The St Andrews three-legged race pub crawl. Heather remembers the post from the online parents' forum. “Hold onto your hats”, one parent had said.
‘Yes. Right. The pub crawl. Any idea where they might be?’
‘Dunno.’ Pyjama boy’s focus is on her hands. He’s clearly still disappointed nobody has cycled across town at speed to deliver him fast food in record time. ‘The route’s on socials.’
Heather leaves him on the doorstep, her phone already in her hand, the Social St Andrews Instagram opening on the app. The pub crawl, the post says, begins at 3pm, on South Street. The attached route map meanders drunkenly around town. Heather glances at her watch: 3:40pm. Only the most serious drinkers will have made it halfway.
She runs to the car, extracts Maisie from her crate, and the pair of them jog up St Mary Street, past the fifteenth century University Buildings and the ancient walls of Abbey Walk which border the cathedral grounds. For once Heather doesn’t stop to admire the ancient Precinct Wall or the St Leonards Schoolbuildings. She keeps her head down and walks as fast as little Maisie’s legs will allow. As she goes, she builds a strategy. What if Georgia went to the start of the pub crawl, was ostracised by friends and decided to stay there drinking alone, eeking out her solitary drink (best option). Or (worse option) continued alone on the pub crawl getting more and more inebriated and more and more vulnerable as the event went on? Heather decides to go to the first pub and work her way along the route, hoping to encounter Georgia as soon as possible.
The first pub is one of the oldest in the country. Its entrance, down some ancient flagstones, leads into a darkly lit interior with antique wall panelling and a mahogany bar. Heather scrutinises the faces of the regular pubgoers playing dominoes and nursing whisky or beer and draws a blank. The students have most definitely moved on. She consults her phone and rushes down Bell Street past the three storied Georgian buildings with ground floor shop frontages and finds the next pub, a basement bar located in an old warehouse. She rushes down the wooden stairs. A few pub-crawlers have clearly decided to linger there and have scrunched themselves into a wooden alcove, but her daughter isn’t amongst them. At the third pub, on cobbled Market Street, the landlord, possibly already annoyed by hordes of drunken students tied together at the ankle, refuses her entry with Maisie. ‘No dogs. Sorry.’ Heather can’t even manage a good look around first. He stands with his arms crossed, blocking her view and barring her entrance, his face immobile.
Knowing she’s beaten, Heather retreats and ties Maisie to a lamppost outside before returning to the pub.
‘Just stay here a minute,’ she says to the little dog, who immediately sits on the ground and lowers her head, perhaps relieved to be stopping for a quick breather after their mad dash across St Andrews.
Heather recognises Flo, Georgia’s friend from the Genealogy Society, the moment she enters the pub. Flo is already slurring her words and looks decidedly the worse for wear.
‘Gee. Yep. Yep. She left … I don’t know. About five minutes ago?’
Heather’s heart quickens. ‘Is she okay?’
Flo shrugs. ‘Seems to be. Bit wobbly. Alright, though, I think.’
Bit wobbly could mean anything.
Heather races to the next pub, a modern wine bar with tall stools, high tables and sticky floors. That pub draws a blank. As does the next and finally, at the pub after that one, Heather finds her sitting on a stool, beside a man she doesn’t recognise, her head on a table surrounded by glasses.
‘Georgia. Georgia.’ She runs up to her daughter, kneels by her feet and scoops her up in her arms.
A decidedly woozy Georgia allows her head to flop onto her mother’s shoulder until, slowly, reality filters through.
‘Mum,’ she says. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Heather ignores the stench of vodka, cider and beer coming from her daughter’s mouth and surveys her face carefully.
‘You said those things, Georgia. You scared me.’
Georgia’s bottom lip wobbles.
‘Yeah. Well. I was scared myself for a moment there. But I’m lucky. Bee and Trey have forgiven me. It’s their round. They’re at the bar.’
Heather glances at the boy sitting beside Georgia.
‘Oh, yeah. Mum. Meet Samir. He’s Trey’s boyfriend. And he’s lovely.’
Samir is, indeed, lovely. He stands on wobbly legs and extends his hand.
‘Very pleased to meet you,’ he says before returning to his stool, landing at an angle and falling onto the floor.
SCOTT
He doesn’t have the bandwidth to talk to Heather properly when she calls. He’s spent the last hour staring into space, Lorraine’s placations ignored and every decision since losing Lucy analysed.
‘She’s fine. Georgia’s fine,’ Heather says down the line, all breathy and relieved and oblivious to the enormous U-turn her behaviour caused in him.
‘That’s good,’ he says. And he means it. Georgia is a kind girl and a good friend to Brianna, despite the recent blip. He will only ever want good things for her.
‘It took me ages to track her down,’ Heather continues, breathily. Scott can hear seagulls in the distance and the thrum of an engine as a car drives past. He can picture her speed walking towards her car having eyeballed Georgia. Perhaps she’s now realising how disproportionate her reaction had been to leave him and drive to St Andrews. ‘They’re on that three-legged pub crawl. Her, Brianna, Trey and his new boyfriend Samir. Lovely lad. You’ll like him. I left them with a margarita each. Now they’re catching up on the past few weeks. Anyway, I needed to leave Maisie tied to a lamppost outside a pub, so I’m just backtracking to find her. Then I’ll be back, and we can have that chat. And that gorgeous food. I’m starved. Shall I come to yours?’
