Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered. Kerry Barrett
side. Eva –emotionally and physically – was all soft edges.
My Granny had started the café years ago, selling traditional teas and cakes to tourists. There wasn’t a whiff of magic about the place, not then. Although she did – obviously – help people with their problems on a personal basis.
When Suky had Harry she came home for a while, and as Harry grew, Suky’s contribution to the café grew too. She began dabbling in tinctures and tonics, selling them to locals for all sorts of ailments. And she persuaded my mum – who’d done a business course in Glasgow and who was running from an unhappy love affair – to come home too. So they all rubbed along – Mum, Suky and Gran, and Harry and me. Then, when I was twelve, and high-flying Harry had just started an MBA in the States, Gran died and the magic at home leaked away, just a bit but enough for Mum and Suky to know they were in trouble. Harry was committed to her studies, and I was too young – they needed to find another witch.
As the last guests departed after Gran’s funeral, Mum, Suky, Harry and I sat at the kitchen table feeling a little lost. At least I was. I remember Harry barely lifted her head out of the economics book she was reading. Then there was a knock on the back door and when I opened it, there was Eva.
‘Hello,’ she said in her matter-of-fact way. ‘I think I’m supposed to stay here.’
It sounds crazy, just opening your home up to a stranger. But in the world of witches, it’s actually not as weird as it could be. Suky and Mum had sent out a kind of call for help – a celestial SOS – and Eva had answered. So when she arrived on the doorstep, they knew exactly why she was there. Basically, Mum and Suky grinned at each other, and that was that. Eva moved into the outbuilding at the bottom of our garden with her husband Allan. They patched it up at first, then slowly made it their home, and even added a studio for Allan, a landscape artist, and a kiln for Eva’s ceramics.
Eva says she’s not sure what made her come to Claddach. She and Allan were in a bad way back then. Their teenage son Simon had been killed in a car accident a couple of years before.
‘Existing we were,’ Eva once told me. ‘Not living.’
Allan had stopped painting, Eva’s magic had all but burned out.
‘I couldn’t see the point,’ she said. ‘My magic couldn’t save Simon and I didn’t want anything else.’
And then one morning, the morning of Granny’s funeral though of course she didn’t know that at the time, Eva woke up with a new sense of purpose.
‘We are needed in Scotland,’ she told Allan, sweet, unquestioning Allan. And they packed their bags and left – driving all day to reach us.
Shortly after they arrived, Allan sold a painting to a card company – then another and another. Suddenly he was in demand and, for the first time, comfortably off. Eva’s ceramics sold well to tourists all over the Highlands and as soon as she met up with Mum and Suky her magic came back in abundance. And so they stayed, and they were happy. And their home became a refuge for teenagers – some placed there officially by social services and some who just found their way there looking for Eva’s non-judgemental affection and Allan’s calm, steady care.
When I’d left home, angry and upset with Mum and betrayed by Harry, I’d cursed the universe that had led Eva to our garden. If she’d lived further away, she could have been my refuge, I’d thought at the time. But now, I was simply pleased to see her.
Eva smiled at me.
‘Is it like you remembered?’ she asked.
I nodded, looking through the café’s long windows and out over the loch.
‘It’s like I’ve never been away,’ I said, bewildered by how little had changed in such a long time. ‘Do you need a hand?’
Eva looked at the empty café and shook her head.
‘It’s all under control,’ she said with a wry smile.
‘In that case, I’ll have a latte please.’ I was going to make the most of being a customer while I still could.
She punched me gently on the arm.
‘Cheeky.’ But she got up and began making me a coffee anyway.
I took my drink and a glossy magazine from the rack over to a table, where I sat, ignoring the celebs in my mag and gazing out of the window instead. As I watched a small boat jump across the surface of the loch, the door to the café was flung open and a gust of cold wind rippled the pages of my magazine.
‘Esme! It’s true! You are back!’
I looked up. So did Eva. Chloé stood in the doorway, her long red hair lifting in the wind and a frown on her face. I was overjoyed to see her. She’d been my best friend all the way through school. She ignored the other children when they muttered about my odd family and I stuck by her when she was teased for being so tall and gawky. Now she was tall, lean and beautiful with striking auburn hair and creamy white skin – and my family was still odd.
I jumped up to hug her – and close the door behind her because I was freezing.
‘I heard you were back,’ Chloé said, pulling up a chair. ‘Why didn’t you call me?’
I grinned at her. The infamous Loch Claddach gossips had clearly been doing a good job.
‘I’ve not even been here a day,’ I laughed. ‘How did you know I’d arrived?’
Chloé rolled her eyes.
‘Mrs Parkinson saw you drive in last night,’ she said. ‘She called Mum, and Mum called me. I thought you’d be here so I left the kids with their gran until Rob gets home and popped down.’
My smile faltered slightly. In my opinion Rob and the kids were the reason Chloé and I had grown apart. Inseparable at school, we’d remained close when I left Claddach. But after uni, while I threw myself into my work, Chloé married Rob, took a teaching job in Inverness, moved home and squeezed out two children in quick succession. After that we didn’t have much in common any more though we’d kept in touch with regular emails. I told myself I was bored with Chloé’s talk of nappies and nurseries but the truth was I was a little in awe of her. She seemed like a proper grown up, while I still felt like a child. Now, even though I was pleased to see her, I sat awkwardly opposite her, not sure what to say next.
‘So,’ I finally began as Eva put a cappuccino in front of Chloé without being asked. ‘Is everything still shit?’
Chloé laughed and looked sheepish.
‘I was a bit overdramatic in my last email,’ she said, sticking her finger in the froth of her coffee. ‘It’s just things haven’t exactly worked out as I planned, you know?’
I nodded, even though in terms of my career, things had worked out exactly as I’d planned.
‘I never thought I’d be stuck here, no job and two kids before I’m even thirty.’
‘But you’re feeling better now?’ I asked.
Chloé leaned forward.
‘Thanks to Suky,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t told anyone how I was feeling – only you. Not Rob, or my mum. Then I was in here a few weeks ago and Suky brought me a cake I hadn’t ordered. You know how she does?’
‘I do.’ I eyed Chloé’s cappuccino, which she hadn’t ordered either, suspiciously.
‘Anyway, about two days later I bumped into Mary – she’s the head at the primary school here – we got chatting and she mentioned they needed someone three days a week to do extra tuition with some of the kids. We had a chat, I taught a lesson for her, blah blah, you know the drill. And I’ve got a new job, which is perfect. And then I mentioned that I’d been looking at the MAs in