She hadn’t meant to do it, but that lunchtime glass of wine had been so cold and crisp in the airless English summer afternoon and so welcome after months without touching even a drop of alcohol. By the third glass she found she’d stopped crying and was suddenly swept up in one of the new fits of exuberant high spirits which she didn’t seem to be able to keep a handle on and which were always mixed with agitation and restlessness like she’d never experienced before. To ward off the lingering threat that at any second she might descend into tears and despondency again, she’d put on some music for the first time in a very long time and let Harry Styles’ velvety vocals and the wine whip up her mood into a higher pitch of off-key euphoria.
It hadn’t felt good exactly, but being drunk and suddenly caught up in a new idea was definitely better than the profound depths of sadness that had held her fast for months now. She was going to get away, book an impromptu escape, just for her. Alone.
Watching the man scrabbling on the ground for the keys and bumping his head not once but twice on the same jutting antique leg of the inn’s reception desk she felt the heaviness descending again, its sad weight pouring into the pit of her stomach and draining lead into her limbs. She’d made her escape, but now that she was here, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why she’d wanted to come in the first place.
‘Learn a new skill in a new place,’ the website had enticed. ‘Find a home far from home in the wild western Highlands,’ it boasted.
All it had taken was three clicks of the mouse and the six hundred pounds of her redundancy money that she’d been saving for the buggy with detachable car seat and matching nappy bag, which she’d secretly had her heart set on since Christmas, flew out of her bank account and into the coffers of The Princess and the Pea Inn.
‘Ugh,idiot!’ she scolded under her breath at the hazy memory of it.
The resounding bump of skull against wood and a whimper rose up from beneath the desk, before the exasperated face of the lanky Scot appeared, red-cheeked and puffing.
‘Begging yur pardon?’
‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean you, I was talking to myself… Look, never mind the key. I think I’ve made a mistake. I’ll just head back to the station. Can you issue a refund and I’ll get out of your…’ Her eyes fell on the man’s balding head and the thin, greasy, scraped-over strands barely covering the expanse of bare scalp. ‘Hair,’ she gulped. Biting her lip to stop herself wincing, she looked down at her suitcase, feeling, not for the first time today, utterly stupid.
‘You cannae git a refund now yur here. And besides, that wiz the last train of the day.’
Beatrice’s mouth fell open as the breath pressed out. Her lungs emptied and tightened as she berated herself.
What exactly had she been hoping to find here? Some sunshine? A sense of something fresh and exciting? A new Beatrice? Gaelic lessons, indeed. The wine and one too many lonely binge-watched series ofOutlandermust have ignited the sudden notion of running away to a remote part of Scotland where she could learn an ancient language and leave her old self behind.
Gaelic lessons in the Scottish Highlands?Ridiculous. She couldn’t even get her online booking right. How the hell had she managed to check the box for willow-weaving, whatever that was? Stupid, utterly stupid. She was aware of the sound of her inhalation rushing in through parched lips, but the breaths that followed were too shallow and too fast to calm her.
‘Ah, here we ur!’
Triumphantly, the man held out the key and straightened his spine to his full height, knocking the antlers on the wall so they now hung skewhiff and causing some of the cobwebs to detach and stick to the unbuttoned collar of his grubby grey shirt. Ignoring this and with a bright twinkle in his eyes that hinted he had more spark within him than Beatrice’s first unfavourable impression suggested, he asked, wickedly, ‘Do ye still want yur key? Or ur ye sleepin’ under the jetty the night?’
The insolence of the words was softened by the music of his accent, but still, Beatrice was in no state for provocation. She was either going to give him a piece of her mind or she was going to cry.
Her thoughts raced. It wasn’t too late to get a taxi back to civilisation. It would be expensive but she could be in Inverness in an hour or so, and from there she might be able to get a train South. She could be at Angela and Vic’s around midnight if she left now. They’d let her crash there for a night or two until she was over whatever this restlessness was.
The man extended the key out towards her and gave it an optimistic little rattle.
‘Now look here…Mister.’ Apparently she was going to give him a piece of her mind. Her nerves thrilled at the sound of her voice, shaky but fierce, and the poor man looked instantly terrified. She realised she was pointing her finger at him, and since she had called someone ‘Mister’ for the first time in her life she decided she might as well find out where this was going.
‘Look here,’ she said again, steeling herself but feeling tears prickling her eyes anyway. ‘I’ve been onthreetrains for eight hours today, and I’ve had nothing to eat but an extremely unappetising egg salad sandwich and a cup of tea hotter than the sun that scalded my lip…’ She was now jabbing her finger at her mouth, hoping for sympathy. The man peered closely, utterly perplexed, and too afraid to tell her he couldn’t see anything.
‘… And now I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I’m knackered and grimy and fed up, and I haven’t packed for rainy weatherat all, and I just want to go home again, and I really, honestly don’t give a toss about learning Gaelic or knitting bloody twigs together or…’
‘Willow.’
‘What?’
It’s… willow-weaving,’ the man said blankly with a nervous blink.
She screwed her eyes tightly shut and let herself breathe. Shouting definitely hadn’t made her feel better. She just felt unkind, brittle, bone-tired and shipwrecked miles from the life she once knew. She hardly ever lost her temper, so what was with shouting at someone she didn’t know from Adam? Who evenwasshe anymore? There was nothing else to do but apologise and make a run for it.
‘What’s this, Eugene?’
Beatrice’s eyes flicked open and her stomach muscles flinched at the sound of the deep, terse Scottish voice from the doorway behind her.
The owner of the voice appeared by Beatrice’s side. It was accompanied by narrowed eyes that told her he’d heard the whole thing and made her shrink with shame. He continued to talk. ‘Are you checking in? Let me show you to your room. I’ll thank you for those keys, Eugene.’
Beatrice looked between the two men, her curiosity sparked in spite of her frayed nerves by the similarities between them. ‘There’stwoof you?’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘I mean, I mean… you’re brothers?’
‘Aye,’ the newcomer said through tense, pale lips.
