Nobody noticed Beatrice hissing to catch Mutt’s attention or the throat-slitting gesture she was doing at him. ‘Psst, Mutt. No, don’t. Let them go on their own, Mutt! Mutt… Ah, I give up!’
When Mutt was sure everyone was belted in, he slid the van door closed with a loud bang and waved off the three excited shoppers and Beatrice turned to him with a weary look.
‘What?’ he asked innocently, but she simply turned for the inn door, shaking her head, leaving him to shrug, bewildered, on the pavement. ‘What did I do?’
‘Are you looking forward to going shopping?’ Nina asked to break the awkwardness. She hadn’t forgotten the frantic search for Ruth’s wedding ring in the storm or how upset everyone had been walking back to the inn. This couple really didn’t seem to have much going for them, but she liked Ruth with her mixture of softness and boldness.
‘I’m not a shopper, love, but Beatrice seemed so excited to pack us off on a day trip, it seemed a shame to say no.’
Even Mark laughed. He didn’t have his phone in his hand today. Nina wondered if he even had it with him.
‘Enjoying your holiday, are you?’ Mark asked, and both of the women’s eyes snapped to him in surprise. He’d drawn out the flask of coffee Gene had handed him and was unscrewing the lid.
‘Um, yes,’ Nina answered, truthfully.
‘It’s a working holiday, isn’t it?’ Ruth asked. She had gleaned as much from the amount of time Nina was to be found skulking off to her room with a cup of tea or wandering into the media centre after breakfast in her sweats, at least before the accident.
‘That’s right. In fact, this is kind of my thing. Shopping. I’m in Scotland looking for products that could be picked up and marketed overseas. Something… quintessentially Scottish.’
‘Have you found anything special yet?’ Ruth asked.
Nina shook her head. ‘Nothing concrete. Maybe today’s the day. Either way, it’ll do me good to get out of Port Willow. No offence to the place, obviously, but it is rather—’
‘Eccentric?’ Mark asked, surprising everyone with the joviality in his voice.
‘Characterful,’ Ruth said, thinking of the sweethearts Gene and Kitty, rugged, devoted Atholl and the meddling Beatrice.
They all smiled now and Mark handed Nina a drink in the flask’s second cup. He and Ruth shared the other one. He even whistled a tune to himself as they settled in for the long drive through the frosty, hilly landscape.
He was happy because that morning they’d managed to get Stuart on FaceTime and he’d wanted to talk, enthusing about the day trip he’d been on the day before with his new friends and keyworker from his new home. Their hearts had lightened considerably to see him and, as they’d ended the call, Mark had kissed his son by bringing the screen to his lips and Ruth had felt a kind of gladness she’d forgotten all about. However, as the bus wound its way along the coast, Ruth felt the panic setting in over their shopping excursion.
Sometime around about her fiftieth birthday and her first horrifying hot flush, Ruth had developed a deep aversion to shop changing rooms. This all coincided with her realisation that sweaty, hormonal reality was about to put the kibosh on her plans to sail through the menopause without inheriting any of the symptoms her mother had experienced, but since then she’d had just about all of them including the red cheeks, tea time sleepiness, and a surprisingly fervent love for the Lakeland catalogue.
Ruth had mothered her twins in the parenting equivalent of SAS uniform: comfy jeans, cardis with pockets and any number of nice cotton tops bought at the supermarket while doing the big shop, and she’d been happy enough with her practical choices. Recently however, she’d had to give up the beloved comfy Converse she’d always worn when she reached the disturbing conclusion that her arches had collapsed, presumably with exhaustion, much like the rest of her. She’d switched to the FitFlops that she’d found in the sales and which she’d seen Adam’s girlfriend, Katie, raising a sartorial eyebrow at on more than one occasion.
Not that she minded Katie’s opinion; she was in her late-twenties and had all of this to come. She wouldn’t burst her bubble of youthful naivety by telling her so. Katie probably wouldn’t believe the entire mortifying process could possibly happen to her anyway. Ruth certainly hadn’t believed it, not until around about the time she started buying her jeans online because she’d concluded it was better to rage-cry and swear in frustration in front of the mirror in her own bedroom than in a high street store.
Ruth had already taken twice the suggested dose of nerve-calming remedy drops when the people carrier dropped the three shoppers off in front of a very intriguing shop standing alone by a main road in the middle of nowhere.
They were the only customers, they’d discovered, as Ruth pushed the door open and helped Nina hobble inside, followed by Mark who had already adopted his shopping-for-clothes-with-his-wife habit of whistling, hands in pockets, loitering by the door, and generally being unengaged. Yet even he was glancing around the rails and shelves at the unusual offering.
‘Wow!’ Nina cried, running her hand along the hanging kilts that stretched the entire length of one wall, a confection of thick pleats and folds in a rainbow of colours ranging from murky blacks and greens all the way to confectioners’ candy pastels. She snatched a pink plaid kilt from the rail and held it out to show Mark. ‘You’d look good in this.’
‘Let’s not get carried away,’ he warned, still stationed by the door.
The shop owner was a tall, elegant man in his forties with a hipster beard and a twisty moustache to rival Seth’s.
‘We’re going to a Burns Night ball, and we’ve nothing to wear,’ Ruth told him. The man delightedly brought his hands together and steepled his fingers in front of his nose.
Mark had been dragged to the ‘gentleman’s outfitting suite’ at the back of the shop where he’d stood in socks and boxers, being measured with clipped efficiency before being treated to a bewildering introduction to Highland outfit styles for men.
Through the curtain Ruth had insisted he try each one on and she and Nina had taken a seat, found the bowl of complimentary soor plooms, and settled themselves in for a catwalk show.
When he’d emerged, Nina had looked away and Ruth openly snorted at the sight of Mark wanting to shrink from view in the traditional ‘Highlander outfit’; a slashed to the breastbone lace-up shirt and long, warrior-style kilt hanging low at the back with something that reminded Ruth of her parent’s tartan travelling rug draped over his shoulders. The whole ensemble was belted around his waist with thick brown leather. ‘This isn’t it,’ Mark told the tailor and they’d retreated behind the curtains again.
The traditional evening kilt, black tie, starchy shirt and waistcoat hadn’t felt right either. ‘It’s too… formal, too like a wedding. I don’t feel right wearing it, somehow,’ Mark said, surprising everyone.
Nina watched him, wondering if, despite appearances, maybe he did take an interest in clothes after all. That certainly wasn’t the impression his uniform of chinos, thinly checked shirts, ties and golfing pullovers gave. Back behind the curtain he’d slunk.
