Faith - Lesley Pearse [45]
‘Well, here’s my hotel number.’ Stuart quickly wrote it down on a business card, then stood up. ‘If you want him out from under your feet for an evening, tell him to come and have a drink with me. I will be moving on, but they’ll pass on the new number, and wherever I’m staying he’ll be able to crash out there.’
‘And does the same apply to me?’ she said flirtatiously. ‘I could do with a day of shopping, a nice meal and a handsome escort.’
‘Yes, of course it does,’ he said gallantly, but hoping she wouldn’t take him up on it. ‘That is, if Charles doesn’t mind.’
‘I don’t much care what he minds about any more,’ she said blithely. ‘It was good to see you again, Stuart, do feel free to call again if you have reason to come out this way. I’ll always have a bed here for you.’
That offer sounded very much like she meant sharing her bed and it made him feel uncomfortable. ‘You haven’t given me your mother’s address,’ he said as he got to the door. ‘Could I have it?’
‘Surely you don’t want to go there,’ she replied, pulling a face. ‘It’s full of doddery old folk dribbling and wheezing.’
‘Not my favourite kind of place to visit,’ Stuart agreed. ‘But I feel I must go and see her for old times’ sake.’
Belle took one of the cards for the guest house and scribbled the nursing-home address on the back.
‘Is Roger still at the same address?’ he asked. ‘I thought I ought to see him too.’
‘Yes, still in Kensington. Though why you’d want to look him up I can’t imagine! You’ll only get chapter and verse on how badly Jackie treated him.’
‘He was another person who was good to me when I most needed it,’ Stuart said evenly. ‘Goodbye, Belle, look after yourself. The clouds will pass.’
Stuart decided against returning to Edinburgh. Instead he walked down to Crail harbour. Everything was just as he remembered, the picturesque tiny cottages huddled up against one another as protection from the harsh weather, the sense of all those men and women who had made their living from the sea for so many centuries. Crail had always been a more prosperous place than its neighbours; in fact he remembered from history lessons at school that for a time it was the wealthiest of the Royal Burghs. Marketplace, the street Belle’s house was in, was where merchants sold their goods, and the Dutch influence of the design of the Tolbooth across the street from Kirkmay House was evidence of the important trade and ideas that came to Crail from across the North Sea.
Tourists were bringing new prosperity now. Many of the old cottages had been renovated for holiday lets, and he noted an art gallery, a pottery and a café that would never have been thought of when he was a boy.
But the harbour was still the same, with the crab stall, the boats and the heaps of lobster pots. He glanced up at the high grey stone wall where the old castle had been centuries ago and saw two elderly ladies sitting on a bench having a picnic. Suddenly he was reminded of sitting on that same bench with Laura and Barney some twenty-two years ago. He could see Laura in a pink sundress and Barney with a bucket and spade asking when they were going to look for crabs.
He didn’t want those kind of memories, not now Barney was dead and Laura in prison. So he turned round and walked purposefully towards the coastal path to Cellardyke.
As he walked, Stuart carefully analysed everything Belle had said, and the more he thought about it the odder it seemed that she was still so bitter and angry about everything. It was after all two years since Jackie’s death.
Maybe the bitterness wasn’t through grief alone? It could be that things were bad with Charles, or that she felt trapped in a place she didn’t really belong in. They could even have financial problems and were waiting for Jackie’s estate to be settled to solve them. Worries about money were always debilitating, just as bad as broken hearts.
As he picked his way along the coastal path, looking at the sun glinting