As I walked along the road, I puzzled away at how to make myself feel more ‘at home.’ I needed something cosy. Something inviting. Something practical. What I needed—what would cure the foreboding un-homeliness of the cottage—was a rug.
A rug to insulate my home and protect my feet. Okay, so I couldn’t afford to fix my windscreen just yet. Or replace the mattress. But I could shell out a little for a cheap rug. No more errant splinters or whatever stabbing my soles. That’s the kind of thing people bought to feel more at home. Throw cushions, blankets, rugs. Soft tactile things to wrap around the hard edges of the walls we build around ourselves. A rug for the fragile softness of myself.
Not that I like to think of myself as fragile. Not that I avoided giving away any hint of fragility, like a cat hiding an injury.
I shook the thought from my head.
No, I thought. Let’s go back to dreaming of rugs and making 1b Sgàthan Sìth as cosy as can be.
Back in Carlinsrest, I crossed Bodach’s Brig—no sign of the old man and his sleeping wife—and passed by the Celtic cross memorial. The handful of pansies had been joined by a few buckets of hyacinth and tulips. I cringed a little at my earlier judgement. Maybe the other flowers hadn’t been set out yet and that’s why there’d been so few.
I followed along the river, past the pub and the tapas place, looking for some kind of homewares shop. I’d considered Rowan’s hardware and supplies shop, but from what I could remember it was mostly tools and sundries. I needed somewhere that sold fripperies. Like a gift shop, or one of those posh interior design boutiques I saw around Edinburgh. Further along the main street I found what I was looking for.
A squat stone building stood at the end of the row with sash windows complete with muntins and sage-green sills. The gilded sign above declared in a decorative, vintage font:
The Auld Antiques Shoppe
Bingo. Antique was just a fancy way of saying second-hand. And second-hand meant cheaper and better quality, right?
I went inside.
A real bell announced my arrival with a gentle tinkling.
The sunny front room was filled with beautiful items. Glass lamps. Small drinks tables. Embroidered footstools. Tea sets. Leather wingback chairs. An umbrella stand, full of walking sticks with various handles, some metal, some wood, some in the shape of animal heads. Mounted antlers and stag heads lined the upper parts of the walls. A lit scented candle beside the till perfumed the air with woody notes and toasted vanilla. It smelled as if I’d fallen into the pages of an old book. It was like someone had taken my every imagining of a cute antiques shop and made it real. The only detail that stood out was a line of cactuses and succulents in the window. Their spikes and spines felt oddly modern surrounded by all the soft curves and muted browns.
By the till, a sandy-haired man with a straw-coloured beard and a tanned forehead either ignored my presence or was so consumed by the book he was reading he hadn’t had chance to notice me.
My initial instinct was to leave him alone. But no, I was determined to be better, to be more outgoing and sociable. My memory of that first day at the agency, the fumbled invitation, haunted me. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
I cleared my throat.
“Hi, morning, uh, do you have any—”
“Scottish books to the left,” said the man, not even looking up from his novel.
I turned, struck dumb, to look at the shelves to the left of the front room. Green, tan and maroon cloth-bound books lined the shelves on the other side of the shop. I could make out multiple copies of Peter Pan and The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
“Uh, actually I was looking for a rug,” I said.
The man sighed, his face suddenly sullen. He put away his novel and got up. I could practically see the irritation coming off him in waves.
“Sorry, I’m new around here,” I explained. “I’m trying to decorate and—”
“More homewares in the back.” He opened a heavy curtain in a doorway, revealing a cluttered back room full of dining tables, linens and orphaned drawers of cutlery.
“Oh, thank you—”
He returned to his book at the till. As I passed by, I peeked at the cover. Something with spaceships. It felt as mismatched to the surroundings as the cactuses on the sill.
The back room was difficult to navigate. Pale light filtered in through a frosted window on the back wall, illuminating dancing motes of dust but barely lighting my way through the clutter. I squeezed past a wardrobe, turned a corner between warring chests of drawers and walked straight into another person, their surprised face just inches away from me. I put up my hands to apologise before realizing the face was mine. My reflection stared back at me from a tall gilt mirror leant against the wall. God, that had been close! I breathed a sigh of relief, chuckled at myself, and then backed into a vase on a pedestal. It made a horrible ringing sound as I managed to catch it just in time and slam it back onto its wooden perch. My eyes darted to the curtained gap, waiting for the sullen-faced man to come and give me a scolding. He must have been absorbed in his novel still, because no one came.
I found the rugs at the back of the room, rolled up and leant against the wall lengthwise like mummies, or victims of the mob. There was a stuffed fox on a high shelf next to them, all glassy-eyed and snarling mouth. I turned my face away so I couldn’t look at it.
I ran my hand down a large, classic Persian-style rug. The pattern was a little busy for what I was imagining, but it would be warm, and it would protect my feet from splinters. And there had to be a way to style it right. I’d seen plenty of women on Instagram style their homes with an effortless manner that looked like witchcraft to me.
I checked the price.
I had to check it again.
