Page 20 of Beautiful Ugly
“Well, no, if I’m honest.”
“Only you know if you’re honest, pointless asking me.”
Sandy does not look, sound, or behave like someone who is wealthy—and I wonder whether I have misjudged her. We walk side by side and I’m reminded how tall she is. She’s dressed in what looks like the same clothes she wore yesterday: jeans (presumably extra-long), a white shirt, and her giant yellow coat. No makeup, no nonsense. She doesn’tlooklike a lady of the manor or a queen of the—albeit miniature—castle.
The place is impressive at first glance, but it’s a bit run-down, with paint peeling off the window frames and doors like burned skin. The closer we get, the more imperfections I see; tiles missing from the roof, dead plants in the window boxes, cracks in the walls. It’s an unhappy-looking house. Once picture-perfect, I imagine, but now tired and unloved. The windows look like eyes, and I feel as though they are watching me. There is also a strange-looking metal tower behind the house at the very top of the hill. Itlookslike a phone mast.
“What is that?” I ask, over the sound of our footsteps crunching on the gravel driveway. “I thought there was no mobile phone signal on Amberly.”
“There isn’t. Although I’m told someone once managed to get one bar by the Standing Stones. What you see there is the old radio tower. Such an ugly thing, but this is the highest point on the island where it could be easily accessed for repairs, so here it is. We don’t need mobile phones—nobody does if you ask me—but we do need radio. Can’t do my job without the shipping forecast, for one thing. The tower is also how these work,” she says, taking a walkie-talkie from her pocket. “Everyone on the island has one.”
“I don’t.”
“They’re only for permanent residents, people who are part of the community, and they’re only really supposed to be used for emergencies.”
There’s that word they all seem to love again:community.
Sandy turns off her walkie-talkie before putting it away, which seems like a strange thing to do if it is for emergencies when she is the island sheriff.
“Your home is very impressive,” I say, but Sandy shakes her head and a strand of shiny short black hair escapes her ponytail.
“It used to be a bonnie pile of bricks when I was a child, but big old places like this require a lot of maintenance, which requires a lot of money. It will cost more than I earn to return her to her former glory, but I’m working on it.”
A large front door opens before we reach it and I see my wife standing there.
I stop and stare, blink a few times, and when I open my eyes again I realize it’s not her.
It never was.
Never is.
A petite woman in a loud floral dress stands in the entrance. She waves and smiles at me like I am a long-lost friend. “This is my sister, Midge MacIntyre,” Sandy says. Midge is as shortas Sandy is tall, and has an immaculate blond bob of hair that doesn’t move when she does. They look a similar age but they do not look like sisters.
“Come on in out of the cold; you’ll catch your death,” she says, ushering me inside, which is far more welcoming than the exterior. The place smells of scented candles, home cooking, and an open fire that I can hear crackling and spitting somewhere in the distance, and everything, and I do meaneverything, is covered in tweed fabric. The chair in the hallway, the lampshade, the cushions, the curtains, the walls, the draft excluder. Everything.
Overly tactile people tend to make me uncomfortable, but I don’t mind too much when Midge hugs me. Perhaps because I have forgotten what it is like to be embraced; my only source of affection these days is the dog. When my new floral friend has finished patting me, she starts stroking Columbo, who is instantly taken with her.
“I couldn’t believe it when Sandy saidanotherauthor had come to stay on our little island! We’re a small crowd, just twenty-five permanent residents, but a lot of them love books. Including me. The news really has made my day!” she says in a thick Scottish accent. It’s a beautiful sound. Close up, I can see she’s a smidgen younger than Sandy beneath all the makeup.
“Are you here to write a book?” she asks. “Most writers who visit the island seem to find it great for inspiring their creativity.”
“Well, yes, actually. I am here to write. Do you get many authors coming to Amberly?”
“A few, and we all miss Charlie, of course. Perhaps you could be our new resident writer? Wouldn’t that be lovely?” She links her skinny little arm through mine. “Now come on into the kitchen so we can have a wee glass of the good stuff and you can tell me all about yourself. And your books, of course.”
The kitchen is also decorated in tweed, a mostly pink pattern in here. And the good stuff, it turns out, is some homemade alcoholthat Midge calls “poutine” served in miniature glasses. It burns my throat and tastes thoroughly unpleasant.
“It’s good,” I tell her.
“A little taste of yesterday’s rain to help prepare you for tomorrow,” she says.
I do not know what that means, but three tiny glasses of yesterday’s rain later, I feel more relaxed than I probably should. I notice that Midge keeps refilling my glass but barely touches her own. I also notice that she is wearing the same ring as Sandy on her finger, silver with a thistle. It must be a family thing. She leads us through to a candlelit dining room—tweed in every shade of green in this room—and servessomething. I’m not entirely sure what.
“I hope you like lamb,” Midge says.
“It looks...”
Inedible.