What’s up,comes Kit’s immediate reply. He’s probably still in the office, the workaholic bastard.What’s the rush? Scotland had a sizable female population last time I was there.
I’m done with women.
Leave the poor sheep alone. It’s against the laws of nature and land.
Ha.Looks like I caught Kit on a good day. I thought his sense of humour had gone on holiday.Got any pointers for becoming gay?
Desire the same sex?He replies, but I’m not feeling that.Stop calling your favourite brother an arse bandit?
I burst into a guffaw.Favourite and only. Nearly swallowed my beer bottle, fuckwit.
Deep throating beer bottles? It’s a little desperate.
Funny. And too much, comedian. Am coming home because it’s too hard to hire a hitman from the Outer Hebrides.
Beth, I take it?
Bastarding Beth,I answer, though I won’t tell him about plan forty-seven, whatever it might entail. Not, at least, until I find out myself.
I thought you were going to leave her to me.
Not gonna work. I need to sort this one myself.
If you’re sure, but the flight will be from Edinburgh. I need you to check the house out. Check on the new hire. Maybe look at the gardens?
He’s taking the piss.I close my eyes, leaning my phone against the bridge of my nose. Being in the house stirs up bad memories. Sure, I’m currently wiping them away with this reconstruction.Room by room, no thanks to Beth.But by the time I’m through, that place will bear no resemblance to our father’s ancestral home. I’ll have wiped every trace of him and his family away.
But the gardens? I can’t bear to look. I can see my mother in every frozen rose.
Please,he asks.Just look. She’d be so happy.
I’ll look, but no plans. It stays as is.I couldn’t bear to change it; our mother loved that garden, though it was never really hers. She delighted in it during our holidays and would be saddened to know he never intended it to be ours, either.We’ll get a landscape company in.
I know a man,he replies.
I’ve heard that about you.
Funny. But thank you. For looking.Fuck me. He must be on his period.I’ll get Anna to book a flight. We’ll talk about Beth when you get back.
There’s nothing to say. See you Monday.
