Harsh. Don’t think mine would have courage to call either and hate the idea of them being freezing at night. Recipe for flu etc.
(Admin)
RR site team on the university website. Hope they get it sorted and soon!
Chapter 26
HEATHER
Heatherusesthepaintbrushto apply the tonal contrast to the puppy’s fur and takes a step back, surveying her work. Something’s not right. The shading? She glances again at the photograph she’s working from, printed from the Internet. The puppy’s eyes in the photograph look mournful and beguiling. In her painting, however, it looks exhausted and depleted. She drops the brush into a jam jar of water and wipes her hands on the apron tied around her waist. She’s placing all her hopes for the future on a venture she’s not tried for over twenty years, and her recent attempts clarify one thing: if she’s ever had the skill required, she sure as heck has lost it now.
She glances at the piles of ordered receipts on her dining room table. She’s neglecting her paid day job in preference for this, her fantasy, and she’s beginning to feel inconsequential and foolish.
And she knows the reason it’s not coming together.
She’s distracted by Scott-Bloody-Reynolds.
She unties her apron and drapes it over one of the dining room chairs. Since being in St Albans, she’s seen Scott every other week. Their hook ups, generally in Edinburgh or Glasgow, are passionate, intense and short-lived. She spends the interlude between his visits unpicking their time together. Just as she’s doing right now.
‘Oh, you’ve asked Gerry for his expertise?’ he’d said when they last spoke and she mentioned Gerry was coming round that evening to help with her work. There had been a heaviness to the statement, implying he didn’t like the idea of her hanging out with Gerry. But is that fair, given she and Scott are not a ‘thing’? Surely she's allowed to see who she wants?
Often when they meet, Scott receives numerous phone calls and texts, which he refuses to elaborate on. Then, when he leaves, Heather can’t help but wonder if he’s withdrawing.
If she were to ask, Claire would tell her it’s because she’s making herself too available. Men prefer the chase, right?
Heather is washing her brushes and wiping them on the rag tucked into her waistband when her phone rings. An unknown number.
Typically, she’d reject the call. But this is an Edinburgh landline number interrupting her just before dinner. Curiosity, as much as anything, makes her accept the call.
‘That you, Heather?’
The elderly voice on the other end of the line has an air of familiarity about it. But Heather can’t for the life of her link it to a name.
‘Erm, yes?’
It can’t technically be a bogus call if it’s from a traceable number and her name is known, she rationalises.
‘This is Doreen.’
Heather’s mind whirrs through Doreens past and present. And the only one that springs to mind is –
‘Doreen MacLeod, that is. Your mother’s neighbour?’
Heather’s heart rate accelerates. Why would Doreen be reaching out after all this time?
‘Fraser’s in Aviemore. I was calling him about your parents. He gave me your number.’
The receiver in Heather’s hand becomes slippery with sweat as her mind rattles from one possible reason for the call to the next. Fraser would not pass her number on lightly. This can only be an emergency.
Doreen, thankfully, is not the type to beat about the bush.
‘Your mum’s had a fall, dear. Nothing too serious. But they want to check her out. I’m at home with your dad and your brother’s somewhere up a mountain with a tour group. So, I’m afraid it’s down to you, pet. Your mum needs someone to check if she needs anything. A nightie or whatnot. Or to bring her home if she gets discharged. It’s dark now. We wouldn’t want her trying to get a taxi on her own, would we?’
Wouldn’t we, indeed?Heather thinks of all the times in her teenage life where her father refused her a lift because he didn’t approve of a particular boyfriend or the theme of a chosen movie she’d gone to see. But this is her mum. It’s not exactly the same.
‘I see.’
