‘Sort of. Housesit–revision thing.’ Slash escape route from possible murder scene.

‘Oh yeah, whereabouts?’

I told him and he nodded. It was probably one of those places where everyone knows everyone and the names of everyone’s partners and children and dogs and their birthdays and favourite colour and deepest, darkest perversions.

When he asked how I was finding it, I hesitated for slightly too long. ‘Is it not good enough for you up here?’ He feigned indignation, very badly, a dimple appearing next to a load of spots.

I bit my lip with a grin and looked away. ‘Um. Just very – sedate.’ Plus the occasional fierce-eyed creep, bird carcass, etc.

‘It doesn’t have to be.’ He flicked his eyes up to mine and down again, quick as anything. They were a mixture of bright-blue and grey, a properly confused Scottish sky.

I moved some barmats around. ‘No?’

‘No.’

I squashed my eyes at him a bit. Yep. Doable.

He was a student in Glasgow, a year younger than me, bless, and back at home in the next village west of here, popping down for exams at some point. There was a blotch of red on his neck as I typed his number into my phone.

Lottie had her chin in her hands when I sat down again and a look on her face like she’d just seen me ride my bike down the road for the first time. She’d never seen me in full flight, lap dancing arse-first into a row of boys, or telling the guy in the offie that I’d give him a blow job if all the change I’d emptied out onto the counter wasn’t enough for the beers. I picked up my book and wrapped a hand around my glass.

‘Are you not going to talk to me, Polly?’

I held up my book. ‘Reading.’

She gave a small, tight sigh, combing out her curls and letting them spring back. I wished she’d stop being so bloody overexcited. What was she expecting? Some sort of epic mother–daughter romance, the two of us arm in arm in – knife me – National Trust souvenir shops and up evil windy hills.

I crossed one leg over the other and hung my hair over the pages, sneaking a look at the barman, who seemed to be making himself very busy drying glasses.

‘Maybe there’ll be a lovely Scottish man for me, too.’

I looked up then. ‘I’m sure there will. How about him?’ I nodded at the old guy in the corner, now crouching so far over his phone that he looked almost asleep.

Lottie shoved me with her elbow. ‘Fine. Read.’

‘Soaking up the atmosphere?’ Fraser was dumping a bag into the bins.

I was leaning against the wall outside, staring at my phone and its extreme lack of messages. Not from my housemates, who would never talk to me again, probably. Not from Stef.

‘Something like that.’ I sighed and bashed the back of my head against the wall, counting off the glittering sights of the rest of the village, dark shadows down the road. Shop. Café. The End. ‘What do you do around here?’