“Well, I take my hat off to you, Lady M,” he says, reaching up and tipping his ever-present baseball cap at me. “You’ve definitely got balls. I have to give you that.”
“I bet you’re wishing you’d just suggested we play Never Have I Ever or something,” I reply, my cheeks hot. “That all got a bit dark. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Jett says firmly. “I asked because I wanted to know. We can save the drinking games for another time.”
“Or we could do it now,” I suggest, nodding towards the bar at the other end of the plane. “You owe me a story in return, you know. A story about Jett. One no one else knows.”
He hesitates for just a moment.
“Another time, maybe,” he says, picking his iPad back up. “I might have exaggerated slightly about how well I know this play. I should probably—”
He gestured vaguely to the script, and my heart sinks with disappointment. It felt good to tell someone about Mum, and what it was like for me growing up. More than that, it felt good to tellhim— because, for some reason, he seemed to understand. But when I told him all of that, I’d assumed he’d tell me something in return. That we were starting to get to know each other, like he’d said we would. And now that he’s made it clear the conversation is over, I can’t help but wonder if it was all just “research” for him; like this trip to the land ofMacbeth.
Is his interest in me genuine, or is he just learning me the way he learns his lines?
And how am I ever supposed to know the difference?
Chapter 25
We land in Scotland to mist and rain. It’s basically like the clouds we flew through when we started our descent just continued all the way to the ground, so instead of the majestic mountains and shimmering lochs Jett was hoping for, all we see on the way down is a blanket of white.
So far, so Scotland.
“Are the seasons the other way around here?” Jett asks, peering out of the aircraft window as it taxis to a halt at a little private airfield that I didn’t even know existed. “I thought you had to go south before that happened?”
“No, they’re the same,” I tell him, feeling my stomach clench with renewed anxiety now I’m officially back on home soil. “This is summer. If it was winter there’d be snow and ice as well as mist and rain. Or sunshine and frost. Or maybe all of those at once. We have a saying here that if you don’t like the weather, you just have to wait for 15 minutes, and it’ll change.”
Sure enough, by the time we’re pulling out of the airport — in a chauffeur-driven car with blacked out widows that’s going to look totally out of place on the streets of Heather Bay — the sun has started to burn through the mist, making rainbows briefly shimmer over the road before disappearing almost before you can see them.
“Wow,” says Jett, pressing his nose against the glass like a little kid. “This sure is pretty.”
“Just wait,” I tell him as the car makes its way north. “Just wait.”
A few miles up the road, there’s a memorial to the commandos who died in the Second World War. It stands on a hill, looking out towards the Nevis mountain range, and on a day like today, it looks like it’s floating in the clouds. It’s the perfect spot to see Scotland from for the first time, and as the car approaches it, I have an idea.
“Can you just pull in here for a second, please?” I ask the driver, leaning forward. “I just really want Jett to see this.”
The car pulls into a space in the car park, and I jump out and run up the steps to the memorial, calling to Jett to follow me.
“Holy shit,” he says when he catches up to me. “This is amazing.”
I stand back and watch him as he turns around on the spot, looking first at the memorial itself, with its floral tributes around the base, and then out towards the mountains, which are looking particularly magnificent now that the sun’s shining on them.
I don’t know why I want him to like it. It’s not as if it matters. It’s not like either of us is going to be staying here for long; and it’s definitely not like I can take any credit at all for the majestic beauty of these mountains. But even so, I feel a surge of pride as Jett turns to look back at me, his mouth a round ‘O’ of wonder at the views before him.
I’m home.
I’m actually home.
And it doesn’t feel nearly as strange as I thought it would.
Until, all of a sudden, it does.
“Oh, my God! Is thatJett Carter?”
I’d barely even noticed the tour bus that pulled up as Jett and I walked up to the monument, but as its doors open and it starts to disgorge a sea of camera-wielding passengers, I realize we’re in trouble.
“It is! Oh my God, it’s seriously him!”
