The Summer Seaside Kitchen Read online

  ‘You’ll get over it, babes,’ Kai had reassured her when she’d complained (repeatedly) about her workload. It didn’t matter how late she stayed or how efficient she was with filing. It was a shame, she reflected, that being shit-hot at filing wasn’t actually all that sexy. Probably just as well she’d kept it off her Tinder profile.

  ‘Seriously, didn’t you notice that he’s horrible?’

  Oh yeah. He was horrible, Flora reminded herself. Tall, sharp-suited, brusque, American. He strode through the building as if he owned it. He treated the juniors with disdain, could never remember anyone’s name and never complimented anyone.

  ‘He’s a negger,’ said Kai.

  ‘A what?’ said Flora, horrified.

  ‘A negger.’

  Flora blinked.

  ‘It means he’s mean to people so they notice him and want him to say something nice. It’s like dog training or something.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Kai saw it as his mission in life to educate the shy, odd-looking girl from the Islands and leapt on every opportunity to expound his accumulated twenty-six years of sophisticated knowledge.

  ‘Like you’ll just hang on for a tiny word of kindness, a crumb of recognition, and that makes people fall for him. Well, people with low self-esteem.’

  Flora frowned.

  ‘Maybe I just think he’s hot.’

  ‘Yeah. Cruel hot. Never go there. Also, he’s your super-boss. Try not to shit on your own doorstep. Also —’

  ‘There’s another also? I don’t think I need another also.’

  ‘No, listen, Flors, I’m not sure you’re his type… OMG, speak of the devil. And I think he might literally be the devil. Uh, I’ll let you make your mind up about the type.’

  Flora had glanced up then, and sure enough, crossing Broadgate Circle, at the very heart of the City law firms, there he was, confident and commanding-looking, his nut-brown hair shining in the sun, smoothly escorting a giraffe of a blonde girl who clopped across the slate wearing bright pink, a colour that would look bizarre on anybody else but simply made her look like the most ravishing thing ever. Nothing like Flora could ever be in a million years. She was a bird of paradise; a completely different species.

  Flora watched them and groaned.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘You are very good at filing, though,’ Kai had said encouragingly. ‘I mean, that’s got to count for something.’

  She’d grinned, and they’d ordered another bottle.

  That had been a couple of years ago, and Kai’s career had come on in leaps and bounds. While hers… hadn’t. Of course she’d got more used to London, more cynical about her office, and she’d had dates and dalliances and various misadventures with chaps here and there, not all of which she could recall without getting embarrassed, and one nice boyfriend, Hugh, who had lasted a year and who had wanted to take it further but she hadn’t felt… well. It. Whatever it was meant to be. She’d never been there. She’d known, even as they parted (with wonderful manners; Hugh was a darling), that in about ten years, when everyone else was settled and happy and she was still bouncing about being single, she might entirely regret doing this. But she’d done it anyway. She had had long dry spells too. And she was fine. Mostly. It was just a crush, a daft thing that had faded into the background as she’d got on with building a life in this huge machine of a town, getting away from everything that had happened before.

  Except that now, at 10.45 a.m. on a broiling Thursday in early May, her crush, for the first time in history, suddenly wanted to see her in his office.

  Chapter Four

  Flora had to rush, but she had to nip into the bathroom too and redo her make-up. Flustered, she realised she was bright pink. That was the problem with being so pale. Well, that and not being able to go out in bright sunlight without turning the colour of a lobster and starting to smoke slightly.

  She stared at herself and sighed. She hated looking so washed-out; she felt completely colourless, even as her friends talked about how unusual she was. She wasn’t at all unusual in the island she’d come from: tall and pale, like the Viking ancestors who went back hundreds of generations. Her mother’s hair was almost pure white. It was only down here, where people would let her talk and then at the end say, as if it was a compliment, that they hadn’t been listening to a word, they just liked the way she spoke. She was learning, slowly, to say ‘now’ instead of ‘noo’ and ‘you’ instead of ‘dhu’, but sometimes she forgot even that.

  She tried to quell her racing heart. Margo had sounded frosty, but she always bloody did. Flora hadn’t done anything wrong, had she? Even if she had, Joel’s office wouldn’t be in charge of dealing with that. Her time with Joel was limited to when she was minuting for Kai, who was studying for his legal exams and was being encouraged by the firm as a prospect for the future. Kai was pretty great to work for, and Flora would often take notes for him and do all the follow-up.

  But Kai hadn’t mentioned anything this morning; he was due in court, in any case, leaving Flora with the usual mound of paperwork to sort out.

  No, this morning it was just her.

  She took a deep breath and headed for the lift.

  Joel’s vast corner office was incredibly impressive, filled with flashy-looking artwork that didn’t seem to mean anything apart from proving that he was successful enough to be surrounded by flashy-looking artwork. He nodded as she walked in. He was wearing a dark grey suit, a fresh white shirt and a navy tie that contrasted with his hair. Flora felt a blush starting even before she was through the door, and cursed herself for it.

  There was also a tall man with an oddly light beard – by the casual way he dressed, he was obviously very important – and a couple of other people milling in the background, taking calls and more or less pretending to be busy. Flora wasn’t sure if she should sit or stand.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, trying to sound brave.

  ‘I can tell where you’re from before you say a word!’ said the bearded man, coming forward to shake her hand. ‘Look at that hair! You’re Mure stock, that’s for sure.’

  Flora wasn’t at all sure she liked being referred to in the same way her brothers referred to the cattle, and simply stood there.

  ‘Where are you from, um…’ Joel glanced down at his notes, ‘Flora?’

  Flora’s heart started to beat faster. Why did this matter? Why was it important? Why were they talking about her home? That was the last thing she’d expected. Or wanted.

  ‘Oh, it’s a small… I mean, you won’t have heard of it.’

  She didn’t want to talk about Mure. Never did; always changed the subject whenever it came up. She lived in London now, where the world came to reinvent itself.

  ‘She’s from Mure,’ said the bearded man proudly. ‘I knew it. I’ve heard all about you.’

  Flora looked at him.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m Colton Rogers!’

  There was a long pause. Joel was looking at her, bemused.

  ‘You know who I am, right?’

  Flora hadn’t been home for some time. But she knew. She nodded quietly.

  Colton Rogers was the American big shot who’d bought up a lot of the island and was, according to rumours that changed daily, about to concrete over the entire place, turn it all into a golf course, throw everybody off so that he could make it his own private sanctuary, or take over their homes in order to breed wild birds.

  The rumours had been huge and mostly unsubstantiated, mainly because nobody had ever met him. Flora now felt very, very nervous. If he wanted the firm to represent him, what had he done?

  ‘Um…’ She glanced at Joel, unsure what he wanted her to do, but he was looking as confused as she felt, drumming a pen against his teeth.

  ‘Well, people say things… I don’t pay much attention,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t, huh?’ he said, looking displeased. ‘You’ve not heard I’m restoring the Roc
k.’

  The Rock was a tumbledown old croft on the very northern tip of the island, with an extraordinary, unparalleled setting. There had been rumours that conglomerates and moguls were coming in to transform it since Flora had been a little girl.

  ‘Are you really?’

  ‘Sure am! It’s nearly finished!’ Colton Rogers said proudly. ‘You not seen it?’

  Flora hadn’t been home for three years. And she’d vowed then never to go back.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard about it.’

  ‘Well, I need your help,’ said Colton.

  ‘Shouldn’t you have a Scottish lawyer? Or Norwegian?’

  ‘Norwegian?’ said Joel. ‘How far away is this place?’

  They both turned to look at him.

  ‘Three hundred miles north of Aberdeen,’ said Colton. ‘You don’t get out much, do you? Still doing eighty billable hours a week?’

  ‘Minimum,’ said Joel.

  ‘It’s no way to live, man.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’ve made your billions,’ said Joel, half smiling.

  ‘Right, listen,’ said Colton, turning back to Flora. ‘I need you to go up there. Do some work for me. Speak to your friends and neighbours.’

  ‘I need to tell you, Mr Rogers, I’m not a laywer,’ said Flora. ‘I’m a paralegal.’

  ‘Colton, please. And so much the better,’ said Colton. ‘Cheaper. And I need local knowledge. I know how you lot all stick together. Hvarleðes hever du dað?’

  Flora looked at him in shock.

  ‘Eg hev dað gott, takk, og du?’ she stuttered out. Joel looked at them in astonishment.

  Flora suddenly felt the need to lean on something. She grabbed the back of a chair. She wasn’t sure she could speak. She felt her throat constrict and she was worried that, although she had never had a panic attack before, she might be having one now.

  Memories, crashing in from everywhere. All at once, like the huge rolling waves that attacked the shore; like the crystal winds that swept down from the Arctic and flattened the crab grass, reshaping the dunes over and over, like a giant’s fist playing in a sandpit.

  And there was a huge hole at the centre of it, and she didn’t want to look at it.

  No. No. She was arranging a night out with Kai. She was typing up minutes and thinking of getting a cat.

  She felt everyone’s eyes on her, and wished she could simply vanish; disappear into nothingness. Her cheeks were burning up. How could she say no? No, I don’t want to go home. No, I don’t. Never again.

  ‘So,’ said Colton.

  ‘What’s the job?’ said Joel.

  ‘Well,’ said Colton. ‘You really need to come and see it.’

  ‘Oh, she will,’ said Joel, without asking Flora.

  ‘Can I stay in the Rock? Is it done?’ said Flora timidly.

  Colton turned his grey eyes on her and she saw why, despite his apparently mild nature, he was such a feared businessman.

  ‘I thought you were a Mure girl. Have you no family there at all?’

  Flora breathed a long sigh.

  ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘Yes, I do.’

  Chapter Five

  There is a legend in the islands Flora comes from, about selkies.

  Technically, ‘selkie’ means seal, or seal person, although in its original language, Gaelic, it’s the same word you would use for mermaid. Selkies lose their ocean shape for as long as they are on land.

  If you’re a woman and want a selkie as a lover (they are notoriously handsome), you stand by the sea and weep seven tears.

  If you’re a man and take a selkie lover and you want to keep her, you hide her sealskin and she can never go back to the seas again.

  Flora often thought this was just a roundabout way of saying, man, it’s so hard to meet people up north, you have to nick a boyfriend from the wild. But it hadn’t stopped lots of people saying her mother was one.

  And after Flora had left, lots of people had said it about her too.

  Once upon a time… once upon a time…

  Flora had assumed she would never get to sleep that night. She’d sleepwalked through the rest of the day, even managing to join in with someone’s birthday song, nibble a horrible shop-bought cake and neck a couple of glasses of warm Prosecco, but she’d skipped the after-work drinks and headed home by herself, hoping her flatmates would be out. They all seemed to be freelancers who worked in start-ups, were in and out at odd hours of the day and viewed her as unimaginably square. Flora liked being unimaginably square. It was better than being the strange girl from the strange island any day.

  As always, she considered cooking, looked at the filthy, borderline dangerous gas hob in the kitchen and decided against it. She ate a Leon salad on her bed watching Netflix and followed it with half a packet of Hobnobs, which was more or less a balanced meal, she considered. As she ate, she stared at her phone in fear. She should call home and tell them she was coming. She should. Oh God. She was going to have to see everyone. And everyone would be staring and judging.

  She swallowed hard and, like the world’s worst coward, sent a text. Then, like an even worse coward, she hid her phone under her duvet so she didn’t have to read the reply.

  Maybe she shouldn’t stay at home?

  But she couldn’t stay at the Harbour’s Rest, the only other hotel on the island. For one, it was horrible; for two, it was awful; for three, the firm wasn’t expecting to cover her hotel costs; and for four… well. It would shame her dad, and the farm.

  So. She was going home. Oh God.

  Some people, she knew, loved to go home. Kai ate round his mum’s about three times a week. That wasn’t an option she had, though. She lay there, wide awake, wondering what on earth she was going to do.

  She blinked. And then she realised somehow that she was asleep, and somebody was trying to tell her a story. Once upon a time, they were saying, and then again, Once upon a time. And she was begging them to carry on, it was important, she needed to know what was happening, but it was too late, the voice faded out and, bang, she was awake again; and it was another morning in noisy London, where even the birds sounded like mobile phones ringing. And the traffic rumbled and rumbled past her window, and she was already running late if she wanted to get into the shower before any of her flatmates and at least get a shot at the hot water.

  She glanced at her phone. Aye was the return message. Not ‘great’ or ‘welcome’ or ‘we can’t wait to see you’. Just: Aye.

  Chapter Six

  Geneva. Paris. Vienna. New York. Barbados. Istanbul.

  Flora read the airport departures board with a sense that a hundred per cent of everyone else around here was heading for a much more exciting day than she was. And also, although everyone was wearing T-shirts and some of the men were in shorts, she was almost certainly the only person with a parka in her hand luggage in May. She’d even resurrected a Fair Isle hat she’d had for years and been somehow unable to throw away. Just in case.

  She headed towards the Inverness flight with a heavy heart. The last time she had made this journey… Well. She wasn’t thinking about that.

  She would just focus on the job. Once she knew what the job was, properly. She’d wanted to ask Joel but had been oddly shy about it, even when Kai had stood over her and instructed her to write an email.

  ‘Don’t put kisses on it!’ he’d said.

  ‘Shut up!’ she had replied, but her very timid message about whether he could brief her any more on the Rogers case hadn’t been deemed worthy of a reply, so she was still in the dark.

  She reckoned Colton Rogers wanted to do something the islanders didn’t like, and he wanted the firm to front it. The problem was – and he didn’t know this – the islanders didn’t like her either.

  Flora sighed, watching London swirl beneath her as they took off, gazing at the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the M25 and wishing, as very few people ever have, that she was in it.

  The second plane ride was bumpy. It was gene
rally bumpy; the plane was tiny – a dozen seats, mostly given over to scientists, ornithologists, hardy walkers and a few curious tourists. Flora looked down as they sped low over the water. The fleet was out; in one of her last conversations with her father – brief as always – he’d mentioned that their catch was up and permissions were up, but they’d been told to stop killing the seals. She leaned her head against the window. The land had dropped far behind and she was, as always, stunned by how very far away from the rest of Britain the island was.

  It hadn’t felt like that when she was a child.

  Mure, with its little high street and its soft rolling hills, had been her world: her father out in the fields, with the boys as soon as they were old enough; her mother cooking in the kitchen, her long mane of white hair swishing behind her; Flora doing her homework at the old wooden table. The mainland felt like a myth, going on a train an annual treat at Christmas, and everything else moved to the rhythm of the seasons: the long white summers with endless evenings and the door open to the fresh sea breeze; the cosy dark winters when the fire burned high all day in the range and the kitchen was the only warm place to be.

  Flora wondered if anyone would come to meet her at the airport, then told herself to stop it. It was the middle of the farming day. They’d be busy. She’d catch the bus.