Scotlander, p.22
Scotlander, page 22
‘Really? How can you? I mean . . . No offence, but we’re not the superfans.’ She pointed out to the courtyard where the other guests were gathering. ‘I really want them to love this and Orla’s set such a high standard.’
‘Orla thinks it’s genius.’
His stepsister had actually cried when he and Willa told her about the Outlander-centric activities they’d either planned or had agreed to take over when Orla admitted to having been over-ambitious with her promises in the brochure.
Willa gave the thick piece of cloth they’d picked up in town a swipe with her hand, fretting at its edges as she asked, ‘Orla knows we’re using orange soda instead of pee for the tweed-dyeing, right?’
‘Aye. And she’s given me buckets of fresh water so everyone can wash their hands and all. It’ll be fine, Willa.’
‘But what if it isn’t? What if they’re all, “That tweed doesn’t exist in Outlander. That tweed’s from the future. You’re a sham!”’ She looked up at him, little creases of strain fanning out from her dark eyes. Her cheeks were flushed with activity and nerves, tendrils of hair escaping her wayward, messy bun. She looked beautiful. A stress bucket, but beautiful.
He shook away the thought and put on his ‘Jamie’ accent. ‘Dinnae worry, Sassenach.’
‘Oh my god! If you’re trying to prove to me you’re the best source of feedback on whether or not I got this right, you have just fallen at the first hurdle.’
He tried again. ‘Dinnae worry, lass.’ He took her by the shoulders and turned her round as one of the women from the Balcraigie Women’s Institute illuminated a string of artificial candles that even he wouldn’t have known were fakes.
‘Oh.’ She pressed her hands to her collarbones and did a little squeee! ‘It looks amazing.’
It did as well. Under the extended eaves of the low-ceilinged potting shed, the setting was a near exact replica of the show’s. Four women of various ages were arranging the huge skein of tweed she and Finn had bargained out of the nearby woollen mill’s seconds bin. At one end sat a big wooden bucket filled with warm, yellow liquid. He’d been assured by the WI grannies that a bit of Irn-Bru wouldn’t hurt the cloth at all.
When they called the group in from the stables yard, everyone’s eyes lit up in recognition of the scene before them. The women at the table, all dressed in yesteryear frocks, began pouring out liquid on to the table as the oldest of them, a beautiful dried-apple-faced woman, began singing in a voice as pure as a young girl’s.
Willa was, of course, first in, plunging her hands into the soppy fabric and sloshing it about with verve. Jules, ChiChi, Jennifer, Fenella and Rosa were right behind her. The fairy lights played off Willa’s hair like starlight and even though she didn’t have the remotest clue what the women were singing, she joined in on choruses, eyes sparkling with delight as the local women beamed in pleasure at her enthusiasm.
To everyone’s surprise, Jennifer knew most of the songs. (‘YouTube,’ she explained.) Finn faded into the background as they rolled up their sleeves, paying no mind to the fizzy orange liquid splashing on their arms and faces. Their ‘husbands’, as expected, begged off the wool-dyeing, saying they were going to take advantage of the early night to head down to the pub. Jeff and Dougie joined them, while Lachlan and Gabe ‘nipped off for a wee nocturnal road trip’. Finn could’ve gone to the pub too. The lads were always trying to get him down there when they caught wind he was at Balcraigie. Usually he said no, he was knackered. But it was really the wagging tongues that got to him. Gossip about why he was there, if this was the time he was finally going to claim ownership of Balcraigie or, as others speculated, sell it. But this time he said no because he was one hundred per cent enjoying being exactly where he was.
Listening to the women, watching them turn hard, physical work into something beautiful, touched something dormant in him. A vital spark. He closed his eyes and let the sounds take over until he finally pinned down the elusive sensation he’d been feeling. He felt Scottish. Organically so. It wasn’t about politics or the kilt grazing his knees or the scent of the nation’s popular soft drink. It was the blood running through his veins. The songs in the air. The earth beneath his feet. The ground he’d learnt to crawl, then walk, upon.
Though he understood only a fraction of the Gaelic songs the women pulled out of their memories one after the other like endless spools of thread, he felt the history in them. The longing. The relationship to the land that provided them with sustenance and shelter.
He thought of his mum and the position she must have been in when his father died. A heartbroken widow with a bewildered, angry son living in a caravan, whose dreams of crafting the ‘family seat’ from the ruins of another had been destroyed. He’d been furious with her for not following through on his father’s plans. They had some money, she’d said, but not enough. Without his dad there, and his income, restoring the castle would be impossible. Then she’d married Duncan who’d taken the money earmarked for the castle and built the modern, pebble-dashed atrocity that, admittedly, had kept them all much warmer and drier than the caravan ever had, and life had moved on. Or, more accurately, changed course. Though they never spoke of it, his mum, like himself, had never set foot in the castle again. Not with Orla. Not with Duncan. No one.
He’d not been there once until a few mornings back when he’d chased Willa in after she’d crashed into his life like Dorothy in Oz.
He’d barely thought twice about it, following her in. And once they’d left, he hadn’t given it a second thought. But now, the moment struck him as significant. He’d done exactly what his father had done when he’d bought his new bride a castle without a roof. He’d followed his gut. Or, to shift the instinctive urge to another organ, his heart.
He allowed himself to be absorbed in the moment. Swept away by the songs of the past swirling round him. The atmosphere was thick with history and emotion, making it impossible not to think long and hard about how to move forward. His gut – his heart – everything was telling him not to let the farm go. Was finding a way to do up Balcraigie a fool’s errand? A desperate attempt at exorcising old ghosts? Or would it be honouring his father’s love for his mother without undermining the graft Duncan, Orla and Dougie had poured into the place in his stead?
It felt Shakespearean.
A complex mix of family, history, death and passion so knotted up in itself it was impossible to discern one end of the tale from the other. He looked down at his kilt pin. Though the kilt itself was modern, the pin was one of the only Jamieson heirlooms he possessed. Shaped like a tiny sword, it had been fashioned to look like a Celtic knot – a loosely woven tie that had no start or finish. It represented eternity. Never-ending loyalty, faith, friendship . . . love.
He traced his finger along the pin, then looked up, his eyes catching with Willa’s.
He mouthed, ‘You having fun?’
Her soft smile stretched into a happy grin. ‘The best,’ she mouthed back, before, once again, raising her voice to join the others in a reprise of an ancient-sounding choral refrain: hì rì rì hù lò, mo nigh’n donn hò gù.
As he listened to the women sing, he let his eyes drift from them to the heather thatch on the cutting-shed roof and beyond to where he could just make out the crenellated outline of the castle walls standing proud of the farm buildings. It was an amazing structure. It had once housed great rooms for both the laird and his lady. A dining hall with enormous fireplaces at either end. Private chambers for the castle’s caretaker, and, of course, extended family and staff. Secret passageways. An underground passage from the cellars to the loch. At least two very inventive wee wee shoppes.
Filled with love, laughter and joy, Balcraigie Castle would be a thing of wonder.
He knew what he wanted. The end game. He’d known it all along. He’d simply had no idea how to get there.
Now, he allowed himself a sliver of belief. A flicker of hope that it might just be within reach.
One of the grannies beckoned to him to join them at the wool-waulking table. Her face was as wrinkled as her eyes were bright. ‘C’mon, laddie! Get yourself over here. We’re all on our way to being fair puckled.’
He smiled at the auld Scots word meaning knackered.
‘This’ll no’ end well if we don’t get some extra muscle into it,’ she chided.
As he walked towards them, he felt the music physically surround him. Songs of love lost and found lifting and rising up and above the shed where they worked out to the sprawling landscape that stretched off into the North Sea beyond them. He squeezed himself in amongst the women, across the table from Willa. It felt strange and perfect all at once. Being here. Gathering strength from the eyes of a woman who’d helped open his much wider. Flanked by women whose ancestors had sung through the creation of countless reams of cloth that still hung in cupboards round the land. For the first time in over a decade he felt he was exactly where he was meant to be. At home.
A weird sound hummed through the atmosphere. Weird because it was the theme song from Jaws. He scanned the table, seeing if anyone else heard it, when he saw Willa dipping into her bodice, pulling out her phone, looking at it, grimacing, then climbing out from her spot on the bench, apologising to everyone and, if he wasn’t mistaken, actively avoiding eye contact with him.
A few hours later, some of the guests were singing folk songs from their own countries (or, in Fenella’s case, Kylie), round the campfire. Finn had yet to catch up with Willa and ask her if everything was okay. He wasn’t sure whether she was avoiding him, but each time he looked for her, she veered off and joined in someone else’s conversation. Right now she was talking with ChiChi and Alastair about light pollution in Los Angeles (‘we literally do not see stars unless they’re on a red carpet’). It was bittersweet hearing her talk about her life there because, stupidly, he could only picture her here. Or maybe it was the only place he wanted to picture her.
Though Orla was obviously the heart of this project, Willa’s efforts today had made her part of it too, and now, with the fire crackling and Rosa’s beautiful voice swirling round them, the place felt properly atmospheric. As if anyone stepping through the stone passageway and into the courtyard might genuinely think they had stepped back in time.
All of which was a moot point if the spare parts for the harvester didn’t arrive on Monday. Two more nail-biting days to wonder if they’d get the potato crop in. It was their biggest chunk of income of the year, and the only way to keep the bank happy.
He’d accounted for repair time, harvest time and then, two weeks from now, the end game when the weather window for getting the crop closed. At that point, the driech Scottish weather took over and consumed the Highlands until spring.
If the parts didn’t arrive, Finn had assured Orla he’d sell a portion of his soul to the agricultural college in order to use their harvesters overnight, at a breathtaking cost, but . . . the harvest would come in.
It wasn’t the best of plans, but, strangely, Finn was feeling optimistic. As Willa kept reminding him, ‘bending like the willow’ was the only way to survive with your sanity intact. As if the thought had conjured her, she appeared by his side.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey, yourself. Everything okay?’
‘A few of us are going up to the doocat to stargaze,’ she said instead of answering his question. ‘Interested?’
Chapter Thirty-One
‘So, when we’re looking up at the sky,’ ChiChi was saying, ‘we’re looking back in time.’
‘Look, Mum.’ Jules pointed up to the heavens. ‘That’s you before you married Dad.’
‘Jules . . .’
‘ChiChi, can I borrow your pointer thingy? I want to show Mum what she looks like when she’s happy.’
‘All you need is to look at my face, love. I’m here with you. What more could a mother want.’
‘A divorce?’
‘Shush. We’re interrupting ChiChi’s astrology talk.’
‘Astronomy.’
‘If anyone wants, I brought my tarot deck. I can do readings later.’
‘Hush.’
‘And what we’re seeing here . . .’ ChiChi whirled her laser pointer round a yellowish glow ‘. . . is a star that is dying.’
‘Which star are we—? Oh! The one with the laser on it. How sad.’
‘Outer space. It’s the fucking dog’s bollocks.’
‘And if you follow the bright star, the yellowish one?’
‘Sirius?’
‘Well done, Alastair. You’ve been improving.’
‘I didn’t realise there were so many named after Harry Potter characters.’
‘I think it’s the other way round, actually.’
‘Pay attention! ChiChi’s trying to— Ooo! Blair, you minx. That tickles.’
‘If you follow it a bit to the right . . .’
‘Orion’s belt!’
‘Sexy Orion and his big, long sword.’
‘Amazing isn’t it, Jeff? That we can live five thousand miles away and see the exact same sky.’
‘We see ours through some god-awful pollution, truth be told. Nothing like LA, though. No offence, Willa.’
She reached out and met Jeff’s apology fist bump. ‘None taken.’
‘Come down to Oz and you can see a whole different sky. Trevor! You’re hogging the bloody rug, mate. Shift your arse.’
‘I can’t believe your laser reaches all the way up to the heavens, ChiChi.’
Willa shivered. It was beautiful up here. But it was also freaking cold. Time to head back to her hayloft and start making phone calls. Bryony had sparked off Victoria Beckham divorce rumours when she’d called her publicist and asked which ‘hot date’ David would be bringing to fashion week. This, when she’d been specifically asked to hunt down David Duchovny’s latest girlfriend. Little bit different.
Just as she was about to get up and make her excuses, Finn, who’d been keeping a wary eye on her ever since she’d received her latest deluge of texts from Bryony, fetched a blanket for her. He’d been such a hero today, really wearing his heart on his sleeve in front of the villagers, it didn’t seem fair to blow him off. Especially now that he was kneeling down behind her to wrap the blanket around her shoulders. It was proper romantic-hero behaviour and she had to admit . . . she liked it.
God, he smelt good. All warm hay and marshmallow. He stayed there, kneeling behind her, looking up at the sky, as ChiChi worked her way round the constellations. Willa shivered again. In a move she didn’t see coming, Finn edged himself closer so that he could serve as a sort of warm-blooded back support.
‘Is this okay?’
It was more than okay. Which made it a problem. She was going to have to leave. Soon. Bryony was making too many fuck-ups and still somehow managing to come out smelling of roses. It was only a matter of time before one of them blew up in somebody’s face and Willa needed to make sure it wasn’t hers.
When she shivered again, Finn overruled her lack of an answer. He sat down and budged up close until his chest met her back and his thighs flanked hers. He made a show of tucking the blanket tight round her but then left his hands where they were. On her thighs.
It felt like a proper boyfriend-girlfriend moment.
‘You know how the stars are twinkling?’ Finn’s voice rumbled against her back. Her body, taken with the warm timbre of it, snuggled in closer. So much for the this-is-all-perfectly-fine-and-sensible-considering-it’s-freezing vibe she was trying to emit.
‘It’s called stellar scintillation.’
‘I like that,’ she whispered back.
‘I like you.’
Willa stiffened. She liked him too. A lot. She also knew saying something like that was big for Finn.
‘That’s sweet.’
The instant the words were out she regretted them. Her mouth was an idiot! Why had it spoken before she’d had a chance to properly think of the right response? She’d just given him the verbal equivalent of a puppy pat on the head.
They’d not discussed their feelings. Past, present or, more pressingly, future. Whispering his feelings for her, here, amongst the rest of the stargazing Jacobeans was . . . was . . . Her heart skipped a beat as it came to her. It was something Jamie would’ve said to Claire to make her feel safe. Cared for.
I like you.
She needed to say something else. Something better.
I think I’m falling in love with you.
Definitely not what she needed to say. Just because she’d been instantly smitten with his photograph didn’t mean it was true in real life. Sure, he gave her butterflies. Yes, her reproductive system threw frequent glitter parties in his presence. But there was that tiny little thing called reality waiting to slip a huge wedge between them. He lived here. She lived in LA. He wanted to be a farmer. She wanted to – well, she wanted to interview film stars, obviously. Be one of the growing team of exec producers on TiTs. That had been her trajectory the day she’d left LA. Five days in a corset with the most attractive, kind, generous human she’d ever laid eyes on hadn’t changed that.
Had it?
She gave his hands a squeeze because words were failing her. To her relief, he gave them a slight squeeze back, but then, to her horror, he whispered something about needing to check on the cows and slipped away into the darkness, the cold instantly skidding down her spine.
Idiot! If no one was around she’d be pounding her fists against her head. Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!
Why hadn’t she told Finn she liked him too? He’d been so amazing today. And yesterday. All of the days. Even though everything about this whole immersive experience was epically outside his wheelhouse, he was here. Trying, helping, occasionally poking fun at Willa, but mostly he was being a hero. He listened. He offered advice. Good advice. He let her hold piglets and taught her how to stick straw up a calf’s nose if it wasn’t breathing when it was born. And she’d just pooped on everything she’d encouraged him to be: open, vulnerable, honest. No wonder he’d walked away.
