‘And?’
‘And she’s already made a good friend, Brianna. All the way from Hertfordshire. But … I don’t know …’
‘You’re not keen on her?’
Like Heather, Fraser is highly attuned to the possibility of Georgia getting hurt.
‘No. No, the girl’s lovely. It’s just that …. Well, her dad’s weird. One of those “let them learn for themselves” types. And it’s good,I guess. I can see that his daughter’s confident. I just found he was a bit … at odds … with me.’
‘A nemesis parent?’ Fraser laughs as he shoves a spoonful of Cullen Skink, the traditional Scottish soup made with smoked haddock, potatoes, and cream into his mouth. The smell of it has always turned Heather’s stomach.
‘Yeah. Kind of,’ she replies. She takes a forkful of her own food before continuing. ‘I guess I’m just concerned that Brianna might not be all that great an influence on Georgia.’
Fraser tilts his head and makes a gesture with his spoon to encourage her to elaborate.
‘Okay. Well. For example, they’re both joining the Genealogy Society.’
‘Genealogy?’
‘Family trees. Heritage. That kind of stuff.’
Fraser leans his spoon on the side of his bowl. ‘Like tracking down parentage, then?’ he says, his voice an octave lower than previously.
‘Exactly that.’
‘Ah. I wonder what mum and dad would think about that?’
Heather freezes. It’s unlike Fraser to mention their parents in such a blatant way. As the youngest child and a boy, he was protected from much of the hideousness Heather experienced in her late teens and early twenties whilst at university. Or perhaps he was just sheltered from it because he left home so quickly to begin his Mountain Leaders’ course. But Heather was left to experience the full impact of her father’s morbid hobby, his disinterest in her and her mother’s complicity and refusal to challenge him.
‘I can’t imagine how they would react to it,’ she says, her voice hollow. ‘They probably don’t even know that Dougie’s overseas.’
She hasn’t seen her parents in nearly fourteen years. She isn’t about to begin anticipating their responses to things like theirgranddaughter’s welfare when they have been practically absent for Georgia’s entire life.
‘If we’re not good enough for you, then don’t think about crossing our threshold again,’ her father had said when Georgia was a vulnerable four-year-old, just out from hospital after an anaphylactic shock that was entirely her grandfather’s fault.
Heather’s eyes must tell Fraser the topic is now closed.
‘Right O. Got it,’ he replies. They finish their meal in silence.
***
When Heather returns home, the thud of the front door in the architrave no longer sounds as threatening as before. Perhaps the thing she needs to do is re-programme a little? What did she say on the Parents' Forum yesterday? This is not the end of an era; it is the beginning of a new phase, one that can be designed with her in mind. How can focusing entirely on herself be bad? When was the last time she did that?
She walks upstairs, unpacks the overnight bag she had with her in St Andrews and finds, scrunched up at the bottom, the manifestation sheet she worked on so diligently the night before. It looks rather sad and juvenile now she is sober and can hear Scott Reynold’s disparaging voice in her head. But perhaps the ideas still hold true? She flattens the paper out on the surface of her bed and assimilates the key points: Travel more, re-engage with old friends (she remembers leaving a space here, deliberately nonspecific), go for promotion, try something new every month.
She takes her phone from her back pocket, snaps an image and sends it to Claire. Claire's son, Aidan, leaves next year, so it will soon be her turn to have an Empty Nest; but given her eighteen-year marriage to Mark, she’ll probably be less in needof a manifestation map when the time comes. The response is instantaneous:“Nice one. What name is going in that gap?”
Heather grins. She knows Claire is desperate for her to find her “Mr. Right”.
“Just watch this space,”she replies. One thing’s for sure, whoever she does choose to fill that space, will only ever get so close. She’s had it with committed relationships. She knows the drill now. Men leave. They let you down. It’s a game Heather is no longer interested in playing.
SCOTT
He should have known his plane would be delayed. He’d got here just as the bag drop was closing and is now sitting in the departure lounge in Edinburgh airport, nursing a black Americano and wondering how the hell he’s going to pass the next two hours.
If anything scares Scott, it’s this. An expanse of time with no allocated purpose, which perpetuates the most dreaded of all things: time to think. This, Scott realises, needs to be avoided at all costs. He pulls his day sac closer, extracts his laptop and opens the still-incomplete quotation for his most important client. He may as well finish it now he can work uninterrupted by crazy ladies throwing water on him – or casting aspersions about his parenting. He can now work in peace.
Only he can’t.
