Annie Christie's To Die For:
Episode One
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: The calm before the Sturm und Drang.
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If you’re a glass half full person you’d say it was a sunny spring Saturday. If you’re a glass half empty person you’d say it was another boring Saturday wasted at the shop. I was generally a glass half full person. Except on Saturdays.
Saturdays were the pits. I mean, I knew I was lucky to have a job, but sometimes…
My parents wouldn’t let me work in a pub or restaurant – I was too young, apparently – and the fish and chip shop was heavily over-subscribed. In a small town like Kirkcudbright, where tourism isn’t even at the level of an industry, there were few options. I’d bombed out at the interview for the local library and I could consider myself lucky that I had Saturday work here at the art supplies shop. But I didn’t.
Let’s back up the truck. Kirkcudbright is known as an Artist’s town. It has been for generations, ever since the Glasgow Boys and Jessie M. King set up colonies here. They came for the light, and it is impressive. But there’s great light all over Scotland, I believe, and there must have been something else that tempted them away from the bright lights, big city. Whatever it was, I couldn’t find it. And I’d lived in Kirkcudbright my whole life. A full seventeen years. Like most of my school friends, I was at the stage where I was desperate to get away. As Rupert (that’s my boss at the art supplies shop) would say, I wanted to paint on a bigger canvas.
That’s Rupert for you. He oozed faux artistic – with a temperament to match. He was big, he wore a floppy felt hat even indoors, even in summer, with a cravat or Dr Who type scarf to mis-match. But mostly we called him Rupert because he looked like the cartoon character with his ridiculous checked trousers. It annoyed me how he played his fantasy of an artist when I knew for a fact (I had the evidence in the back room of the shop) that he couldn’t paint to save himself and that far from being an artist, he was a parasite on the artistic community.
Of course, he didn’t see himself as a parasite, who does? He was all too fond of telling me of the vital service he (and I on a Saturday) offered the community by supplying them with just the right brush, paint, paper and all the ephemera that comes with being artistic.
Don’t get me wrong, I like stationery. That was the one upside of working in the shop. I can’t paint or draw but then if you look at the work of most of the people who claim to be painters, neither can they. I’m sure for most people out there ‘art’ is some kind of fetish tied up with some kind of power trip and tied together with a desperate desire to be creative but no clue as to what that actually means beyond playing the part. Rupert’s shop was quite a popular place with a certain type of person. Not the type of person I’d consider artists.
With the cynicism of a small town seventeen year old, I was convinced that a real artist wouldn’t be seen dead in Rupert’s shop. The kind of clientele we got didn’t do much to disabuse me of that fact. Rupert was a vibrant part of the artists’ community but he didn’t realise how bitchy everyone was about his own efforts. Or maybe he did. Everyone else who thought they could paint in Kirkcudbright runs a gallery. Rupert ran an art supplies shop. His ‘gallery’ was discretely hidden away at the back and only admissible on invitation. Few people ever asked to go in there. When they did, they’d find nothing discrete about the paintings. They were the overblown, overpainted kind of abstract pictures that you’d expect from a man dressed like Rupert. A man who wanted to stand out in a town full of artistic ‘characters’. It was hard to keep the glass half full on a Saturday.
There were long periods when the shop was quiet during my eight hour stint. I guess any self-respecting artist would be out painting on a Saturday, so I was mainly there to cope with the tourist trade and allow Rupert to hang out back in the gallery with his selected pseudo arty mates.
For me Saturday’s were dull to the point of painstaking boredom. And the money didn’t do much to compensate for the boredom. I saved most of it, hoping that if or when I finally escaped, there’d be something better to do with my money than Kirkcudbright could offer me. I wasn’t what you’d call a cautious teenager – though my friend Christy might disagree on that score – but I guess my parents had taught me a savings habit. Not so much risk averse, more planning for a brighter future. Hoping and planning and dreaming were what my life comprised that spring of 2003.
I’m sure you think I was just being lazy and that I should have kept myself busier and if so I’d have felt more fulfilled. That’s the adult view of most teens, isn’t it? But there’s only so much re-arranging of stock you can do, and Rupert didn’t like me to change things around. Nor did he like me to sit reading a magazine while ‘on duty’. So I spent a lot of my time hanging over the counter, gazing out of the window, from which I couldn’t see any of the best tourist places, the castle or the harbour. Nor could I see the fabled ‘light’. And I used to wonder what it would be like if E. A. Hornel or Jessie M. King waltzed into the shop wanting a brush or some yellow ochre.
If he caught me, Rupert would say ‘don’t drape, Heather.’ His suggestion that I was draping myself on the counter was a classic example of his over active imagination. He couldn’t use a decent admonition such as ‘stop propping up the counter’, which is the sort of thing my dad would have said, if he said such things. But my dad was an oil delivery man not a retailer with artistic pretensions. Enough said.
So I spent Saturdays wishing my adolescence away. I had only a couple of weeks before my Highers started and then only a couple of months before I would head off (all being well) to University. I’d got provisional places at Stirling, Glasgow and St Andrews. I’d put the last one down to please the parents. I would be the first of my family to go to university, if I went, and they – and the school – both considered it would be a feather in my cap if I got it. But no one was committing to my grades and I favoured Glasgow. Big lights, bright city for this girl.
Had I thought about it sensibly at the time, in my situation the pressure was really off. Since I didn’t want the first prize I didn’t need to pull out all the stops, just coast through. But you don’t think like that when the exams are looming up in front of you. At least I didn’t. My friend Christy did. She ‘couldn’t be arsed’ with the whole uni thing. And she so couldn’t be arsed with the whole revision thing. She told me how lucky I was to be in the shop not having to revise, when her parents were constantly on at her to put the effort in at weekends. I’d never seen Christy break sweat to learn anything in school in all the twelve years I’d been her friend and I didn’t rate her parents’ chances on getting her to comply on weekends. But they never gave up.
Christy was banned from the shop on a Saturday. While we’d been BFF’s since the first day we met in primary school, as the relationship developed and we grew up together, both our parents felt that we were ‘bad influences’ on each other. Well, my parents thought she was a bad influence on me, her parents thought that we were a combination that egged each other on. Which was probably true. But the banning order was enforced by Rupert, who happily endorsed it after the second time he caught me and Christy having a laugh ‘on his time and money’ in the shop one Saturday soon after I’d started working there.
So Saturday was a glass half empty, Christy-free day.
And then it happened.
Most, if not all teenage girls, spend an inordinate amount of time thinking, chatting and agonising over boys. It goes with the territory. Christy and I were no exception. Boys were the most important thing in our lives. When the competition was Highers and Saturday jobs and ‘the future’ it’s not that surprising really, is it? Boys are there. Or not there. They were not the kind of ones you saw on the TV. Not in our school. Not in our town. Our town boys were rude and plooky and childish. Occasionally, when the light was shining in the right way, one of them seemed for a time to transcend this and we’d go into agonies about would he ask me out, but it didn’t last.
Soon enough if you did go out with him you’d find the sun had gone back into shadow and he once more became the rude, plooky, immature beast that was his fundamental nature. And if he didn’t ask you out, while his charm might last for a bit longer, his nebulous charm was painted over pretty soon by another boy coming out briefly into the light. They were like caterpillars entering pupae stage. Or, as Christy more appropriately put it – maggots. We hoped, but never really believed that any of the boys we knew would become beautiful butterflies. And we knew that if they did, we’d be long gone.
So when I tell you that we were stuck with maggots, what I’m trying to say is that while we were, like all teenage girls, obsessed with boys, we really didn’t have a lot to work on. Except our dreams and fantasies.
And on Saturday April 26th 2003 mine walked into the shop.
He was, as Christy would say in a deeply affected voice, when joking around, ‘To die for.’
At first, as he stood there in the door, backlit from a brief moment of Kirkcudbright’s Light, I thought I was imagining him. Tall, sporting a black leather biker’s jacket and with a white silk scarf that worked so much better than Rupert’s version, he had dusty blond hair which he flicked out of his eyes as he blinked into the fluorescent light of the shop. Looking him up and down I noted that he also had black leather trousers and boots and I wondered if he was a biker who’d taken a wrong turn. But the scarf…
… and then he spoke. I couldn’t immediately place the accent. It was soft and I’ve always thought of Germanic as a harsh sounding language. Not when he spoke.
‘The brushes – do you have?’
‘Uh, brushes. Yeah, sure…’ I moved out in front of the counter as he moved further into the shop. I showed him the stand where all the brushes from the tiniest to the largest were kept in strict order and he seemed to focus entirely on them, leaving me to drink him in.
It was like River Phoenix or Leonardo di Caprio had walked into the shop, my shop! I was flustered, not knowing what to do or say, so I let him take his time picking just the brush he wanted, a very expensive sable one. Then he turned to me, flicked back that long fringe again and said,
‘Can you help me?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’
‘Do you have blue?’ he said. He smiled. The accent. The smile. I’m sure I blushed. I’m bad like that.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘do you want oil or watercolour?’
‘Will you show me?’ he asked.
And I ushered him to the paints. Once again he seemed engrossed and something in me told me I had to speak to him. Rupert said I never engaged with the customers. Now was the time to try.
‘Are you in Kirkcudbright on holiday?’ I said, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
He looked up at me, distracted for a minute. And then he held the gaze. Really looked at me. He had piercing blue eyes, just the colour of the tube he was holding, and they seemed to look right into my soul.
‘I have come to paint the light,’ he said.
Of course. Why else? I didn’t know what to say.
He handed me the brush and a couple of tubes of paint and I walked in front of him to the counter.
‘Is that all?’ I asked him. It wasn’t so much up-selling as an attempt to keep the connection.
He nodded and the till pinged as I opened it. He paid the money I asked and all the time I was hoping he’d say something more, or that I might think of something more… but the moment passed. I handed him his bag and all he said was, ‘Thank you.’
‘That’s okay,’ I blushed again.
He turned to leave.
‘See you around,’ I blurted out, but my words were competing with the bell jangling on his way out.
And that was it. I was left feeling like I’d just blown it. Like something big had happened and I hadn’t even known. A fragment of one of my mum’s favourite songs came into my head – you light up my life – and the moment was gone.
I thought, maybe I could go out after him, ask him out on a date. But I wasn’t Christy. I wouldn’t dare. He was just a customer, after all. Just nothing like the usual customers we got in the shop. I crossed to the window to look out. I saw him walk across the street to where a large motorbike sat. I watched him put his purchase into the box on the back, and take out his helmet. As he was revving up the engine to leave I was distracted by another voice. A less welcome one. And it was not in my head.
‘Heather? What are you doing?’ It was Rupert.
‘Nothing, uh, just checking the window,’ I said.
‘You’ve left the till open,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, Mr Taylor.’
‘And what have I told you?’ He wasn’t going to let it go. Rupert loved to lecture.
‘Don’t leave the till unattended or open at any time,’ I parroted back to him.
‘It’s not that hard, is it?’ he said, effecting a tone of disgust.
‘No, Mr Taylor.’
‘Right, back to work then,’ he said. I went back to the counter.
‘Did you ring up the sale?’ he asked.
For a moment I really couldn’t remember. The blonde biker had quite put all thoughts of commerce out of my head.
‘I’m sure I did,’ I replied.
That didn’t suit Rupert.
‘It was a sable brush, size 2, and a couple of tubes of blue paint,’ I said.
‘Cerulean, Cobalt, Prussian, Ultramarine or Electric? Watercolour or oil?’ came the response. ‘Come on Heather, I know you are no artist yourself, but you must pay more attention when you are selling. If you don’t know the product, how can you help the customer?’
‘Prussian blue,’ I replied. ‘Watercolour.’ Why did it matter to Rupert? They were all the same price for heaven’s sakes. I hated that he made me feel small. I was sure he did it on purpose.
‘Anyone we know?’ Rupert asked. For a moment I didn’t understand what he was asking. Then I realised, he was acting like some kind of Sherlock Holmes, like in some way he was going to know what picture was being painted if only he knew who was buying what supplies. It was ridiculous. And I didn’t want to tell him anything about… about my customer.
‘No, just a tourist,’ I said. ‘German I think.’ And hoped he’d leave it at that. Luckily for me he did.
I looked at the clock. ‘I think it’s time for my break now, Mr Taylor,’ I said.
He sighed. A long, deep, disappointed sigh.
‘Really, it’s gone twelve thirty,’ I added.
He pointed me to the window. I’d deliberately been avoiding looking in that direction, though of course it was the only place I wanted to look. But I didn’t want to give Rupert the pleasure of knowing that I was hankering to get out.
There was a face pressed to the window. Pulling faces. It was Christy.
‘You’d better go,’ Rupert said. ‘And please tell your friend not to meet you at the shop in future.’
‘Sorry, Mr Taylor,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell her.’ And picked up my jean jacket and fled. The bell tinkled furiously behind me, and I imagined Rupert’s thoughts were tinkling just as hard. What did I care? In another few months I wouldn’t have to work there. But for now…
Christy grabbed me by the arm and dragged me towards the chip-shop like a woman possessed.
‘Guess what happened this morning?’ I said.
‘No, no, dahhling,’ she replied, ‘don’t tell me something happened in the art world. That’s too, too exciting.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want to know.’
‘What?’ she replied, her appetite whetted now.
I told her about the German biker. I realised I didn’t have a lot to tell. I felt such a failure. I couldn’t deliver much more than his hair, his eyes, his leathers…
‘Was he to die for?’ Christy said, putting her extreme voice.
‘You know what,’ I replied, trying to join in the joke. ‘I think he might be.’ But I felt more serious than I sounded.
‘Ah, come on, Heather,’ she said. ‘Guy rocks up on a bike, buys some paint and heads off. It’s hardly the romance of the century, is it? You’ll never see him again.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Should have asked him out,’ she said.
‘Oh, I never thought of that,’ I said, opting for sarcasm.
‘Oooh, touchy…’ she replied, throwing a stray chip at me. It was one of her more annoying habits, which the seagulls appreciated more than I did.
‘I didn’t know what to say,’ I confessed.
‘You should have at least asked him his name,’ she said. ‘You are sooo hopeless, Heather.’
‘Yeah, Rupert finds me a disappointment too,’ I said.
Now Christy snorted over her fizzy drink.
Christy had news of her own. That wasn’t unusual. Christy always had news. About boys. Though Christy was in the process of upgrading from boys to men. If they didn’t drive a car she wasn’t interested (though a motorbike did distract her for a moment). The particular object of her affection at present was called Ian. He was, wait for it, the school janitor. And he was, wait for it again, married. That wasn’t going to put Christy off. Relentless, was how my dad described her, in pursuit of a goal. And not in a good way. But Christy’s news wasn’t about Ian.
‘I think your wee brother’s stalking me,’ she said.
My turn to snort over my drink. Duggie, my wee brother, was just turning thirteen. I guess his hormones were kicking in. I guess Christy might be appealing to him. I’d never thought of it.
‘What?’ I said. ‘Christy, you are really losing the plot now.’
‘You think,’ she said and pointed across the grass. We were sitting on one of the benches overlooking McLellan’s Castle. And sure enough, ducking out of sight by the Castle Walls was Duggie and some of his mates.
‘Don’t be daft, Christy, they’re playing… whatever silly games they play – Covenanters and King’s men probably.’ Duggie was into history and wouldn’t be seen dead playing a modern day version – which would include Taliban and Squaddie, I suppose.
‘Seriously, Heather. He’s following me all over the place. And…’ she paused, for effect of course, ‘he left me flowers outside my front door.’
‘No,’ I said. I must admit my first thought was where would Duggie get flowers from. ‘How do you know it was him?’ I asked, not sure why I was defending my dweeb of a little brother against Christy’s accusations. Maybe I wanted to hold on to his innocence. There was something fundamentally disturbing, after all, about thinking of your little brother lusting after your best friend.
‘I know it’s him,’ she said. ‘Trust me.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘do you want me to speak to my dad about it?’ It was a stupid thing to say, I know, but I couldn’t think what else to say.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s kind of sweet. I just thought you should know.’
‘Some things, Christy, I think I’d rather not know,’ I replied. Then took my chance. ‘Do you think he’s to die for?’
Now we were both doubled up with laughter.
She chummed me back to the shop for my afternoon shift. I was more than aware of a smallish, shadowy figure in the distance who might just be following us. And yes, it was Duggie. I wondered what Christy would do with her afternoon. Being Christy, she’d probably run him a merry dance just for the fun of it.
‘Best leave here,’ I said, a couple of paces from the shop window. ‘Rupert’s being a dork.’
‘Rupert’s being Rupert,’ she replied.
I was about to go into the shop when she shouted out, ‘Have a good afternoon, and don’t worry, if your hunk comes back I’ll intercept him at the pass.’
‘Hands off, I saw him first,’ I said. But I didn’t expect either of us would see him again. He’d ridden in and ridden out. Kirkcudbright’s that kind of place. People pass through it, they don’t stay. Not through choice. Not if they’re young anyway.
Swearwords: None.
Description: The calm before the Sturm und Drang.
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If you’re a glass half full person you’d say it was a sunny spring Saturday. If you’re a glass half empty person you’d say it was another boring Saturday wasted at the shop. I was generally a glass half full person. Except on Saturdays.
Saturdays were the pits. I mean, I knew I was lucky to have a job, but sometimes…
My parents wouldn’t let me work in a pub or restaurant – I was too young, apparently – and the fish and chip shop was heavily over-subscribed. In a small town like Kirkcudbright, where tourism isn’t even at the level of an industry, there were few options. I’d bombed out at the interview for the local library and I could consider myself lucky that I had Saturday work here at the art supplies shop. But I didn’t.
Let’s back up the truck. Kirkcudbright is known as an Artist’s town. It has been for generations, ever since the Glasgow Boys and Jessie M. King set up colonies here. They came for the light, and it is impressive. But there’s great light all over Scotland, I believe, and there must have been something else that tempted them away from the bright lights, big city. Whatever it was, I couldn’t find it. And I’d lived in Kirkcudbright my whole life. A full seventeen years. Like most of my school friends, I was at the stage where I was desperate to get away. As Rupert (that’s my boss at the art supplies shop) would say, I wanted to paint on a bigger canvas.
That’s Rupert for you. He oozed faux artistic – with a temperament to match. He was big, he wore a floppy felt hat even indoors, even in summer, with a cravat or Dr Who type scarf to mis-match. But mostly we called him Rupert because he looked like the cartoon character with his ridiculous checked trousers. It annoyed me how he played his fantasy of an artist when I knew for a fact (I had the evidence in the back room of the shop) that he couldn’t paint to save himself and that far from being an artist, he was a parasite on the artistic community.
Of course, he didn’t see himself as a parasite, who does? He was all too fond of telling me of the vital service he (and I on a Saturday) offered the community by supplying them with just the right brush, paint, paper and all the ephemera that comes with being artistic.
Don’t get me wrong, I like stationery. That was the one upside of working in the shop. I can’t paint or draw but then if you look at the work of most of the people who claim to be painters, neither can they. I’m sure for most people out there ‘art’ is some kind of fetish tied up with some kind of power trip and tied together with a desperate desire to be creative but no clue as to what that actually means beyond playing the part. Rupert’s shop was quite a popular place with a certain type of person. Not the type of person I’d consider artists.
With the cynicism of a small town seventeen year old, I was convinced that a real artist wouldn’t be seen dead in Rupert’s shop. The kind of clientele we got didn’t do much to disabuse me of that fact. Rupert was a vibrant part of the artists’ community but he didn’t realise how bitchy everyone was about his own efforts. Or maybe he did. Everyone else who thought they could paint in Kirkcudbright runs a gallery. Rupert ran an art supplies shop. His ‘gallery’ was discretely hidden away at the back and only admissible on invitation. Few people ever asked to go in there. When they did, they’d find nothing discrete about the paintings. They were the overblown, overpainted kind of abstract pictures that you’d expect from a man dressed like Rupert. A man who wanted to stand out in a town full of artistic ‘characters’. It was hard to keep the glass half full on a Saturday.
There were long periods when the shop was quiet during my eight hour stint. I guess any self-respecting artist would be out painting on a Saturday, so I was mainly there to cope with the tourist trade and allow Rupert to hang out back in the gallery with his selected pseudo arty mates.
For me Saturday’s were dull to the point of painstaking boredom. And the money didn’t do much to compensate for the boredom. I saved most of it, hoping that if or when I finally escaped, there’d be something better to do with my money than Kirkcudbright could offer me. I wasn’t what you’d call a cautious teenager – though my friend Christy might disagree on that score – but I guess my parents had taught me a savings habit. Not so much risk averse, more planning for a brighter future. Hoping and planning and dreaming were what my life comprised that spring of 2003.
I’m sure you think I was just being lazy and that I should have kept myself busier and if so I’d have felt more fulfilled. That’s the adult view of most teens, isn’t it? But there’s only so much re-arranging of stock you can do, and Rupert didn’t like me to change things around. Nor did he like me to sit reading a magazine while ‘on duty’. So I spent a lot of my time hanging over the counter, gazing out of the window, from which I couldn’t see any of the best tourist places, the castle or the harbour. Nor could I see the fabled ‘light’. And I used to wonder what it would be like if E. A. Hornel or Jessie M. King waltzed into the shop wanting a brush or some yellow ochre.
If he caught me, Rupert would say ‘don’t drape, Heather.’ His suggestion that I was draping myself on the counter was a classic example of his over active imagination. He couldn’t use a decent admonition such as ‘stop propping up the counter’, which is the sort of thing my dad would have said, if he said such things. But my dad was an oil delivery man not a retailer with artistic pretensions. Enough said.
So I spent Saturdays wishing my adolescence away. I had only a couple of weeks before my Highers started and then only a couple of months before I would head off (all being well) to University. I’d got provisional places at Stirling, Glasgow and St Andrews. I’d put the last one down to please the parents. I would be the first of my family to go to university, if I went, and they – and the school – both considered it would be a feather in my cap if I got it. But no one was committing to my grades and I favoured Glasgow. Big lights, bright city for this girl.
Had I thought about it sensibly at the time, in my situation the pressure was really off. Since I didn’t want the first prize I didn’t need to pull out all the stops, just coast through. But you don’t think like that when the exams are looming up in front of you. At least I didn’t. My friend Christy did. She ‘couldn’t be arsed’ with the whole uni thing. And she so couldn’t be arsed with the whole revision thing. She told me how lucky I was to be in the shop not having to revise, when her parents were constantly on at her to put the effort in at weekends. I’d never seen Christy break sweat to learn anything in school in all the twelve years I’d been her friend and I didn’t rate her parents’ chances on getting her to comply on weekends. But they never gave up.
Christy was banned from the shop on a Saturday. While we’d been BFF’s since the first day we met in primary school, as the relationship developed and we grew up together, both our parents felt that we were ‘bad influences’ on each other. Well, my parents thought she was a bad influence on me, her parents thought that we were a combination that egged each other on. Which was probably true. But the banning order was enforced by Rupert, who happily endorsed it after the second time he caught me and Christy having a laugh ‘on his time and money’ in the shop one Saturday soon after I’d started working there.
So Saturday was a glass half empty, Christy-free day.
And then it happened.
Most, if not all teenage girls, spend an inordinate amount of time thinking, chatting and agonising over boys. It goes with the territory. Christy and I were no exception. Boys were the most important thing in our lives. When the competition was Highers and Saturday jobs and ‘the future’ it’s not that surprising really, is it? Boys are there. Or not there. They were not the kind of ones you saw on the TV. Not in our school. Not in our town. Our town boys were rude and plooky and childish. Occasionally, when the light was shining in the right way, one of them seemed for a time to transcend this and we’d go into agonies about would he ask me out, but it didn’t last.
Soon enough if you did go out with him you’d find the sun had gone back into shadow and he once more became the rude, plooky, immature beast that was his fundamental nature. And if he didn’t ask you out, while his charm might last for a bit longer, his nebulous charm was painted over pretty soon by another boy coming out briefly into the light. They were like caterpillars entering pupae stage. Or, as Christy more appropriately put it – maggots. We hoped, but never really believed that any of the boys we knew would become beautiful butterflies. And we knew that if they did, we’d be long gone.
So when I tell you that we were stuck with maggots, what I’m trying to say is that while we were, like all teenage girls, obsessed with boys, we really didn’t have a lot to work on. Except our dreams and fantasies.
And on Saturday April 26th 2003 mine walked into the shop.
He was, as Christy would say in a deeply affected voice, when joking around, ‘To die for.’
At first, as he stood there in the door, backlit from a brief moment of Kirkcudbright’s Light, I thought I was imagining him. Tall, sporting a black leather biker’s jacket and with a white silk scarf that worked so much better than Rupert’s version, he had dusty blond hair which he flicked out of his eyes as he blinked into the fluorescent light of the shop. Looking him up and down I noted that he also had black leather trousers and boots and I wondered if he was a biker who’d taken a wrong turn. But the scarf…
… and then he spoke. I couldn’t immediately place the accent. It was soft and I’ve always thought of Germanic as a harsh sounding language. Not when he spoke.
‘The brushes – do you have?’
‘Uh, brushes. Yeah, sure…’ I moved out in front of the counter as he moved further into the shop. I showed him the stand where all the brushes from the tiniest to the largest were kept in strict order and he seemed to focus entirely on them, leaving me to drink him in.
It was like River Phoenix or Leonardo di Caprio had walked into the shop, my shop! I was flustered, not knowing what to do or say, so I let him take his time picking just the brush he wanted, a very expensive sable one. Then he turned to me, flicked back that long fringe again and said,
‘Can you help me?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’
‘Do you have blue?’ he said. He smiled. The accent. The smile. I’m sure I blushed. I’m bad like that.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘do you want oil or watercolour?’
‘Will you show me?’ he asked.
And I ushered him to the paints. Once again he seemed engrossed and something in me told me I had to speak to him. Rupert said I never engaged with the customers. Now was the time to try.
‘Are you in Kirkcudbright on holiday?’ I said, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.
He looked up at me, distracted for a minute. And then he held the gaze. Really looked at me. He had piercing blue eyes, just the colour of the tube he was holding, and they seemed to look right into my soul.
‘I have come to paint the light,’ he said.
Of course. Why else? I didn’t know what to say.
He handed me the brush and a couple of tubes of paint and I walked in front of him to the counter.
‘Is that all?’ I asked him. It wasn’t so much up-selling as an attempt to keep the connection.
He nodded and the till pinged as I opened it. He paid the money I asked and all the time I was hoping he’d say something more, or that I might think of something more… but the moment passed. I handed him his bag and all he said was, ‘Thank you.’
‘That’s okay,’ I blushed again.
He turned to leave.
‘See you around,’ I blurted out, but my words were competing with the bell jangling on his way out.
And that was it. I was left feeling like I’d just blown it. Like something big had happened and I hadn’t even known. A fragment of one of my mum’s favourite songs came into my head – you light up my life – and the moment was gone.
I thought, maybe I could go out after him, ask him out on a date. But I wasn’t Christy. I wouldn’t dare. He was just a customer, after all. Just nothing like the usual customers we got in the shop. I crossed to the window to look out. I saw him walk across the street to where a large motorbike sat. I watched him put his purchase into the box on the back, and take out his helmet. As he was revving up the engine to leave I was distracted by another voice. A less welcome one. And it was not in my head.
‘Heather? What are you doing?’ It was Rupert.
‘Nothing, uh, just checking the window,’ I said.
‘You’ve left the till open,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, Mr Taylor.’
‘And what have I told you?’ He wasn’t going to let it go. Rupert loved to lecture.
‘Don’t leave the till unattended or open at any time,’ I parroted back to him.
‘It’s not that hard, is it?’ he said, effecting a tone of disgust.
‘No, Mr Taylor.’
‘Right, back to work then,’ he said. I went back to the counter.
‘Did you ring up the sale?’ he asked.
For a moment I really couldn’t remember. The blonde biker had quite put all thoughts of commerce out of my head.
‘I’m sure I did,’ I replied.
That didn’t suit Rupert.
‘It was a sable brush, size 2, and a couple of tubes of blue paint,’ I said.
‘Cerulean, Cobalt, Prussian, Ultramarine or Electric? Watercolour or oil?’ came the response. ‘Come on Heather, I know you are no artist yourself, but you must pay more attention when you are selling. If you don’t know the product, how can you help the customer?’
‘Prussian blue,’ I replied. ‘Watercolour.’ Why did it matter to Rupert? They were all the same price for heaven’s sakes. I hated that he made me feel small. I was sure he did it on purpose.
‘Anyone we know?’ Rupert asked. For a moment I didn’t understand what he was asking. Then I realised, he was acting like some kind of Sherlock Holmes, like in some way he was going to know what picture was being painted if only he knew who was buying what supplies. It was ridiculous. And I didn’t want to tell him anything about… about my customer.
‘No, just a tourist,’ I said. ‘German I think.’ And hoped he’d leave it at that. Luckily for me he did.
I looked at the clock. ‘I think it’s time for my break now, Mr Taylor,’ I said.
He sighed. A long, deep, disappointed sigh.
‘Really, it’s gone twelve thirty,’ I added.
He pointed me to the window. I’d deliberately been avoiding looking in that direction, though of course it was the only place I wanted to look. But I didn’t want to give Rupert the pleasure of knowing that I was hankering to get out.
There was a face pressed to the window. Pulling faces. It was Christy.
‘You’d better go,’ Rupert said. ‘And please tell your friend not to meet you at the shop in future.’
‘Sorry, Mr Taylor,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell her.’ And picked up my jean jacket and fled. The bell tinkled furiously behind me, and I imagined Rupert’s thoughts were tinkling just as hard. What did I care? In another few months I wouldn’t have to work there. But for now…
Christy grabbed me by the arm and dragged me towards the chip-shop like a woman possessed.
‘Guess what happened this morning?’ I said.
‘No, no, dahhling,’ she replied, ‘don’t tell me something happened in the art world. That’s too, too exciting.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘If you don’t want to know.’
‘What?’ she replied, her appetite whetted now.
I told her about the German biker. I realised I didn’t have a lot to tell. I felt such a failure. I couldn’t deliver much more than his hair, his eyes, his leathers…
‘Was he to die for?’ Christy said, putting her extreme voice.
‘You know what,’ I replied, trying to join in the joke. ‘I think he might be.’ But I felt more serious than I sounded.
‘Ah, come on, Heather,’ she said. ‘Guy rocks up on a bike, buys some paint and heads off. It’s hardly the romance of the century, is it? You’ll never see him again.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Should have asked him out,’ she said.
‘Oh, I never thought of that,’ I said, opting for sarcasm.
‘Oooh, touchy…’ she replied, throwing a stray chip at me. It was one of her more annoying habits, which the seagulls appreciated more than I did.
‘I didn’t know what to say,’ I confessed.
‘You should have at least asked him his name,’ she said. ‘You are sooo hopeless, Heather.’
‘Yeah, Rupert finds me a disappointment too,’ I said.
Now Christy snorted over her fizzy drink.
Christy had news of her own. That wasn’t unusual. Christy always had news. About boys. Though Christy was in the process of upgrading from boys to men. If they didn’t drive a car she wasn’t interested (though a motorbike did distract her for a moment). The particular object of her affection at present was called Ian. He was, wait for it, the school janitor. And he was, wait for it again, married. That wasn’t going to put Christy off. Relentless, was how my dad described her, in pursuit of a goal. And not in a good way. But Christy’s news wasn’t about Ian.
‘I think your wee brother’s stalking me,’ she said.
My turn to snort over my drink. Duggie, my wee brother, was just turning thirteen. I guess his hormones were kicking in. I guess Christy might be appealing to him. I’d never thought of it.
‘What?’ I said. ‘Christy, you are really losing the plot now.’
‘You think,’ she said and pointed across the grass. We were sitting on one of the benches overlooking McLellan’s Castle. And sure enough, ducking out of sight by the Castle Walls was Duggie and some of his mates.
‘Don’t be daft, Christy, they’re playing… whatever silly games they play – Covenanters and King’s men probably.’ Duggie was into history and wouldn’t be seen dead playing a modern day version – which would include Taliban and Squaddie, I suppose.
‘Seriously, Heather. He’s following me all over the place. And…’ she paused, for effect of course, ‘he left me flowers outside my front door.’
‘No,’ I said. I must admit my first thought was where would Duggie get flowers from. ‘How do you know it was him?’ I asked, not sure why I was defending my dweeb of a little brother against Christy’s accusations. Maybe I wanted to hold on to his innocence. There was something fundamentally disturbing, after all, about thinking of your little brother lusting after your best friend.
‘I know it’s him,’ she said. ‘Trust me.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘do you want me to speak to my dad about it?’ It was a stupid thing to say, I know, but I couldn’t think what else to say.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s kind of sweet. I just thought you should know.’
‘Some things, Christy, I think I’d rather not know,’ I replied. Then took my chance. ‘Do you think he’s to die for?’
Now we were both doubled up with laughter.
She chummed me back to the shop for my afternoon shift. I was more than aware of a smallish, shadowy figure in the distance who might just be following us. And yes, it was Duggie. I wondered what Christy would do with her afternoon. Being Christy, she’d probably run him a merry dance just for the fun of it.
‘Best leave here,’ I said, a couple of paces from the shop window. ‘Rupert’s being a dork.’
‘Rupert’s being Rupert,’ she replied.
I was about to go into the shop when she shouted out, ‘Have a good afternoon, and don’t worry, if your hunk comes back I’ll intercept him at the pass.’
‘Hands off, I saw him first,’ I said. But I didn’t expect either of us would see him again. He’d ridden in and ridden out. Kirkcudbright’s that kind of place. People pass through it, they don’t stay. Not through choice. Not if they’re young anyway.
About the Author
Annie Christie is a pretty ordinary person, except that she was born Annie Christie and then married a man called Christie and so is still called Christie despite having taken on her husband’s name. She sometimes wonders if she should have called herself Christie-Christie: but who would believe that?
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.
To Die For is Annie's second McSerial written for McStorytellers.
Born near Drum of Wartle in Aberdeenshire, Annie moved as swiftly as possible to a place with a less bizarre name – Edinburgh – but the bizarreness chased her and she now lives with her husband Rab in rural Galloway, with a Kirkcudbrightshire postcode. (That's Cur coo bree shire to the uninitiated.) She is an active member of the Infinite Jigsaw Project.
To Die For is Annie's second McSerial written for McStorytellers.