Kerry Barrett - Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered

I jumped up to hug her – and close the door behind her because I was freezing.

‘I heard you were back,’ Chloé said, pulling up a chair. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

I grinned at her. The infamous Loch Claddach gossips had clearly been doing a good job.

‘I’ve not even been here a day,’ I laughed. ‘How did you know I’d arrived?’

Chloé rolled her eyes.

‘Mrs Parkinson saw you drive in last night,’ she said. ‘She called Mum, and Mum called me. I thought you’d be here so I left the kids with their gran until Rob gets home and popped down.’

My smile faltered slightly. In my opinion Rob and the kids were the reason Chloé and I had grown apart. Inseparable at school, we’d remained close when I left Claddach. But after uni, while I threw myself into my work, Chloé married Rob, took a teaching job in Inverness, moved home and squeezed out two children in quick succession. After that we didn’t have much in common any more though we’d kept in touch with regular emails. I told myself I was bored with Chloé’s talk of nappies and nurseries but the truth was I was a little in awe of her. She seemed like a proper grown up, while I still felt like a child. Now, even though I was pleased to see her, I sat awkwardly opposite her, not sure what to say next.

‘So,’ I finally began as Eva put a cappuccino in front of Chloé without being asked. ‘Is everything still shit?’

Chloé laughed and looked sheepish.

‘I was a bit overdramatic in my last email,’ she said, sticking her finger in the froth of her coffee. ‘It’s just things haven’t exactly worked out as I planned, you know?’

I nodded, even though in terms of my career, things had worked out exactly as I’d planned.

‘I never thought I’d be stuck here, no job and two kids before I’m even thirty.’

‘But you’re feeling better now?’ I asked.

Chloé leaned forward.

‘Thanks to Suky,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling – only you. Not Rob, or my mum. Then I was in here a few weeks ago and Suky brought me a cake I hadn’t ordered. You know how she does?’

‘I do.’ I eyed Chloé’s cappuccino, which she hadn’t ordered either, suspiciously.

‘Anyway, about two days later I bumped into Mary – she’s the head at the primary school here – we got chatting and she mentioned they needed someone three days a week to do extra tuition with some of the kids. We had a chat, I taught a lesson for her, blah blah, you know the drill. And I’ve got a new job, which is perfect. And then I mentioned that I’d been looking at the MAs in the Open University brochure, Mary made a couple of calls and suddenly the council is funding me to do the course I want. Isn’t it funny how these things just happen?’

‘Isn’t it,’ I said drily, glancing at Eva, who was studiously ignoring us.

‘I think I was one of the last people Suky helped actually, before…’ She paused. ‘You know.’

I didn’t want to talk about Suky’s cancer right now. I changed the subject.

‘So what’s going on here?’ I asked, though I didn’t really care.

‘Ooh well there is some gossip. Have you heard it?’

‘I’ve only just arrived, Chlo,’ I said.

She stared at me, as if to say so?

‘I haven’t heard any gossip.’

‘There’s a hot new man in town,’ she said.

‘Really?’ This was interesting. ‘Permanently?’ Claddach had a stream of ever-changing arty visitors but no one ever stayed long.

‘Apparently so. For the foreseeable anyway. And…’ She was almost bouncing in her chair with excitement. ‘He’s American. Some dotcom millionaire.’

‘Probably one of Harry’s friends,’ I said. Harry’s business – a self-help empire – had started online.

Chloé looked deflated.

‘Oh do you think?’

‘Joke.’

Chloé rolled her eyes and carried on as though I hadn’t spoken.

‘Anyway, he’s hot, rich, American – the women of Claddach are in a frenzy.’

I chuckled.

‘Millicent Fry is beside herself,’ Chloé said.

‘Who’s she?’

‘Oh she’s a treat,’ said Chloé. ‘One of the rat-race escapees.’ Claddach was full of people running from life in Glasgow, Edinburgh or down south. There were writers, artists, poets, potters, silversmiths – all sorts.

‘So what does she do?’ I asked.

‘She runs the B&B,’ Chloé said. ‘Only she calls it a boutique hotel.’

She carried on talking, but I had lost interest as self-pity overwhelmed me. All these people escaping the rat race and I couldn’t wait to get back to it.

‘Mum wants me to stay,’ I said, interrupting Chloé’s tales of Millicent Fry.

‘Will you?’

I shrugged.

‘I can’t really. There’s work…’ I trailed off, knowing it was a rubbish excuse.

‘How are things with your mum?’

‘Better. The same. Worse,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. It’s going to be strange living in the same house again.’

‘Could be just what you need,’ Chloé pointed out. ‘It’s been ten years, Ez, since all the stuff with Jamie…’

She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I haven’t told you!’

‘Told me what?’ I said. ‘What on earth is that?’

A woman was walking past the café wearing a Barbour jacket with a tartan tam o shanter perched on her blonde curls.

Chloé turned to look at what had caught my eye. She grinned in delight.

‘That,’ she laughed, ‘is Millicent Fry.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘Why is she wearing that hat?’

Chloé chuckled. ‘She’s not Scottish,’ she said. ‘But she’d like to be. She wears a lot of tartan.’

Together we watched Millicent walk up the path into the town centre. Then Chloé got up.

‘I must go,’ she said, giving me a kiss. ‘I need to rescue Rob from the children– he’s due at work soon. Come round for dinner?’

I agreed to see her later and said goodbye. As Chloé left the café, Mum came in and my good mood left me almost immediately. I knew she was there to do some enchanting and I knew she wanted me to do it too.

‘Hello, darling,’ she tinkled at me across the empty tables, falsely bright.

I heaved myself up from my comfy seat and slunk across to the counter where Mum and Eva stood.

‘Hello,’ I said sounding exactly as I had when I was a moody teenager.

‘Ready?’

‘Not really.’ I was nervous, actually. What if I made everything go wrong? My magic wasn’t great at the best of times.

‘It’s all nothing to worry about,’ Mum tried her best to reassure me as she and Eva steered me into the kitchen behind the counter, where Eva had started to bake a big bowl of something that smelled yummy.

I forced a smile.

‘Just tell me what to do, I’ll do it and then I’m out of here,’ I said. I didn’t mean to be so grumpy but somehow I couldn’t help it.

Mum handed me a wooden spoon. ‘Stir this.’

I stirred the huge bowl half-heartedly.

‘Put some welly into it,’ Eva said, as she reached up on to a shelf for a big bag of chopped dates and passed it to me.

‘Add these to the mixture,’ she said. ‘Honestly, don’t worry. You’re not doing this alone – we’re a team here.’

I poured the dates into my mixture and smiled at Eva doubtfully. I wasn’t convinced by her breezy good humour.

‘You don’t know my track record,’ I said, thinking of the broken light bulb in my bedroom and the car hire woman’s computer.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said again. ‘Stop fretting.’

I nodded slowly. ‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Wrinkling my nose, I peered into the bowl I was stirring. It was full of a dark brown, lumpy mixture.