“I think you’ll like this one,” he said. “But I’ll write you up a receipt in case you later realise you don’t.”
He rang me up. I paid for the axe and the washing line.
“So, whereabouts is your place?” he asked. “Are you up or down the valley?”
“I don’t know. I’m in one of the Sgàthan Sìth cottages.”
“Sgàthan Sìth?” He stopped writing up the receipt. “You’re in Sgàthan Sìth?”
“Um, yes, 1b,” I replied.
He sucked in his lips and raised his eyebrows.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He handed over the receipt. “Well… okay, before someone else gets in and spooks you or something. It’s had a couple of owners, but no one ever seems to—”
A clang interrupted him. His head flicked to the back of the store where a young man in a denim jacket had dropped a chainsaw display model onto the ground.
“Aw shit, sorry, I have to—”
I packed firewood, kindling and washing line into my backpack. There was no room for the axe so I just held it and turned to leave.
“Wait, before you go”—he turned back to me—“you should come to the Curtyard tomorrow.”
“The Cut Yard?”
“Head up the alley between Maggie’s Café and the tapas place then take a left. That’s where the locals hang out in the evenings. As you’re a local now, you should come say hi.”
Then he half-jogged to catch the heavy chainsaw just before it slipped again out of the young man’s hands.
CHAPTER 9
I walked back from town with the axe over my shoulder. I liked the weight of it. It made me feel capable. Strong. Like I belonged out here.
Look at this woman, I imagined passers-by thinking, casually carrying her axe. She looks like she knows what she’s doing. She looks like she can handle herself.
It would be nice to be able to handle myself. And an axe.
After a mile down the road, and a few odd stares from passing car windows, I became convinced that I actually looked more like an axe murderer and I lowered it off my shoulder.
Back at Sgàthan Sìth, I set down my bag and listened for my neighbour. I tilted my head in the direction of the adjoining wall. Silence. I drifted closer toward the fireplace, ears straining, trying to hear something. Nothing. Such a difference to all the bumping about last night. Maybe she slept during the day.
I stretched my tired limbs.
A wave of body odour escaped from my T-shirt. I recoiled from myself. Ooft! I hoped that was from the walk back and I hadn’t been subjecting everyone in Carlinsrest to this.
I needed a bath.
And for that, I needed heat.
I turned to the door under the stairs. It was much like the garden gate style doors upstairs. It was easy to see why I might have confused it for a cupboard. A basement wasn’t a bad thing. I could store garden equipment in there, Christmas lights, suitcases. Maybe convert it into a gym.
The door opened with a squeak.
A slim set of stone stairs sank away into the dark of the hill below.
I felt for a light switch, found it on the wall to my right, and flicked it once, twice, thrice before remembering. The mains switch was down in the basement.
