Where Have All the Boys Gone?. Jenny Colgan
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the waterproofs I’ll have to take.’
‘What’s the job involve?’
‘Trees. Looking after trees. Apparently trees need a PR.’
‘I thought they had Sting.’
‘He’s on tour. Anyway, he only cares about foreign trees.’
‘That’s bigo-tree.’
Katie looked at Louise. ‘That’s the first joke you’ve made in about three months.’
‘That waiter was a joke.’
‘You know, I wonder if you might just be recovering.’
‘Huh. You know, I think it might be really interesting. It’d be great to get out of this cesspit for a while,’ Louise said wistfully.
Katie suddenly had a great idea. ‘Do you know how long it takes to drive up there?’
Louise shook her head.
‘Me neither. Wanna come?’
Packing for three months in March was absolutely not easy. In London, the daffs were out in the public squares, and you could make it on a sunny afternoon with just a cardie. But according to www.middleofnowhere-weather.com, Fairlish still had six inches of snow and a wind-chill factor of minus ten.
Olivia was very grumpy that Louise was going too. She had found it very easy to get leave from her employers, who were still trying to work out if her behaviour at the Christmas party constituted sexual harassment.
‘I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone here, desperately trying to ferret out the last good-looking, rich, kind, straight man in London,’ Olivia wailed.
‘You sent me on this stupid assignment!’ said Katie.
‘Yeah, but I didn’t want you both to go.’
‘I’ll be back in a couple of days!’ said Louise indignantly.
‘But you’re either a biscuit-strewn crumbling mess or under a waiter. You’re no use at all!’
‘Well, that’s nice.’
‘I’m just saying,’ replied Olivia gruffly, ‘good luck – I’ll miss you.’
‘Well, I’ll miss you too,’ said Katie. ‘Along with electric lighting, central heating, comprehensible English, Belgo, sushi, mojitos, movie theatres, wine bars, radio, fajitas…’
‘I’ll get the drinks in,’ interrupted Olivia.
Katie’s Fiat Punto fought a brave fight, but it still took them twelve full hours, much circling around and two full bouts of crying (one and a half Louise’s, one half Katie’s, who felt that red eyes and a crack in the voice wasn’t quite as bad as Louise’s full-on tantrum on the subject of unmarked B roads, leading to an extremely long diatribe on Max’s inability to find his way anywhere which meant he was probably lost in the foothills of the Himalayas, which, Katie had thought, was exactly where she’d like to be right now, a thought she committed the profound error of voicing) to finally limp into Fairlish late that evening.
To Katie’s horror, the Forestry Commission had politely turned down Olivia’s offer to organise their accommodation and said they’d sort something out. Which in practice meant that rather than automatically booking the nicest hotel in the area and billing it to the client, Katie was somewhat at the mercy of…well, the fax she was clasping in her hand. It didn’t say anything along the lines of ‘Gleneagles’. It didn’t say anything along the lines of ‘hotel’. It said, ‘4 Water Lane. Do not arrive after 8 p.m.’.
It was 11.30 p.m. The last time they’d got out of the car, near Killiemuir, it had been so cold, Louise’s sobs had frozen in her throat. It had hurt to breathe.
The darkness was almost complete. Louise was looking out of the window, failing to spot a single road sign, whining, ‘I can’t see a thing.’
Katie was trying her best to be patient, but it was like travelling all day with a six-year-old.
‘Well, look harder. I’m just concentrating on trying not to run over any more squirrels or rats or badgers or hedgehogs or deer, OK?’
‘No need to get snitty,’ said Louise. ‘It’s not my fault you forgot to pack the night-vision goggles.’
Without warning, the Fiat dropped into a huge puddle of freezing water. The girls both screamed. Katie somehow managed to push the car on through before it stalled, and they came to a shuddering halt. They looked at each other, neither wanting to get out in the cold.
‘Where’s the torch?’ asked Louise, finally.
Katie looked at her soaking wet feet. ‘Um, I didn’t bring one.’
‘What did your dad say about driving at night without a torch?’
‘I don’t have a dad.’
‘Oh, yes, bring that up now we’re trapped in a flood in the middle of nowhere.’
Gingerly, Katie opened the door. There was definitely water running under their feet. ‘Bollocks,’ she said.
Louise gasped sharply.
‘What?’
‘There’s a light…over there.’
Sure enough, a tiny light could be seen bobbing up and down towards them.
‘Do you think it’s a rescue boat?’
‘Uh, yeah,’ said Katie, whose first thought had, in actual fact, been that it was aliens.
‘Hellaooowww!’ screeched Louise. ‘Carn you come and help us, pleayse!’
‘Could you sound a little less like the Duke of Edinburgh?’ hissed Katie. ‘Haven’t you seen An American Werewolf in London?’
‘Cooeee!’ shouted Louise.
‘What the MANKIN HELL…’ a strident voice, closely followed by the beam of a torch and an equally visible bosom, strode out of the darkness ‘…do you think you’re doing?’
An imperious nose followed the bosom, along with an expression that looked far from the welcoming Scots of tradition, with two eyebrows that wouldn’t have been entirely out of place on an old Labour minister.
Katie and Louise immediately splashed to attention.
The woman sized them up and down. ‘And you are?’
‘We’re looking for number 4 Water Lane,’ said Katie, in her best well-brought-up voice.
‘D’you think this might be Water Lane?’ said the woman, staring pointedly at their shoes.
‘Is that a yes or a no?’ replied Katie. Playing humorous word games with Attila the Bun would be all well and good if they weren’t on the brink of hypothermia.
The woman sniffed in a manner that implied that yes, it obviously was, surely even to the educationally sub-rate specimens in front of her. ‘You’ll be the London girls then.’
Katie and Louise swapped glances.
‘I thought it was quite clear that you were expected before 8.30?’ she continued.
‘It took us a while to get here. From London,’ said Katie.
‘Really? Is it far? Maybe you had to stop for cocktails and to buy some shoes on the way.’
If she hadn’t been so very, very wet and very, very tired, Katie would simply have turned around and driven all the way back home.
Number 4 Water Lane was not, as the girls had fantasised for the last two hundred miles, a tartan-festooned haven of horseshoe antiques, a stag’s head or two and a blazing open fire. It was an enormous house, shrouded in almost complete darkness, with creaks and peculiar noises emanating from