Gabi clapped her hands in delight in the passenger seat and he laughed. She was the perfect tourist and Walker had enjoyed showing her around. They’d been on a boat trip around the loch where the wind was so bitter he’d wrapped his scarf around her neck. He’d driven them to the coast, and they ate mussels with freshly baked bread. He found a viewpoint where he put his coat on the bench for her, and then pointed out eagles as they soared overhead. He’d been careful to make sure she could manage each location in her boot in the daytime and he’d had the reward of taking it off at night, along with the rest of her clothes.
He pulled up outside an ivy-clad, grey-stone house with big leaded windows and turned off the engine.
‘Here we are!’ he said, opening her car door and helping her out.
‘Nice place,’ Gabi said, admiring the stone wall outside, the heavy front door. ‘Who lives here?’
Walker opened his mouth to reply at the same time as a golden retriever tore round the side of the house, bounded over the wall and hit him at full speed. He staggered under the impact but then the dog was standing on his back legs and licking at his face, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Hello, Bonnie,’ he said, reaching to scruff behind her ears.
‘Walker!’ He heard the surprise in one of his favourite voices in the world and turned to see his mum walking round from the garden. She clapped her hands to her face and then hurried over, pulling off her gardening gloves as she came. He wrapped her in a bear hug, lifting her feet clear off the ground, and she banged at his chest.
‘Put me down!’ she said. ‘And introduce me properly!’
He kept his arm around her shoulder and turned to Gabi, who was stroking Bonnie and looking mildly confused.
‘Gabi, this is my mum,’ he said, ‘and Mum, this is my friend Gabi.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs McBride,’ Gabi said.
‘Lovely to meet you too but do call me Bridget!’ his mum said and then, tugging his arm, ‘Come on in. Your dad’s inside. What a lovely surprise!’
Hours later, after a barbecue outside and much later than he’d intended to stay, his mum brought out the family albums.
‘This is the oldest album, with lots of lovely pictures of Walker as a boy,’ she said, handing Gabi a faded book where the photos were displayed under sheets of clear film. ‘When we used to live by the loch.’
Soon she was telling Gabi the story behind every picture as she worked her way through the book. The fire was lit, and they’d found an old embroidered pouffe for Gabi’s foot. Gabi’s face was rosy in the heat of the fire, and she was giving the photographs her full attention. Walker relaxed in an armchair beside his dad and the dog settled on the floor between them.
Walker’s sister had popped in for an hour earlier– so as not to miss him apparently, but he thought it was probably more to do with the fact his mum had texted her to say he’d brought a woman home with him. On arrival, Helen had immediately sat next to Gabi at the garden table, and he’d heard the two women talking about everything from jobs to holidays to skincare over their plates of grilled sausages and salad. When it was time for her to leave, she exchanged numbers with Gabi and only just found time for a squeeze with him as she pulled her coat on in the hall.
‘I like her,’ she whispered in his ear, and Walker laughed.
‘We’re friends,’ he whispered back, and she raised one eyebrow before yelling a general goodbye on her way out.
‘How’s work?’ his dad asked from his adjacent chair and Walker told him about the promotion opportunity. His dad reached over and clapped his thigh.
‘You deserve it, son,’ he said gruffly. ‘Well done.’
‘What about you, Dad? How’s things?’ Walker asked to change the subject, and his dad started his usual updates, the ones that Walker often got on the phone but now could enjoy in person. His hours volunteering at mountain rescue. His best dog walks with Bonnie. The extortionate vet fees when she trod on a nail and cut her paw. Walker listened to his dad until he saw Gabi point to a picture and laugh out loud.
‘Please tell me I have clothes on in whatever picture you’re showing her?’ Walker said to his mum, whose eyes twinkled.
‘Don’t worry, you’re decent,’ she said.
Gabi turned the book to him, showing him a picture of him in a kilt. He was about twelve and just starting to shoot up. He beamed and held a trophy above his head.
‘The local curling team– player of the season!’ he said, recognising it immediately.
‘You look tiny!’ Gabi said, turning it to study again, and then raising her eyes over the book. ‘Did you tell your mum about the other award you won recently? Hero of Honeybridge?’ She could obviously tell by the look on his face that he hadn’t, as she proceeded to tell them about the night, the other nominations and how he’d been the obvious winner.
Listening to her, he suddenly realised he wasn’t experiencing the normal wave of anxiety. Responsibility wasn’t weighing on him like it usually did. In fact, he felt a swelling in his chest which was extremely unusual. Pride. He might not have felt it properly, in fact, since holding that curling trophy. He couldn’t help but smile when his mum blew him a kiss in congratulations.
‘Will you stay tonight, you two?’ she asked, looking between them. ‘It’s too late to be thinking about that long drive.’
He glanced at the window and saw the fading light, before looking to Gabi, who shrugged and nodded with a smile. ‘I’d like that,’ she said. ‘But I don’t even have a toothbrush!’
‘I have some spares. . .’ his mum said, a hopeful expression on her face.
