Chapter 40

40

SIX DAYS AFTER I LEFT HER

‘You did well,’ Mac says, rubbing bloodied hay against the lamb’s skin. I’ve just had my first lambing experience. Tim had been dealing with another ewe; the vet had been called out for a breech birth. Mac had told me it was easy, that he’s been doing this since he was a ‘wee lad’. And I thought to myself, how bad could it be? Well, it’s pretty grim, let me tell you. Grim but kind of beautiful. I take another sip of water from the bottle, my hand still shaking. The lamb and mother happily circle each other in the small barn annexe. ‘Och, don’t feel too bad; it’s natural to feel a bit peaky. Lucas puked his guts up the first time he did it. It gets easier. You’ll be a pro before you know it.’

‘How did you two meet?’

‘His car broke down not far from here. He dinnae have a clue how to change a tyre. Had this mangy mongrel in the back of the car.’ Mac scruffs Caesar’s head. His face looks younger as he talks about him. How Lucas had come back the next day to thank him. How he never went back to Australia. That the cancer was swift.

‘He died in my arms. Half the man he was when I met him.’

‘I’m sorry. ’

‘No need. I had three years knowing real love. The kind of love that changes the person you are, that makes the world shine.’

My relationships had never been like that. I had a run of brief hook-ups before Liv came on the scene. The longest I stayed with anyone was six months. Nicola Townsend. I liked her. We had fun. But I thought I had too much of my father in me. Always had the urge to leave. Certain that I wasn’t the long-haul kind of man. I’d never met anyone who made the world shine. Until I met Liv.

I bring the water to my lips again, knowing that I need to tell Mac that I won’t be here much longer.

Last night, as I tried to sleep, I’d replayed the conversation with Mac over and over. It was best I stayed away. It was better for you… and for me. I had to let you go, James. It hurt too much to be able to see you and not hold you.

During my time with Mac, I’ve never thought for one minute that we’re alike. Yet, as I tossed and turned, his words repeating in my head, I realised that we may not be so different after all.

I drink the rest of the water, my hands calming as Mac gathers clean straw and speaks softly to the ewe and her baby. I see it then, the father he must have been, the gentle eyes beneath softer grooves of his skin, before time and the Highlands etched their way across his face.

How different my childhood would have been if he had stayed. Been part of my life. If he hadn’t walked away and let me go.

‘Why don’t you get yourself inside and make us both a brew? I’ll be a few more minutes sorting this pair out. There’s some cheese and ham in the fridge, lemon loaf in the cupboard. Get some food in you, lad.’

I let my legs carry me back to the farmhouse, Caesar at my heels. I make sandwiches, click on the radio, and light the flame on the hob, placing the kettle on top .

I think of Liv. I picture her folding her wedding dress between paper sheets… that’s if it’s even back in the box. She might have chopped it up into pieces, cursing my name.

I know that coming here was as much about me finding the answers about myself as it was about Liv. But seriously. What the hell was I thinking?

I need to go back.

I’m not going to make the same mistake as my father. I’m not going to walk away. I’m going to stay. Even if that means not being with her, I still need to be part of her life. Of their lives.

Mac returns, heads into the utility room, washing his hands and forearms as though preparing for surgery before joining me at the table. My plate is clear and I’m nursing a mug of tea.

‘Penny for them?’ he asks.

‘I need to go home, Mac.’

Mac reaches for his sandwich and takes a bite. ‘Aye. You do.’

I look up into his eyes, the eyes that must have looked at me as a baby in the same way as he looked at the lamb in the shed. With gentleness. Protection. ‘So…’ He chews. ‘Are you finally ready to tell me what happened to bring you to my door?’

I look to the window. Caesar nudges me with his nose, wet and warm against the palm of my hand. I stroke the rough fur between his ears.

‘In a nutshell? I’ve been in love with Liv since I first saw her. Then she met my brother and that was the end of that. They were together for years. He died, or so we thought. But then he came back on the day of our wedding after pretending to be dead for seven years?—’

‘What kind of love?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What kind of love? I loved your mother in my own way. ’

‘The kind of love you had for Lucas. The kind of love that consumes you. Does that answer your question?’

‘Aye.’ Mac leans back. ‘So, he came back?’

I replay that morning, the receptionist passing me an envelope when I came back from my run. Kit’s words saying he was sorry. I can hear the sound of my feet against the gravel of the path, the way I had felt as I chased down his figure along the lane as he approached the old car parked on the side of the road. He looked older, like he’d aged twenty years not seven. A thick beard, hair shaved. He’d turned around and stepped into my arms. I didn’t even know they were open. He held on to me, head digging into my shoulder. His frame was still firm but he felt smaller, somehow. We’d stood like that for at least five minutes, his body against mine, the same way as it would be when he had nightmares as a child. I held him so tightly, someplace between relief, and love, and anger, and betrayal.

‘Why?’ Mac asks.

‘Why did he come back?’

‘No, why did he leave?’

‘He’s a gambler. Was a gambler. Owed thousands and thousands. He was left with no other choice, he said. Borrowed from some pretty shady people by all accounts. He said that he came back as soon as he could. That he was happy for us, Liv and me, that we’d found each other. That she chose me.’

‘So that’s a good thing then, no?’ He brushes crumbs from the table.

I scratch the back of my head. ‘No. Because she didn’t choose me, Mac. She had no choice. Kit was dead, and I was there to help her pick up the pieces. But he’s not dead; he’s alive and that changes everything.’

I shake my head. Try to clear the buzzing in my ears as I replay him giving me the necklace, asking me to give it to Liv. He’d said he had to go. That he couldn’t risk someone seeing us, not yet. That he loved me.

‘I went back up to our room to tell Liv, but she’d already gone, the whole groom not seeing the bride before the wedding thing. So I sat there, and I thought to myself that I wasn’t going to let him ruin this for me. I love Liv; she loves me. We want to be married; we want kids. We’re happy. At least we were.

‘I didn’t want to tell her. But as I showered, ready to put on my suit, I couldn’t look myself in the eye, couldn’t do it to her. She deserved to know the truth. So I broke it off.’

Mac snorts and shakes his head. ‘You absolute flaming idiot,’ he says.

I open my mouth to defend myself, but the words aren’t there.

‘You’re sitting here telling me she’s the love of your life.’

‘She is the love of my life, but I’m not Kit! You have to understand, I can’t compete with him. They were a done deal right from the moment she first saw him and I know her, Mac. I know she would never leave me on the morning of our wedding. It’s just not in her. So I did it for her. Made it easier.’

I look up at Mac; my voice is as broken as I feel.

‘So you left?’

I nod. ‘I gave her the space she needed.’

Mac leans back, arms folded, eyebrows raised.

‘I made it easy for her,’ I rush on, eager for him to understand. ‘I knew if I was there she wouldn’t be able to be herself. She wouldn’t be able to let herself admit the truth. I think she would still have married me, out of duty, if nothing else. So I left her a note.’

‘A what ?’

‘She needed to find the answers herself, Mac. I told her that I loved her, and then I got on a train. If I stuck around, I wouldn’t have been able to… stay away. So I came here. The last place on ea rth she would think of, the last place any of them would think I’d go.’

‘That’s not why you came here.’ He lets out a small laugh, shaking his head, a look of pity on his face.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘No. It. Isn’t. You came here looking for a way out. You came here to find me, to see if that half of you was really as bad as you’d been led to believe. You don’t think you’re good enough for her. Even after everything he’s done, you still think Kit is better than you.’ He shakes his head in disbelief.

‘No… I…’ I get up, pacing the room. ‘She needed space,’ I repeat. ‘She needs to decide without me looking over her shoulder.’

‘What a load of arse. You came here for a way out. You thought if you found your father, if you saw this man, this tyrant , that you would be able to let yourself of the hook. You’d be able to tell yourself that you’re not good enough for her. You’re a coward, my boy. You’ve thrown in the towel before you’ve even tried to fight.’

‘I am fighting! Don’t you think I’ve fought every day since I’ve been here? Do you know how hard it has been to stay away, to not go running after her? To beg her to choose me?’

‘That’s not fighting. You know it and now, I suspect, so does she. You’ve left her on her wedding day to handle all of this by herself.’

‘She needed to handle this by herself, don’t you see? She needed to do this alone, not with me by her side complicating things.’

‘You’re a bloody great fool and you’re not giving her enough credit. Do you think this lass would marry you if she didn’t love you? You can’t farm for shit, but you’re a good man, James, you hear me? You’re as good a man as any and you dinnae need to come all the way out here to find the truth. You’d know it yourself if you just took the time to get your head out of your own arse. You need to stop hiding here and…’

‘Jesus Christ, Mac, do you not listen to a word I say? I’m going back. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!’

‘Oh, well. Good.’ Mac claps his hands on his knees, groans and stands up. ‘Give me half an hour to pack and we’ll be on our way.’

‘What, wait, what?’

He hesitates with his hand on the door. ‘You don’t think I’m going to miss this, do you? This is the most excitement I’ve had since Lucas went paddleboarding and he fell in.’

‘Paddleboarding?’

‘Yeee-ss?’ Mac asks, as if I have no concept of what a paddleboard is. ‘You stand up in a canoe and paddle?’ He enacts swinging an oar into a river.

‘I know what paddleboarding is. I mean, are you… do you really want to come?’

‘Aye. And not only that, I’m going to see your mother and tell her a few home truths that I should have done years ago. Satan’s spawn, I ask you. Do I look like the friggin’ antichrist to you?’

I look him up and down, tattered brown cardigan fraying at the elbows, bushy brows, kind eyes.

‘No, no you don’t.’

‘That’s settled then. Let’s go and get your girl.’

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