THE WESTPORT WHISPER — SPECIAL EDITION

Every town has its main characters. But the people who make a town truly worth living in? They’re usually standing slightly to the left of the spotlight, minding everyone else’s business and holding everything together. Westport has a few of those. This edition is theirs.

ON THE SUBJECT OF GRANDMA MABEL

A FORCE OF NATURE

Some people slow down with age. Grandma Mabel — grandmother to the Fuller siblings and something of an institution in this town — is not some people. She is, at an age she declines to confirm, busier than most people half her years and considerably more entertaining than all of them.

She turned up at bingo this week with a new handbag and a long weekend she declined to fully account for. The women at her table have long since learned not to ask. What they do know is that Mabel has strong opinions, a short memory for rules she finds inconvenient, and a habit of landing herself in the middle of situations that really have no business involving a woman of her vintage.

She is also, if you catch her in the right moment, one of the wisest people in the room. It just tends to arrive between the chaos, so you have to pay attention.

Something tells this correspondent that Grandma Mabel’s most interesting chapter is still ahead of her. Watch this space.

* * *

ON THE SUBJECT OF DANNY FULLER & ANDREW

WESTPORT’S BEST DRESSED COUPLE

Danny Fuller runs the best hair salon in Westport, has an eye for fashion that borders on a personal calling, and is — by his own admission — not always easy to live with. He has strong feelings about denim on denim. He will tell you about them unprompted.

His partner Andrew absorbs all of this with the quiet patience of a man who is either deeply in love or has simply made peace with his circumstances. Probably both. Andrew is the kind of person who shows up with coffee at exactly the right moment, fixes things without being asked, and makes everyone around him slightly calmer just by being there.

Together they are one of those couples who make the whole thing look both completely effortless and entirely real. Which, in this town, is rarer than you’d think.

Danny’s sister Lizzie would be completely lost without him. The feeling, though he’d never say it quite so plainly, is mutual.

* * *

ON THE SUBJECT OF ISAAC & ADAM

PRICE LANE’S FINEST

Isaac is the kind of friend everyone deserves and very few people find. He lives next door to Chloe McDermott on Price Lane, and somewhere between being her best friend and her most reliable source of neighbourhood intelligence, he has become entirely indispensable to her daily life. He notices everything. He says most of it out loud. He means well, always.

His partner Adam is quieter, steadier, and currently in the grip of a sourdough phase that has been running for seven weeks with no signs of resolution. The loaves are, by all reports, very good. Price Lane has benefited. Adam is not the type to make a fuss about this, which is exactly the sort of person Isaac needs beside him.

When Chloe’s world gets complicated — and it does, with some regularity — Isaac is the first person through her front door. Not because she asks. Because he already knows.

* * *

ON THE SUBJECT OF AARON DOUGLAS

REFORMED SCOUNDREL

Aaron Douglas came back to Westport after years in Europe with a business plan, a BMW, and — if the people who know him are to be believed — something he’d been putting off for a long time. He bought a bridal boutique. He updated the Instagram. He brought coffee to work every morning without being asked.

None of that is particularly scandalous. What is interesting is the reason behind all of it. There’s a woman involved, naturally. There’s also a family feud, a century-old wedding dress found in an attic, and two grandparents with a great deal of unfinished business between them. Westport loves a tangle, and this one has been decades in the making.

Aaron is, by most accounts, one of the good ones. He just had to come home to prove it.

Whether Westport — and one particular grandmother — is ready to believe that is another matter entirely.

* * *

ON THE SUBJECT OF SAM MCDERMOTT

CHLOE’S BROTHER

Sam McDermott showed up on Price Lane this week to visit his sister Chloe, fixed her back gate without being asked, spent forty minutes and two hardware store trips doing it, and then told her the new candles smelled like a gift shop. She thanked him anyway. He stayed for dinner.

That is Sam in full. He is not a man of great ceremony. He does not say a lot. What he does, he does properly — and if it takes longer than expected and involves a mildly heated phone call midway through, that is between him and whoever was on the other end of it.

Chloe’s life has a habit of getting away from her. Sam has a habit of showing up right around the time it does. He would not describe this as looking out for her. He would probably describe it as fixing a gate.

But anyone who has watched the two of them together knows exactly what it is.

The Westport Whisper is published in a town where everyone knows your business and most of them are rooting for you anyway. Until next month — your faithful correspondent remains, as always, delightfully anonymous.