Artists Town

CLOSED FOR LUNCH

CLOSED

FOR LUNCHThey were

meant to go to France on holiday—or at least Spain, which was Daisy’s

preference. For as far back as she could remember, she and her family had

holidayed in France or Spain.

Tony, Daisy’s dad, loved France

and always used the holidays to practice his French. He insisted the children

spoke it too. Daisy hated that part. She could sense the French wincing as she

mangled their language. On the other hand, she spoke French much better than

most of her schoolmates.

This year, though, a foreign holiday was out of the question. “I just

couldn’t, Tony,” her mum had said. “I’d be so

worried. I mean, what if…” She looked at Daisy.

Debbie meant what if something happened to Daisy. Nine months ago,

Daisy’s life turned upside down. She had lost a stone in weeks, which was

fantastic, but she’d felt tired and thirsty all the time. Not so fantastic.

Her mum attributed it to anorexia initially—rife among Daisy’s school

friends, competitive under-eaters all—and began closely watching her daughter

as she ate. Satisfied that Daisy was eating enough and not throwing it up or

shitting it out afterwards, she took her to their GP.

He made her pee on a stick, announced she had type 1 diabetes and needed

to be admitted to the hospital as soon as possible.

Her mum started to cry. Daisy was none the wiser. “What is that?” she

asked. Didn’t her nanna sometimes talk about her friend, Dot, who had diabetes

and ate cakes even though her doctor told her not to?

“It’s a chronic health condition,” the doctor replied. “Your pancreas

has stopped working. It’s not producing insulin. You need insulin to break down

carbohydrates in food.”

Daisy still didn’t feel enlightened. “What’s the cure for it?”

The doctor sat back in his seat. The look he gave her was one of pity.

“There’s no cure, I’m afraid.”

She spent a week in the hospital,

a week where doctors, nurses and dieticians bombarded

her with information. These are carbohydrates;

this is an exchange. One exchange is an apple, one slice of bread or one

scoop of mashed potatoes. These are syringes. This

is insulin. You need to give yourself injections in the morning and at night.

One very scary doctor told her in detail what would happen if she didn’t

take care of herself.

“You will lose your eyesight. Your kidneys will pack up, and you will need dialysis. You will get

liver disease. Your nerves will stop working properly,

and you will live with pain. Your blood pressure will increase too much, and you will be at risk of a stroke or a

heart attack.”

Eventually, Debbie told him to stop. Daisy was white-faced, recovering

from the shock of yet another blood sample taken from her arm.

Life became a constant round of injections, measuring out food and

always carrying glucose tablets with her. All the activities she’d previously

taken for granted—going to school, walking there and back, meeting up with

friends, going to McDonald’s with those friends, hanging out in other people’s

houses, doing PE—they weren’t the same anymore.

Anything that involved being away from the house was now fraught with

danger, as far as her mum was concerned. In Debbie’s ideal world, Daisy reckoned she’d make sure her daughter never left

the house, schooling and Vitamin D exposure be damned.

Hence, the holiday in Kirkinwall. Tony chose the place at the last

minute. Years ago, before his children had been born, he and Debbie had visited the area and loved its peace and quiet.

It was the opposite of London, he said, and after the year they’d had, a

marvellous place for the annual Walker holiday.

Marvellous, it was not, Daisy reflected. As they’d booked so late, places to stay

were limited. Their only option had been the grotty

and grim Braemar B&B instead of the bijou cottage with its open-plan

rooms and garden backdropped by valley views and blue skies they usually stayed

in when they went to France.

In the hotel Mrs Burnett had mentioned, the Gordon Arms, the lounge bar was deserted, but

the public bar was open. It seemed to have no windows,

and smoke swirled around, obscuring the view.

A voice boomed, “We're closed for food.” Somehow, the brassy blonde barmaid

who materialised out of the gloom had worked out that two middle-aged people

with a teenager and a pre-pubescent boy entering a pub just after two, wanted

lunch.

Who knew?

Dad started his charm thing. “We’re so sorry we got here late–”

The barmaid looked unsympathetic.

“—and we haven’t had lunch! Sandwiches will do us just fine. We could

have ham or cheese. Whatever is easiest?”

He rubbed his hands together. The woman glared at him. She unpeeled

herself from her position behind the bar, her conversation with two young men

who sat on high stools drinking pints, so rudely interrupted.

“We’re closed for–”

Debbie cut her off. “For food, yes. Come on, Tony. Let’s see what the chippie can do.”

“If it’s still open.”

The brassy blonde exchanged a sly grin with the two pint-drinkers; no doubt anticipating the Walkers’ trudge to the fish

and chip shop only to find a closed sign swinging from its door.

They left the Gordon Arms. No-one had dared ask the barmaid how to get

to the chippie.

“Harbour direction, surely!” Tony made strides that way. The rest of

them followed. He was right. Five minutes later they discovered a fish and chip

shop, ‘open’ sign reassuringly hanging from its eaves. The smell was

incredible, hot batter and malt vinegar that created a welcoming cloud around

the doorway and the few tables and chairs placed on the pavement.

Her dad stood outside the door. “Right, orders then! Tell me what you

want I’ll go in and get them. Over and out!”

Daisy hoped no-one had heard them. Nobody, but nobody said, ‘over and

out’ these days. She surveyed their surroundings. The only people who might

have heard were an old lady pushing a two-wheel shopping trolley. She didn’t

count, but what about the young guy

sitting on the car park wall, a bicycle leaning next to him? His deafness was

far more critical. Luckily, he wasn’t

looking in their direction; the

dark-haired head turned towards the sea.

“I don’t know, Tony,” her mum darted looks at Daisy. “I’m not sure we

should be eating fish and chips.”

By ‘we’ she meant Daisy again, worried that her body wouldn’t be able to

cope with the overload of carbohydrates.

“Well, needs must!” Tony refused to let go of that first-day-away-from

work enthusiasm. “And we are on our holidays. Daisy, you will need to do an

extra blood test or two. Is that okay?”

He put it as a question, instead of what it was—an order.

She nodded, and he smiled at her,

winking when her mum wasn’t looking. He took their orders and vanished into the

shop, its door chiming melodically as he

entered.

“I’ve never seen a castle in the middle of town before,” Debbie remarked

as they waited outside. She pointed at the castle behind them.

“Can we go there?” Matthew asked. His school was doing a project on medieval

knights. Castles and battles featured

often. A castle meant he could pretend to be gallant Sir Matthew, armed with a

bow and arrow, shooting off the approaches of an

evil baron.

“Mmm, of course.” Daisy’s mum had resorted to toe-tapping and darting

anxious glances at the chippie. She’d be worried the food was taking too long.

Daisy made sure her mum couldn’t catch her eye. The constant fussing got on her

nerves.

Tony emerged a few minutes later, holding steaming parcels of

newspaper-wrapped food and cans of juice. He pointed at the grassy mound to the

side of the Harbour car park. “I can see

tables and chairs. Let’s eat up there. The views are terrific.”

Daisy wished she’d put on an extra jumper under her coat. It wasn’t that

warm.

Her dad homed in on a table under the huge beech tree in front of the

small church that looked out onto the river. There were fishing boats anchored

all the way up to the bridge on the left and the harbour smelled of dried out

seaweed. The family sat down, and Daisy’s

dad handed out each parcel.

“Sausage and chips for you, Matthew, and a can of coke. A fish supper

for you, Debbie, and one for me. You can share my coke. Battered fish for you,

Daisy.”

“Is there anything for me to drink?”

Tony bit his lip apologetically. “Sorry love. They didn’t have any Tab

or Diet Coke.”

Debbie rummaged in her handbag, emerging triumphantly with a flask of

water she had filled in the B&B.

“Here you go.”

Matthew had eaten half of his sausage supper already. The chips looked

especially good, doused with malt vinegar

and salt.

Daisy sneaked her hand out and nabbed a couple.

“Hey!” Matthew’s protest came out at the same time as her mum’s, “Daisy

love, not too many chips.”

Daisy poked her tongue out, a gesture her mum pretended not to see. God,

it was only three chips. Fish and chips without the chips were…well, not fish and chips. She compensated

by eating all the batter and just half

the fish. Her mum delved back into her capacious handbag, emerging this time

with an apple. She handed it to Daisy.

The meal finished, Matthew repeated his request to visit the castle.

“Oh, let’s!” Tony leapt to his

feet, gathering up the empty papers and

cans and disposing of them in the nearby litter bin. “I love a good castle! And

this one is Dhoon Castle, once the seat of the MacLellans. Fancy that! When I

researched my family tree, a few years ago, I found MacLellans on my mother’s

side. Maybe my great-great-great grandfather built it.”

Not enough greats, Dad. Daisy didn’t bother to say it out loud. Her dad still thought she was

as gullible as Matthew, ready to believe anything no matter how unlikely just

because he said it with such authority.

Close to, Daisy didn’t think it was a good castle. It wasn’t that big

for a start, and it didn’t have a moat. The person who took their money told

them that MacLellan had taken the stones

from another nearby castle to build his. That cemented her opinion. The castle was a cheat, a second-rate fortress.

The visit didn’t last long. There was not much to see, the bare bones of

a place that had once housed master, family and servants and almost impossible

to imagine. Matthew loved the supposed dungeon; his dad was a pretend prisoner jailed by the wicked Sheriff

of Nottingham. Matthew as Robin Hood rescued him triumphantly.

“My mother’s family were MacLellan’s,”

her dad said as they left. The money-taker nodded, asking questions about where

and when they had been born, polite, rather than interested questions.

They walked around the town. It did not take long. Daisy took stock: two butchers, one grocer, two

newsagents, an ironmonger, a chemist, and a supermarket so tiny it didn’t seem

worthy of the name. Not one of them looked inviting.

There were two sweet shops, but her mum hurried them past those. Daisy

spotted the jars of boiled sweets and brightly-coloured sherbet. Before her

illness, sherbet was her favourite sweet

treat. She liked to buy bags of the blue-coloured stuff, the kind that turned

your mouth bright blue for hours afterwards.

The rest of the day stretched ahead. Two hours until dinner time. And

then after dinner, what were they going to do?

Everything Daisy had thought about this holiday was right. s**t place,

nothing to do and miles away from anywhere or anything exciting.

Tony stopped in front of the newsagents. “Right. Well, I’ll need my

newspaper.”

As he bought a copy of The Times,

Daisy’s dad asked the newsagent his recommendation for dinner. The newsagent

took the question seriously, firing off questions. A family of four, yes? Were

the children fussy eaters? Daisy took

offence at being labelled a child. Did they want Scottish food or something

else?

Tony finished the conversation and looked pleased with himself. “Right. The newsagent told me there’s a very nice

Italian restaurant just over there.” He pointed to a building above a coffee

shop. It didn’t look like a restaurant from the outside, but there was a sign

hanging in the window: Bella Italia. Italian Home Cooking.

“Now, the man in the newsagents suggests we go for a drive. Debbie, are

you happy to drive? I’d rather not do any more driving today.”

Debbie nodded, and the four of

them made their way back to the Braemar Quality B&B, as their car was

parked outside. Daisy dragged her feet, hoping that Tony or Debbie would change

their mind before they got back there or that

they might let her away with not coming. A drive to look at yet more

bloody boring trees and fields. Whoop-de-doo.

Approaching the house, she spotted a lace curtain twitch once more.

Seconds later, Katrina opened the front door, bumping into them almost

accidentally. She raised her arms up as soon as she saw them in an “oh, it’s you again!” way. She didn’t fool Daisy.

But her appearance triggered another reaction. Katrina had put on a

black denim jacket over her print dress. Daisy’s heart contracted with envy.

Black denim.

She had spent a whole Saturday months ago trying to find a black denim

jacket in London and hadn’t seen one she

liked. Now, she stared at the perfect example,

slim-fitting, the cuffs worn and studded with gleaming metal buttons.

Embroidered red roses covered the pockets.

“Did you get lunch?” Katrina called out.

“Yes, we did. Say thanks to your gran for the recommendation. Best fish

and chips I’ve had in years!” To Daisy’s dismay,

Tony jumped in with a reply first. As Katrina seemed to be her age, Daisy felt

answering her was her prerogative.

“Aye, I’ve heard folks say she does the best fish and chips in Scotland.

If Alison had a bit more money, maybe she could advertise a bit more. Get

people in and all that.”

Business advice given, she lingered, scuffing her feet against the pavement.

“Do you want to come with us?” her dad asked. “We’re going to look at

the countryside.”

At times, Daisy hated her dad. He was totally,

totally embarrassing. No self-respecting cool girl was going to–

“Okay.” Katrina skipped over, smiling. She stopped beside Daisy and

nudged her side with her elbow. The smile she exchanged with Daisy changed from

the polite one you gave adults to a conspiratorial grin.

Maybe Daisy’s dad wasn’t that bad after all.