Free The Last Refuge by Craig Robertson

to be among the words. If it was one of the handful of phrases I’d learned at the fish farm then the speed of delivery floored me.
    When she saw the look of confusion on my face, she slipped effortlessly into English.
    ‘Hi. If you’re on your own do you want to come and sit with me and my friends?’
    I glanced over and saw a table of two other girls, one of them the short girl that had been on the receiving end of the smack, and two guys. All of them were, like her, in their mid to late twenties. On the table in front of them was a tall Perspex funnel containing beer, which descended into a copper bottom with a tap, something like a samovar.
    Company wasn’t what I’d come looking for, and although there was certainly something beguiling about the girl, I knew it wasn’t a good idea.
    A line came back to me from The Great Gatsby , read in a secondary-school classroom, about how bad drivers are only dangerous when two of them meet. The last thing I needed was a head-on collision.
    I shook my head at her. ‘No. Takk . I’m happy just sitting on my own.’
    The girl’s nose wrinkled in confusion and her mouth twisted to one side as she weighed up whether to leave it at that. Decision seemingly made, she broke into a coy smile that nearly destroyed my defences.
    ‘Oh come on. It will be fun. Even if you don’t like me, my friends are nice people.’
    ‘It’s not that I don’t like you . . .’
    The smile widened and my defences creaked further. I had to be cruel to be kind.
    ‘No. I’d rather sit alone.’
    Her green eyes flamed and her mouth tightened until the enticing smile disappeared and was zipped away. The shrug of her shoulders was like twin stiletto blades being flourished in warning. ‘Fine. Your loss.’
    The chair was pushed back and she spun on her heels, retreating to her friends but leaving a simmering trail of rejection behind her. I couldn’t help but notice the skinny jeans that clung to slim legs and showed off a fine rear. I cursed myself silently, but knew it had been the right thing. Even if she wasn’t really that bad a driver, I was bad enough for both of us.
    She returned nearly an hour later.
    I looked across the room to see her sitting with her elbow on the table, chin on her hand, looking at me through narrowed eyes. She pushed the porkpie hat back on her head a little, then siphoned off a pint of beer from the Perspex-and-copper contraption and got to her feet. Weaving her way through two other tables, she reached mine, turning the chair opposite round so that it faced her and straddling it in interrogation mode. She leaned her head across the table till it was near mine.
    ‘So. I’m Karis.’
    ‘Hi.’
    She waited in vain for me to offer my name, and when it didn’t come she just shrugged casually, the knife sheathed but ready for use.
    ‘Do you not like people, or is it just me that you are rude to?’
    Her tone was playful but with an edge to it, like a cat flicking a mouse around and not yet resorting to using its claws.
    ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just felt like being alone.’
    She tilted her head to one side, making a show of studying me. ‘I do not understand that. You are a good-looking guy. So why are you on your own?’
    ‘Because I’m not with anyone.’
    ‘Funny guy, too. So where are you from? Are you English?’
    Inside I groaned, as much at the continued conversation as the nationality muddle. ‘No. I’m Scottish.’
    A strange look crossed her face, something mischievous, and she ducked her head under the table, looking mock perplexed when she re-emerged. ‘But if you are Scottish, where is your kilt?’
    This girl was going to prove difficult to shake off.
    ‘It’s in the dry cleaners. I got it covered in haggis blood during the last hunt.’
    ‘That is disgusting. Scotland must be full of strange people.’
    ‘I can’t argue with that.’
    Karis was wearing a sleeveless red tartan shirt open over a black rock-music T-shirt.