A woman fleeing from a crisis finds echoes that she must tackle – starts at part 1/4
Melissa set about laying the dining tables for the evening. Mrs McBain had fourteen bookings and was in the lounge having a focused debate with a vacuum cleaner. She wanted the stour removed; it wanted to deposit smoking clumps of hair and breadcrumbs. As Melissa had closed the door, Mrs McBain was advancing on the wayward contraption with a window pole.
Melissa found table-laying therapeutically repetitive. She had mastered three different origami napkin arrangements and wondered which would fit Greg's menu best. She put her head around the kitchen door.
"Greg, can I ask—"
"No' noo! I'm up tae ma gunnels in onion batter." Indeed, he was elbow deep in something sticky, and seemed to be having a similar sort of equipment malfunction as Mrs McBain, and to be tackling it in a similar fashion.
"No problem!" She withdrew, with a lungful of rancid lard. The smell was unpleasantly familiar.
Melissa leaned back on the dining room wall. Waves of hot and cold passed through her. She thought that, like herself, Greg probably had his own bookshelf in his bedroom, wherever that was. She recoiled at thinking of his bedroom. She would have to risk bumping into—urgh—the monster-possibly-Greg in order to visit the cave and record when notes were left – if any more notes were left. Why hadn't she thought of that earlier? Well, because she hadn't wanted to know her correspondent's identity. She had wanted to project an ideal fantasy, which would crumble if reality interfered with it. But now that the fantasy had been shattered, she had to establish some facts in order to limit the potential ghastliness. Hopefully she could then eliminate Greg from her list of one suspect. With another rush of anxiety, she realised that the monster could just as well be Mrs McBain. Mrs McBain had, after all, seemed to know something of the cave business.
The cuddly harridan herself strode into the dining room, decorated with smoking hair and breadcrumbs, and a triumphant grin. "Guid, guid. I kenned ye'd hae it unner control. Ye awright, hen?"
"Yes, yes; I was getting carried away with the napkins and had to step away from the place-settings!"
"Right enough, ye can owerdae it."
"And Greg's a bit flustered."
Mrs McBain hooted and headed to the bar. After downing her statutory measure, she confided, "Dinnae mind his tantrums; jist yer standard creative artist." She chuckled indulgently.
Over the weekend, Melissa used her finest planning skills to arrange a schedule of cave-lurking between guest house fixtures. She would circle the beach, carefully watching for signs of activity near the cave. By Monday, she had seen absolutely no-one, so she went for a restorative seat in the dark. To her bewilderment, the cave contained a stone acting as a paperweight.
"Thank you for returning the book, but more for leaving a message. I accept your decision, but I don't understand your sentiment – our criticisms were never personal; they were entirely about the writing, which I consider fair game."
Well, that was a good point.
As she returned, she realised she could at least eliminate Greg and Mrs McBain from her suspect list: they had both been full-on all weekend. Indeed, when she reached the hotel entrance, she heard their raised voices.
Greg blared, "Have ye bothered tae check up on her?"
Mrs McBain retorted, "I'm a fine judge ae character!"
"Aye, that's how I'm here."
"Got us both oot a hole. Ach, ye've always stayed here maist ae the time since ye wis a wean."
"No' by choice."
Melissa scuttled up to her room, hating the discord. She tried to put it down to frayed nerves after the exhausting weekend, but it was obvious they were arguing about her. She just wanted peace to figure out whether she should respond to the latest note, but bigger issues kept erupting around her.
After breakfast, Melissa was settled behind the reception desk. Mrs McBain slammed into the veneer. Melissa started from her literary reverie.
"Right, hen. Need tae talk tae ye."
Melissa nodded dumbly. This was the quietest time so she assumed Mrs McBain would get straight into it, there and then. Instead she was beckoned into the office, that hamster nest of mildewed papers.
Melissa stammered, "Is something wrong?"
"I jist need some mere information – about ye."
Melissa sagged; her tentative new world was crumbling. In a gabble, she related the whole tragic story of the naïve social media episode, and consequent loss of job, boyfriend, and flat. She ended with, "So, I'm very sorry for not being open with you, but I have nothing else. I'll pack my stuff."
Mrs McBain was stunned, but her bulk blocked the door. "Wait! Wan minute till I process this." She took a full minute, eyes crawling unseeing about the ceiling.
Melissa hung limply, suspended in the disgrace of her confession.
Mrs McBain returned to the present, her eyes glittering. "Ye puir wee thing." She wrapped her arms around Melissa in a soft, stoury embrace. "Ye stay here as lang as ye like. And, by the way, I dinnae agree wi' any o' thaim."
Melissa nodded her gratitude, quite overcome.
Mrs McBain added, "I've said as much tae Greg."
Melissa was puzzled. "But I've only just told you."
"No' aboot ye; about his bother – business partner shafted him – passing aff cheap imported rock salt as local hand-thingummied sea salt; high-tailed it wi' aw the upfront proceeds jist afore they got rumbled."
"How dreadful! No wonder he's..."
"Aye. Bankrupt anyway, and trying tae prove he kenned nothing. Dinnae tell him I tellt ye."
"Of course. So we're both here to sort of escape. Thank goodness for you."
"Och, I'm nae saint. I'm no' coping wi' this place and I keep owerwurking everybody so they leave. So jist tell me when I'm asking tae much!"
Melissa gave Mrs McBain a hug back.
Feeling reprieved and still with nothing to lose, Melissa resumed spending all of her free time traversing Bimson's route around past the cave. She established various positions with a clear view of the cave entrance, and there she sat and read and watched. As soon as she had closed down this unpleasantness, she would leave the hotel. She couldn't abuse Mrs McBain's kindness. She wasn't ready to return home, but then home had also closed down. She would have to move on somewhere else.
Returning to the guest house in the afternoon, she found Mrs McBain at an unprecedented loose end.
Mrs McBain fixed Melissa with pinhole eyes. "Did ye sort aw my receipts in the office?"
Melissa tentatively smiled and nodded.
"And replied to aw the messages? And sorted the family wanting the adjacent rooms?"
Melissa braced herself for a rebuke for overstepping.
Instead she received another huge, soft hug.
Mrs McBain swatted Melissa's blouse where bits of fluff had transferred. "Whit exactly wis yeur job – afore?"
"Um, events organiser."
"Their loss is oor gain." She gestured to the office. "Never afore have we had sae many compliments."
Melissa allowed herself to fill up a little at the unexpected praise.
"No, they're no' called compliments anymere… Reviews they are noo. On the trip advisor. Greg showed me."
Mrs McBain shuffled to the screen and shouted out a few comments that were clearly praise of Melissa's efforts.
Facing this example of business-social media, Melissa felt a mixture of pleasure and apprehension.
Mrs McBain came back, right up to Melissa, suddenly hesitant. "I ken— I dinnae think— If ye'd like tae stay here and... help us... properly?" She ended with a tremulous smile.
Melissa dropped onto the reception chair and gawped.
Mrs McBain blushed and twitched.
Melissa began, "Gosh, thank you! I do like it here. Is... um... Greg OK with this?"
Mrs McBain twisted her face. "Greg's no' happy wi' anything here, or in the world generally."
Melissa smirked.
Mrs McBain looked plaintive. "Will ye think aboot it?"
The following afternoon, Melissa made her usual observation tour, pondering whether she could slot into this world despite the angry, messy man in the kitchen. As the beach came into view, her eye was caught by movement: a guy rowing a boat to the beach. Could he be...? She hurtled down to intercept him.
A lean, diffident character he was, a jack of all trades who helped anyone with anything. He admitted, "Ma pal asked me to collect something." Standard defence.
"From?" Melissa didn't know why she was being so imperious.
"Yon wee cave." He gestured. "We fun it when we were weans."
"Right." She sploshed across to the boat and lurched into it.
The guy seemed to accept this behaviour. "I jist need tae get the thing – fae the cave."
She extracted the book from her pocket and slapped it and its annotated bookmark on the bench. Then she had to swiftly blot it with her skirt to save it from brine damage. "Off we go."
He obliged. He was a taciturn chap who put his effort into the rowing. Within twenty minutes they had rounded the headland and reached the village dock. Nevertheless, she disembarked with some new intelligence.
Melissa sat in a designated grimy booth in a dingy pub. The perma-dark made it feel like late evening, and the clientele enjoyed this excuse to lengthen their leisure activity. In contrast, Melissa felt refreshingly alert, assertive and masterful. She calmly read through several chapters of Robin Tidy's The Clachan Bell. She was trying to decide whether it was heavily sanitised adult fiction or intended for children.
A body dropped onto the banquette opposite and reached for the pint placed there to lure it. The body's eyes adjusted to the gloom, causing it to suddenly make a futile effort to leap back up. Melissa's leg was unfortunately in the way. She neatly marked her place in the book and closed it.
"I wonder what you make of The Clachan Bell."
The angry, messy, sweaty, onion monster gulped, gripping the beer glass.
She continued, "Take your time. I will also be asking some personal questions, to allow me to reconcile these two, wildly different impressions I seem to have of you. After all, if we're going to be working together..."
She was determined to master exchanges in the dark.
No comments:
Post a Comment