Heartstones by Kate Glanville Page B

themselves – didn’t they do us proud?’ He pushed a selection of bags towards Phoebe. ‘Bacon bits, cheese balls, or good old ready-salted. Can I tempt you?’ she shook her head.
    ‘I’d better leave before everyone arrives, I don’t want to be in your way.’
    ‘We have something we want to ask you,’ Fibber said through a mouthful of crisps. ‘Would you stay another night and help us out behind the bar? My mother has taken to her bed with one of her “heads”, and we were out looking for Honey when Katrina should have been preparing the fancy curry that she’s doing as a special tonight. I just don’t know how we’re going to manage when the hordes arrive. Please, Phoebe.’ He fluttered his pale eyelashes; Phoebe laughed. ‘We’re desperate. I’ll even crack open a brand new box of fancy crisps for you, I have sweet chilli down in the cellar.’
    ‘Hand-cooked?’ joked Phoebe.
    ‘By specially trained leprechauns.’
    Phoebe considered Fibber’s offer for a few moments; could she face the residents of Carraigmore again? What did she really care, after tonight she’d never have to see them again and the thought of driving for miles in the dark suddenly seemed daunting.
    ‘My bar skills are a bit rusty,’ she said. ‘I haven’t worked in a pub since I was back-packing around Australia years ago.’
    ‘They say it’s like riding a bike,’ Fibber scrunched up his empty crisp packet and flicked it neatly into an open bin. ‘You never forget how to pull a good pint.’
    ‘I warn you, my pint-pulling was always on the wobbly side.’
    ‘As long as you can keep the drinks coming we’ll be happy; no one will be looking for fancy pictures on top of the Guinness tonight.’
    Phoebe smiled and took her coat off. ‘OK. In exchange for another night in your spare room I’ll help you out.’
    Four hours later Phoebe staggered into the kitchen and slumped down at the table.
    ‘They have you worn out, I think,’ Katrina was scrubbing out a huge steel cooking pot in the sink.
    ‘It’s been non-stop,’ said Phoebe, her chin resting in her hands. ‘This is the first lull we’ve had all night.’
    ‘Carraigmore likes to party, yes?’
    ‘You can say that again,’ said Phoebe. ‘Those footballers are insatiable, they just keep downing pint after pint.’
    ‘Fibber told me it is you that keeps them round the bar. Like bees around the heather he says.’ Katrina smiled at Phoebe and Phoebe felt herself blush. ‘Don’t worry, he has told them you are grieving for your husband, you will not be interested in their big muscles and hairy chests.’
    Phoebe had forgotten she’d told Katrina David was her husband, it felt somehow comforting to hear him described as that. ‘I don’t think they’ve listened to Fibber,’ she said. ‘I’ve already had three offers of a date, a proposition of marriage, and one just came straight out and asked me to go home with him tonight – he said not to worry, he had put clean sheets on his bed on Saturday!’
    Katrina laughed. ‘That sounds like Brian Nolan, always not shy to come forward if you know what I mean. Did he have curly hair and ears like this?’ She pushed at her own ears so that they stuck out; Phoebe nodded. Katrina made a face. ‘I wouldn’t trust him about his sheets. You ask him which Saturday – I bet it was one before Christmas.’
    ‘I don’t care when he changed his sheets,’ Phoebe said. ‘I have no intention of ever going home with Brian Nolan.’
    ‘Did you find out about your grandmother today?’ Katrina asked as she started to unload the dishwasher.
    Phoebe paused; it had been so hectic all evening that she had almost forgotten what had happened earlier that day.
    ‘I found the little studio where my grandmother used to live. It’s by the beach, the boathouse, do you know it?’
    ‘You mean Theo’s studio?’
    ‘No!’ Phoebe straightened up, indignant. ‘It’s mine. My grandmother left it to me and my sister