Where Have All the Boys Gone?(79)

“I think I’m going to bed,” she said to Louise. “I’m knackered. Plus I need to phone Mum and Clara, make sure there’s the bare minimum of psychodrama and knife-fighting going on.”

“Sure,” said Louise, who was looking genuinely interested in Craig’s story of a deer that had been run over, much to the obvious annoyance of the pudgy blonde in the corner.

“So, you think post-traumatic stress disorder . . . how fascinating.”

OUTSIDE THE PUB, it was still sunny, even though it was past nine-thirty in the evening. It felt very peculiar. It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t freezing either, and Katie pulled her cardigan around her and decided. Two women passed by, asking if she knew where there was a nightclub. She shook her head.

As if by magic, her feet took her straight down to the dockside, near Iain’s house. She wasn’t going to . . . she definitely wasn’t going to knock on the door or anything, or, heaven forbid, look through the windows. No. Not at all. It didn’t matter if she maybe ran into him on the street, that would be entirely normal, but she certainly wasn’t snooping. And if she saw him, it would be perfectly normal. A normal thing to do in a normal part of town.

So, given she’d planned it all out so well in her head, it was quite surprising what a terrible shock she got when Iain swung around down the stairs of the narrow little alleyway with his arm around the shoulder of a blonde.

Immediately Katie backed into the shadows, until she was actually hiding behind another house. She could feel her heart race, as if it had just had a bad shock. Oh, she had to stop being so ridiculous. What did she think, that Iain, a man with whom she had had unbelievably bad sex once, ages ago, was going to be mooching around, dreaming only of her, calling her name at night, waiting for the moment he could saddle up his big white steed and ride off to scoop her up? Life wasn’t like that. Life wasn’t anything like that. Not in Katie’s life. In Katie’s life you couldn’t find a boyfriend, and you got mugged, and your family was completely dysfunctional and you kept losing your job. That was your life. She remembered, horribly, the last time she was upset down by the docks, and who had cheered her up, then she turned around and ran all the way back to Water Lane.

SHE COULDN’T HAVE wanted to face Kelpie less the next day. She felt terrible, far worse than—she tried to rationalise—their brief flingette deserved. This was pain out of proportion, and it stung, and the last thing she wanted to do now was face down some Valkyrie.

She’d have liked to have roped Louise in, but she was absolutely nowhere to be seen. Probably off fixing crows’ broken wings or something stupid like that. Well, it wasn’t like she wasn’t getting used to being on her own. The morning’s headline had been, “HUGE TOURIST BOOST FOR FAIRLISH MAKES GOLF COURSE UNNECESSARY.” She bet he’d had a huge boost, she thought. Probably more than one. At the same time. She shook her head to try to get rid of the mental images, and steeled herself for the pie shop.

The smell of fresh warm bread, and pies, made Katie breathe deeply in pleasure. Life couldn’t be all bad, she supposed, when you could smell good, fresh bread on a sharp summer morning. How could somebody who made such beautiful bread be evil? It wasn’t possible, surely. She pushed open the door.

The shop was full, for starters. Full of women, who were pointing at cakes and doughnuts and Mr. MacKenzie, and giggling amongst themselves. Suddenly, oddly, Katie felt very protective of her town, and wished they would all go away. She shook herself out of it: next, she’d be reading the Daily Mail.

Kelpie was standing next to Mr. MacKenzie, who was serving as usual; she had a face like thunder, and constantly muttered under her breath as she doled out scones and pancakes to the customers, replying with absolute scorn if anyone asked for flapjacks, foccacia, or anything invented after the First World War.

“Look at her,” said one woman, who had harshly dyed red hair. “Bet she’s a bit annoyed there’s a bit of competition around now, huh?”

“God, she’s probably been banged more times than a barn door,” said a small woman, her voice a mixture of spitefulness and envy. Kelpie flushed to the top of her pinned-on white paper hat and slammed down the paper bag in front of them, muttering something.

“Aww, what’s she saying?” said the red-haired woman. “Do they speak English up here?”

“Well, I’ve not come up to talk to the locals,” said the short woman, to general laughter.

Katie gritted her teeth. “Excuse me,” she said, making her way through the crowd. Quite a few of them recognised her and started whispering amongst themselves, a peculiar but strangely gratifying feeling, Katie found. She went right up to the front of the counter, conscious that other people would expect her to be known in the area, and thus popular.

“Um, Kelpie. Uh, can I have a word?”

Kelpie eyed her suspiciously for a long moment. “Why? Hiv you got another coachload of useless fucking London tarts you need to offload on us?”

The shop went completely quiet.

“No,” said Katie. “It’s worse than that.”

IT WASN’T ANYTHING to do with Katie that Kelpie put down her spatula and followed her out into the little square, where they shared two slices of raisin cake. It was because, she explained, she was about to punch several people in the mouth and she didn’t really want to lose her job in the bakery.