Wildflower Bay (7 page)

‘A bit of fresh air and a bunch of carnations to cheer it up a bit, and you’ll have it looking like home in no time.’ Jessie beamed at her niece before leading her through to
the bedroom. Isla closed her eyes. It was only two months. And maybe Pamela might turn out to have developed Wolverine qualities, and her bones would repair overnight.
Please
, thought
Isla.

‘The view is amazing, isn’t it?’ The side of the bay window looked down a narrow lane and beyond to the sea. She could see the ferry sailing away, and with it any chance of
escape for another two hours. Isla turned away, feeling despondent.

‘And this is the kitchen,’ Jessie called from across the hall. ‘Isla, are you there?’

‘Coming.’ She shook her head in despair and headed towards what should have been the heart of the home. Trying not to think of the sleek, metallic beauty of the kitchen in
Hattie’s place, she stepped into a room that had been the height of fashion in 1984. Pale brown cupboards trimmed with fake wood handles, a brown sink (a brown sink? Isla didn’t even
realize such horrors existed) and an under-counter fridge that hummed and rattled alarmingly.

‘I’ve made up the bed for you, and there’s a pint of milk and a packet of tea in the cupboard here.’ Jessie opened the cupboard where a tiny packet of PG Tips sat beside
a packet of chocolate biscuits, some alarmingly orange pasta sauce, and a box of Cup-a-Soups.

‘Now, I’m away on the next boat to Pamela’s place. I’m going to give you the keys to the salon downstairs so you can open the doors for the girls, but if you want to have
a wee nosey around and make yourself at home before tomorrow morning, that’s fine by me. We’re open until Saturday lunchtime, closed Sunday and Monday, and we do a half day on
Wednesday.’

‘So many days closed? Is that normal?’ She was going to be climbing the walls with boredom.

‘Well, we’ve only got our regulars and they know the days they want to come in. There’s a lassie who does mobile hairdressing for the people who can’t get out and about
so easily, and the young ones all seem to want to go off the island to have their hair cut for some reason.’ Jessie sniffed disapprovingly. ‘And of course nothing is open here on a
Wednesday afternoon. Half-day closing,’ she explained, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Which it was, Isla reflected, in 1975, which is where this godforsaken hole seemed to be stuck. She shooed her aunt out with words of reassurance, grabbed the keys and headed at speed towards
the Spar round the corner. There was only one thing for it – she was going to have to gut the place and scrub it from top to bottom before she unpacked a single thing. God only knew how long
it had been since the place had seen a duster, never mind a bottle of bleach.

By the time she’d finished later that afternoon, Isla had used the best part of a bottle of Mr Sheen, three dusters and six J-cloths. It had been absolutely no surprise
to her to discover that the bathroom was also nauseatingly green in colour, nor that the tiles were ingrained with several decades’ worth of holidaymakers’ fingerprints and grime. She
scrubbed the last of the walls with a final flourish.

The bedding she’d been left with was clean, but spark-inducingly nylon and covered with bobbles. It’d do for a night, she decided, but then she’d have to make another trip back
off the island to Glasgow to get something decent to sleep on – that, or order something online. That was a thought – she hadn’t actually found out whether the place had
broadband. Somehow, it seemed unlikely.

She searched the sitting room for a phone socket. Lying under a curtain was a yellowing plastic dial phone from the mid-seventies that was plugged into the wall. It had a dialling tone, at
least. Maybe she could ask Jessie to sort it out. In the meantime there was always the library, or an internet cafe, or – well, someone somewhere must be online, surely? The salon must have
some kind of internet connection. She opened the door that led downstairs to investigate. She’d been determined not to look until she’d finished cleaning the flat – there was only
so much grimness that one person could take.

It was everything she had expected – and more. So much more. The chairs hadn’t been replaced since the dark ages, and there were old-fashioned helmet hair-dryers, 1950s-style, in the
corner of the room. On wheels. The sinks sat in a neat row (at least they looked clean, and the taps sparkled) with a line of shampoo behind them – not the luxury aromatherapy stuff that she
was used to, but the cheapest, most chemical-saturated products available from the wholesaler. Isla shuddered. That stuff was on a par with washing-up liquid. It would strip everything from your
hair – and worse. She’d have to order in some stuff from the supplier, get it couriered up before Tuesday. The juniors’ hands would be red raw, washing hair in that stuff all day
long – and she wasn’t going to subject anyone to that.

She withdrew from the salon and climbed the stairs back up to the flat above. There was no need to sort everything out in one go, and she was suddenly absolutely ravenous.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Pulling out her hairbrush and her powder compact, she tidied herself up. It might be the middle of nowhere, but she wasn’t going to let her standards
slip. She applied a slash of Chanel red to her lips, swept a top-up layer of mascara onto her lashes, and patted some powder on her nose. With a final sweep of the brush ensuring her glossy bob had
not a hair out of place, she headed down Kilmannan’s main street.

It was every bit as grim as she’d remembered. There was a charity shop, a tired-looking newsagent’s, a bakery with the shutters already drawn closed (Isla checked the time on her
phone: half past five. The supermarket was probably shut already) and the Spar on the corner. She pushed the door open. Stacked in the corner in a bargain bin were a pile of calendars, reduced to
20p. Who on earth would want a calendar in June? Isla had a sudden thought, picking one up and popping it into her shopping basket. The choices for dinner were pretty depressing fare. She picked
the least wilted-looking packet of pre-packed salad, a vegetarian lasagne, and a pot of yoghurt from the fridge, adding them to her basket. She wasn’t going to drop her standards and start
eating crap. If the food selection was going to be this awful she’d take the car back on the ferry to Glasgow and pop to M&S once a week. It was unbelievable that people actually lived
like this.

Back at the flat – Isla realized with a grimace that she wasn’t going to allow herself to call it home, in the hope it would make it more bearable – she hung the calendar from
a hook in the wall. Then she got a marker pen out of her handbag, circled every single day that led up to the end of eight weeks, and scored through the first one.

‘I’m sorry, the reception is terrible – you’re breaking up.’

Finn MacArthur headed out of the front door, and took the narrow stone steps two at a time. He crossed to the other side of the road, which overlooked the little harbour. The
signal was far better there than it was in his little Victorian flat, where the thick stone walls kept everything out.

‘Give me two seconds – you want
how many
wooden
what
?’

‘Phallic totems.’ The voice was slightly husky, with clipped public-school vowels. ‘Penis sculptures. I was told you were the man for that sort of thing in these
parts.’

‘And you want six?’ Finn wrinkled his brow in confusion.

‘Yes, please. Quite urgently, actually.’

An elderly couple were walking towards him. He didn’t dare move, though, and risk losing reception – and a lucrative commission – at the same time. He lowered his voice.

‘You have an urgent need for six carved wooden phallic symbols?’

‘I’m sorry, what was that?’ said the woman on the end of the line.

‘I said, YOU HAVE AN URGENT NEED FOR SIX WOODEN PHALLIC –’ He stopped mid-sentence, realizing that the old man was looking at him with some distaste. His wife, however, looked
frankly fascinated, and was slowing down her already sedate pace.

‘And would you like these phalluses to be, er, erect, or . . . ?’

‘Come on.’ The old man tugged at his wife’s elbow. She had stopped now, and was taking a remarkably long time to empty the contents of her coat pockets into the nearby rubbish
bin.

‘Oh, yes, very much so,’ said the breezy voice. ‘Quite big.’

‘Right, so definitely erect.’ Finn gave a nod to nobody in particular. The old woman gave him the ghost of a wink. ‘And are we talking with, um, testicles, or
without?’

‘That’s a very good question, really, isn’t it?’ There was a moment’s pause to consider before the voice continued. ‘They might be helpful from a handling
point of view, I suppose, but – well, they’re not very aesthetically pleasing, are they?’

‘Testicles?’

‘It’s such an ugly word, don’t you think?’

‘I have to be honest, it’s not one I’m in the habit of using that often.’

The elderly gentleman coughed discreetly.

‘Anyway, it would be wonderful if you could perhaps start with just one and we can check it handles properly. It’s vital it has the right
feel
.’

The whole conversation was insane. Finn was beginning to wonder if he’d accidentally taken some kind of hallucinogenic drug with his cornflakes that morning. He looked around –
everything on the island looked as it should. Fishing boats bobbed out on the water. Little rowing boats were moored by the edge of the tiny harbour. On the beach a couple walked their dog, and a
gang of children stood by the water’s edge skimming stones.

The old couple were still hovering close by.

‘Right. Do you think it might be useful to send over a photo of the sort of thing you’re looking for?’

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Finn realized just what he had said. The old lady hooted with laughter, her husband looking on with undisguised disapproval. She was towed away
reluctantly, still laughing. ‘Yes, of course,’ the woman replied. In contrast, she didn’t find the situation amusing at all. ‘I’d be more than happy to send you over
some images. Better still, perhaps we could meet? Do you have some sort of gallery, or a studio?’

Finn did indeed. He’d cut down his hours recently, no longer working five days a week as head of forestry for the Duntarvie Estate. Having handed over control to Dave, his friend, who was
grateful for the promotion with another baby on the way, he was working on a project that saw timber from the island used to create custom-made, sustainable wooden garden furniture, and as much as
he could, he focused on his sculpture. Normally this meant a bit of pottering, doing anything he fancied, music blaring in the workshop, pleasing himself. It suited him perfectly. No ties, no
commitments. Friday evenings now and again he’d do a spot of DJing in the Winter Gardens or the local hotels if they had something on, and he picked up a bit of work playing bagpipes at
weddings and funerals; but only when he felt like it. Once in a while, he’d pick up a commission – often from one of the visitors to Duntarvie House, where his best friend Roderick
lived as Laird. Over there at the far end of the little island, in a turreted, Scottish Baronial castle buried deep in the countryside, Roderick was host to beautiful and exclusive weddings, and
the guests were often taken with the wooden carvings dotted around the public rooms. Kate, Roderick’s wife, was used to people departing with one or two carefully wrapped carvings lying on
the back seats of their cars.

Later that afternoon, with the workshop radio blasting out an ancient Oasis song and the whine of the wood plane in his ears, Finn couldn’t hear a thing. He silenced both
at the sight of a pair of extremely slim legs clad in cropped white leggings.

‘You wanted some photographs?’

Finn turned off the drill, securing the safety lock out of habit before placing it carefully on the workbench beside him.

‘Hello, I’m Scarlett,’ said the husky, breathy voice of earlier.

He looked up into a pair of navy-blue eyes in a smooth, tanned face, framed with loosely waved, streaky blonde hair. She had a smattering of freckles on her tip-tilted nose. He’d always
liked freckles on a – no, this was a work commission. He cleared his throat, brushing sawdust from his hands onto his jeans before reaching out to shake her hand.

‘Finn MacArthur.’

She cocked her chin upwards slightly, stepping back. He watched as she licked her lips unthinkingly, tugging at the neckline of her floaty chiffon tunic. She played with the crystal pendant that
hung low between her breasts.

‘So,’ he said, grinning. ‘You’re here to talk phallic symbols?’

He was amused to see a slight blush stain her cheeks. She really was very pretty. ‘We call them totems, actually. For a retreat my boss is running.’

‘Men getting in touch with their inner caveman, that sort of thing?’

Finn had recently read something about a course like that in the Sunday paper. He’d been having a pint with a mate before heading back home for a Sunday lunch with Roo. He’d laughed
when his friend down the pub had suggested it was the last thing he needed. ‘I’m not that sort of bloke, actually . . . appearances can be deceptive.’

‘Yeah,’ his mate had snorted with laughter. ‘Renaissance man, that’s you.’

Scarlett smiled slightly. ‘No, it’s a retreat for women. I’m not quite sure what they’re for –’ she broke off here, pulling a face. ‘Anyway. Here you
are.’ She held out a sheaf of priapic images clipped from magazines and tourist guides. ‘There’s a bit of a variety . . .’

Finn looked down. There was everything from minuscule men with huge erect cocks five times the size of their heads, to solid-looking wooden implements that looked like they could inflict serious
injury. A vision of a newspaper headline, MAN FELLED BY HUGE PHALLIC TOTEM, popped into his head, making him laugh aloud.

‘It’s very important this is created in the right spirit,’ said Scarlett earnestly. She moved a little closer to him.

‘Oh yes, yes, definitely.’ Finn nodded solemnly. He leafed through the pictures. Bloody hell, some of them were downright terrifying. ‘Did you have a – er, a size in
mind?’