Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered

Chapter 7

Smiling to myself I walked into town. Mum was right; not much had changed. Loch Claddach centre was built around an elongated square with the town hall at one end and shops lining each side. There was a Boots and an Oxfam, but besides those, the shops were mostly newsagent’s or twee tourist shops selling tartan fridge magnets and stuffed Loch Ness monsters. A few cars were parked in the middle of the square but there was no one around. It was all exactly as I remembered.

Uninspired, I crossed the road. Through the gaps between the buildings on the far side of the square, I could glimpse the inky black water of the loch. The Claddach Café was just a few minutes’ walk away, down one of the side streets that led to the waterside, so I decided to pop in and say hello to Eva, have a cup of coffee and watch the world go by.

I walked down towards the loch, shivering in the icy wind that blew across the water. The view was spectacular from here. Despite the cold, the sun was shining brightly and light bounced off the surface of the loch. Beyond it, I could see the purple-green hills and far in the distance, the snowy caps of the mountains. I breathed in deeply. There was so much air and so much space after London. I felt liberated. And, I suddenly realised, very cold.

With numb fingers, I pushed open the door to the café feeling my frozen toes come back to life as the warmth wrapped round me like a blanket. Eva was behind the counter, making a cappuccino for, I assumed, the only other customer who was in the café. That was unusual. Normally the place was packed at this time in the morning – at least it always had been. I shrugged off my coat and wandered over to the counter. Eva was wearing a polka-dot apron splattered with coffee. She had a pair of glasses on the end of her nose, one slung around her neck on a chain and another perched on top of her greying, curly hair.

‘Esme,’ she said in her soft Yorkshire accent. She came round the counter and opened her arms for a hug.

‘Hello, Eva,’ I said into her sizeable bosom. She released me, finally, and bustled me over to one of the sofas by the window.

‘Lovely Esme, let me look at you,’ she said, holding my hands and spreading out my arms. ‘Hmm, too thin, too tired, too much hard work,’ she frowned. ‘A few days up here will see you right.’

I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t help smiling. I adored Eva. While Mum and Suky are undoubtedly kind-hearted and generous, they both have a spiky side. Eva –emotionally and physically – was all soft edges.

My Granny had started the café years ago, selling traditional teas and cakes to tourists. There wasn’t a whiff of magic about the place, not then. Although she did – obviously – help people with their problems on a personal basis.

When Suky had Harry she came home for a while, and as Harry grew, Suky’s contribution to the café grew too. She began dabbling in tinctures and tonics, selling them to locals for all sorts of ailments. And she persuaded my mum – who’d done a business course in Glasgow and who was running from an unhappy love affair – to come home too. So they all rubbed along – Mum, Suky and Gran, and Harry and me. Then, when I was twelve, and high-flying Harry had just started an MBA in the States, Gran died and the magic at home leaked away, just a bit but enough for Mum and Suky to know they were in trouble. Harry was committed to her studies, and I was too young – they needed to find another witch.

As the last guests departed after Gran’s funeral, Mum, Suky, Harry and I sat at the kitchen table feeling a little lost. At least I was. I remember Harry barely lifted her head out of the economics book she was reading. Then there was a knock on the back door and when I opened it, there was Eva.

‘Hello,’ she said in her matter-of-fact way. ‘I think I’m supposed to stay here.’

It sounds crazy, just opening your home up to a stranger. But in the world of witches, it’s actually not as weird as it could be. Suky and Mum had sent out a kind of call for help – a celestial SOS – and Eva had answered. So when she arrived on the doorstep, they knew exactly why she was there. Basically, Mum and Suky grinned at each other, and that was that. Eva moved into the outbuilding at the bottom of our garden with her husband Allan. They patched it up at first, then slowly made it their home, and even added a studio for Allan, a landscape artist, and a kiln for Eva’s ceramics.

Eva says she’s not sure what made her come to Claddach. She and Allan were in a bad way back then. Their teenage son Simon had been killed in a car accident a couple of years before.

‘Existing we were,’ Eva once told me. ‘Not living.’

Allan had stopped painting, Eva’s magic had all but burned out.

‘I couldn’t see the point,’ she said. ‘My magic couldn’t save Simon and I didn’t want anything else.’

And then one morning, the morning of Granny’s funeral though of course she didn’t know that at the time, Eva woke up with a new sense of purpose.

‘We are needed in Scotland,’ she told Allan, sweet, unquestioning Allan. And they packed their bags and left – driving all day to reach us.

Shortly after they arrived, Allan sold a painting to a card company – then another and another. Suddenly he was in demand and, for the first time, comfortably off. Eva’s ceramics sold well to tourists all over the Highlands and as soon as she met up with Mum and Suky her magic came back in abundance. And so they stayed, and they were happy. And their home became a refuge for teenagers – some placed there officially by social services and some who just found their way there looking for Eva’s non-judgemental affection and Allan’s calm, steady care.

When I’d left home, angry and upset with Mum and betrayed by Harry, I’d cursed the universe that had led Eva to our garden. If she’d lived further away, she could have been my refuge, I’d thought at the time. But now, I was simply pleased to see her.

Eva smiled at me.

‘Is it like you remembered?’ she asked.

I nodded, looking through the café’s long windows and out over the loch.

‘It’s like I’ve never been away,’ I said, bewildered by how little had changed in such a long time. ‘Do you need a hand?’

Eva looked at the empty café and shook her head.

‘It’s all under control,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘In that case, I’ll have a latte please.’ I was going to make the most of being a customer while I still could.

She punched me gently on the arm.

‘Cheeky.’ But she got up and began making me a coffee anyway.

I took my drink and a glossy magazine from the rack over to a table, where I sat, ignoring the celebs in my mag and gazing out of the window instead. As I watched a small boat jump across the surface of the loch, the door to the café was flung open and a gust of cold wind rippled the pages of my magazine.

Chapter 8

‘Esme! It’s true! You are back!’

I looked up. So did Eva. Chloé stood in the doorway, her long red hair lifting in the wind and a frown on her face. I was overjoyed to see her. She’d been my best friend all the way through school. She ignored the other children when they muttered about my odd family and I stuck by her when she was teased for being so tall and gawky. Now she was tall, lean and beautiful with striking auburn hair and creamy white skin – and my family was still odd.

I jumped up to hug her – and close the door behind her because I was freezing.

‘I heard you were back,’ Chloé said, pulling up a chair. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’

I grinned at her. The infamous Loch Claddach gossips had clearly been doing a good job.

‘I’ve not even been here a day,’ I laughed. ‘How did you know I’d arrived?’

Chloé rolled her eyes.

‘Mrs Parkinson saw you drive in last night,’ she said. ‘She called Mum, and Mum called me. I thought you’d be here so I left the kids with their gran until Rob gets home and popped down.’

My smile faltered slightly. In my opinion Rob and the kids were the reason Chloé and I had grown apart. Inseparable at school, we’d remained close when I left Claddach. But after uni, while I threw myself into my work, Chloé married Rob, took a teaching job in Inverness, moved home and squeezed out two children in quick succession. After that we didn’t have much in common any more though we’d kept in touch with regular emails. I told myself I was bored with Chloé’s talk of nappies and nurseries but the truth was I was a little in awe of her. She seemed like a proper grown up, while I still felt like a child. Now, even though I was pleased to see her, I sat awkwardly opposite her, not sure what to say next.

‘So,’ I finally began as Eva put a cappuccino in front of Chloé without being asked. ‘Is everything still shit?’

Chloé laughed and looked sheepish.

‘I was a bit overdramatic in my last email,’ she said, sticking her finger in the froth of her coffee. ‘It’s just things haven’t exactly worked out as I planned, you know?’

I nodded, even though in terms of my career, things had worked out exactly as I’d planned.

‘I never thought I’d be stuck here, no job and two kids before I’m even thirty.’

‘But you’re feeling better now?’ I asked.

Chloé leaned forward.

‘Thanks to Suky,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling – only you. Not Rob, or my mum. Then I was in here a few weeks ago and Suky brought me a cake I hadn’t ordered. You know how she does?’

‘I do.’ I eyed Chloé’s cappuccino, which she hadn’t ordered either, suspiciously.

‘Anyway, about two days later I bumped into Mary – she’s the head at the primary school here – we got chatting and she mentioned they needed someone three days a week to do extra tuition with some of the kids. We had a chat, I taught a lesson for her, blah blah, you know the drill. And I’ve got a new job, which is perfect. And then I mentioned that I’d been looking at the MAs in the Open University brochure, Mary made a couple of calls and suddenly the council is funding me to do the course I want. Isn’t it funny how these things just happen?’

‘Isn’t it,’ I said drily, glancing at Eva, who was studiously ignoring us.

‘I think I was one of the last people Suky helped actually, before…’ She paused. ‘You know.’

I didn’t want to talk about Suky’s cancer right now. I changed the subject.

‘So what’s going on here?’ I asked, though I didn’t really care.

‘Ooh well there is some gossip. Have you heard it?’

‘I’ve only just arrived, Chlo,’ I said.

She stared at me, as if to say so?

‘I haven’t heard any gossip.’

‘There’s a hot new man in town,’ she said.

‘Really?’ This was interesting. ‘Permanently?’ Claddach had a stream of ever-changing arty visitors but no one ever stayed long.

‘Apparently so. For the foreseeable anyway. And…’ She was almost bouncing in her chair with excitement. ‘He’s American. Some dotcom millionaire.’

‘Probably one of Harry’s friends,’ I said. Harry’s business – a self-help empire – had started online.

Chloé looked deflated.

‘Oh do you think?’

‘Joke.’

Chloé rolled her eyes and carried on as though I hadn’t spoken.

‘Anyway, he’s hot, rich, American – the women of Claddach are in a frenzy.’

I chuckled.

‘Millicent Fry is beside herself,’ Chloé said.

‘Who’s she?’

‘Oh she’s a treat,’ said Chloé. ‘One of the rat-race escapees.’ Claddach was full of people running from life in Glasgow, Edinburgh or down south. There were writers, artists, poets, potters, silversmiths – all sorts.

‘So what does she do?’ I asked.

‘She runs the B&B,’ Chloé said. ‘Only she calls it a boutique hotel.’

She carried on talking, but I had lost interest as self-pity overwhelmed me. All these people escaping the rat race and I couldn’t wait to get back to it.

‘Mum wants me to stay,’ I said, interrupting Chloé’s tales of Millicent Fry.

‘Will you?’

I shrugged.

‘I can’t really. There’s work…’ I trailed off, knowing it was a rubbish excuse.

‘How are things with your mum?’

‘Better. The same. Worse,’ I said. ‘I don’t know. It’s going to be strange living in the same house again.’

‘Could be just what you need,’ Chloé pointed out. ‘It’s been ten years, Ez, since all the stuff with Jamie…’

She gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I haven’t told you!’

‘Told me what?’ I said. ‘What on earth is that?’

A woman was walking past the café wearing a Barbour jacket with a tartan tam o shanter perched on her blonde curls.

Chloé turned to look at what had caught my eye. She grinned in delight.

‘That,’ she laughed, ‘is Millicent Fry.’

‘No!’ I said. ‘Why is she wearing that hat?’

Chloé chuckled. ‘She’s not Scottish,’ she said. ‘But she’d like to be. She wears a lot of tartan.’

Together we watched Millicent walk up the path into the town centre. Then Chloé got up.

‘I must go,’ she said, giving me a kiss. ‘I need to rescue Rob from the children– he’s due at work soon. Come round for dinner?’

I agreed to see her later and said goodbye. As Chloé left the café, Mum came in and my good mood left me almost immediately. I knew she was there to do some enchanting and I knew she wanted me to do it too.

‘Hello, darling,’ she tinkled at me across the empty tables, falsely bright.

I heaved myself up from my comfy seat and slunk across to the counter where Mum and Eva stood.

‘Hello,’ I said sounding exactly as I had when I was a moody teenager.

‘Ready?’

‘Not really.’ I was nervous, actually. What if I made everything go wrong? My magic wasn’t great at the best of times.

‘It’s all nothing to worry about,’ Mum tried her best to reassure me as she and Eva steered me into the kitchen behind the counter, where Eva had started to bake a big bowl of something that smelled yummy.

I forced a smile.

‘Just tell me what to do, I’ll do it and then I’m out of here,’ I said. I didn’t mean to be so grumpy but somehow I couldn’t help it.

Mum handed me a wooden spoon. ‘Stir this.’

I stirred the huge bowl half-heartedly.

‘Put some welly into it,’ Eva said, as she reached up on to a shelf for a big bag of chopped dates and passed it to me.

‘Add these to the mixture,’ she said. ‘Honestly, don’t worry. You’re not doing this alone – we’re a team here.’

I poured the dates into my mixture and smiled at Eva doubtfully. I wasn’t convinced by her breezy good humour.

‘You don’t know my track record,’ I said, thinking of the broken light bulb in my bedroom and the car hire woman’s computer.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said again. ‘Stop fretting.’

I nodded slowly. ‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Wrinkling my nose, I peered into the bowl I was stirring. It was full of a dark brown, lumpy mixture.

‘What is this?’ I asked. ‘I’m not sure it’s supposed to look like this.’

Mum leaned over and looked into the bowl.

‘Oh yes it is,’ she said. ‘It’s sticky toffee pudding.’

‘And what makes it special sticky toffee pudding?’ I asked.

Mum and Eva grinned at each other.

‘Well, it’s not yet,’ Mum said. ‘But it will be in just a moment. Hold my hand.’

I put down the spoon and took Mum’s hand in my slightly sticky fingers. Eva took my other hand and linked with Mum over the bowl. She closed her eyes, so did Mum, but I kept mine open. I wanted to see what was going to happen.

Eva breathed in deeply and began to mutter a stream of strange words. She spoke so quietly her voice was like a breath, yet I could hear everything as clearly as if she were speaking straight into my ear.

As she spoke, time in the kitchen seemed to stand still. Everything was completely silent – I couldn’t even hear the noise of the coffee machine in the café or the waves crashing on the shore any more. Then, slowly, over the bowl, the air began to sparkle as though someone had shaken a pot of glitter high above the kitchen. I gasped as the sparkles floated downwards into the sticky toffee pudding and disappeared.

Mum dropped my hand.

‘That’s it,’ she said briskly.

‘That’s it?’ I asked, still peering into the bowl. ‘What have you – we – just done exactly?’

‘It’s for keeping secrets,’ Mum said.

I raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

Mum flicked me with a tea towel.

‘Look as sceptical as you like,’ she said. ‘It works.’

‘And who’s it for?’ I asked.

‘Mrs Unwin.’

‘What secrets does she have? Actually, don’t tell me. It’s probably better if I don’t know.’

This was exactly why I had a problem with what Mum and the others got up to in the tearoom. Unlike our ancestors from hundreds of years ago, and even my Gran just a few years ago, they didn’t always wait for people to come to them for help.

‘We can’t go around shouting about what we are, Esme. These are suspicious times,’ Mum always said when I challenged her. ‘But we do have to be proactive. It is the 21st century after all.’

Being proactive, according to Mum, Eva and Suky, meant being the eyes and ears of the village. They watched people meet for coffee, listened to conversations and paid attention to what wasn’t said. Then they interfered.

‘We help,’ said Mum. I wasn’t so sure.

Say, for example, Mum happened to overhear Old Mrs Lewis telling Mrs Parkinson that she’d seen her granddaughter kissing a boy who was definitely not her boyfriend. She’d serve them both up a portion of dark, moistly sweet, sticky toffee pudding – whether they’d asked for it or not – and somehow the girl’s stolen kisses would stay a secret.

Or, if Eva chatted to Chloé about how difficult she was finding being a mum, Chloé would find a piece of millionaire’s shortbread in front of her, warm and chocolatey and oozing with soft toffee. And by the time she’d eaten it, she’d be appreciating her riches.

‘I’ve got the two best kids in the world,’ she’d say and head off, misty-eyed, back to her family.

They’d even come up with a recipe for coffee cake – known among themselves as spill the beans cake – that made whoever ate it open their heart and let out whatever was on their mind.

I thought it was wrong to dispense unwanted advice and interfere in people’s private lives in this way. I’d been on the receiving end of Mum’s meddling myself with disastrous consequences which made my feelings on the matter even stronger and ironically made Mum and Suky even less likely to listen to my objections – because they thought I was too emotional about it all. But whatever my opinion, I couldn’t deny that the café was enormously successful. At least it always had been. It was strangely quiet today. And, even though our customers weren’t always aware of the helping hand they’d been given, they did flock to see Mum, Eva and Suky whenever they felt they needed to share a problem, get an energy boost or even share good news.

Thoughtfully I licked sticky toffee pudding mixture from the spoon.

‘Don’t eat that!’ Mum cried. I laughed.

‘I don’t have any secrets I need to keep,’ I lied, thinking of Dom and how much trouble it would cause if everyone – Mum, Chloé, people at work…Rebecca – found out about our relationship.

Mum took the spoon from me and put it in the dishwasher.

‘I was thinking about the health inspector,’ she said. ‘If he saw you doing that, he’d close us down.’

Chapter 9

Relieved it was all over, and with no ill effects as far as I could see, I decided to leave Mum and Eva to it and go out for some fresh air. I bundled myself up in my thick coat and decided to go for a walk round the loch.

Wrapping my scarf round my neck, I tramped across the stony beach to the water’s edge and looked across to the other side. Claddach was a small loch, a puddle really, compared to some, so I could see the far end clearly. It was said to be as deep as it was long, however, and I believed it. The water was still and peaty black at the centre. At the edge, where I stood, small waves lapped at the shingle and further out, the water was being whipped into small peaks by the wind. The mountains were purple against the bright blue frosty sky as they loomed over the loch. It was bleak but it was beautiful.

I picked up a flat stone and skidded it across the waves. It jumped once…twice…three times then sank into the murky water. Rubbish. I’d lost my touch. I tried again…four…five…better.

Behind me, the shingle crunched and suddenly another stone flew past my arm. I watched as it skipped five, six times.

‘Yes!’ said a voice and I turned to see who had gatecrashed my game.

It was a man. A rather handsome man, actually. He was wearing running gear and because he was higher up the steeply shelving beach than I was, my eyes were level with his toned, tanned thighs. Thighs that told me this wasn’t a local man – this must be Chloé’s hot American.

‘Sorry,’ he smiled and his eyes crinkled up at the corners in a way that made him look like a preppy George Clooney. ‘I can’t resist a bit of competition.’

‘You won,’ I pointed out, still annoyed at his interruption.

‘I always do,’ he said. I didn’t doubt it. He looked like he’d spent his life winning.

The American stuck out his hand for me to shake.

‘Brent Portland,’ he said.

I shook his hand.

‘Esme McLeod.’

‘Going this way?’ he nodded in the direction of Mum’s house. I thought of a reason to go the other way – I was no fan of small talk at the best of times – but came up with nothing.

‘I am,’ I said. We began walking back up the beach to the road. Brent was nice looking, couldn’t deny, though he wasn’t my type. He was an all-American, clean-cut guy with tousled dark hair, good skin and startlingly white even teeth.