Where Have All the Boys Gone?(43)

Once she’d started, as is often the way with this kind of thing, she found it very difficult to stop. Feeling alone, useless, and helpless, a seriously injured Fiat her only friend left in the world, she let her feelings rip, miserably conscious as she did so that Louise would in all probability be doing exactly the same thing at the other end of town, having found out about her own disappointment in the harshest way possible.

YOU CAN’T CRY for ever, even when you really want to. It’s not even that easy to cry yourself to sleep, seeing as the horrible upsetting crying part gets in the way of the nice relaxing dreaming-about-something-else part. So, finally her sobs came to a halt. She rubbed her arm across her nose feverishly, making it bright red in the process and getting traces of snot on her arm. At that particular point in time, she didn’t really care. She was going to turn around, pick up her stuff, try and bundle Louise into the car, and head for home. Olivia would probably sack her, but she’d find another job, shit, she’d done it before. Just try and chalk it up to life experience.

As she reached up, she realised her legs had gone completely numb. Suddenly, her foot skidded on some seaweed and she watched it, in horrified slow motion, as if it belonged to somebody else, until it was toppling over, and she was falling over with it, and there was nothing else she could do about it and she was heading for the cold grey water . . .

“JESUS!” came a horrified voice, as a hand snatched her jacket. “It’s not that bad!”

Stumbling backwards, she found herself in the arms of a terrified-looking Iain.

“Christ!” he said.

“I fell!” she muttered weakly. She could feel both their hearts beating quickly.

Katie was suddenly very conscious that her eyes had turned into the eyes of a zombie piglet, and her nose was a blood orange. She turned her face away over his sleeve.

“Are you stalking me again?”

With that, he let her out of his arms. “No, actually. Nobody knew where you went. After . . .”

“Yes, after I ruined everything for everybody,” said Katie miserably.

“No, no,” said Iain diplomatically. “Everyone thought it was funny, really.”

Katie half opened one swollen eye. “Really?”

“Well, not funny as such . . . more, incredibly shocking and a bit of a surprise that Harry had been keeping stuff from them, but apart from that, basically, yes, quite amusing.”

Katie let out a deep groan. “Oh God. I have to leave. Now, actually.”

“Why do you keep looking at the water when you say that?”

“No reason. I have to go now.”

“Here, you’re in no fit state to drive. Your face is all red and swollen up.”

Katie gave up trying to hide her face.

“Look, come on. At least come and have a cup of tea before you go,” said Iain. “I couldn’t send you down the road in that state.”

“I’m not going into the teashop,” said Katie fiercely.

“What about the Mermaid then? I’m sure Lachlan will make us something.”

Katie shook her head. “I don’t want to see anyone ever again.”

Iain took her hand and led her behind a large corrugated packing crate. “OK. Stay here.”

She nodded mutely.

“Do you think you could manage not to leap into the harbour for five seconds?”

“Suppose.”

“OK.”

HE WAS BACK in five minutes, with two huge steaming polystyrene mugs of builders’ tea, full of milk and sugar. It tasted like heaven. Even better, Iain reached into a paper bag and pulled out two square sausage sandwiches, liberally doused in ketchup.

“I don’t know if you’re hungry . . .” he said.

“Crying for hours always makes me hungry,” said Katie, grabbing one gratefully.

They crouched down out of sight and munched in silence for a few moments. Katie snuck a sideways glance at him. She couldn’t give two figs for the rest of it, she thought, defiantly, but she was going to miss this one.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Not at all,” he said. “You’ve given me the scoop of my career.”

She turned to face him. “You don’t mean that.”

“NO, of course not.”

There was a pause.

“Well, maybe a little bit.”

She slapped him with her napkin.

“Och, I’m only kidding,” said Iain. “I don’t mean it like that. What I mean is, this could work out OK, you know?”

Katie emphatically did not know.

Iain shrugged his shoulders. “Well, if you like . . . I mean, a golf course. Yeah, it might mean bigger money . . . and more people buying the paper . . . and more women and that.”

“Golf courses don’t let women in,” said Katie.

“Oh yeah. Well that’s a good reason against it for starters.”

“Yeah.”

“But it really would be awful, you know . . . all these corporate wankers up here, scaring the horses and giving Mrs. McClockerty an aneurysm. Nobody wants those tossers around really; we’re quite happy as we are, you know?”

She nodded.

“I know you Sex and the City girls think we’re all bumpkins and that, clinging on to some kind of Amish world . . .”