Free Something Fishy by Hilary MacLeod Page B

is?”
    â€œFiona…” At the moment, Fiona’s last name escaped Gus. Then it came to her. Winterbottom. How could you forget that? “Fiona Winterbottom. She’s the fudge lady.” As if that explanation made up for forgetting the woman’s surname.
    â€œWinterbottom. My God. How unfortunate.”
    â€œShe goes by Winter.”
    â€œI’m not surprised. If I had such a name, I’d change it.”
    Gus didn’t add that everyone called Fiona Winterbottom anyway. And didn’t this woman have a peculiar name of her own?
    Viola stared at the trailer, disgust in her eyes, saying nothing. No, she would not be giving Anton hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy it. He’d have to find some other way.
    Viola lit the cigarette and stuffed it in the holder. She waved it in the direction of the cape. Some ash fell off. Gus’s eyes were attached to the burning red tip of the cigarette, expecting it to drop and set her quilt bits on the floor on fire.
    â€œWhose is that?”
    Gus looked up.
    â€œThe dome? Or the windmill?”
    â€œBoth, I suppose. Start with the dome.”
    â€œNewton Fanshaw’s the latest owner. New around here. Come this spring. Put up that windmill.”
    â€œNewton Fanshaw?”
    Gus nodded.
    â€œWho’s he?”
    â€œDon’t rightly know. Some kind of scientist.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œOdd duck. Skinny and lonely – ‘’cept he seems to have something going with that Fiona lass.”
    â€œAnd the windmill’s his?”
    Gus nodded again.
    â€œI’ll be damned. Bloody things are a menace. They’ll be killing off your shore birds.”
    Privately, Gus thought they could use fewer seagulls, but the rest of the birds – wouldn’t they learn to avoid the blades?
    Viola aimed angry stabs of her cigarette at the plate of cookies.
    Gus tried not to notice, or appear to notice. It wouldn’t be polite. She tried to change the subject to a harmless topic between women.
    â€œDo you have children?”
    In Gus Mack’s world that was a perfectly polite question. Not, apparently, in Viola’s. She screwed up her face in distaste.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo.”
    Gus pursed her lips. “Eight I had. Four dead.”
    â€œStillborn? Abortions?”
    Gus couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice. “No, oh no, all born healthy. Heart attacks in their sixties. Certainly not abortions.”
    â€œNo one would blame you for getting rid of some of them. Eight. That’s like a farm animal. Like a pig with its piglets.” Viola smiled, amused at herself. “Though, of course, you wouldn’t have had them all at once.”
    Gus picked up her knitting and began plain and purling furiously to try to soothe the agitation the conversation had caused. Could she ask the woman to leave? She should ask the woman to leave.
    Viola herself made the decision. She’d run out of scotch. She was nearly out of cigarettes, and she thought Gus Mack was a very boring woman.
    When Viola left, Gus picked up the defiled plate, screwed up her face in distaste, and dumped everything, plate and all, in the garbage.
    She was relieved that she hadn’t used her company china.
    Newton was diving into Fiona’s fudge – three varieties of creamy, addictive sweetness. Butterscotch, chocolate, and marble. He ate it as if it were life-sustaining, as if it could flow through his veins, bring him truly alive. Something of the same feeling coursed through him for Fiona herself. She intrigued and disgusted him with her large appetite for love, life, and lust.
    Those appetites drew him to her, and repelled him.
    She was squeezed up against him, and he could feel her life force, so much stronger than his own. As he fed on the fudge, he fed on her. She made him feel alive, more alive than he had ever been.
    But he couldn’t stand the way she talked. “Yous”