Chapter 28
Chapter 28
S truan woke with a heavy head. Saskia had already left for work, which was just as well. They had not been getting on. And the makeup sex had been good. Very good. But Struan was coming to the uncomfortable conclusion that this wasn’t quite enough. That he had been trying to find a settled relationship and do things in his life he was supposed to do—but it wasn’t making him happy, and he felt awful that he wasn’t making Saskia happy either. She wasn’t a bad person. She just desperately wanted him to be the kind of person who cared about lampshades and house insurance deals and bringing in lots of money and going out to fancy places and, well... He thought he might be like that too. But what if he just wasn’t? But he’d moved, and he didn’t have a home, and he had the audition and how would he tell her? It felt horribly complicated. It was weird, the most relaxed times he’d had in the last month were when he’d popped around to his old gaffe.
Meanwhile, the job he still had was full on. It was almost end of term, the last few days of school before the Easter holidays, which meant absolutely everyone had been completely unmanageable, not least the teachers. There was a lot of chocolate cake brought into the staff room, which meant that wee Mrs. Fichen was all sugar hyped by the end of first break and was letting her P1s run with scissors. Mr. Stryde, who had been teaching P6s for as long as anyone could remember and knew where to put a semicolon, had somehow been convinced that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 was a totally appropriate end-of-term film. That sounded about right until it got to the vivisection and blind bunny rabbit scenes and half the class erupted into devastated sobs and couldn’t be calmed down.
Struan was trying to keep his class straight for the trip, when they were nearly peeing their pants with excitement and staring out of the window, or peppering him with ridiculous questions he couldn’t answer, apart from the obvious (No, Anna-Lise, there won’t be a McDonald’s there). It wasn’t really the best music lesson to stay calm and prepped for their big trip, particularly when they bugged him to let them put some TikTok songs on and show off their dance moves and he reluctantly agreed. He was going to have to repair the damage out of his own pocket, Mrs. McGinty had sternly informed him. Struan had, yet again, managed to defer telling the head he was leaving which made him, Saskia did not hesitate to point out, completely pointless in every way.
The night before he’d had a gig with the band. They’d been playing for a wedding—first of the season. The wedding party were all heading for a blessing on Inchborn the next day. Judging by the amount they had consumed at the wedding reception there was going to be a fair number of sore heads joining the blessing. It had been a very rowdy affair, even by Scottish wedding standards; two west coast families, one protestant, one Catholic. They had wanted a ceilidh band though their first dance hadn’t been a traditional waltz; it had been a heavily choreographed Strictly -style number to “When I Fall in Love.”
Except, unfortunately, the rather over-refreshed husband had forgotten what were presumably carefully rehearsed moves, and his new wife, also quite well refreshed, had gotten very annoyed and vocal with him. This had confused him even more, and she ended up pushing him quite sharply on the shoulder, then marching off the dance floor in tears even though the song still had an endless six minutes to run. Struan and his bandmates had jumped in and timed a waltz as they turned down the recorded music, and he had encouraged all the other guests to come on and dance, which they did, until finally, rather shamefacedly, the bride and bridegroom did too, although notably not talking to one another.
They’d stuck with the fast songs, as people got steadily quite stocious, and Struan had drunk a couple of pints to deal with the heat rising in the village hall. A bridesmaid had grabbed him at the disco and made it very clear that he was going to have a dance and ideally more with her, and he’d had to politely extricate himself. It also looked like she might turn nastily physical, but Struan had always had very strict rules about drunk women, even—especially—very keen drunk women, so he sent her back to the bar. It was staffed by local students, now looking fundamentally terrified, but the distraction gave Struan a chance to make a run for it out of the fire exit with his guitar and amp, without even saying goodbye to the other lads. It wasn’t his finest hour.
The couple of pints had still made him restless though, as well as having to get back to Saskia’s flat, which he still didn’t like, plus worrying about the upcoming school trip. He had slept very badly, particularly as he remembered his sleeping bag was in the loft at his old flat.
Instead he dragged himself up early. Saskia was up too, in the gray dawn. She looked at him and he looked at her, neither quite ready to admit the obvious.
“Well, bye then,” said Struan, and she offered up a chilly cheek to kiss and he felt sorry for her, and sorry for himself.
He left the quiet estate, and texted Morag that he was coming over early. She didn’t get the message because she was already at the airport, busy with something else, something rather concerning.