34. Edie #2
It’s a horse truck, painted in an all too familiar shade of dark blue. It slows, then stops, and the passenger window lowers.
“Jesus, Edie.” It’s Kate. She leans over from the driver’s seat and squints at me through the rain. “What the hell are you doing out here?” Her tone is brisk as always, but her eyes are concerned. “You look like a drowned cat.”
“Don’t you mean rat?”
The door swings open as she pushes it from inside. “You’re soaked to the skin and you’re arguing semantics? What the fuck are you doing?”
I try to laugh but it comes out more of a choked sob.
“I’m reclaiming my narrative.”
“Oh.” She watches me as I climb in, dragging the bags behind me. “Is this a writer thing, or…?”
“It’s not my best idea,” I admit, wiping rain from my face with the back of my arm, which is soaked as well.
She passes me a wad of tissues. The heater’s on, and it hits me like a wave.
I want to cry but once again I curl my fingernails into my palms. At this point it’s becoming my default position.
“I was just coming back from Inverness,” she says, shifting gears as we pull away. “Kiltie has to have some treatment at the vet hospital, so she’s there for a couple of nights. Vet says she’ll be fine, but I wasn’t expecting to pick up a stray on the way home. Where are you going?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and heave out a long sigh. “It’s a long story.”
She looks at me sideways and says nothing for a while.
“Want to tell me what’s going on over dinner? I’ve got a stew in the slow cooker. I just need to drop the truck back at the yard, swap cars, and we can head back to mine. You look like you need a hot shower and a chair by the fire.”
I laugh. “You say that like it’s the middle of winter.”
Kate pushes her hair back from her face and grins. “That’s Highland life for you. If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”
Kate’s cottage is small and cosy, with her two Labradors waiting in the front porch with wagging tails and smiling faces. The smell of stew hits us as she opens the door and my stomach growls. I realise I haven’t eaten all day.
“Hello, babies,” she says, leaning down to fuss them. “I had to leave them at home today because I was going to the vet hospital. My neighbour came in to check them twice, but you’d think from the look of them that they’ve been abandoned for days.”
The dogs turn to me and sniff me thoroughly.
Once I’ve been decreed acceptable, they potter through to the sitting room.
It’s comfortably untidy, with sofas covered with tartan blankets and shelves stacked with books.
There’s a low glow of embers in the woodstove and a scent of vanilla from a candle on the mantelpiece.
Kate throws a couple of logs in the burner then disappears, returning with some joggers and a fleece.
“Sorry, not very glamorous but it has to be better than soaked and freezing. Let’s get you a shower and get you warmed up.”
By the time I emerge, hair damp, toes unthawing, she’s got a bottle of red wine open and two glasses sitting waiting on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“You’re not going back, are you?” she says, handing me a glass of wine.
I shake my head .
“Didn’t think so.”
She sits down at the other side of the sofa, curling up her long legs underneath her and sipping her wine without speaking.
By the time we get to the bottom of the bottle of wine I’m curled up, wrapped in one of the woollen blankets.
It smells of lavender and Labrador, and I’m full of the delicious stew.
I’ve connected to Kate’s Wi-Fi which was a mistake, because the phone keeps vibrating.
It’s Anna, grumbling about her flight and complaining that I’ve left her in the lurch.
I switch it onto do not disturb mode and shove it on the coffee table out of reach.
We’re on the sofa, the fire gently ticking away, one of the Labradors curled up against my leg.
Kate’s got her socked feet up on the coffee table and she’s cupping the Malbec as if it’s a well-earned prize, which to be fair, it is.
She drove to Inverness and back, did her day job, and rescued a stranded idiot wandering along the roadside like the Highland version of the Littlest Hobo.
“Did you tell Rory that you didn’t let her into your room?”
I shake my head. “He wasn’t really in a mood for a discussion.
” I take a gulp of wine, trying not to think about the fact that this time last night I was being whirled around the dancefloor by a man who now loathes everything I stand for.
“I’m done with them. Honestly. Let them keep their secrets and their money and all of it. ”
“None of this would have happened if she hadn’t come to visit.”
“I know.” I think the worst thing about it is Anna thinks she’s the injured party here. “As soon as I found with Jamie this morning?—”
“You did?” Kate takes a big gulp of wine and pauses for a moment, glancing out of the window. “Well, he always did go for the low-hanging fruit,” she adds, a moment later.
I steal a sideways glance at her, but she’s readjusting the fringes on the edge of a cushion. “Did you and Jamie ever have, you know, a… thing?”
“God no.” Kate shakes her head emphatically. “Why would you ever think that? He’s like a child with far too much money and not enough sense.”
I shrug. “What do I know. Turns out I’m a pretty shitty judge of character all round.”
I tuck the blanket round my knees and watch the flames dancing in the window of the log burner.
“I’m done. I think it took being here to realise that it’s not a friendship with Anna. Not the kind I want, anyway.”
“What do you want?” Kate stares into the fire, cupping her almost empty glass.
“Me?” I frown for a moment. “I want to live in a place like this. I love it here in the Highlands. I love the history and the magic and the people. And it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt like I belong somewhere.
I’m not willing to give it up and go back to living in London and wishing for something else. ”
Kate smiles at me with proper warmth. “Time to be the main character in your own story, I think.” She clinks her glass gently against mine. “To cutting ties.”
“And writing a new beginning.” I take a sip of wine. The clock by the window chimes eight o’clock. It’s still broad daylight outside, the sky clear of clouds now and streaked pink and orange.
“I never liked her,” Kate adds, casually. Then she makes a face. “Sorry.”
“Seriously? ”
She shakes her head emphatically. “She’s like a magpie. I feel like she’d help herself to anything shiny you had that she took a fancy to.”
I look at her for a moment and wonder.
I think about the times in the past when she’s helped herself to my things, to friends I made in London, even to my ex-boyfriend Dave, although she was welcome to him.
The only reason she didn’t help herself to Rory was that she didn’t quite find a way in.
And I realise that I don’t ever want to go back there to that flat, to feeling second best and waiting for scraps.
“I want to start over,” I say surprising myself. “I’m going to write. I’m going to make it happen, somehow.”
“Janey said your book is amazing.”
I feel my cheeks going hot and put a hand to my mouth. “She told you she read it?”
Kate nods. “I don’t know why you look so surprised.”
I put the wine glass to my cheek, suddenly too warm. “It’s been rejected a million times over.”
Kate sits back, thoughtful.
“I’ve got a friend down in Glasgow. She used to be traditionally published – God, the stories she can tell – but she gave it all up. Went indie, never looked back. She bought a house in Spain with the proceeds. I mean literally paid for it in cash.”
Something flutters in my chest. It’s not quite hope, but it’s a tiny little seed of something.
“You need a plan,” says Kate decisively. She clambers out of her sofa nest and straightens up, putting another log on the fire. “I bet you can find a job here somehow. Between the stables, the village, and the estate, there’s always something going. ”
I wince. “Maybe not the estate.”
“Yeah, alright.” Kate grins. “Maybe not the estate. But you can stay here for now. I’ve got a spare room, and Bert and Ernie approve of you and that’s a pretty good sign.”
“They’re Labradors. They approve of anyone who comes bearing food.”
Kate shrugs. “This is true. But not everyone gets the sofa snuggle treatment, so I’d take it.”
She wanders through to the kitchen and returns with a roll of red ribbon and a pair of scissors. I was expecting another bottle of wine or a bar of chocolate or something. I think my face says it all.
Kate grins and brandishes them in the air, her eyes bright with mischief.
“Let’s make it official. We’ll go to the clootie tree.”
Bert clambers off the sofa and pads over to his mistress, his tail wagging hopefully.
“See, he’s ready for an adventure. Here, I’ll get you some walking boots. What size are you?”
Five minutes later, in a pair of slightly too-big boots padded out with thick socks over my bobbly joggers, I’m following Kate out through the back gate of her garden and across a heather-covered moorland path.
“So, the clootie tree is an old Scottish tradition – they’ve got them all over the Highlands,” Kate explains, marching ahead of me. She turns and passes back a pewter flask full of whisky. “Drink that.”
I’m already a bit tipsy from half a bottle of wine and my blood alcohol levels probably haven’t settled after last night, but I take a swig then screw the lid back on. “Are you sure you’re not making this up? I grew up near Edinburgh and I’ve never heard of a clootie tree. ”
We scramble over some rocks and slide down the other side where we meet up with the path again.
“It’s a thing, I promise. You’ll see. It’s up there past the river. People come from all over to tie a ribbon and make a wish or a resolution, or a vow.”
“This is surprisingly hippyish for someone as practical as you,” I pant, as we slip down through a tangle of coconut-scented gorse bushes.
“Oh, we contain multitudes,” Kate says airily, waving her hand. “Nearly there. Well, nearly-ish.”
It’s another fifteen minutes before we reach the river – the moors have a weird way of stretching out. My feet – aching after trudging along the road this afternoon – are slipping about inside the too-big boots and I can feel a blister threatening at the back of my heel.
The sun is long and low, spilling gold over the distant hills.
Midges swarm in angry clusters but Kate’s home-made repellent spray seems to be doing the job – they hover, but we’re not being bitten.
The dogs are trotting along ahead of us, Kate’s singing to herself and I’m beginning to feel like I’m on some sort of epic Tolkein-esque trek.
Only with copious amounts of whisky, which burns my throat but keeps me going.
The track by the side of the fast-flowing river is narrow and muddy from the earlier rain. I see the tree root a moment too late and my foot catches, sending me flying forwards.
I land with a squelch at the end of a puddle and the impact knocks a gasp out of my lungs.
“Shit, Edie,” she says, turning back and rushing to haul me to my feet. “Are you okay?”
I giggle despite myself. “Wet and muddy but fine. I’m not giving up now. Where’s this clootie tree? ”
Kate points over the stone bridge ahead. “Just over there.”
It’s ancient and twisted, with scraps of cloth and pieces of faded ribbon fluttering in the breeze like long-forgotten spells.
Kate passes me a piece of red ribbon, and I tie a piece around a bare branch with shaking fingers, making a wish with my eyes screwed tightly shut, like a child on Christmas Eve.
“Whatever you wish for, it’ll happen.” She folds her arms and watches as I step back.
I feel a tiny flurry of butterflies and hope in my stomach and watch my ribbon dancing in the wind for a moment before we turn for home.
We walk back as the light fades – it’s late now, and the sun is setting over the hills.
We stroll back, chatting about nothing, watching the dogs as they chase rabbits and disappear down tracks in the heather.
I haven’t checked my phone once. I hum to myself as the lights of Kate’s cottage come into view as we climb up the twisting hilly path in the twilight.
It’s home for now, and that’ll do – I’ll let the clootie tree wish do the rest.