Wildflower Bay (10 page)

‘Right, let’s get you over and sorted out.’ Isla, looking at Shannon – who busied herself stacking the towels neatly, corner to corner – decided that she
wasn’t even going to give her the satisfaction. She extended a hand to help Mrs Mac out of the shampooing chair.

‘Sit yourself down here,’ Isla gave her a smile. ‘That tea’s gone cold. Do you want me to get you another?’

Shannon had the decency to look a bit surprised, Isla noticed, as she bustled around the back room, preparing another china teacup for Mrs Mac, who was now reading a copy of
Woman’s
Own
.

‘Here you are,’ Isla placed it down carefully in front of her. ‘You relax, and I’ll just comb your hair through and neaten the ends before we get it set.’

It was like working on autopilot. Isla combed the setting lotion through, parting the hair deftly with the handle of the pintail comb, picking up one roller after another and twisting Mrs
Mac’s soft grey hair up, clipping it in place. The old lady sat peacefully, sipping her tea. Isla looked up from her work eventually, realizing that she was being studied in the mirror.

‘So, you’re Jessie’s niece.’

Isla nodded. ‘I am.’

‘And you’re a big-shot hairdresser in the city.’ Mrs Mac looked at her, pink-painted lips pursed in thought.

Isla made a non-committal sound of agreement. It sounded a bit egotistical to agree, even if she’d worked her backside off to get to that position. Somehow, in this tiny little salon, she
felt a bit awkward about flaunting the awards and competition prizes she’d won over the years.

‘Well, I was head stylist for a salon in the city centre.’ She downplayed it, realizing as she spoke that Shannon had drifted a little closer, sensing there might be gossip, and was
now spraying cleaning fluid onto the shelves behind the sinks, wiping down the surfaces, her cloth moving slowly as she flapped in on the conversation.

‘It’s kind of you to help Jessie out like this.’

Isla could have sworn Mrs Mac cocked an eyebrow at her, but in the second it took to look closely at her expression in the mirror, it was gone.

‘Well, I’m between jobs at the moment – I can’t start my next one for two months.’ Isla snapped the end on another roller, completing a neat row. ‘Gardening
leave.’

Mrs Mac nodded, saying nothing.

‘I’ve never been a fan of gardening myself,’ piped up Jinny, who’d reappeared and was standing, propped against the reception desk, a Spar bag of milk in her hand.
‘Too much mess, and all those worms and beasties and God knows what else in the dirt. It’s no’ natural.’ She waggled her pale, skinny fingers in explanation.

‘Och, I’m not that much of a fan myself,’ smiled Mrs Mac. ‘I do like my nice window boxes, mind. But I’ve a gardening friend who does them for me,
fortunately.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Isla, absently.

‘She works up at the estate, too.’

‘I didn’t realize there was a housing estate on the island. It doesn’t seem big enough.’

‘Not a
housing
estate,’ chuckled Mrs Mac. ‘Duntarvie Estate – the Maxwells’ place.’

Jinny was flicking through a magazine from the rack, forehead creased in a frown, muttering to herself. She stopped, opening up a double-page spread, and thrust it at Shannon. ‘Here. You
must’ve seen this? Debbie Anderson married Jack Starr there the other week? It was in
Hello!
’

Isla had spent most of her working life watching her clients sitting, designer clothes protected by a gown, flicking through celebrity-filled glossy magazines. She didn’t pay the magazines
much attention, only skimming through on a lunch break if she was stuck for something to read – she was generally nose-deep in her latest novel, her childhood reading habit having lasted into
adult life. Shannon, roused from her blasé attitude, pressed the open magazine into Isla’s hands with an expression of pride. ‘Look at that. I bet your hotshot Edinburgh salon
never made it into
Hello!
magazine, did it?’

Isla murmured a vague acknowledgement as she looked at the pages, seeing a huge and expensive-looking castle in the background and two fake-tanned, perfectly dressed soap stars beaming out from
the photograph. The place wasn’t familiar, but the faces were. And, Isla noticed, the hair was expertly styled – they must have brought their own stylist up with them for the event.
There was no way that had been done by anyone here in Jessie’s place. Unless there was some other salon hidden away – and she definitely hadn’t seen any sign of one during her
brief exploratory tour of Kilmannan.

‘That’s Duntarvie House in the photos, look.’ The pride in Jinny’s voice was unmistakable. ‘Imagine our island in
Hello!
magazine. Bruno from the cafe says
he had half the cast of
Hormel Heights
in there the next day, picking up bacon rolls before they got the ferry back home. Those of them that didn’t get taken off the island in a
helicopter, that is.’ Her eyes misted over, and she ran a fond finger across the page. ‘One day I’m going to live that jet-set life. Get myself a posh salon in Edinburgh. Maybe
when you’ve finished working here, Isla, you could give me a wee job working in your place? I’m a hard worker.’

Isla, who’d so far watched Jinny turn up twenty minutes late, slope off to the shop for chocolate biscuits, and now daydream over
Hello!
magazine, raised an eyebrow in the mirror at
Mrs Mac.

‘Thanks very much, dear,’ Mrs Mac opened her purse, pulling out a ten-pound note. ‘Keep the change, get yourself something nice.’

Isla dutifully slotted the money into the till, withdrawing a two-pound coin. It had been a long time since she’d received a tip like that. At Kat Black’s salon it was more likely to
be tickets to a theatre show, or a day in a spa, or a discreet fifty-pound note handed over with a smile as her client left, delighted with their latest high-fashion style.

The bell jingled as the door slid closed.

‘Well, I’m surprised to see you slumming it.’ Shannon sat back against the counter, her arms bare, ornately patterned tattoos curling down her toned bicep. ‘I
didn’t think you’d lower yourself to a shampoo and set.’

Isla looked at her with surprise. Shannon appeared to have some pretty entrenched ideas about what she was like, given that she’d only just walked in the door. ‘What did you
expect?’ Her tone was sharp. ‘Some of us are here to work.’

Shannon gave a begrudging nod. ‘Aye, and I’m glad to see you’re more than happy to pull your weight. Making tea and all.’

‘That’s what I’m here for.’

By the end of the day Isla had done four more shampoo and sets, trimmed three shaggy-ponytailed little girls’ fringes, and dealt with the unexpectedly long comb-over of a
gnarled old farmer who parked his tractor on the road opposite, lumbered in in work overalls, and demanded ‘his usual’.

‘I don’t know what your usual is,’ Isla had explained, trying to be diplomatic.

‘Damned if I know,’ he’d replied, waving an arm around his head as if he was expecting the answer to suddenly materialize. Shannon and Jinny had been hiding, sniggering, in the
corner.

‘Let’s just give it a bit of a trim all over,’ Isla had said, sitting him down in the chair. He’d left quite satisfied, the long strands of hair still balanced across his
bald head, and beamed with delight as he paid, explaining as he did so that it was the Young Farmers’ ball that evening and he was helping out on the door, so it was a good job he looked
sharp.

It had been a long day. Isla, accustomed to long hours on her feet, was surprised by just how tired she was. It was the newness of everything, she told herself – not to mention the
incessant questioning of every client, who wanted to know all about her and how she’d ended up here, and how was Pamela’s arm doing, and how long would Jessie be away?

‘Fancy a quick drink down the Belmont?’

Isla had been wiping over the counter of the reception desk when Jinny’s clear voice broke through her thoughts. She carried on, assuming Shannon was going to respond.

‘Isla?’

She looked up, surprised. Jinny’s expression was kind, and she was talking to her. ‘We’re going for a quick cider. It’s a tradition on a Tuesday. Well, on most days, if
I’m honest. If I go home I end up having to help Mum out with dinnertime, and that lot are hard enough work as it is, so it’s worth staying out of the way until they’ve eaten.
Anyway, we always need something to look forward to, and Shannon’s hoping Rab will be behind the bar, aren’t you Shan?’

Shannon looked up, indignant. ‘I am not.’ She flushed pink, belying her words. ‘I told him I wasn’t going out, remember?’

‘I’ll get the drinks. You can hide behind the snooker table. Isla?’

‘Thanks, but no, I’m fine.’ Isla had made it a rule that she didn’t mix work and social life. She’d watched the girls and boys from Kat Black’s salon follow
the old adage of working hard and playing hard, but she didn’t want to appear unprofessional, and she certainly didn’t want to give them anything on her. And, God, if her one drunken
champagne experience was anything to go by, that had been a sensible decision.

An hour later, she happened to be looking out as Jinny and Shannon emerged from the pub opposite. Sharing a hug and a last joke that set them off giggling, they left for home in opposite
directions. Isla, who’d cleaned the kitchen and put a vegetarian lasagne for one in the oven, looked on silently from the window of her borrowed flat. It was best to stick to her
no-socializing rule. No matter that it meant she’d only ever gone out once in a blue moon, when Hattie happened to be around to offer her the scraps of friendship she had left over after her
packed weekends. Clichéd as it might sound, Isla knew that if she could just reach all her goals, get her life sorted,
then
she’d sort out the social-life side of things.

The school reunion was going to be the start of it. Helen had been messaging her via Facebook, asking what Isla was planning to wear and worrying that she couldn’t fit her post-baby tummy
into the dress she’d chosen. It was quite nice to have someone to chat with – and it made the idea of the reunion a tiny bit less terrifying. She was going to show everyone what
she’d made of her life – ‘smelly Isla, Isla-no-clue, Isla-no-mates’. Only then could she prove she’d made it; and then, with that point made, she’d get on with
sorting out the rest of her life. It would all fall into place then, she was certain of that. She didn’t need Shannon’s copy of
The Rules
to work this stuff out.

Ruth MacArthur might have been eighty, but she wasn’t too old to appreciate the new fashion for beards – although, thankfully, they weren’t those hairy,
scruffy ones that had been around in the sixties and seventies, when everyone looked like they needed a good wash. No, these beards were well trimmed, and looked lovely. And there was no getting
away from it: Doctor Lewis was a good-looking man. The mischief-maker in her was tempted to ask the young doctor if she could give his beard a wee pat, just to feel the springy sensation beneath
her hands. He wouldn’t take it well, though. He’d probably think it was a sign she was losing the plot. Mind you, if she was thirty years younger, she’d . . . Ruth paused for a
moment in the doorway of the surgery, rubbing in a squirt of the newly installed antibacterial hand gel. She counted the years in her head. Forty years younger, maybe, she supposed.

It was a bit unfair that the body aged at a completely different rate to the mind. Nobody ever told you that part. They talked about the arthritis, and getting forgetful, and all that nonsense.
When she was a wee girl, she’d imagined herself growing up into a tiny, contented little old lady, but it hadn’t seemed to work out that way. Just the other day she’d been walking
past the window of the pet shop and had caught a glimpse of the reflection of an elderly woman hunched in a raincoat, shopping bag over one arm, head bowed against the spring rain. It had been a
moment before she’d realized that the image she was looking at was her own. The change from spry young woman – she’d had a lot of looks in the old days, turning heads at the
Winter Gardens dances – to this creaky old shell had apparently happened, somehow, when she wasn’t paying attention. It didn’t make much sense. She’d walked down to the
cottage along the old familiar streets, head full of memories. That afternoon, in her head, she was seventeen and full of energy, slim and bright-eyed, up to mischief. She still didn’t feel
like a proper grown-up inside.

Back home, Ruth hung up her raincoat on the peg by the front door and slipped off her shoes, easing her feet into slippers with a sigh of comfort. It was good to be home, and a cup of tea was
just what she needed.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, she pottered around the sitting room of the cottage, turning on the television in time for the lunchtime news, straightening the neat row of cushions that sat on
their points against the back of the sofa. She never sat there, preferring the upright armchair that her grandson had bought for her and carted back over from the specialist shop in Glasgow.
She’d protested at the time that she was fine as she was, but she had to admit to herself (if not to him) that it made a huge difference. Getting up and down out of that low sofa had been
increasingly difficult, but she could sit quite comfortably in her chair, with Hamish the cat curled up on a cushion on her knee, and watch the world go by outside the window. One of the nicest
things about getting old was the absolute delight she now took in a nice sit-down and a cup of tea.

Hearing the kettle click off, she turned back, knocking a picture from the mantelpiece as she did so. Dusting the top of it with the sleeve of her cardigan, she placed it back alongside the
collection of others, which jostled for space. A blond toddler grinned out at her, sitting beside a pretty young woman, her hair cut in a punky 1980s style reminiscent of Shannon’s newest
look. She had an arm slung round the little boy’s shoulder and they were holding a melting ice-cream cone each, squinting into the late summer sunshine, sitting on the wall by the river up in
Inverness, the castle in the background, the Highland sky a cloudless blue. Ruth closed her eyes for a moment and could hear the gulls circling overhead, the excited chatter of children as they
poured off the boat for their holidays, the jangle of the little merry-go-round that was parked beside the bowling green by the promenade. That had been one of their good days. One of the last good
days.