The next week was quite calm, except that I was so irritated by the young girl Katka, who is till turning down the gas whenever I was busy elsewhere., and running off with my utensils before I was finished with it. It drove me up the wall, but I think my way of just looking at Lorna when she was raving away with expressionless eyes managed to unerve her a wee bit, or maybe she felt bad about the matches episode, for not owning up that she might have taken a second box out. But how it may be, she left me alone, and the next saturday I went off directly after my shift to the Munro Inn, where Moira Kerr was to sing.
I loved Moira, as she has a beautiful clear voice, and the personality to really do justice to the old Scottish songs that she loved to sing.
The pub lounge was packed, as only the Strathyre people can pack themselves into a room, and the atmosphere was just amazing, everybody clapping and singing along, and I could see that Moira loved it when people joined in.
The only fly in the ointment was one of the women called Suzy, about my age, but boy, was she still pretyy, with a lively personality to go with it. She and Angy, one of the nicest women in Strathyre had just come back from a holiday together, somewhere in Spain, They had enjoyed their holiday to such an extent that they just couldn't stop talking about it, and now, with Moira getting a bitty upset, Suzy, oblivious to her surroundings, had found someone who had not yet heard about the holiday, and she was telling  all in a loud voice!
I thought it so rude, and so did a lot of other people, and they shoo-ed, and hissed to no avail, Suzy so wrapped up in her story that nothing could upset her. It was actually strange, and it must have been the excitement still lingering, as she was just not a rude person in her everyday life. But on the other hand, the drinks were flowing freely, and listening to the applause Moira got after every song, they were all quite sozzled. I could not take more than one glass of wine, as of course I had to still work.
The Boys, owners of the hotel, was exceptionally nice to me, and very interested in how I was doing, so I told them that it was really hard working for Lorna, but kept mum about what was really going on, as I didn't think it right to talk about a rival hotel. On thinking back later, I wondered about their interest, and a small wee devil woke up in me, and tried to convince me that they wanted me to go and work for them.
According to etiquette, hotel owners around the district did not lure people away from their place of employment to come and work for them.
I started toying with the idea of phoning them, but as I knew that Irene was still the chef there, and they had a guy called Han that cooked at night, Irene refusing to do evening shifts, I was putting it off, as I would not have got over the disappointment if they didn't want me.But when Lorna came in again that night, hissing like a bally snake because I was still in the kitchen ten minutes after my shift ended, counting the orders, and throwing them onto the table, not even trying to enquire why I was still there, I went up and sat with the phone for ages, too scared to find that that gate wasn't open after all!