“Oh, Dougie isn’t young,” I explain, relieved we’re at least talking again. “He must be pretty close to retirement age, actually. He wouldn’t be much use against a crowd of your crazy fans.”
“Then why do you call him Young Dougie?”
“Because if we didn’t, everyone would think we were talking aboutOldDougie, his dad,” I explain. “And that would just be confusing, wouldn’t it?”
Jet nods, looking nonplussed.
“Anyway,” he says, turning back to the window. “We’re going to have to do something. This is getting ridiculous.”
I stand up and go to join him at the window, which looks out across the sloping garden to the beach below. It’s suspiciously crowded, especially considering it hasn’t stopped raining all morning, and I have a funny feeling the reason for that is standing right next to me. We’re sitting in this room rather than the living room because the living room looks out onto the street, which is still lined with paparazzi, plus a growing number of Jett Carter fans, who are standing outside my gate, clutching movie posters with Jett’s face on them, which they’re hoping he’ll sign.
When we got back after our trip to the hospital, it took us a good 20 minutes to get past them, and one of them called me a “gold-digging bitch”, so I guess I can see his point about the security, really. It would be nice to be able to leave the house without getting mobbed. Or, you know,insulted. Or to be able to go to sleep without worrying that one of the women outside will try to skin me and wear me, just so they can take my place. From the way some of them are behaving, I wouldn’t put it past them.
If only they knew the truth.
“I really didn’t think it would be like this here,” Jett mutters, starting to pace again. “I’d have brought Leroy at the very least if I’d known.”
I don’t really know what to say to that. It seems obvious to me that he’s going to get mobbed wherever he goes, here included. I guess he’s used to living in the type of houses that have huge gates at the front and grounds so large no one can get anywhere near you. That or he reallydidthink everyone in the Highlands was going to be riding around on their horses and carts, too busy foraging for nuts and berries and fighting the English to worry about any random movie stars who might turn up. Because that’s a possibility too, let’s be honest.
“It’s not like there’s anywhere we need to go, anyway,” I point out. “We’ve done what we came here to do. We’ve seen Mum, had the photos taken, done the interview. What is there to stay for?”
I watch him carefully as I wait for his answer. Now that the media have had their pound of flesh from us, I’m really hoping we can get out of Heather Bay and go back to L.A., so I can… I’ll figure that out what I get there, I suppose.IfI get there.
Jett, however, has other ideas.
“What do you mean?” he says, frowning again. “We still have tons of things to do here. I need to do some research for the movie, remember? So there’s Glamis Castle for one thing.” (He pronounces it as ‘Glam-is’ rather than “Glams.” I don’t bother to correct him. “Then there’s a tree somewhere near here,” he goes on, warming to his theme. “The Birnam Oak. It was around in Shakespeare’s time, and Birnam wood is mentioned in Macbeth, so I’d like to go visit it. And I was hoping to see a haggis too, at some point.”
“Birnam is nowhere near here,” I point out, trying not to laugh at the ‘haggis’ comment. “It’s not even in the Highlands. And I don’t see how looking at a stupid tree is going to help you get a role in Macbeth, anyway.”
“Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him,”says Jett, in a fairly credible attempt at a Scottish accent. “Birnam Wood is still there, Lexie. Or some of it is, anyway. I want to see it. Steep myself in the history of the place. And anyway, I like trees. You don’t like trees?”
“They’re okay,” I shrug. “I’m more of an indoor girl, to be honest.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” Jett says, still squinting through the crack in the curtains. “I love being in nature. I get so claustrophobic being surrounded by people all the time.”
He tugs at the neck of his sweatshirt as if he’s trying to get more air, and I remember the moment at the Commando Monument when I realized how anxious he was in the crowd. He must be absolutely hating being trapped in this tiny cottage, with people on every side of it, and all of them wanting something from him.
“Fine,” I say, picking up my phone. “Tell me where you want to go first, and I’ll see what I can do about security. Bear in mind that Glamis and Birnam are quite a long drive from here, though. It might be best to leave those until tomorrow.”
“No worries,” says Jett. He thinks for a minute. “Hey, I know where we can go,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “Remember that distillery I told you about? The 39, I think it’s called? It’s near here, isn’t it? They do tours, apparently; I remember reading an article about it. And there’s a restaurant by a lake. Let’s go there.”
I freeze in the act of opening up the contacts app on my phone.
The 39 is the distillery Mum tried to sabotage last year, when she realized it was probably going to put ours out of business. It’s owned by Jack Buchanan, who just so happens to be dating Emerald Taylor. The same Emerald Taylor whose dress I set on fire moments before she was about to go on stage as Heather Bay’s Gala Queen, over a decade ago. The same dress which Emerald pulled off in fright, and which went on to burn down the town hall. The town hall which… look, you get the picture, right?
Emerald spent the next ten years in London, thinking she was the one who’d been responsible for the fire, and that everybody hated her because of it. When she finally found out it was all my fault, she ran up Westward Tor in the dark and almost died. She’s always been very dramatic, Emerald. Oh, and she hates me, of course. I mean, she must do, right?Ihate me for everything I did — why wouldn’t she?
And if I were to bump into her at The 39, I’m pretty sure all hell would break loose.
Naturally, then, that’s exactly where Jett has set his sights on going.
“Look, here’s that article I was telling you about,” he says, holding out his phone, and showing me a photo of the restaurant at The 39 at sunset. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
I take the phone and scroll quickly through the article. The byline is Scarlett Scott’s, but I happen to know it was actually Emerald who wrote this. You can tell because there’s no mention of “love nests” and everyone’s ages are correct in it.
“Looks a bit dull, really,” I tell Jett, handing back the phone.
“You’re kidding?” he says incredulously. “Look at it. It’s right next to a loch.”
