Chapter Two #2
‘She’s trouble, this one,’ his dad said loudly, slapping me on the back so hard I felt the sting through my coat and woolly jumper.
‘Derek McClay, at your service, and this is my good lady wife, Lizzie, although I’m sure you’ve already worked that out for yourself. Pleased to finally meet you, Caroline.’
‘Not nearly as pleased as me,’ I said as I attempted to rise. ‘But I really do have to dash off.’
‘Off to work?’ Derek asked, pulling me right back down.
‘Work? No. I’m not on rotation today.’
From the way Lizzie’s eyebrows snatched together, I could tell it was the wrong answer.
‘The spa she works at rotates massage therapists,’ Callum said, filling in some very confusing blanks with even more confusing answers. ‘She’s got training today, in a new kind of massage. Haven’t you … babe?’
I fixed him with a fervent glare.
‘Yes, that’s right. Babe.’
‘Fascinating.’ Lizzie was still hovering near the door, upright and tightly wound, the opposite of her husband’s overly comfortable slouch on the sofa. ‘What kind of new massage is that?’
Every word in my supposedly clever brain dissolved into a mess of incomprehensible shapes and sounds, none of which would pass for English. A new kind of massage. What were the old kinds of massage? Across the room, I spotted a tube of tennis balls tucked down the side of an empty umbrella stand.
‘The Slazenger method,’ I announced with confidence. ‘It’s deep tissue, you do it with … balls.’
His mother spluttered into her hands while Callum closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.
‘Shame you’ve got to work all over Christmas,’ Derek declared. ‘Won’t be much fun for our Cal if you’re at work, playing with your balls.’
‘I’m not working over Christmas.’
As soon as the words were out my mouth, it was obvious I’d said the wrong thing again.
‘You’re not working?’ he replied, more than a touch of confusion and annoyance in his voice. ‘Then what’s the problem? You can both come home after all.’
‘Home?’ I enquired politely, watching as all the blood drained from Callum’s face.
‘Home,’ Derek said. ‘To Braewick. Cal told us you couldn’t come because you had work and he didn’t want to leave you in London on your own.’
Callum’s grip on my pink bobble hat tightened until his knuckles turned white.
‘Right, because I did think I was going to have to work,’ I said quickly. ‘Then the rota changed. But we still can’t come. Sorry.’
‘Why not?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Because,’ I said, ‘we’re spending it with my …’
‘Sister,’ Callum supplied. ‘Otherwise, obviously—’
‘We’d love to,’ I finished up. ‘Maybe next year.’
‘Ah, you can’t be serious?’ Derek gave me another whack on the back and I had to do a quick check to make sure all my teeth were still in the right place. ‘If you’re spending Christmas with your sister, there’s no reason Cal can’t come up to Scotland.’
‘Dad, leave it, would you?’
There was a clear warning in Callum’s voice but Derek McClay didn’t strike me as the kind of man who had taken a hint even once in his life.
‘You’re coming home,’ he insisted, not leaving anything at all. ‘You said the only reason you couldn’t come was because Caroline had to work and you couldn’t leave her in London on her own. She’s not on her own, is she?’
‘That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with her,’ Callum replied and without warning the atmosphere in the room shifted. A dark look passed over Derek’s face and his tone switched to something more irritable.
‘Enough’s enough, you’re coming home,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘Get your act together, son, you’re breaking your mother’s heart.’
‘What’s breaking my heart is the fact he’s still starkers,’ Lizzie said, looking away as though she’d only just noticed. ‘For the love of God, Callum, at least go and put on a pair of pants.’
With a despairing look in my direction, my fake boyfriend backed away down a dark corridor before slamming a door behind him and rattling what sounded like every window frame in the flat. I gulped, sweating bullets inside my duffle coat.
Alone with the enemy.
‘So,’ I said, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence. ‘Braewick? Sounds … nice?’
‘It’s the most magnificent place on God’s green earth,’ Derek replied. ‘Which you’d already know if you’d been up to visit.’
Fiddling with one of the toggles on my coat, I clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. ‘Well, it’s a big step, isn’t it, meeting the parents. We haven’t been going out that long.’
‘Has it not been almost a year?’
I looked up to see Lizzie watching me like a hawk.
‘I’m not holding him hostage,’ I said, a cold tremor running down my spine. ‘He can go home without me.’
‘Can he? That boy won’t cross the street without you, it feels like.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ I replied. ‘But either way, I really can’t leave London. I can’t leave my sister on her own at Christmas.’
Ten minutes earlier, I’d been a single, only child and now I had a boyfriend and a sister. Quite an impressive morning, all things considered. Both of Callum’s parents were quiet for a moment, until Derek sat up straight, a glowing lightbulb practically appearing over his head.
‘Why don’t you bring your sister with you,’ he suggested.
‘We’ve more than enough room.’ He drew closer until I could see the wiry grey outliers peeking through his dark eyebrows.
‘Hen, I’m not going to take no for an answer.
All we’ve heard all year is Caroline this, Caroline that.
Cal cancelled every trip home to spend more time with you.
This is the perfect opportunity to make it up to us, isn’t it? ’
‘As inviting as you made that sound, I don’t think she’d be able to come,’ I said, desperately trying to come up with an excuse. ‘It’s her husband. He can’t go to Scotland, he’s, well, he’s banned.’
‘Banned?’
‘Yes.’
‘From entering Scotland?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why?’
Why? Why was my non-existent sister’s equally non-existent husband banned from entering Scotland?
‘For impersonating Sean Connery,’ I said. ‘And a criminal misuse of bagpipes.’
A wall of silence came down between us. Then, with one very heavy hand, Derek slapped me on the leg and hooted with laughter.
‘Just like Cal said, she’s a joker,’ he said, wiping away invisible tears. ‘But if your sister’s married, she doesn’t need you to keep her company, does she?’
Without a ready response, I stared daggers down the dark corridor. What was going on? How had I ended up in this situation? And how long did it take someone to find a pair of pants?
‘Tell her, Elizabeth,’ Derek went on. ‘Tell Caroline what it would mean to us to have our boy back home for Christmas.’
‘It would be nice to have all the kids under the same roof for once,’ she said, a quiet admission. ‘Especially after he missed his dad’s birthday to take you on that trip to Paris.’
I sucked in my bottom lip as I met her gaze. Were those tears in her eyes? Was I about to make a complete stranger cry? At Christmas?
Taking my hand in his, Derek blinked at me, an earnest look on his big, open face.
‘Caroline, don’t make a man beg.’
Sod this. I hated confrontation at the best of times, and I really hated being put in such a stupid situation. What did it matter if I agreed now then cancelled later? This was Callum’s mess to clean up, not mine.
‘OK,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll come to Braewick for Christmas.’
The gleeful howl that erupted from Derek was so loud, I was sure it scattered the ravens at the Tower of London.
‘Champion! It’s sorted then, you’re both coming home.’
Down the corridor, I heard a door bang against a wall and Callum came crashing back into the living room, still barefoot but wearing a pair of black jeans and holding a grey sweatshirt.
For how long he’d been in there, I was half expecting him to be in full Scottish regalia.
Not that I would’ve minded seeing him in a kilt, I already knew he had great legs.
‘What?’ he said, tugging the sweatshirt over his head. ‘What did I miss?’
‘All good, we’d better be off,’ Derek declared, rising to his feet and patting down all the pockets of his wax jacket. ‘Lots to do, long drive ahead of us.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Callum said, fighting to get his arms into his sweatshirt like a temperamental T-rex.
His dad nodded, finally finding the item he was looking for in the first pocket he’d checked, his phone, and tapping at the screen with big, decisive gestures.
‘Aye. We’re stopping over in Penrith but that’s still a five-hour drive from here and you know your mother doesn’t like to be on the motorway after dark.
We’ve lots to get organised before the two of you arrive, and don’t start your excuses, I know you won’t want to drive, I’m sorting out the travel right now before Caroline changes her mind.
The train, mind, there’ll be no last-minute flights, I’m not made of money. ’
‘What travel, travel where?’ Callum asked me and his mother as his father continued to poke at his phone. ‘What’s he talking about?’
Lizzie pursed her lips before she spoke. ‘Your father has convinced Caroline here the two of you need to come home for Christmas.’
Without saying a word, he reached out for the doorframe to steady himself.
‘You’re very welcome,’ his father said, putting his phone away. ‘Mal’s booking your tickets, he says they’ll come through on the email so no need to pick them up at the ticket office. I shall see you both the day after tomorrow, have fun on the train and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
‘Or anything he would do,’ Lizzie added, kissing her son on the cheek then pulling back to observe me from across the room. ‘Lovely to meet you, Caroline. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.’
‘Same,’ I replied, the best I could manage as I held up a hand in farewell, unable to rouse myself from the sofa.
In fact, neither of us moved when his parents let themselves out. Instead, we stayed right where we were until the front door closed and the car outside revved into life. Only then did Callum sink down to the ground, holding his head in his hands.
‘OK, first question,’ I said, as the sound of the engine faded away, leaving the two of us completely alone. ‘Where the fuck is my bobble hat?’