A week later and by some miracle, or rather bribery and the odd threat, Katya's flatmates had cleared out for the night, which meant she and Dexter would have the place to themselves to celebrate his return from LA.
Dexter's first visit to Great Yarmouth. So far all their meet-ups had taken place either in London or Glasgow, or midway points in between. It had taken her three hours to get the flat half-way decent looking.
The thought of showing him around made her nervous. The guy was returning from LA. Wouldn't Great Yarmouth's shabby 1950s seaside charm be lost on him? But on a clear sunny day Caister-on-Sea beach was heavenly, and she had a sneaky fondness for the Merrivale Model Village. As a child, her mother had taken her and her sisters there all the time. The four girls found the perfectly formed tiny houses, castle and cricket pitch fascinating and they speculated endlessly on the imaginary inhabitants of the place.
Nerves and excitement fizzed together. I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait... She moved to the fridge. Dexter was due in another couple of hours, which gave her time to rustle up something to eat. They could go out, but so far they had spent their time together in hotels. Katya had never made a man a meal in her flat before. Besides, if you ate something in your home you didn't have too far to go if lust hit you half-way through the main course. And she had Gaby's news to share too. What would Dexter make of it?
Katya took the food out of the plastic bag she'd dumped next to the sink. She'd bought the stuff the day before, but storing choice items in a communal kitchen was a mistake. Thanks to the cold weather, she'd been able to keep the food, well-wrapped in linen bags, outside. She peeled butternut squash and chopped onions, ginger and garlic for a Thai-style curry. Dexter shared her food views—responsible adults who cared about the planet should eat a plant-based diet most of the time. Even if both of them cheated occasionally, sliding down the slippery slope of cheese, chocolate and cream.
Half-way through cooking—the kitchen filled with the warm, toasty smells of dry‑roasted cumin, coriander, and garlic and ginger—her phone buzzed.
Dexter. Fab. He'd arrived early and wanted the directions to the house.
"Katya."
Funny how much information you got from a single word. This one told her instantly she was not about to hear good news. And that the guy who delivered it was about to utter an all-too‑familiar excuse. She beat him to it.
"You can't make it."
"I'm stuck in LA. A meeting dragged on and on and on, and now there's another one planned for the next day. I haven't had a moment to myself to pee, let alone phone my girlfriend."
Multiple sorrys followed. And a harking back to the warning he'd given her when they met up in London the week before. The launch of a beauty brand in a new country was A Big Thing. All employees were now in lock-down, working every hour of the day and night. You needed strategies and plans for everything—from social media, to digital ads, YouTube videos, celebrity ambassadors and more.
The flurry is short term, he added, but short-notice delays and cancellations were to be expected.
Great. Her American boyfriend had integrated himself so well into British culture, he sounded like an all-too‑regular announcement at a railway station.
I will not cry.
The burnt-bitter smell in the air reminded her she'd taken her eye off the curry. She took it off the gas ring and hoped that she could rescue the top. Good job only one of them would be eating it, as the bottom half appeared to be inedible. She'd given flatmate number four £20 to clear off for the evening. Was it too late to phone him and say, "Hey, you can come back if you want. There's some burnt, leftover curry if you like. And... um... can I have my twenty quid back?"
Dexter promised he'd make it up to her. How about a long weekend in Glasgow as soon as he got back? He would organise and pay for everything—her train fare, the hotel, a meal in the best restaurant the city offered. She resisted the urge to yell, "It's not good enough!"
"I'm sorry," he said. That word again. "I've got to go. I'll see you super-soon!"
And that was it. Goodbye, Dexter. His haste to leave her was beginning to feel unnervingly unflattering.
*****
Later, having finished the unburnt portion of curry and washed it down with an ice-cold lager she'd 'borrowed' from the fridge, she phoned Gaby.
When she'd spoken with her on the train back from London the other week, the first question she'd asked had been, "How sorry?" in relation to Gaby's apology for all the exclamation marks she'd used in her text message. "There is a special place in hell for people who use too many of them."
"Oh, shush your fussy self!" Gaby said, her voice light and joyful. "My news is worth that many exclamation marks. It might make even you consider using one or two of them. So... drum roll, here goes, Jack has asked me to move in with him."
"Congratulations," Katya said, genuinely pleased. Though if Gaby moved in with Jack that meant she was staying in Lochalshie. Until eight months ago, Katya and Gaby had lived five minutes from each other for most of their lives. When Gaby's long-term relationship imploded, she'd needed to get out of town fast, and ended up cat-sitting for someone in Scotland. Katya missed her like a limb.
The less noble part of her couldn't hold back the bite of mean, green jealousy at the moving‑in‑together news. Gaby escaped a ten-year relationship scar-free and moved seamlessly on to another one with another (much nicer) guy. Whereas Katya wasn't even able to persuade her boyfriend she was worth missing a stupid marketing meeting or two for.
"That's not the real news—oof, oh, yes it is," Gaby continued. "Jack, stop it! That's—"
Katya held the phone away. Other people's love lives should be conducted in private.
Gaby came back on the line, breathless and spluttery with giggles. "The not real, real news, then! If I move in with Jack, Mhari needs a flatmate. And Lochalshie is far closer to Glasgow and Dexter than Great bloomin' Yarmouth."
"Mhari," Katya said, her tone dry but her heart fluttering with the possibilities such a move presented. "The universe's nosiest woman. Who once shared a video of you with the world where you emerged from the loch, a full wardrobe malfunction on show via your nipples standing to attention?"
"Best video on YouTube," came a shout in the background. Jack. "I knew then Gaby was the girl for me. I coined the Nora Nipples nickname, by the way."
"You didn't!" Gaby's outrage made her smile. No, he didn't. He'd figured out early on that one of the wonderful things about Katya's best friend was that she was too easy to wind up. It was like taking candy from a baby.
Gaby wasn't distracted for too long. "Heart of gold, Mhari," she said. "You'll have fun. Plus the flat is three hundred times better than the one you're in—El Crappo Villas."
'El Crappo Villas' counted as a fair description. She shared it with four others. Plus the additional tens of thousands if Katya tallied up the cockroaches, dust mites and mice that occupied the building, thanks to landlord neglect and neighbourly slovenliness. The wallpaper peeled from the walls, the furniture came from Ikea's 1999 catalogue, and streak marks covered the double-glazed window, which looked out on an overgrown garden and bins that hadn't been emptied for a month.
It was the norm for people their age these days. No possibility of getting on the housing ladder unless the happy accident of birth provided you with wealthy parents able to sell off one of their city properties or cash in their final salary pension to provide you with a 50‑percent deposit. A flat-share somewhere else wouldn't propel Katya into home ownership, but it might mean more cubic metres for her rent money. And soon, soon much more money was coming her way.
She scrabbled for the sensible excuses. "I'll need to see it." She had—when Gaby moved in a few months ago, she insisted on a house‑warming party, and invited Katya. The flat was a 60s‑style two-up two‑down pebble-dashed building with a communal garden at the front and back, and its rooms far more spacious than the ones she was used to.
"What about work?"
Well, what about it? As a freelancer, all she needed was an internet connection. When Gaby first moved to Lochalshie, the connection had been problematic depending on where in the village you were situated. She'd had to move into Jack's house to work. And look where that had led. Nowadays, Gaby assured her, Lochalshie was as fully mast-up as every other place in the country. Flip, if she wanted proof, Gaby only needed to turn on FaceTime and show her...
"No thanks," Katya jumped in. God knows what she would see. Gaby and Jack cuddled up naked or something. She wouldn't put it past her best friend—a big believer in share and share alike with one's closest acquaintances.
"I'll think about it and let you know."
As she stared out the kitchen window now, one of the neighbours' dogs wandered in front of the over-filled bins and pulled out the contents, scattering rubbish everywhere. Lochalshie was much closer to Glasgow than Great Yarmouth. She pictured herself nipping down to the city every weekend, maybe even on the odd evening. Much, much, much better than the present situation. She and Dexter would have time to find out the ordinary bits of each other. It would allow her to reassess the pros and cons list again and work out if her scoring was correct.
It had to be easier than the current situation where he travelled to London or she went to Glasgow and too many of their supposed weekends together got cancelled at short notice because of Dexter's work commitments. But did it mean something—Katya upping sticks and moving to be closer to Dexter when they'd only been together a few months? Might he see the move as threatening, one person pushing fast-forward on a relationship when the other was still taking it slow and steady?
Ah well. No need to tell him yet.
"Okay," she said when Gaby answered the phone, "I'd like to move to Lochalshie."
Gaby cheered so loudly Katya had to hold the phone away from her ear.
"When can I move in?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE - thanks for reading! Next update, Friday 15th October, 2021.