HOBBIES: Skulkin’ aboot. Cadging scraps from Tam’s chippy
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF: A Good Boy
LOOKING FOR: Damsels in distress to rescue, scratches behind ma lugs, anybody’s open front door or unwatched packed lunch.
The sniggering from the boat men at the bar – with Seth’s son smiling over his pint at their centre – stopped promptly when she turned to confront them. He only winked as she raised her eyebrows at him, hand on her hip.
‘Johnny McVie! Will you stop messing with the dating board or I’ll have Gene present you with your bar tab for this last week.’
The young man grew suddenly interested in the bottom of his pint glass. Luckily for him, at that moment Seth found Beatrice in the crowd, excitedly holding up his son’s iPhone for her to inspect.
‘Johnny tells me I’m a me me. Would you credit it?’ Seth said, earnestly, presenting Beatrice with his phone.
‘A me me?’ Beatrice stared at the phone. ‘Oh God. You mean a meme, don’t you?’
On the screen, wearing his green woollen beany, his moustache ends freshly twirled for the camera, stood Seth in front of the inn’s dating board talking into Kirstie’s mic. A thumping beat played over his voice as he repeated on a loop the words, ‘Adate? I havnae had so much as a sniff of a lassie this forty years.’ Across the screen appeared the words ‘Same dude. Same.’ The clip auto-replayed over and over as Beatrice stared, aghast.
‘Great!Excellent. Well done,’ she said, a little too loudly, and made her way back to Atholl.
‘So, apparently Seth’s gone viral.’
‘Aye, I’ve seen it. Half of Scotland has by now, I imagine.’
‘Nobody’s taking this seriously, you know. We’ve only sold eleven tickets for the speed dating in spite of the news coverage, and not one person’s filled in a real dating profile yet. Well, nobody except Seth and, apparently, Echo.’
‘They will. You’ve got to remember the Port Willow lads aren’t used to having lassies all around them, let alone having to talk with them face to face in the pub. It’s easier for them to scroll through women online and hardly ever actually meet any of them – at least, so they tell me at the bar.’
‘Is that what it is? Not very romantic though, is it?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Did you ever do any scrolling?’
‘Nope. I was lucky. I met the bonniest lassie ever to arrive in the village, and I was smart enough to ask her out before anybody else got the chance.’
‘Before Seth could?’
‘Exactly, just think, you could be living with him now had he caught your eye first.’
Beatrice inhaled through her teeth, shaking her head. ‘I missed out there. Regret’s a terrible thing, you know?’
‘So you’re stuck with me unfortunately.’ Atholl pulled her closer and she smiled up into his eyes.
‘What a pity.’
Mutt was at the bar by seven-thirty, attracting a lot of attention from the other patrons due to his helplessness in preventing Bear from stumbling over his own furry little legs and bounding from person to person, snuffling under chairs, looking for dropped bar snacks and enjoying being petted and fussed by everyone.
‘Your usual?’ Kitty asked from behind the bar, beautiful in a jumpsuit and obi belt that had made Gene’s eyes round with love when she’d presented herself for work earlier in the evening.
‘Please.’ Mutt smiled, and Kitty poured him a pint of Highland honey pale ale.
‘You’ve brushed up braw,’ she told him, nodding approvingly at his cabled, fitted fisherman’s jumper in navy yarn, what looked like super soft and washed-a-hundred-times black 501s and, grounding it all, freshly polished work boots and a day’s dark stubble.
Mutt was too busy paying for his drink and returning Kitty’s compliment to notice Nina arriving from her room and coming to a stop at the edge of the crowded bar with some papers under her arm as though she wasn’t finished work for the day, but wearing a shimmering dress and heels that said she knew it was New Year’s Eve and, dammit, she wasn’t going to let the side down, even if she was a million miles away from her romantic celebrations in New York where Luke was probably planning on wearing his tux and taking Himari out on the town. There’d be so many client parties for them to choose from.
She’d fought against the urge to room service a bottle of wine and take it to bed at six p.m. and she’d determined to put on a good show of being absolutely fine, if only for the sake of her own battered pride.
Seeing there was only one space at the bar – and it was beside Mutt – she took a breath, preparing to ignore him in order to get a drink, and quick.
‘Champagne, please,’ she asked Kitty, knowing the Princess didn’t serve cocktails. Beatrice had put her straight about that during the week, when she’d ventured downstairs wanting to drown her sorrows at having found most of the Highland businesses she’d tried to make contact with were closed for the holidays. Even the art and fashion colleges hadn’t replied to her requests for an exclusive preview of the upcoming student exhibitions and runway preparations.
‘Pull up a barstool, Nina. I’ll need to go to the cellar for a fresh bottle. Won’t be long,’ Kitty told her as she left the busy bar.
