The penny dropped in Maisie’s brain with a loud ‘kerching’. Damn it, how had she not realised before? A bloke, a ‘special mate’. Patrick was gay and running away to Gull from a wrecked relationship, just like herself. That relationship just happened to be with a man.
Argh. Maisie kicked herself for her naivety in assuming that he was straight and fancied her. She smiled encouragingly at him, rueing her presumption.
‘I see,’ she said.
Patrick frowned as if he couldn’t see why or what Maisie ‘saw’ at all. ‘Do you?’
‘Yes, I mean, no. Sorry to interrupt you. Please carry on.’
‘This bloke, Greg is – was – a good friend of mine. A very good friend, you could say …’
Maisie arranged her face into sympathetic-good-listener mode. She felt sorry for him, having to explain himself, and perhaps she should tell him now that his personal life was none of her business unless it related directly to his work.
‘Greg was like a father to me,’ said Patrick.
‘Father?’ Her voice was almost a squeak. Maisie had to make a physical effort to wipe the grin of relief from her face. Not gay then. But … what other surprises were coming from left field? Plenty, if her hunches about Patrick McKinnon were right.
‘Yes, or a father figure, though he would have laughed at me for saying anything so schmaltzy. He thought of himself more as a good mate, which he was. Sorry, I’m not making much sense, am I?’
‘Greg was also my boss at my last place of work in Melbourne. The Fingle Bar, which of course you’ll know all about when you google it and email or phone to talk to them.’
‘Will Greg vouch for you?’ she said, noting his name on the pad.
‘I’m sure he would if he could …’
Maisie glanced up.
‘He’s been dead for six months.’
‘Oh God. I’m so sorry.’
‘So am I. Sorrier than I can tell you, but there’s nothing he or I can do about it. Greg had cancer, and he was only fifty-one. He’d taken me on at the Fingle as a pot washer and by the time he passed away, I was managing the place. It’s a big bar overlooking the Yarra River in the heart of the city. You’d like it.’
He hesitated. She smiled encouragingly. ‘Sounds great. Go on.’
‘Cutting a long story short, Greg was my mentor and friend. He helped me out at a time in my life when I was going way off the rails. Without him I’d have ended up in a bad place – I already had, to be honest – and finding out that he was sick made me and him rethink a few things. Greg told me his cancer was terminal late last year and that I should use his bad luck as a wake-up call for my own life.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Maisie, surprised but pleased by his honesty. Losing Keegan – and losing their unborn baby at the same time – had turned her own world upside-down. For the first few weeks after her miscarriage and Keegan walking out on her, she’d felt like someone had picked her up, shaken her until she didn’t know night from day, or anything at all. When she’d slowly emerged from a cocoon of grief and loss, the world had looked completely different.
‘Maisie?’
‘Sorry. You were saying? Greg’s illness made you re-evaluate your priorities.’
He smiled at her. It wasn’t like her to use language like that but she’d been reminded of what she’d written in her resignation letter to her line manager at the pub. She’d used cold and formal words then to describe the raw pain and anger she’d been feeling over her double loss.
‘Greg asked me if I was really happy running the Fingle; he told me to get out and see the world while I was young and fit. He told me he regretted staying so long in one place and now it was too late for him. He wished he’d taken his wife and kids to live in and experience other places when he’d been younger. I stayed on to help Judy but now I’ve decided to take a break and made my plans to see the world.’
‘So you came to Britain first?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any particular reason?’
He ran his fingertip over the table top, a smile creeping over his lips. ‘Ah, that’s simple. I am British.’
OK. He was full of surprises.
‘My parents emigrated from London when I was a baby so I think of myself as Aussie. I have dual citizenship and two passports, so there shouldn’t be any problem with my right to work. Crazy, really, when I’d never set foot in the motherland before last week.’
‘OK, but why Scilly? Why not Stratford, or Scotland or Yorkshire? Cornwall even?’
‘Because Greg’s great-grandparents on his mum’s side used to live on Scilly way back in the day. He was always going on about their heritage and vowing he’d come over and see it but he never made it. He made me promise I’d include it on my trip, so here I am.’
‘Wow. What were their names? Do you know? Many Scilly families have lived here for generations so some of their descendants are sure to have known Greg’s ancestors.’
His brow furrowed. ‘God. I can’t think. He never said, or if he did I wasn’t listening hard enough. The granddad’s first name might have been Rex … or Robert. Or was it Harry? Sorry, Greg just referred to him as “the old boy”. I didn’t take too much notice of the details and, to be honest, most of what he told me was while he was in a bad way at the end. He was confused and on a truckload of meds for the pain, but he made me promise I’d come over and see the UK and his roots.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Does Greg have family? They’ll be interested in what you’ve found here and that you’ve decided to stay.’
‘He has a wife – that’s Judy – and a couple of grown-up kids … Have you decided I should stay then, Maisie Samson?’
She hesitated just long enough to give him doubt. ‘I’m still making up my mind. Here, fill in this form while I make us a coffee. I’ll be back shortly.’
Leaving Patrick with a job application and a pen, Maisie escaped to the kitchen. She didn’t want a drink but she did want time to think about her decision. His story about Greg was plausible and actually very touching. She could check out the Fingle in seconds on the Internet and chat with Judy Warner and any other referees Patrick supplied. Again, Google would be her friend when cross-checking that the bars really were owned by Greg and Judy. She was used to hiring and firing and as long as Patrick’s story checked out, she should feel confident in taking him on. Except, he was different to any other employee. Or was that simply because she fancied him? If so, that was her own lookout. Eventually, she took two mugs of coffee back to the bistro. Patrick had finished writing and handed her the form.
While he sipped the coffee, Maisie scanned through it quickly.
‘It all looks OK. You haven’t murdered anyone, have you? You didn’t list any criminal convictions.’
He laughed. ‘I haven’t murdered anyone, but …’
The hairs on the back of Maisie’s neck stood on end. ‘But?’
‘I have been in prison.’
Maisie’s heart plunged. Here we go, she thought. Here we go.
‘In Australia?’
‘Yeah. I spent six months in a young offender’s place. I got drunk and vandalised a kids’ park in one of the suburbs. It wasn’t my first offence and I did a lot of damage. I was with some mates – at least I thought they were mates at the time – and the judge said I was the ringleader.’
‘And were you?’ she asked him, amazed her voice was so calm. Of course she’d interviewed applicants with a criminal record before, and taken on some over her years as a pub manager. She’d only regretted it once when one had taken advantage of her trust and stolen some cash from the till: the other ex-offenders had tended to work twice as hard once they’d been given the chance of a job.
‘Oh yes. I was the ringleader. I was angry at the whole world back then. I thought I owed nothing to anyone.’
‘Was there a reason for that?’
‘I’ve spent too long with social workers and shrinks to answer that quickly. I don’t know. They say it was because I lost my parents “at a vulnerable stage in my formative years”. I want to be honest with you from the start. I went off the rails when I was young. I went a bit wild, quit school, bummed around, got into all kinds of minor trouble, smoked some weed, tried some stronger stuff …’
‘I’m sorry. Your parents must have been young themselves.’
He shrugged. ‘Youngish, yeah … I don’t want to bore you with my family history. I got back on the straight and narrow, thanks to Greg and Judy’s help.’
‘They sound like good people. I’m sorry about your parents. I can’t imagine losing one of mine, let alone both at once …’ She was curious about what had happened but didn’t want to ask him directly. ‘What a terrible thing to deal with when you must have still been very young too,’ was all she dared to say, but Patrick seemed to want to carry on in the same open manner.
‘I was at boarding school when it happened. It was a light aircraft crash … they were travelling between the Outback and Adelaide where we were living at the time,’ he said, evenly, as if he was so used to saying it that by now it was like relating a story about someone else.
‘Who looked after you?’ said Maisie, deciding that as Patrick had already revealed some of the details himself he wouldn’t mind her asking.
‘I stayed at school in term time and in the holidays I went to a distant older cousin’s, although she packed me off to summer camps and the like, which suited us both. Soon as I was seventeen, I left and picked up a load of odd jobs and lived off the small trust fund Mum and Dad left when they died.’
‘What about your other relatives? Grandparents, aunties and uncles in Britain?’
‘At the time, one elderly grandfather in a nursing home. An auntie on Mum’s side who had four kids and had just remarried a man with twins. An uncle who has his own family and definitely wasn’t interested in me. And even if they had wanted me, I would have jumped in a shark-infested ocean before I’d have left Oz. I didn’t want to come here: all I heard of it was shit weather and whingeing moaners who were always complaining about the shit weather.
‘The thing is, I met Greg while I was at low point. One of the regulars at the Fingle was a volunteer at one of the youth centres where I’d rocked up – forced to by my probation officer. He saw something in me, God knows what, and he told Greg about me. Greg and Judy took me on as a pot washer in the bar. They gave me a chance.’ He smiled. ‘Many, many chances until I finally realised how bloody lucky I was and got my act together and decided to live a pure and sin-free life henceforth.’
‘Pure and sin-free? That sounds boring,’ Maisie joked.
Patrick laughed. ‘Not as boring as staring at four walls for twenty hours a day, or waking up in a pool of your own vomit.’
She winced, then it clicked. ‘Ah. The Coke. You’re teetotal, aren’t you?’
‘I am. Does that put you off taking me on as bar staff?’
‘On the contrary, I consider it an asset.’
Maisie blew out a breath, trying to take in the story she’d heard. Patrick was so blasé about his terrible childhood and youth. Breezing through a tragic tale as if he were talking about an exciting rugby match. Maisie was certain that there was a lot more to discover about Patrick McKinnon, but how much did she want to know? His smiling eyes hid so much, she thought. As did her gobby, sassy façade. ‘Interesting way of trying to impress your new boss,’ she said. ‘“Shitty weather and whingeing moaners”, eh?’
Patrick gave a wry smile. ‘With some exceptions, of course. Gull Island’s not too shabby, when the sun’s out …’
He left the sentence hanging, tantalisingly. Left her waiting for the line about the Driftwood and its owner: her.
But nothing.
‘You made a reference to “my new boss”,’ he added instead of a compliment to Maisie. She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved he hadn’t tried to flatter her. She really had no idea how she felt about taking on Patrick McKinnon. ‘So, does that mean you’re not put off by my history?’
‘Well, there’s been nothing I need to know about since your spell in prison, has there?’
‘So I’m hired?’
She had a feeling she might be making the biggest mistake of her life … Maisie smiled and held out her hand. Patrick grasped it firmly but without trying to prove some point by mashing her bones. ‘Subject to your references checking out, yes. Congratulations and welcome to the Driftwood. Now, let me show you the staff accommodation.’
Patrick raised an eyebrow. ‘You have staff accommodation?’
‘Yes. Where were you expecting to stay?’
‘I wasn’t,’ said Patrick. ‘This was a spur of the moment decision … I hadn’t even thought about where I might live.’
Maisie shook her head. ‘You really do like to live in the moment, don’t you?’
‘Don’t you?’ he said. The glint in his eyes left her in no doubt he was hinting at their kiss on the beach the previous week.
Ignoring the question because she didn’t know how to answer, Maisie got up. Her cheeks were burning. ‘It’s this way but I hope you’re not expecting too much,’ she said briskly.
She led the way through the catering kitchen and the staffroom at the rear of the pub to the garden. ‘It’s not the Melbourne Ritz.’ She was acutely aware of Patrick’s presence behind her. Something about knowing he was so close and in her private territory made her skin tingle. She wasn’t scared of him; she was scared of no man, and the feeling of being followed was more thrilling than scary. Yet his presence seemed to do something to the air. Goosebumps popped up on the back of her neck and her arms under her sweatshirt.
‘Through here,’ she said, and crossed the small paved area behind the kitchen to a low granite building at right angles to the inn itself. An assortment of garden furniture stood on the patio area, discarded cast-iron and plastic pieces that had seen far better days. The good stuff was all reserved for the customer terrace at the front. Maisie was aware of the fag ends on the flagstones where the staff had been enjoying a sneaky ciggie despite her disapproval. The grassy area outside the granite outbuilding was still green and lush and the tubs had bright red geraniums blooming in them even though it was late October.
‘Unless you can find accommodation elsewhere on Gull Island, the Piggery is your best option, I’m afraid.’
‘The Piggery?’
‘Staff quarters. These buildings once housed pigs and a couple of cows. Nothing posh, but there’s a bedsit, kitchenettes and shower room.’
Maisie opened the door of the Piggery and immediately muttered a rude word under her breath. The young barman had only vacated the place the previous day, and hadn’t been keen on housework, judging by the unsavoury tang and the empty cans rolling around the floor. The bed looked like it had come straight from a Tracey Emin exhibit.
She barred the door, leaving Patrick right behind her. ‘I haven’t had the chance to clear it out yet. I’m sorry.’
‘It’ll be fine.’
She hesitated before walking in and letting him follow her. Maisie cringed. It was even worse than it had appeared on first glance – and sniff.
‘It’s great,’ he said, sitting on the single bed. The mattress sagged under his weight and he bounced on it a couple of times. ‘Seen some action, though.’
She wanted to melt through the floor. Actually, the floor was as minging as the bed. ‘It’s not fine. You can’t stay here.’
Patrick stood up. ‘I can clear it out. Give me a few bin bags, some bleach and scrubbing brush and it’ll be shipshape by opening time tonight. I’ve slept in places that would make your hair curl.’
‘Just because you’ve been in jail, doesn’t mean you have to sleep in a stinking pit. God knows what that boy has been doing.’
‘You could be right. From what I recall, jail was a lot cleaner than this.’
‘Thanks!’ She had to smile at his nerve. He definitely might brighten up a long, dark winter on Gull.
He joined her in the kitchenette. ‘That was a joke, though well disguised. My sense of humour doesn’t always translate.’
She lifted her trainer off the sticky vinyl floor and put out her tongue. ‘Maybe not but this place is the pits. You can’t stay in it until I’ve had it fumigated.’
‘Give me the cleaning kit and I’ll do it. You didn’t know I was going to rock up so soon.’
She ignored him. She was deeply ashamed, not of the mess, which was par for the course with some of the young staff, but of not checking the room first. She wouldn’t have dreamt of showing a new staff member such a hovel, let alone expect them to sleep in it. She ran a tight ship at her last pub. She should have kept a better eye on the staff quarters, but she’d been flat out at the end of the season.
‘Wait here, please.’ Leaving him, she walked back outside, pushed open the door of the neighbouring studio and swore. The place reeked of unwashed clothes and lager. Maisie didn’t even want to cross the threshold. She was surprised her parents hadn’t realised, although it didn’t take long for a place to get rank if left. Both rooms needed a deep clean and she’d be the one rolling up her sleeves later.
‘Any better?’
She almost bumped slap bang into Patrick’s chest. Which wouldn’t have been unpleasant. In fact, it would have been pretty awesome. In contrast to the rooms, up close, he smelled of some kind of woody body spray.
‘I thought I told you to stay put?’ she said, half joking.
‘I thought the air was fresher out here.’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Mr McKinnon?’
He held out his hands. ‘Enjoying watching you getting worked up over nothing? Not really. Either of these places is fine if you’ll only let me help you sort them out. Or I can find somewhere else to kip. I’ve still got my tent. I can camp out here or Javid might let me stay on site and use his facilities.’
‘No! I’ll be the laughing stock.’
He frowned. ‘Why?’
‘People will say I can’t look after my own staff. Just because you can clean the place up doesn’t mean you ought to. I’ll get a cleaner in later and until then …’ Maisie was floundering. She wasn’t even sure herself why it had become so important to her to sort out a decent place for Patrick to stay. Maybe it was because she was trying so hard to prove to both of them that she was determined to be professional in their working relationship. She knew what people would say when they heard she’d taken on an attractive single Aussie who she knew next to nothing about.
She knew what her parents would think, let alone her neighbours. She could see and hear them now. Archie Pendower, Phyllis and Una and Jess Godrevy … oh shit, Jess, her best mate, was going to put two and two together and make at least a hundred and four. Maisie felt her cheeks growing warm and hated herself. The only way this arrangement was going to work was if it was kept strictly professional despite any previous encounters.
She closed the door to the second studio then opened it again. ‘It needs to air, before it has a proper clean,’ she said, and before Patrick could give her any backchat, she bulldozed on. ‘Look, I need to draw up a contract and check out the references you gave me. Obviously, with the time difference I don’t expect to hear from Judy or the other referees you mentioned until morning. However, if you wanted to help out in the bar tomorrow night, to see how we roll here, then that might be a good idea.’
Patrick beamed. ‘Great idea.’
‘Until then, can you keep yourself out of trouble? You’re welcome to make use of the pub kitchen to make some lunch and you can have some peace and quiet in the bistro upstairs. You can bed down up there overnight if I don’t get a chance to clean the cottages.’
Patrick saluted. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Maisie pretended not to be amused. ‘Just “boss” will be fine. Come on inside, and I’ll break the er … good news to Mum and Dad.’