Chapter 14
I marched back into town in the cooling air, arms tightly crossed over my body. Only Scotland could feel both muggy and cold at once. The mid-May sky didn’t darken. It just became paler. A cornflower twilight hung overhead as the trees became silhouettes. Burnt-out matchsticks.
I rubbed my thumbs along my shoulders.
The brighter nights of the year had always held such a pervasive sense of ‘ending’ to me.
This is it, they seem to say. There will be nothing more.
It’s over. I remembered lying alone in my bed as a child, watching the sunlight fade, suddenly terrified that I would never see it again.
A windy cliffside in the setting sun. A yellow kite high in the sky.
Two golden-haired girls laughing. The whole world drawing further and further away until it was just me, alone in the dark, forever.
I shook my head and uncrossed my arms.
No. I wasn’t going to do that anymore. No more ruminating. No more worrying over every tiny detail looking for the one that’s wrong. I was going to focus on the now. I was going to be friendly and sociable. I was going to be happy.
I was going to be better.
When I got back into Carlinsrest, I followed the directions Rowan had given me.
I walked past Maggie’s Café twice before finding the right small alley.
It was a thin path that ran a shortcut between the main street and the street that held the hardware and supplies store.
It definitely looked like the kind of place locals went to hide.
I turned left and found a courtyard, half paved and half cobbled, bordered with pots and trellises holding a smattering of hardy flowers and creepers.
At the opposite end of the courtyard was a set of lead-lined windows.
They had panes of that old-fashioned glass with a ripple effect, as if someone had dropped a pebble in a square pond.
The kind that made everything seen through them look all wibbly-wobbly.
The light from the windows warmly lit a couple of smokers chatting in the paling evening outside, their pints—in those old-style glasses with the handles—perched atop an upturned barrel.
A few kegs lined the wall and a scraggly bay tree stood guard by a green wooden door with a small stained-glass window.
Above the door, two light fittings illuminated a line of tarnished-brass-effect plastic letters reading “The C_urtyard”.
The small metal studs where the “o” had once sat were still embedded in the grey stone wall.
So that’s what Rowan had said: ‘Curtyard’.
An inside joke. An inside joke of which I was now a part.
This was definitely the place. I hope I’d dressed right.
The smokers silently nodded to me—as if I were a local already!
—as I made my way inside. I had the distinct feeling that I wasn’t just stepping into a pub. I was stepping into my new life.
The Curtyard was warm and loud, a haven from the clinging damp and the gloom outside.
People drank and gossiped in clusters around the small bar.
Rows of spirits and optics lined the mirrored wall behind it.
On the top shelf, a variety of china zebras looked down at the drinkers.
Kissing zebras, drunk zebras, zebras doing ballet, zebras wearing sunglasses.
Beneath this stripy zoo, hung up on a hook next to the bell that I assumed called time, was the Curtyard’s missing ‘o’: a circle of brass-coloured plastic, chipped at the edges, with a small handwritten note beneath reading: ￡10 for 3 tosses.
I watched as someone handed over a note and tried to throw the ‘o’ over the rows of whisky bottles. After failing to land on any of the flashier malts, he was slapped on the back and given a double of a cheap blend.
To the right, tables clustered around a darts board and booths lined the wall.
All the furniture was made of old dark wood, and the walls were decorated with green wallpaper reminiscent of the pine forests on the hills outside.
A wagon wheel had been repurposed into a low chandelier with a rim of large, dusty bulbs—the ones with the wire filaments that hipsters loved so much these days.
To the left a long seating area led to a rustic stone fireplace.
Sat by the hearth was a scuffed wing chair and a power-assisted wheelchair.
Inhabiting these chairs were the elderly couple I’d met yesterday on the bridge.
I blinked in surprise. It was definitely them.
The lady was still conked out, a line of spit glinting on her chin in the wagon wheel light.
The old man bent over to pour some of his beer in the collie’s water bowl, then leant back in his chair and brought the same glass up to his lips in a slow, careful movement.
I thought of the two fifty-pound notes I’d rescued for him earlier, and wondered if they were now being used to get a dog drunk.
A voice called from one of the booths behind me.
“Hey, Tamsin! Over here.”
Rowan was sat at a table by the window.
Next to him was the sullen-faced man from the antiques shop.
I stopped in my tracks. No. It couldn’t be.
He wasn’t Rowan’s phone-alert-obsessed other half, was he?
He glanced up at me coolly, did a doubletake then mouthed a swearword.
Oh God. I couldn’t back out now. Rowan had already waved me over.
I forced a smile to my face and walked to the booth, praying they hadn’t just been discussing me.
The sullen-faced man took a sip of his beer and looked out the window.
Rowan got up from his seat, only to awkwardly sit back down again as I arrived.
“You found the place alright then.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Rowan’s manner toward me seemed unchanged. Maybe his boyfriend hadn’t shared my faux pas from the antiques shop yet. There was only one thing for it. I had to make a good second impression. I turned to the sullen-faced man. “Hi, I’m Tamsin. I’m new here.”
“I can see that,” said the man.
Rowan gave him a nudge. “This is my partner, Fergus. He works at the—”
“The antiques place,” I said.
“Oh.” Rowan looked between us. “You’ve already met. Amazing.”
Fergus nodded tersely.
“Hi, Gus.” I put out a hand.
“Fergus,” he corrected sternly and looked away.
I retracted my hand. “Sorry. Fergus.”
“Tamsin,” Rowan continued, “has just moved into the Sgàthan Sìth cottage.”
Fergus turned back to me, suddenly interested.
“Sgàthan Sìth?”
My hopes raised.
“Yeah. I’m in 1b. There’s… someone else in 1a.”
“I didn’t realise it was two houses.” Rowan looked at Fergus. “Was it always split like that?”
Fergus shrugged. I thought of the sealed door in the basement.
“Looks like,” I said. “We share a chimney, I think, but we have separate front doors. I’ve not been inside 1a, but I’m guessing it looks like mine, but backwards. Mirrored.”
“They used to have long terraces like that all over,” said Fergus. “For farmhands, then for seasonal workers.” He glanced down into his pint glass. “Now they put all the workers in caravans and sell the buildings to rich English cunts for second homes.”
Rowan cleared his throat in Fergus’ direction. Fergus rolled his eyes. I smiled, determined to be undeterred.
“Well, not this one,” I said. “I’m here to stay.”
Fergus cast a cold look at me.
“Aye, course you are.”
“Fergus is right,” said Rowan quickly and a little too brightly. “They’re probably farmhand cottages.”
“I didn’t see any farm buildings close by,” I said.
“Probably an old farm then.” Rowan turned again to Fergus. “Do you know whose farm they used to belong to?”
Fergus lowered his voice, “Well, it’s a bit of an old story.”
Ok, this felt a bit more promising. Sharing stories. I leaned forward.
“Yeah, Rowan was saying something about that—”
“It’s just had few people live there over the years,” Rowan leapt in. “No one ever seems to stay but—”
“You know the mound it’s set on?” said Fergus.
I nodded.
“That’s a hollow hill.”
“What’s a hollow hill?”
“It’s one of the ancestral homes of the Fair Folk.
A fairy hill. Story goes the man who built those cottages wasn’t from around here, so he didn’t know he should leave the hill be.
He was starting a goat farm to make his own leather.
He was an excellent leatherworker, but he wanted to control the entire process from start to finish.
Herding, culling, tanning, the lot. One day, the man’s youngest son disappeared right out of his bed.
They looked all over for him and eventually found the boy in a small clearing in the woods.
But something was wrong with him. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t laugh, couldn’t talk.
Just stared. There was talk that the Fair Folk had stolen the boy away and replaced him with a soulless double.
Just as the man was deciding what to do with the boy, he disappeared.
The whole family died of cholera the next summer.
The man’s final words were, I never should have built those damned cottages.
Now whoever lives there has terrible luck. ”
I gripped the table.
“Really?”
“Nope.” Fergus’s face split into a grin. “I had you there, didn’t I?”
“What?”
Rowan rolled his eyes. “’Sake, Ferg. He’s telling you stories. Even had me with that one for a moment there.”
My face felt hot. Fergus shrugged.
“Your house probably belonged to a smaller farm, back before they all got bought up by the larger ones,” said Fergus. “Gobbled up to make them bigger and bigger. Digging up the hedges and turning the patchwork into one big boring blanket of rapeseed or potato.”
The table went quiet.
I thought of the Sgàthan Sìth cottages. Just the two little houses left, holding hands together on the hill, like abandoned conjoined twins, forever reflecting each other until the hotel chain and the digger comes to mow them down.
“Well, I hope you feel at home soon,” said Rowan. “I know what it’s like to move to a small village. Especially one filled with grumpy locals like Fergus, here.”
Fergus huffed. I forced a smile for all Rowan’s trying. I hated that he had to try.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have come.
As the thought entered my head, she walked in the door.
I looked up and saw a face in the crowd, smiling in my direction. I recognised the lank hair and the round watery eye. I quickly turned away and tried not to make eye contact.
It was the woman from next door. My neighbour. She was here.
And she was coming this way.
I snuck a second glance as she filtered between people.
Her hair looked half wet. She’d probably only just stepped out of the shower before heading out.
She wore a white blouse that fit her like a potato sack, and weird, tacky black trousers.
Not that it mattered with the way she hugged her arms around her chest. So defensive.
As if she were trying to hide inside herself, tucked away in her own ribcage, peeking out between the bones.
But her eyes were bright and wide and trained on me. Unblinking, open, hopeful. And her smile. The smile was new. A weird, wide, toothy smile.
I slid down into my seat.
I remembered offering to pick her something up from the village yesterday morning.
You’re very generous.
Guilt gripped me. I wondered if she knew I’d ditched her.
Out the corner of my eye I saw her hover over Rowan’s shoulder.
Oh no, I knew that hover. I’d used that hover while waiting to be noticed by chatting colleagues.
I knew the dilemma: you need to talk to someone, but you don’t want to be rude.
So, you decide to wait until they’re done talking.
But they’re never done talking. They keep going.
And you’re just standing there attentively, like a lemon, a big stupid grin on your face, waiting, and they won’t stop.
And it’s slowly becoming more awkward, the longer you stand there, far too close to them now, and clearly listening but not saying anything.
You know you should have just made yourself known from the start.
Said, ‘Sorry to interrupt, but…’ Said something, anything.
Not just stand there, smiling, like a massive creep.
Like she was doing now, my neighbour, the wide smile straining on her face, clearly not reaching her wide eyes.
God, I could see the whites all around her irises.
She was terrified. She was terrifying. Had I looked like that?
I’d always wondered if the folks I’d hovered next to, waiting for a good time to speak, had noticed me hovering there.
I’d hoped they’d been unaware, but now I saw how stupid that was.
The people they were speaking with were able to see me.
I was standing right in front of them. They were probably very aware.
As they continued on with their talk, they were probably thinking:
Oh dear God, she’s behind me, isn’t she?
What does she want? Why does she have to be so bloody weird?
Does she need something? Or—please no—does she want to be involved in the conversation and is doing it in the most uncomfortable way possible?
Is she hoping we’ll all feel too awkward and include her?
I knew she was odd, but that’s just manipulative.
At first, I pitied her, but now I fucking hate her.
Maybe if I just keep ignoring her, she’ll get the message and fuck off.
Rowan stopped mid-sentence.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, too fast, too loud, too direct.
He flinched, blinking.
Fergus raised his eyebrows.
I looked at my lap.
“Sorry.” I shrugged, laughed at myself. “I was a little distracted by—”
I looked up and my neighbour had disappeared.
I scanned the pub for her, but The Curtyard was getting busier.
People crowded the bar and voices bubbled around me.
I craned my neck to see around all the many bodies, thinking I’d caught sight of her limp hair or her baggy blouse, but I’d lost her. It was like losing track of a spider.
Underneath the unease, there was that strange sense of familiarity again, that thing I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That nagging sense that I had seen her before.
The table went very quiet.
Fergus drummed his fingers on the wood. He gave Rowan a pointed look then got up from the table.
“Shall we get some more drinks, then?”
“Oh, um, yeah. I’ll help you with them,” said Rowan.
He followed Fergus to the bar before I could protest.
I smiled politely, but if anyone had bothered to look closely, they would have seen my eyes blaring, ‘please don’t leave me alone’.
Then, as if right in my ear, real enough to feel cold breath on my cheek, the question again:
Do you think you’re a good person?