No Place Like Home

things do you forage for? Salady stuff? Mushrooms?’
‘Aye, and pignuts, elderflowers, blaeberries… Best stay away from the mushrooms if you don’t know what you’re doing. Pick the wrong one and you could end up giving your whole family organ failure. Something like death cap, there’s no antidote, right? Get that in your system and hello kidney dialysis for life, if you’re lucky.’ He swiped a cloth along the bar and gave a huge sigh. ‘I suppose I could come over and show you the basics. Show you the safe ones you can’t mistake for anything dangerous.’
‘Well, that would be very kind of you, but I don’t want to put you out.’
‘It’s no trouble.’ Willie’s tone was heavy with sarcasm.
‘Right. Well, thank you very much.’ Bram felt bad now, as if he’d badgered the man into agreeing to teach him how to forage for mushrooms. But playing the conversation back, he was pretty sure that wasn’t how it had gone. He’d ask Kirsty later if she felt he’d been a bit pushy.
But Kirsty was no longer at his side. A new group of people had entered the bar, five or six women about their own age, and Kirsty was talking to them as they slung their bags over chairs and shrugged out of jackets. As Bram watched, Kirsty flung back her head and laughed, uninhibitedly, rather raucously.
Good. He’d hoped there might be people here she’d know.
They’d all been on edge since Bertie had been shot, and the revelation about David’s conviction for assault had obviously hit Kirsty hard. She’d had a brittle quality to her these last couple of days, a closed-off look he knew all too well. He’d decided she needed to let off steam and she’d seemed keen on the idea of a night out, although when it had come to the point of leaving the house they had both hesitated, until Max had laughed: ‘Go! What on earth do you think’s going to happen with Uncle Fraser standing guard?’
The implication being that Fraser was a more effective ‘guard’ than Bram himself.
Fair point.
He joined the group of women at the table and tried to relax into it, nursing one soft drink after another as Kirsty knocked back the booze. The large, Marilyn Monroe-esque blonde called Isla keep trying to ply Bram with alcohol, no matter how often he repeated the mantra, ‘I’m driving.’
‘Oft, we’re all taxiing. We can drop you two back. Go on, Bram, live a little!’
‘Thanks, but no, we don’t want to be too late. Kirsty’s brother is babysitting.’
‘Fraser? How is Fraser these days? Last I heard, he was at it with Graham Coull’s missus.’
‘Uh.’ Bram realised that he had no idea about Fraser’s love life. If he had thought about it at all, he supposed he had assumed just that sort of dubious arrangement. ‘I suppose you all know each other from school?’
‘Oh aye, thick as thieves!’ Isla slapped her phone on the table in front of Bram as Kirsty, on the other side of the table, suddenly screamed with laughter, grabbing onto one of the other women, who was similarly red-faced with mirth. ‘The gang.’
The image filling the screen was a throwback photo of a group of boys and girls in their early teens, the girls dressed rather inappropriately, Bram couldn’t help thinking, in flimsy tops and very short skirts or cut-off jeans. They were in a park, against a backdrop of swings and a climbing frame, piling into the photo with wide-open mouths as they all shouted at whoever was taking the picture, obviously horrendously drunk. Some of them were holding cans, and there were bottles of cider and vodka visible on the grass behind them.
‘Off out on the town!’
‘You all look very young.’
‘Thirteen, fourteen. There she is. There’s Kirst.’ She tapped a pink talon of a fingernail on the screen, on a face he only just recognised as Kirsty’s. She was in the centre of the group, heavily made up, her babyish cheeks caked in foundation, her mouth shiny with bright pink lip gloss. Confident, happy, popular.
A different person entirely from the young woman he had known at uni.
‘And that’s Fraser.’ The talon tapped at a muscly boy with his shirt off. Bram barely recognised Fraser with that mop of hair. ‘And Scott was eye-candy even then.’ Scott was, of course, playing it cool, in jeans and white T-shirt, smiling enigmatically, one arm round Kirsty.
‘Andrew Taylor. Andrew Taylor!’ the woman on the other side of Isla leant over to shout at Bram. Mhairi, he thought her name was. She had ruthlessly styled auburn hair and was very petite. Presumably the alcohol had affected her more quickly than the others.
‘Uh, right?’
‘Man who sold you the plot?’
‘Yes, I–’
‘Tosser!’
Bram’s shock must have shown on his face, because Isla cackled: ‘Not you, Bram, not you!’
‘Andrew Taylor is a tosser,’ Mhairi clarified.
‘Ah. Okay. Is he? He seems a nice enough guy.’
Mhairi slumped over the table, the better to bring her face nearer to Bram’s. ‘Fully certified tosser. Decides what Grantown needs is a fancy-wanky “fine dining” experience – that’s what he calls it on the website, a “fine dining experience”! These wee teuchters need educating about what food is, right, they need weaned off their nuggets and chips. Calls it The Tappit Hen. On the High Street?’
‘Uh, yes, I’ve walked past the place.’
‘Aye, you’ve walked past it, like everyone else!’ laughed Isla.
Bram had in fact contemplated suggesting that the family go there for a meal, in the interests of good neighbourly relations. He’d stopped to examine the menu. There had been what looked like nice vegetarian options, and he had particularly fancied the ‘supergreen soup with toasted almonds and artichoke toast’, but then he’d seen that one of the other starters was ‘pâté de foie gras with samphire and pain de campagne rondels’. He’d been meaning to talk to Andrew about that. Okay, to be honest, he’d been plucking up the courage.
‘The place is going down the toilet,’ said Mhairi with satisfaction.
He wasn’t surprised. Whenever they passed, no