The Jean Nutten being berthed at Peterhead, where her crew carried out the necessary maintenance, George Buchan saw quite a lot of Katie over the winter. There were times when he wondered if he was being fair to her – he wasn’t ready to tie himself down – yet he couldn’t bring himself to break off with her, for there was something about her that drew him like metal to a magnet. He told himself that he hadn’t fallen in love with her, but he always felt put out when she turned her head away if he tried to kiss her goodnight and his lips met her velvety cheek.
The only good thing about it was that he could answer his mother honestly when she asked him if anything was going on between him and Katie Mair. ‘Nothing’s going on,’ he told her one night. ‘We’re just good friends, and it looks like that’s all she’ll ever want from me.’
‘Aye, well,’ Ina muttered, ‘she’s more sense than I gi’ed her credit for.’
After one miserably wet evening spent with Mary Ann’s eyes darting back and forth from him to her grand-daughter as if searching for signs of blossoming love, George looked at the girl quizzically when they were saying goodnight outside the door. ‘I think your Grandma’s hoping …’
‘She’ll be disappointed, then,’ Katie declared. ‘I don’t want anything to do with men.’
He should have been relieved at this, but a pain started somewhere inside him, cramping round his heart and telling him he’d been fooling himself to think he didn’t love her. ‘You’ve been coming out with me for ages, and I’m a man.’
‘You’re just an old school chum,’ she laughed, ‘and that’s different.’
It was as if she had knifed him. ‘Can’t you see how … I’d like to be more than …’
She covered his mouth with her hand. ‘No, George! You’re my friend, and that means a lot to me. Don’t spoil it.’
She went inside before he could say anything more, and he walked up the hill slowly in spite of the rain to give himself time to face the truth. He had thought himself in love before, but his heart had never been affected like it was now. What he felt for Katie had nothing to do with sex – the usual starting point for his feelings – it was above any lusts of the flesh, absolutely pure. It was an inner need, a need of the spirit, a need to protect and care for, and to be cared for in return. He had to make her love him.
On Hogmanay, George persuaded Katie to join him and his pals at a dance in the Town Hall, and, reluctant as she was to go, she found that she did enjoy herself. After the bells chimed midnight, his friends suggested that they go round each other’s houses ‘first-footing’, but she said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll just go home. I don’t like leaving my Grandma so long, and you’ll likely all get drunk, any road.’
George gripped her arm to stop her walking off. ‘Mary Ann knows you’re with me, she’ll not be expecting you back yet, and I promise I’ll just have a couple of drinks.’
None of the people they visited, however, would take no for an answer, and after his fifth dram – and the hosts were never stingy as to the amount they poured out – he could see Katie eyeing him reprovingly. ‘I’m all right,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve drunk a lot more than this and still been on my feet.’
‘It’s up to you,’ she said, stiffly, ‘but I’m going home this time, and don’t bother coming with me.’
The cold air hit him as soon as they went into the street and he could hear his words slurring slightly when he spoke. ‘I took you out, and I’ll see you home.’
She shrugged off the arm he tried to slip round her waist, and said nothing on the way to her house, then she turned to him with her hand on the knob. ‘Goodnight, George.’
Her eyes were shining in the clear moonlight, her mouth soft and inviting, and he couldn’t let her go like that. ‘Give’s a kiss, Katie?’ he begged. ‘One for the New Year? So I’ll know nineteen twenty-nine’ll be a good year for me.’
She laughed and gave him a quick peck, but pushed his arms away when they went round her. ‘Goodnight, George.’
Opening the door, she slipped inside and he was left with the tantalizing memory of his hands almost spanning her tiny waist, of the fragrance of her breath. ‘Damn you, Katie,’ he muttered as he made his way unsteadily up Castle Street.
His anger and frustration had gone by the time he woke up, sober, later that day, but he knew that he could not go on for much longer with this yearning in his heart. He had been thinking of signing on one of the cod boats so he wouldn’t have to leave Katie for the whole summer, but it might be better to go with the herring fleet again when it set off for Lerwick in March, for one last time. Maybe if she missed him enough, she would see she loved him.
Dennis had been somewhat disgruntled that Beth wouldn’t let him have a say in fitting out the premises she had finally chosen, but now that the restaurant was nearing completion, he could see that it was in far better taste than anything he could have thought up. The plain white walls – which he had said would be too stark – were broken up by pot plants in brass brackets; the four tables were covered with pale lemon cloths and the dishes were white with a delicate green and lemon pattern. The carpet was a deeper shade of green – not too dark – with swirls of what was not exactly lemon but not quite strong enough to be called yellow, which blended in and seemed to tie everything together.
It wasn’t as big as he’d have liked, but it had a touch of class about it, and the chef he had hired had been impressed by the arrangements in the kitchen at the back. In any case, it was only temporary, because the lease of the shop next door would run out in less than a year, and Beth had made the owner promise that she could take it over, too, when the time came. So, Dennis thought, happily, it was up to him to make this small place pay, to prove he was fit to cope when it was extended. Meantime, in addition to the chef, he had engaged a young waitress – though he would likely have to help out himself during busy spells – and a woman to wash the dishes.
When he went home after the last satisfied inspection, he grabbed Beth round the waist and twirled her round. ‘It’s perfect, my dearest, and I’ve been wondering what to call it. It needs something quirky and striking, so how about joining our names – Dennibeth?’
Beth shook her head. ‘That’s a bit contrived. Something foreign would be better, French maybe, to appeal more to the clientele we’re after.’
His knowledge of French confined strictly to saying ‘wee, wee’, which he wouldn’t have recognized if he saw it written down, Dennis shrugged. ‘I’ll leave it to you.’
Some days later, when he saw the sign his wife had ordered to be fixed, he went home furious. ‘Denis? They’ve spelt my name wrong in the first place, and folk’ll likely think it’s a bloody fish and chip shop.’
Beth smiled fondly. ‘It’s pronounced Dennee, the accent on the last syllable.’
‘How many folk would know that?’ he asked, churlishly.
‘All those that matter. Trust me, Dennis, it’ll attract the people who feel they’re a cut above the common herd, but if you like, I can have it changed to Le Denis. Would that make you any happier?’
‘It’s a bit better.’ He brightened suddenly. ‘I can hardly wait till I open on Monday.’
‘Neither can I, and I’ll likely pop in sometime. I want to see how it’s going.’
Dennis had a moment’s misgiving. Beth having said that he could choose his own staff and that she would not interfere, he had picked his waitress for her looks – a pert blonde with a ravishing figure – and he was almost sure that his wife would disapprove. ‘You said you’d leave me to run the place by myself.’
‘I will, but you can’t grudge me one look, surely?’
‘Just one, then. It’ll make me nervous if I think you’re checking up on me.’
‘So you’ve got a nice young thing as a waitress?’
‘It needs somebody attractive to pull the customers,’ he blustered, annoyed that she had hit the nail on the head. ‘Somebody that can laugh with them, and flirt with them a bit … you know.’
‘Yes, you’re right, but keep your hands off her, Dennis. I don’t trust you around young girls.’
‘I don’t need any young girls when I’ve got you, and my wandering days are over.’ For a while, anyway, he thought, until she gave him a restaurant to put all others in the shade, not an apology of an eating place.
Halfway through his lunchtime opening on Monday, Dennis knew that his judgment of his waitress had not been wrong. Trudie’s brightness with the customers had them all smiling, and the eyes of the men followed her wiggling rear end as she made her way amongst the tables. He could hardly keep his own eyes off it, come to that, and he’d have to take care, for he didn’t know when Beth would come in.
When she appeared, she asked, ‘Have you been busy?’
‘Not bad … a steady stream.’
‘Your waitress seems efficient. I see what you mean about having somebody young and attractive. She’ll draw the men.’
‘That’s what I thought, and don’t get jealous. I wouldn’t dream of messing around with her.’
‘I don’t think she’d mind if you did,’ Beth smiled, then added, with a touch of warning, ‘but I would.’
***
During the first two months of 1929, George had endured the frustration of not being allowed to kiss Katie properly by telling himself that it proved his mother wrong in what she thought about her. Katie was as pure and innocent as any man could wish his future wife to be, and he was determined to marry her when the herring season was over.
On the night before he left, he told Katie that this was the last time he would be away for such a long spell. ‘I’m going to sign on with Alickie May when I come back. He goes to the fishing grounds off Iceland, so I’d be home every ten days or so.’
Hoping that he wasn’t doing this for her sake, Katie still couldn’t help feeling pleased about it. ‘How long will you be away this time?’
‘Till November, and I’m really going to miss you, Katie.’
‘I’ll miss you, and all.’ She hadn’t meant to say it, in case he got the wrong idea, it had just come out.
They were walking along the harbour wall, so close that his hip sometimes brushed against hers, and the contact made her heart beat too quickly for comfort. She didn’t want to fall in love again, she didn’t want the pain that love could bring. She had liked George from their first day at school, when they stood wide-eyed together waiting to be told where to sit, and she preferred her feelings to remain at liking.
The early March winds were unusually cold, but he stopped suddenly and turned her to face him, walking his fingers up her arm as he said, ‘Katie, would you mind if I kissed you?’
She couldn’t hurt him by refusing, not when he was going away for eight months. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ she whispered. It wasn’t a lover’s kiss, more a kiss between good friends, and she was torn between relief and disappointment.
‘I’m going to ask you something when I come back,’ George said, softly, ‘so I want you to think about it.’ He took her face between his hands and looked at her earnestly. ‘I don’t want to rush you into anything, Katie lass.’
Tears sprang to her eyes at his last two words, and he snatched his hands way as if she had bitten them. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘It was just … Granda always called me Katie lass.’
‘I’ll not say it again then, I promise.’
‘I like you saying it, George.’
His second kiss, although longer, was just as undemanding as the first, then he ran his index finger down her cheek. ‘I’ll be thinking about you all the time I’m away, Katie.’
She should have stopped him before it went so far. ‘You’ll be too busy to think about me, and I’ll be the same.’
‘You think I’m going too fast? Maybe I am, and I’d better take you home.’
She let him take her hand. They had walked hand in hand when they were five-year-olds, and it meant no more to her now than it did then. No, if she were strictly honest, it was entirely different.
When they reached her house, George drew her towards him. ‘I’ll wait, Katie lass. I can wait as long as you want.’
Mary Ann’s eyes, a little rheumy now but still missing nothing, lifted from her knitting when her grand-daughter went in. ‘You’ll nae be seeing him for a while? I hope you didna do anything you shouldna?’
‘No, Grandma, he just kissed me.’
‘Men dinna usually stop at kissing.’
Katie was annoyed at her persistence. ‘There’s nothing between me and George. We like each other, that’s all.’
‘Maybe it’s just as well.’
‘I thought you were trying to push us together.’
‘So I was, at first, but I minded something when you were out. There’s not a man on God’s earth that can be trusted, and that goes for George Buchan, and all.’
This slur on him made Katie say, angrily, ‘You’ve never a good word to say for anybody, and you’re wrong about him.’
‘Time’ll tell,’ Mary Ann said, darkly, bundling up wool and needles and getting stiffly to her feet. ‘You’ve never listened to me, and you’ll live to regret it some day.’
Katie went into her room thoughtfully. She had made up her mind not to get serious about George, but her grandmother’s unexpected condemnation of him had changed it. She would prove the accusation wrong. George would keep any promises he made. He would never make a fool of her. He would never break her heart.
A shiver went through her. Why had her grandmother turned against him? What had she remembered? Was it something she had heard about him in the past? Or was it something in her own past that made her distrust all men?