The Dog Share. Fiona Gibson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ And then there’s the smokery,’ I added. ‘They do incredible fish, apparently. Buckingham Palace has a regular order for kippers. In fact, the island’s name comes from the Gaelic word for herring – sgadan – so Sgadansay actually means “Isle of herring” …’ A factlet I’m sure you’re fascinated by, I reflected, sensing Mum’s interest dwindling now it had become clear that I would Not Be Riled. ‘And we’re planning to do loads of hiking,’ I breezed on, ‘up and down hills in our anoraks …’

      ‘Do you even have an anorak?’

      ‘I’ll get one. And waterproof trousers. There are these amazing silver sand beaches and we don’t want the weather to hamper us …’ And then there’s shagging, I yearned to add, keen to wrap up our chat now. If it pours down all week – which I fully expect – I’m planning to cram the fridge with wine, draw the curtains and we’ll shag each other senseless, in our anoraks. I might even ask Paul to smack me with one of those artisanal kippers. ‘And there’s probably a church we can visit,’ I added.

      ‘Well, I hope you have fun,’ Mum remarked tartly, and we finished the call.

      In fact, although it pained me to the core, I could understand why she was so perplexed about our trip. As far as Paul was concerned, holiday heaven meant glorious sunshine and music blaring from beach bars – and he always wanted to make friends with everyone. We’d been together six years, and although I’d always enjoyed our jaunts, occasionally I yearned for wide-open spaces and for it just to be the two of us. Frieda, my daughter, had already left home and her brother Isaac would soon be flying the nest too. There was no reason, I kept telling Paul, why we couldn’t have a few days in the country as well as our usual fortnight in the sun.

      However, he’d never really ‘got’ the countryside, and became visibly twitchy if he found himself in it accidentally. We never even went to parks together, unless we were cutting through one to get to somewhere else. And now he’d booked a holiday that would be entirely focused on country walks, and require polo necks?

      I couldn’t ignore the fact that it was completely bizarre. But I was damned if I was going to admit that to Mum.

      Those thoughts soon blew away on the cool breeze as the ferry approached the quayside. We’d have a wonderful time here, I just knew it. It was a beautiful blue-skied April afternoon, and my heart soared like the seagulls squawking overhead.

      We stayed in a tiny whitewashed cottage close to the shore. Whatever the weather, we’d pack up hearty picnics and set off on hikes along the rugged coastline or up into the hills. Eagles soared above us. We saw red deer who stopped and glanced at us briefly as if to say, ‘So, who are you?’ before scampering away. We rolled up our jeans and paddled in crystal clear streams and fell back, laughing, onto pillows of springy heather.

      Our holiday was certainly revealing a side to Paul that I’d never seen before. But I wasn’t complaining. I loved the glorious beaches where we’d barely see another soul, and the wonderful bakery, the old-fashioned sweet shop and the cosy pubs in the town. As I photographed a terrace of impossibly cute cottages – each one painted a different pastel shade – we joked that they’d probably been natural, unadorned stone until Instagram had come along. Then out had come the paint rollers and the jaunty colours.

      Not once did Paul grumble about the fierce winds or sudden downpours that soaked us to the bones. The local fish and chips were heavenly and seemed to taste even better when we ate them huddled together for warmth in a covered wooden shelter facing the choppy sea. One evening we treated ourselves to a vast seafood platter – everything caught mere hours before we devoured it – at an elegant art deco hotel.

      ‘Is it because of your dad that you wanted to come here?’ I asked that night as we strolled back to the cottage.

      ‘Kind of,’ he said. It made sense that Paul had been drawn to Scotland, which, in turn, had led him to researching the Outer Hebrides for our trip. Ian had been a ducker and diver, owning various ramshackle hotels in Yorkshire before making his final purchase way up north, in Fort William. He’d loved the Heather Glen Hotel so much he’d moved to Scotland permanently and spent his final years living in its annex of leaky attic rooms.

      Like his father, Paul had never had a thought-out career plan. When I’d met him he’d been flogging spicy sausages from a fast food van close to York Minster – but that enterprise hadn’t lasted long and there had been a string of ill-fated schemes since then. ‘When’s Paul going to settle down?’ my sister asked a couple of Christmases ago at her place. She and her marathon runner husband Derek live in a vast modern detached house on the outskirts of Leeds. Their kitchen island probably rivals some of the smaller Scottish isles in terms of square footage. Child-free by choice, and with a law degree and a high-flying job with the civil service, Belinda has always relished her wiser older sister role.

      ‘He’s fine,’ I replied, defensively. ‘There are plenty of things he can do. He’s very resourceful.’

      ‘Hmm, is that what you call it? And you being freelance as well,’ Belinda added. By a weird kind of fluke, I had become an in-demand writer of obituaries for newspapers. So much work had poured in – because people are always dying – I’d been able to quit my lacklustre job at a recruitment consultancy to focus on writing full-time. ‘I don’t know how you can stand the uncertainty, Suze,’ my sister had added. ‘Will he still be like this when he’s fifty? Sixty? For the rest of his life?’

      I don’t know! I wanted to tell her. Anyway, what does it matter to you what he does? The thing is, I’d always reassured myself, you don’t fall for someone on the basis that they’re a settled option. At least I don’t. Yes, Paul was certainly fickle and perhaps not your go-to person if you wanted advice on investments or domestic boiler maintenance policies. But I loved him, and during those long, blissful days as we explored Sgadansay together, I don’t think I’d ever felt happier.

      Paul booked us onto the whisky distillery tour where a homely lady in an Aran sweater and tartan trousers talked our small group through the distillation processes. We sampled the whiskies and met the master distiller, a rather gruff elderly man with a rangy build and neatly cropped silvery hair. Apparently, his main method of maintaining quality control involved an awful lot of tasting. ‘It seems terribly unscientific,’ someone murmured.

      ‘It is scientific,’ our guide said with a smile, ‘but it’s about instinct, too. Isn’t it, Harry?’

      He nodded and looked around at us as if wishing he could get back to work, instead of being forced to talk to visitors.

      ‘But how d’you know when it’s right?’ asked a portly man from Texas.

      ‘Experience,’ Harry said with a shrug.

      ‘Harry’s been our master distiller for thirty-five years,’ the tour guide explained. ‘There’s nothing he doesn’t know about whisky.’

      ‘I’m happy to apply for the job, if ever you want to step aside.’ The Texan chuckled. Meanwhile, Paul kept pinging questions to the ever-patient guide: What creates a whisky’s distinctive flavour? Was it the water, the climate, or the casks in which the spirit matures slowly over several years?

      ‘When you strip it down to the basics,’ she explained, ‘there are three main components to whisky, and they happen to be the very ingredients that are essential to a healthy, happy life.’ She looked around at us. ‘Can anyone guess what they are?’

      Paul cast me a bemused glance СКАЧАТЬ