but maybe the new couple had just taken a nice walk.
After the final waltz, the “Auld Lang Syne,” naturally, which saw everyone form a huge circle and dance in and out, there was the usual half an hour of slightly drunk parents trying to round up their now-feral children who had their party outfits covered in mud and had decided they wanted to build nests and sleep in the trees. There was much agitated grousing as people made their way home across the fields, and some concern from the number of teenagers who had gone missing in couples, so it was all pretty much normal.
Jean got back to find Gertie upstairs; she’d gone home, to sit with Elspeth. When she’d arrived Gertie had gone into the bathroom and taken off all her makeup almost savagely. Stupid, stupid idiot.
Then she sat with Elspeth, comforted by the quiet breathing, letting their tea grow cold, and letting big fat tears drop down her cheeks. She’d run away with herself—that was what it was. Thought she was fancier than she could ever be. What an idiot. What a stupid idiot. Elspeth, half-asleep, grasped for her hand.
“You are my best girl,” she said, half-asleep, and Gertie felt comforted. A little. Not enough.
J EAN IMMEDIATELY PUT two and two together and got five.
“What happened?” she said. “Did someone do something to you?!”
Gertie shook her head. “Oh no, nothing like that.”
“Was someone mean to you? Did you go out and meet a lad?”
“I didn’t meet anyone, Mum.”
Jean was confused. “Well... well is that Morag MacIntyre being mean to you? She’s just your boss for a bit, you know; she’s not allowed to bully you.”
Gertie shook her head again. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m completely fine. I just felt tired. And I was worried about Gran.”
This was a terrible lie, and Gertie felt incredibly immoral, using the old lady for her own purposes. But she couldn’t face explaining to her mum what had actually happened. What if she laughed? And she certainly would tell everyone in the KCs. Gertie couldn’t bear their pity either. Also she knew they would say oh, she could absolutely have that stupid Calum Frost, he didn’t know what he was missing, and she couldn’t bear that either, now she knew it wasn’t true, and that she had been so stupid for ever thinking it might be. How could it be?
She went and looked at his Instagram after telling herself a hundred times that she wouldn’t. On his own account, nothing since a post about a month ago with him taking delivery of a new plane. She checked him in tagged. Sure enough, there he was, just his elbow, behind some... she sighed. Some very pretty blonde girl and her friend pouting into a camera. In London. You couldn’t see Calum, but he’d been tagged anyway so obviously they wanted people to know they’d been out with him. Gertie frowned. The girls were from a different planet. They were showing huge glossy lips to the camera and wearing tiny bikini-strap dresses. Maybe he didn’t take any pictures because he didn’t really want to be there, thought Gertie, desperately trying to hang on to her last, most faint hope that it was all an accident. She looked at one of the girls. It couldn’t be. Was one of them... was that her scarf ?!
It was! He had taken the beautiful scarf she’d put so much time and effort into... and given it to another girl. There was devotion in every stich of it and he’d just hurled it away.
She pulled up her laptop, looking at her stupid blog, considered deleting it, then looked at the Instagram picture, much larger, and bit her lip. God, her stupid blog, all about the joys and peace of crafting and knitting and creation and it was all pointless. Pointless and stupid and nobody gave a crap.
Furiously, she went downstairs, and decided she couldn’t care less, she was going to have some whisky. Then she had a little more. She wasn’t a big drinker, Gertie; she normally let the rest of the KCs get jolly. But this, coupled with the prosecco earlier, plus the fact that she’d barely eaten all day from excitement, found her vision blurring. She went back upstairs and picked up the laptop again.
“Are you all right, love?” Jean was asking, knocking at the door.
Crossly, Gertie decided she wasn’t going to stay and face them. She stomped down the little road home.
She went to bed, the room spinning, and fumed, until she finally fell asleep, awaking in the morning with a parched mouth and a shocking headache, still wearing the stupid dress, which she tore off. Thank God Morag was off first thing to Inchborn. She took an incredibly long shower, necked some paracetamol, and went straight back to bed to sleep half the day away. There weren’t any messages on her phone—there often weren’t. It never even occurred to her to check her old laptop.