DAY 57
Eat something different
“What is in this haggis?” Costas was staring at his plate, prodding at the mass on it. It did resemble a tumor or something, Annie thought, underneath its translucent skin.
“It’s just lamb,” Dr. Max said, hefting another one over with an oven glove, and sticking it on Annie’s plate. Buster was sniffing about at their feet, driven wild by the smell of meat. “You eat a lot of lamb in Greece, right?”
“Don’t listen to him, Costas,” George said, grimacing. “It’s sheep stomach.”
“Stomach?” Costas’s eyes went round. “Maybe I will just eat these potatoes here.”
“Haggis, neeps and tatties,” said Dr. Max. “National dish of Scotland. Just try a wee bit, you’ll love it.”
Polly was already scarfing hers. “I’ll eat anything, me. Life’s too short to turn your nose up.”
“I once ate a live grub,” Dr. Max said cheerfully. In fact, he’d been cheerful the whole time they were in Scotland, Annie realized. Perhaps it was London that made him grumpy. “I was on a placement year in Brazil. Tasted like coconut.”
“Bleurgh.” George mimed retching. “I love you, really, Dr. Max, but is there a pizza delivery place around here?”
“Not for fifty miles. Just try it. Annie?” He held up a gravy boat filled with creamy whiskey sauce. He was wearing his mother’s flowery pinny, and his hair was even more disheveled than usual from the heat of the kitchen.
“I didn’t know you could cook.” She pushed her plate over. Maybe it would disguise the taste of the sheep stomach. “Thought you lived exclusively off Twixes.”
“Och, aye, lots of surgeons cook. Good hands, see.”
Annie studiously did not look at Polly.
“I suppose you’re used to seeing the insides of bodies,” George muttered, poking at his haggis.
Polly tapped his plate. “Eat it! Don’t be rude.”
Annie poked at hers. He was watching her. “Go on. It’s honestly delicious. My favorite food.”
Annie cut into the skin of her haggis, and out tumbled black mulch, a bit like potting compost. Gingerly, she took a tiny forkful to her lips. Her mouth was filled with a rich, meaty, spicy taste. “It’s really nice!”
“Told you. Try it with the whiskey sauce. I used ten-year-old Lagavulin for that.”
“Maybe I can just have toast,” George said with quavering self-pity.
Dr. Max relented. “That one’s vegetarian haggis. Also verra tasty. Not been near a stomach. Promise.”
Eventually they all ate theirs, and drank their whiskey, either neat or in whiskey sours, which made Dr. Max curse and mutter under his breath about them being a pack of philistines, and Edna, his mother, a tiny lady with a helmet of blue-rinse curls, came to say good-night (her bedtime was 9:00 p.m., no exceptions). She was buttoned up to the neck in a pink quilted dressing gown, as—no surprise—it was absolutely freezing outside the kitchen. “Och, did you enjoy your haggis?”
“Delicious,” George said, smiling broadly. Maybe he would make it as an actor, after all, Annie thought. “Are you off to bed, Mrs. F?”
“Oh, aye, verra late for me to be up. Your beds are all made up and I’ve put in a wee hot water bottle. Are you laddies okay bunking in together, aye?” She said the last to Costas and George, and Polly winked at Annie across the table.
“You didn’t need to do that, Mrs. F,” said George. “We don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” said Edna. “Stay put and have a wee dram. Maximilian never brings any friends here. It does my heart good to see you all.”
* * *
“Everyone gone up?” said Dr. Max. He and Annie had just washed the dishes, listening to the radio in comfortable silence. He sang along when songs he liked came on. The Eagles. Smokey Robinson. Even ABBA, surprisingly. “Say nothing,” he told her when she’d raised her eyebrows at that. “Maybe they’re not so bad, after all.” Now they were done, and back in the living room. Buster had fallen asleep in front of the fire, his paws twitching as he chased dream rabbits.
“Polly’s in the bathroom, I think.” George and Costas had said something about “looking for the northern lights,” and disappeared off. Annie was sleeping in the living room on the sofa bed. She’d planned to sit by the fire, nursing the whiskey. She thought she might be acquiring the taste for it everyone went on about, for the warming afterglow and the peaty smell that reminded her of heather and streams on a spring day.
He waved a hand at the sofa he’d sat down on. “Is this okay? I realize I’m in your bed right now.”
Annie hoped her blush would be disguised as heat from the flames. “It’s fine. Just enjoying my drink.”
After a few moments, he hunkered down by the fire, stirring it with the poker so the orange center of it flamed up. The smell of peat was the same as Annie’s whiskey, warm and clean somehow, like fresh air and earth and the outside. She could see the top of his head, where his untamed hair was starting to thin a little. He’d be bald when he was older, she thought to herself. Not yet, not till he was fifty or so. He’d age well, his beard graying and... She stopped herself from imagining anything more. “I’m glad you like it,” he said. “I mean, not just the whiskey but Scotland in general. You do, don’t you?”
“Of course. I can’t believe I never came before. It’s so beautiful.”
“I always think more clearly up here. In London everything seems so loud. Not just the streets but even my thoughts, my head. Here I can just...be quiet.”
“I know what you mean. So, if you don’t mind me asking, how come you don’t work up here?”
He sat back on his heels, swirled his own whiskey. “I’ve thought about it. It would have to be a big city, of course, and so far the jobs haven’t come up. Plus, we’re doing more cutting-edge work down there. But yeah, I’ve thought about it. And with Mum getting on a bit, you know.”
Annie really didn’t want him to move to Scotland. “I guess London has more...plays and things.”
“Sure.” He scratched Buster’s tummy, absently. “When did you last go to a play?”
“Um, about six years ago, probably.”
“Me, too. So. Why do we stay?”
“Mum’s there. I grew up there. Work—well, it was there. Now, who knows.”
“The world is your oyster. I’ve never understood that expression. Oysters aren’t interesting, are they? Sort of gloopy and gross.”
“Gloopy and gross sums up my world pretty well.” But not anymore, Annie realized. Right now she was in the most beautiful part of the country, with a good friend upstairs, good food in her stomach and a good scruffy man sitting at her feet. He was close enough that she could have reached out and stroked his head.
“Annie?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you thought about what might happen—you know, after?”
“After?” She didn’t understand at first.
“Polly. She’s still very sick, you know. This is just...this is the last hurrah, I think.” He was speaking very softly. “What will you do?”
She sighed. “I have no idea. She sort of threw a grenade in my life. I’ll have to find another job, and somewhere for Mum to live.”
“It doesn’t have to be London?”
“No, I guess not. Somewhere cheaper would be good. But I need to work, too.”
He raised his glass to his mouth. He was facing away from her, staring at the fire, and she suddenly had the impression he was about to say something important. Her spine tensed. “Well, maybe—”
“Not interrupting, am I?” Polly called from the doorway.
Annie’s heart sank. “’Course not. You all ready for bed?”
Polly was wearing fleecy pajamas with hearts on, and you could see how thin she was, how worn out. But her chin was raised and her eyes bright. “Just about. Dr. Max, can I have a word with Annie?”
“Oh. Sure. I’ll go and lock up the gates. See where the boys have got to.”
Polly came to sit where he’d been, curling her legs up toward the fire. She lifted his glass and finished the dregs, an intimate little gesture that somehow stabbed at Annie. “Yuck. No idea how he can drink this stuff.”
“What’s up?”
“Well, you know how tomorrow is our last day here?”
“I can’t stay any longer, I’m sorry. I know I got fired but there’s still Mum—she has no one else.”
“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Polly held up the now-empty glass, squinting at the trails left by the whiskey. Legs, Dr. Max had called them. “What if there was someone else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t be mad.” Polly smiled brightly.
“Well, I’ll try. What is it?”
“When you first told me about your dad, how you’d never met him and so on, I thought that was a shame. Seeing as you’ve sort of lost your mum now, in a way. I didn’t want you to be alone. That’s why I did it. I hope you can see that?”
“What did you do?” Annie sat up straight, panicked.
“Well. All I did was look for your dad, really.” Polly spoke so casually.
“You...what? Polly. Why did you do that?”
“So you wouldn’t be alone, like I said. Look, Annie, we’ve had fun, yeah? But I won’t be around forever. And then where will you be? Back in that flat with your poor mum who doesn’t know who you are, stalking Mike and Jane online, never going out? I don’t want that for you.”
“I...” Annie was speechless. “I’m not a child, Poll. I can look after myself.”
“Can you? You weren’t doing that good a job before you met me.”
She’s dying, she’s dying. With supreme patience, Annie said, “So. You looked up my dad. Did you...find him?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s easy to find people on the electoral register. He lives quite near here, in fact. Well, in Scottish terms.” So that was what her mother had meant about seeing Andrew. He lived here. But...how did her mother know that? A pulse began to beat in Annie’s stomach. Polly was still talking. “So I thought tomorrow, Dr. Max could drive you over while we go for a stroll in the town. Visit the distillery and so on.” She was still beaming.
“Just like that.” She’d handed Annie a father she’d never known, never even thought about finding.
“Yeah, just like that. I’ll clear it with Dr. Max but he’ll do it, I’m sure.”
“Right.” Because transport was the only problem in this situation.
Polly frowned. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you happy?”
Where could she start? It was one thing giving her makeovers, forcing her to miss work over and over until she got fired, making her take part in bizarre dances and go on roller coasters. But interfering in her family, as if Annie couldn’t have found him by herself? “Polly,” she began, hearing the wobble in her voice. Then the door slammed and in came Costas and George, bringing a winter chill with them, hats and coats dusted in snow.
“We saw many, many stars!” Costas said happily. “Cassiopeia, Pleaides...names from Greek!”
“What he said,” George said, also grinning. “Haven’t a bloody clue about stars, but man, it is stunning out there. Still no northern lights, though. Sorry, Poll. What’s up with you two?”