She’d tried to prolong the topic of Euan, but Carenza had been in one of her whirlwind moods and was dashing out the door to meet someone called Valerie who would be ‘thrilled at the good news’, and before Peaches could enquire what the good news might be, her mum had slipped her Louboutins on and left.
Oh well, at least her mum had been happy. Busy and happy: that was the absolute best thing for a woman like Carenza, especially now she was opening her mind to Peaches dating again. She was only relieved her mum was showing no signs of having forgotten their arrangement, or worse yet, having changed her mind completely.
‘This’ll be the collar for your cloak, by the way,’ she told him, cutting a large semi-circle of the same green jersey fabric freehand before setting about roughly finger-pleating and stitching it. ‘So, you still wanted to come back to Cairn Dhu, even though you only lived here for a few years?’
‘Aye, to start over. Or rather, to get started at last. I mucked about a bit at school, getting into trouble, low-level stuff. You’re really making that look easy, you know?’
‘You can sit now,’ she told him, finding once more a surprising amount of pleasure in being praised by Euan Sparks. It had felt the same when she was dressing him for the rehearsal. She’d felt how much he admired her work and it was more gratifying than any first-class assessment from her tutors ever felt.
‘Right-o.’ He did as he was told, like an obedient pup, but he talked on. ‘I was never much of a student, had no obvious talents to cultivate, not like you.’ He indicated how she was hand-sewing the collar. She saw the admiration in the way he looked at her hands working. In truth this was rough, hurried work. It was nice not to have to make something catwalk perfect.
‘Nobody ever really expected me to make much of myself,’ he went on, ‘so I coasted, working behind the cash register at a petrol station for ages. Did my nut in! I was that bored! To get out of there, I ended up taking a night class in electrical installation at the local college, and then a two-year course, getting properly accredited. The plan was as soon as I was finished with the college, I’d come and work with grandad, maybe take over his electrician business one day. But the stroke saw to that plan. He’s been retired ever since. Probably for the best. He grafted all his life. He deserves to stop and take it easier. Am I talking too much?’
She told him she wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t want to know.
‘I didn’t remember much about Cairn Dhu, but I remembered how it felt, surrounded by the mountains, remote and peaceful. I like it here… a lot.’
‘Me too,’ she agreed, and stopped to snip the thread. ‘Shall we attach this?’
As he stood once more so Peaches could pin the collar around the neck of the cape to form something vaguely reminiscent of a coachman’s cloak, he asked her how a fashion career would work out up here in the Cairngorms. ‘Do you no’ need to be in New York, or London, or somewhere?’
‘Not necessarily,’ she told him. ‘There’s plenty designers who stay here and stick to their vision, their motivation. I could make clothes anywhere, but I’m not willing to take the risk of going too far from the places I draw my inspiration from.’
Besides, her mum would go crazy if she said she was leaving the country. It was a constant source of unacknowledged tension between them. Carenza wanted her to hit the big time, but needed her close by. Peaches had told herself she wasn’t curious to leave the Highlands so often that, by now, any other possible path in life sounded genuinely unappealing. She was set to soar, but tethered on the end of a thread held by her mother.
‘The Cairngorms, and the ways creatives here are championing the circular economy, are what inspire me and my work. I’m not leaving any time soon,’ she said with a fixed smile that masked all of these thoughts and feelings.
‘Well, OK then,’ Euan replied with a satisfied tip of his head. ‘Me neither, not now I’m basically working for your mum.’
He looked so happy; Peaches didn’t want to point out that her mum had sent his way only two paying jobs so far. It was still very early days. Carenza didn’t just trust people on sight. You had to prove you were worthy of her backing. Mind you, she’d wasted no time in choosing him as her approved suitor. Odd, really. Maybe she should check what exactly her mum had said to him on Saturday?
‘I, um…’ she began, faltering already. ‘I noticed my mum taking you aside and speaking to you the other day?’
He didn’t seem to know what she meant.
‘Outside the shed, on Saturday?’
‘You saw that? Yeah, she was great!’
‘That’s my mum. Super great. So… what did you say?’
‘What did I say?’ His eyes were sparkling again, and little dimpling half-moons formed at the sides of his mouth. ‘I near aboot bit her hand off accepting!’
Peaches couldn’t hide her happiness. ‘I’m glad.’
‘Me too.’
There passed a moment’s smiling connection between them.
‘And you don’t mind her meddling?’ she asked after a while.
‘Why should I? We both get what we want. It’s a win win.’
‘I guess so. And… you are happy, right, with the arrangement?’
He plumped his bottom lip, thinking, shaking his head like there was nothing for him to be unhappy about. ‘I don’t know why people are so afraid of your mother. She’s been nothing but generous and helpful to me.’
‘She said the same thing about you. She really likes you. Which is surprising, because she doesn’t usually like guys anywhere near me.’
