The Good, the Bad and the Dumped Read online

  The back of the Land Rover was open and the wind whistled through. It was perishing.

  ‘In the car?’ said Chris, as if this was the first he’d thought of it. ‘What, in here? You think it’s cold in here?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Posy.

  Chris turned and looked at her. ‘Posy, it’s nice to see you, and I will say it is really lovely to have visitors. Lots of people say they want to come visit but never do, but you weren’t invited or anything and yet . . . here you are.’

  ‘Here I am,’ said Posy.

  Posy looked out at the sea, just visible to her left then disappearing into blackness. It was so desolate, but wildly beautiful in a way.

  ‘Would it make me sound mad if I said I’m on a bit of a quest?’

  Chris’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. ‘No! What kind of a quest?’

  Too late, Posy remembered his latent fondness for Dungeons and Dragons.

  ‘A kind of finding myself quest.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Chris, sounding disappointed.

  ‘Sorry. Were you thinking spears and that kind of thing?’

  ‘We have all sorts up here.’

  ‘Like fish?’

  ‘Is it fish?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Silence? That we have.’

  Posy felt stupid having to spell it out. ‘I’m . . . I’m visiting my ex-boyfriends.’

  Chris raised his eyebrows.

  ‘To make sure there are no more unanswered questions in my life. To make sure I’m ready to make a lifelong commitment to someone. To tie up the loose ends.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Chris.

  ‘Is that . . . does that sound too awful? Do you want to drop me off on the way?’

  ‘There is no more way,’ said Chris, stopping the car. ‘We’re here.’

  ‘Where?’ said Posy.

  They were on a tiny inlet. The sea was lapping close to their feet, but it was so dark now Posy could barely see it. Before them stretched a vast darkness. She could hear in the wind the clink and clutter of tethered boats. She shivered. Chris went round to the boot and pulled out a lantern.

  ‘Is this the bit where you pull out the boat hook and tell me that you still know what I did last summer?’ said Posy nervously.

  Chris rolled his eyes. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

  Carefully, and wishing she’d worn slightly more grippy boots, Posy picked her way along the wooden slats of the jetty, past small fishing boats, their paint peeling and worn. Chris couldn’t mean -

  ‘Do we need to take a boat to get to your house?’ she asked. ‘Are the Shetlands not remote enough for you? Do you live on another island?’

  ‘No!’ laughed Chris. ‘No.’

  ‘Well then . . . Ohh,’ said Posy as it became clear.

  She glanced up. The stars were terribly bright; they felt closer up here. Posy breathed in the air. It was clean, salty, and so sharp it caught the back of her throat. Beautiful, really. She glanced around. What would she have been like? What kind of a girl would she have been, if she’d come here? What would she have done all day? She glanced at Chris, carrying the lantern along the jetty. It seemed fitting somehow, like he was always meant to be carrying a lantern somewhere in the middle of nowhere. His reassuring old-fashioned-ness, his stolid sense of getting on with things . . . it suited him. But who would she have been?

  ‘Uh, I’m not going to carry you,’ he said suddenly, turning back. The spell was broken.

  ‘No, of course not!’ Posy scuttled up the narrow wooden slats, the black oily water very close underneath her feet.

  The little houseboat bobbed just ahead of them. It was a square thing, not particularly pretty, but the lights in the window looked cosy and warm. The boat was quite long, and Posy could just tell it was painted green. It was called Brunella.

  ‘Oh, this is sweet,’ said Posy. Chris looked at her to see if she was being sarcastic. ‘I mean it!’ she said. ‘It’s a lot bigger than my flat, for starters.’

  ‘OK,’ said Chris. ‘Watch the side.’

  ‘I can’t see a single thing.’

  Sighing, Chris put down the lantern and gave her his hand. The feel of it - large, warm, bear-like - brought back a sense memory of him so strong and intense that, in the dark and strangeness of the night, almost made her forget who she was, and where, and why.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, as she jumped on board, feeling a little shaky. ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Casa Chris!’ said Posy, in a wobbly voice. ‘Wow. I feel like I’m at the end of the world.’

  ‘Just the inhabited bits of it,’ said a not particularly friendly voice, as a low cabin door opened in front of them. ‘It is freezing binkety bollocks out there.’

  Posy blinked, the spell broken again. A large, comfortable silhouette opened the door widely.

  ‘Are you Posy?’

  Posy nodded.

  ‘Hello. I’m Elspeth. Come in.’

  Inside, the little boat was actually quite cosy. A woodburning stove crackled away merrily in one corner. There was a table with cushion-strewn benches all round it, which formed the main part of the room. A few books were jammed up against the walls, and an enormous pair of Chris’s boots took up some of the space on the floor. A little galley kitchen had a kettle boiling on the two-burner hob. The couple of doors at the end suggested a bedroom and a bathroom.

  ‘Oh, this is lovely,’ said Posy, meaning it. It looked like the kind of place talking woodland animals would live, although she didn’t want to mention that. She scooted up around the table.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ said Elspeth. ‘I have stew.’

  ‘That is exactly what I would like,’ said Posy. She glanced around again. There was no computer, no television. A Scrabble set was up in one corner of the galley. It was the travel set, small enough to fit its surroundings and with clinging corner tiles.

  ‘This is very cosy,’ said Posy.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Elspeth. She had very long strawberry blonde hair, was wearing no make-up and had a comfortable figure. Posy could barely stop staring - this was it! The alternate her! This was how she would have been living. Elspeth was, she noticed, as far away from Posy as it was physically possible to be, pretty much. Posy found herself slightly wishing she would go away so she could talk to Chris. That must be one of the hazards of boat living. Very hard to go away.

  Elspeth eyed Posy carefully. Posy supposed they must be the same age, but somehow Elspeth felt a lot more grown up.

  ‘So, did you have a good trip?’

  ‘Uh, yeah, I did, thanks.’

  Chris was busying himself with the kettle. Posy wondered if she’d missed her opportunity to ask for some wine. Probably. Weren’t they all abstemious up here? And she didn’t want to look fancy or uppity or just plain drunken.

  ‘So, uh, Posy . . .’ The tea was ready. Elspeth set it in front of her with quite a jolt. ‘To what do we owe this pleasure?’ she asked, huffily.

  Posy glanced over at Chris. It was him she’d come to talk to, not whoever this was. He looked faintly embarrassed. Posy bit her lip. Did this woman think she’d come to get Chris back? Surely not, that would be crazy. Although, tracking down an ex-boyfriend on Facebook; flying seven hundred miles to see him - maybe Elspeth had a point and her huffiness was, frankly, quite justified. But she wasn’t here to get him back! And why hadn’t Chris mentioned he had a girlfriend anyway? At least she assumed they were boyfriend and girlfriend; they couldn’t possibly share a space this small without inserting bits of their bodies into each other at some point, surely, even by accident.

  ‘Hi . . . sorry, Elspeth is it? Chris didn’t mention you.’

  Elspeth raised her eyebrows at him. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Uhm, Posy and I never talk,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Except on the internet,’ said Elspeth, as if she’d said, ‘Except on the devil’s notepad.’

  ‘I need to use that for work,’ said Chris, a little wearily. Posy wondered how this relationship was going, exa
ctly. Secret internet use? Mind you, even big islanders need to go online occasionally. ‘And to check the cricket,’ added Chris quietly.

  ‘OK,’ said Elspeth. She put out three bowls and ladled something from a single pot. Posy leant over and smelled something familiar. She glanced up at Chris.

  ‘Is that . . . is that bean casserole? The same one?’

  Chris shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s wrong with bean casserole?’ asked Elspeth sniffily. Posy felt bad. Elspeth had hardly asked for Chris’s ex-girlfriend to stomp into her houseboat and start making smart-alecky remarks.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I tried to teach your boyfriend to cook once. Not much stuck. It’s lovely. Look, Elspeth, I’m sorry to land on your doorstep like this.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ said Elspeth.

  Posy was taken aback. She’d kind of assumed Chris would be putting her up - of course, she hadn’t known about Elspeth then. Or the whole boat thing. Research. She should have done some research.

  ‘Uhm,’ she said. ‘Well . . .’

  Maybe there wasn’t actually anywhere to stay on the entire island. Maybe they’d let her lie down with her head near the stove.

  ‘She can stay here,’ said Chris. ‘No?’

  ‘Well, seeing as I only found out she was coming about two hours ago . . .’

  Posy felt increasingly awkward. ‘I could . . .’

  What could she do? Did they have Holiday Inns in Shetland? She wasn’t sure. It was getting quite late in the day, too. Plus her leaving meant that, well, she really would have to have a holiday here, which hadn’t exactly been the original plan. And it would be a lot harder to corner Chris and talk to him about what she’d planned.

  Elspeth heaved a sigh. ‘Well, I suppose she could stay.’

  Posy thought about her bag and suddenly remembered she had a trump card - hurrah! The duty-free! Plus it might help wash down the bean casserole. Her tastes had definitely moved on from university.

  ‘Uhm, I have some . . .’ She brought out a bottle of gin. ‘Just to say thanks for having me,’ she added.

  ‘Did you bring tonic?’ demanded Elspeth.

  So far, pondered Posy, this wasn’t going so well. She hadn’t really considered the other halves. There were loads of stories, she supposed, about old boyfriends and girlfriends meeting up again through the internet, and, she guessed, look, here she was. And Chris would always have been with someone; he was just that type of chap. Hmm. Well, Adam wouldn’t be with anyone. He had the concentration span of a gnat with ADD. As for . . . no. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have moved on so quickly. Like she had.

  After a couple of gins and orange squash (the second being markedly better than the first), Posy had ascertained that they did, in fact, have a ‘spare’ room. Well, in reality it was more like a little coffin space they had tucked under the far end of the boat, filled with their stuff, with a paper-thin wall separating it, their bedroom, and the chemical toilet. Every time Posy thought about having to use the chemical toilet, it made her so anxious she had to drink more gin.

  Elspeth had relaxed a little, but was still forming a very distinct barrier between her guest and Chris; her ample form leaning across the table. She was explaining their life philosophy at some length to Posy, who was trying to be polite.

  ‘Yes, we live a sustainable lifestyle here. We grow our own vegetables.’

  ‘Turnips, mostly,’ said Chris, looking slightly sad.

  ‘And fix everything ourselves. Did you fly up here?’

  ‘No,’ said Posy. ‘I canoed.’

  Elspeth looked sad. ‘See, just two flights here and that pretty much wrecks our carbon savings for a year.’

  ‘So you never leave the island?’ said Posy.

  Elspeth shook her head.

  ‘Wow. It’s like a colder version of Lost. What do you do, Chris?’

  ‘Well, I do some farming management, and I work for island conservation.’

  ‘They want to build bridges here,’ said Elspeth, proudly. ‘Chris opposes them.’

  ‘But you’re a civil engineer!’ said Posy in surprise. ‘Building bridges is what you do.’

  Chris looked embarrassed. ‘Well, you know, bringing in more cars is bad for the environment,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What environment?’ said Posy. ‘You don’t even have any trees!’

  Elspeth sniffed loudly. ‘So what do you do, Posy? Sit on the internet all day, looking up people to visit?’

  Posy shrugged. ‘I work in marketing.’

  Elspeth’s face took on an expression of phony concern. ‘Och, that must be terrible! Stuck in an office all day in the middle of a big city?’

  ‘It is awful,’ agreed Posy. ‘Just coffee and shopping in your lunch breaks, and nice and warm in the winter and free internet and stuff.’

  All of a sudden there was a large gurgling noise. For an instant, nobody spoke. Then Elspeth and Chris eyed one another.

  ‘It’s your turn,’ said Chris.

  Elspeth heaved a sigh. ‘But we have company.’

  The gurgling noise came again.

  ‘All the more reason . . .’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  With bad grace, Elspeth raised herself heavily from the table and disappeared through one of the doors at the end of the cabin. She returned carrying a very large yellow container, which glugged ominously. Posy shrank back as Elspeth shrugged on a heavy coat and hauled the container outside.

  At last she and Chris were alone. Posy looked up at him. He smiled ruefully.

  ‘I don’t think your girlfriend likes me very much,’ she offered.

  ‘No,’ said Chris. ‘I slightly sprung it on her. There’s not a lot of girls on the island . . . Elspeth probably feels a bit intimidated. ’

  ‘By me?’ said Posy. ‘She could gut me like a fish!’

  ‘She could,’ agreed Chris. ‘But she’s all right really, just feeling a bit threatened.’ He moved across the room and stoked the fire in the little stove.

  ‘Should she?’ he said, so quietly at first that Posy couldn’t believe she’d heard it.

  ‘What?’ said Posy.

  He turned to face her. ‘Well, why are you here?’

  ‘You think I’ve come to get you back?’ asked Posy.

  ‘Well,’ said Chris, ‘I didn’t think you were here to examine the local wildlife. And, you know, you’re getting to that age where you want a baby . . . you’re probably thinking, Oh yes, good old reliable Chris, he’ll do.’

  Posy was so shocked, she couldn’t speak. He thought she’d come all this way . . . and Elspeth thought she’d barged on to their barge to grab her man.

  ‘But . . .’ She wished suddenly she hadn’t redone her lipstick in the car. This was not a lipsticky kind of place. And she’d thought she was dressing down in black trousers and a patterned top, but maybe she looked up here like some kind of terrifying vamp. No wonder Elspeth was shooting daggers at her. ‘That’s not . . .’

  Elspeth banged her way back into the room, carrying the now empty yellow plastic container. Posy didn’t want to think about that too much. She immediately clocked the tension, and was glad she wasn’t sitting too close to Chris. Nonetheless, there was a prolonged silence in the air.

  ‘It’s a good clear night outside,’ said Elspeth, clearing her throat. ‘Why don’t youse two go take a walk or something? I’m sure you’ve got lots to catch up on.’

  Posy looked at Elspeth with some respect. She hadn’t realised that she looked like she was on the old pull. It was ridiculous anyway, as if she could swan back into Chris’s life, ten years on, click her fingers and make him follow her back to SW4. She wanted to convey this somehow to Elspeth, but the austere set of the latter’s chin made this seem very unlikely.

  ‘Sure,’ she said happily, wondering if her coat could take it.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ said Chris, and he took out the same old Rizla tin he’d had since they were in digs. Posy
eyed it in amazement. He proceeded to pull out papers and his little pouch of tobacco.

  ‘You still smoke?’ she said before she could help herself. Of course he did; that’s why he still smelled the same. It wasn’t even a smell she disliked.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Why, is it against the law in England now?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s just . . . I’d kind of got used to people giving up.’

  ‘Well, maybe some things don’t change,’ he said, eyeing her meaningfully.

  It took Chris nineteen hours to roll his cigarette. Posy smiled hopefully at Elspeth, who took this as an excuse to turn her back and start boiling the kettle for the washing up.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘No,’ said Elspeth shortly. ‘There isn’t room.’

  There wasn’t.

  Posy and Chris left in silence.

  Outside the only sound was the wash of water lapping on the side of boats, and their masts, clattering to themselves under the stars. Posy was silent until they reached the end of the narrow pier, following Chris’s lantern and seeing around her by the light of the huge high moon. He stumbled through some high grass over a dune and, feeling increasingly strange and lost, she followed. The air was still freezing, but at least the dunes behind them banked some wind.

  They were standing on a long deserted moonlit beach, as desolate as anywhere Posy had ever seen. There were just no people about, nobody at all. Presumably the sea went on from here to - where? Norway? The North Pole? Greenland? The sense of miles and miles of empty space, stretching upwards to the frozen wastes, made her feel incredibly small, and a long long way from home.

  Chris walked towards the dark lapping waves, stopping to pick up a handful of stones on the way. He paused, then started to skim them. Posy could hear the light plip, plip of every one. She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her borrowed coat and walked towards him.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’ said Chris. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘No, I mean, upsetting your girlfriend.’

  ‘She’ll get over it.’

  ‘Do you ever think about us, Chris?’

  Chris shrugged. ‘Not really.’