37. Edie
EDIE
Kate’s spare room is tiny, the single bed sags in the middle and there’s a pile of boxes in one corner.
But the sun shines through the curtains the next morning and I wake up, tangled in a duvet that smells of unfamiliar fabric conditioner.
For half an hour I lie there, listening to the sound of birdsong and the occasional scuffle of paws as Bert or Ernie – or both – collapse with a flop and a sigh outside my door.
There are no castle bells, no estate breakfast trays. There’s no luxury bathroom filled with organic toiletries and fluffy white towels. There are no scrawled diary pages glaring at me from a library desk.
There’s just light and quiet, and a weird feeling of peace I wasn’t expecting.
Janey comes by later in the week, under the guise of picking up some seed potatoes from Kate’s shed.
“I brought some shortbread,” she says, holding up the tin like an offering. “It’s not a bribe, I swear.”
We sit in the garden, nursing mugs of tea and trying to avoid eye contact. Eventually she reaches across the faded wooden table and puts her hand gently over mine.
“I just wanted you to know I miss you. The place isn’t the same without you, you were the best thing to happen to Loch Morven in a very long time.”
I blink into my tea and nod, biting down on my lip and taking a breath to steady myself before I look up. “Thanks.”
She doesn’t press for more. She squeezes my hand, tells me with a fond smile about Gregor’s attempts to make a smoker out of an old metal drum, and then heads back to her car with a bag of potatoes and a quiet smile.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she says, leaning out of the window.
I smile and wave as she crunches down the track. We both know there’s no way back, but it’s nice of her to pretend there is, even for a moment.
I don’t reply to Anna’s messages when we find my phone – mud-covered but amazingly none the worse for a couple of nights in the wild – lying on the path by the river by a patch of wild garlic. I’ve no idea how I missed it falling out of my pocket, but I guess sometimes things happen for a reason.
Some weeks later
“Four flat whites, one with oat milk, three cardamom buns, and two raspberry scones,” calls Morag over the din of the crowd.
Summer tourists have descended on the village, and my feet are killing me.
I’ve been at it since six this morning, and the clock over the kitchen door tells me it’s almost four. My hair’s escaping from its ponytail, I’ve got coffee stains all down the front of my apron, and I’m pretty sure I have flour in my eyebrows.
“Coming right up,” I say with a smile, despite the fact that the oat milk jug is empty again and I’m the only one who remembers to refill it. I think of Gregor every time I do, and his scathing disapproval of vegetarians in general and oat milk consumers in particular, and it makes me smile.
A group of hikers pile in, bringing with them the smell of rain and pine. One of them is wearing a Loch Morven Estate T-shirt from Jamie’s project, and I feel the now-familiar pang in my chest.
“Don’t mind the crush,” Morag says to one of the tourists as they edge their way into the corner table. “It’s our resident author here, words got round she makes the best flat white in the Highlands.”
I roll my eyes and snort as I tamp down the coffee. “Three weeks ago I couldn’t tell a cappuccino from a cortado.”
“And now look at you.” Morag winks. “Like with that book of yours.”
“Book?” says the man at the till.
I shake my head, laughing. “Don’t listen to her.”
The crowd finally thins at six. I wipe down tables and load the dishwasher with Ginny as Morag does the till.
“Go home, lassie,” she says, waving her fingers in the direction of the door. “You look dead on your feet.”
“I’m fine, honestly.” Covering a double shift means I’m so tired I don’t have time to think. My shoulders are aching, and my smile feels like it’s plastered on.
“I’ve been watching you,” says Morag beadily. “Working yourself to the bone then typing away half the night. You’ll burn yourself out. ”
“Or she’ll end up a millionaire when her books hit the top of the charts,” says Ginny with a bright smile. She does a thumbs-up at me over the counter. “And when that happens and they turn your book into the next Bridgerton, can I get a starring role?”
“If that happens,” I say confidently, “I solemnly promise I’ll make sure you get a cameo. Which is a nice way of saying it’s never going to happen.”
“Aww,” says Ginny pouting. “I could totally see myself waltzing around in a ballgown.”
I have been working hard, it’s true. The words have been pouring out of me.
Not just edits to the first book – I’ve gone through it over and over, tightening it up and making every line sing – but chapters of the next one.
They’re flowing faster than I can type, ideas coming to me as I’m handing out cardamom buns, so I have to rush off into the back room and scribble little notes to myself in my notebook.
My heroine’s heartbreak is a lot easier to write now I know how it feels.
But I try not to think about how it feels.
“Go on, you, shoo.” Morag waves a tea towel at me, flicking it so it hits me on the leg. “If I have to chase you up the stairs to that flat I will.”
It’s Morag who helped me get the flat. Kate said I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted, but I wanted to find my feet.
It’s technically a studio, which is a nice way of saying one single room with a bathroom, a teeny little kitchenette, and a window looking into the house behind and a view of the bins behind the village shop.
The windows rattle when it rains, and the blinds don’t roll down properly, so I’m woken at five in the morning when the sunlight shines through and hits my face.
The shower works until it doesn’t. But for the first time in my life, I have my own keys.
Not a student flat, not shared with a man, not Anna’s – they’re mine.
There’s a corkboard over the little wobbly desk I saw advertised on the village noticeboard, and I’ve pinned an offcut of ribbon from Kate’s roll for luck as a reminder of the clootie tree and my wish.
I’m writing again. Charlotte hasn’t been in touch – it’s summer, which means the whole publishing world grinds to a standstill. But I’m not writing for her – I’m writing for me.
It’s almost midnight and the room is lit up by the glow of my laptop screen and the vanilla-scented candle that flickers on the window ledge. Rain patters against the window, but I’m so lost in the story I barely notice.
My phone buzzes. It’s Janey, up far later than is usual for her.
Just finished the chapters you sent. This is so beautiful… I couldn’t stop crying. Are you okay? xxx
I stare at her message, and then at the scene I’ve just written. Lady Georgiana is watching her love ride away, choosing duty over love, and her pain is excruciating.
I’m fine!
I type back the same answer I’ve given everyone. But my thumbs hover over my phone screen, and then, almost without meaning to I add:
Actually, not really. But I will be.
I turn back to my manuscript, my fingers flying over the keys. If I can’t have my own happy ever after, at least I can write one for my characters. And maybe, just maybe finding my voice as a writer is its own kind of victory.
I decide to self-publish. Kate’s ex-lawyer friend in Glasgow sends me a long WhatsApp message about cover design and keyword categories and newsletter swaps and things I’ve never even thought of.
I fall asleep reading marketing tips for authors.
It’s overwhelming, but in a good way. And it’s exhilarating.
There’s something fiercely liberating about not waiting to be chosen.
I don’t tell Charlotte when I hit the publish now button, because this isn’t about her anymore, it’s about me.
And when the first few sales show up on the dashboard Janey comes over and the three of us celebrate with fish and chips from the little van that visits the harbour once a week.
Two reviews come in, and they’re not from people I know.
One five star, one four. I didn’t even pay these people to like it.
I want to print them out and put them in a frame.
And then, five weeks on from the incident , as I think of it in my head, I look up to see a tall, broad shape silhouetted in the sunlight in the doorway of the coffee shop. My stomach drops.
“The woman who runs the farm shop tells me this can revive the dead,” says Jamie, pushing up his sunglasses and plonking a tub of tablet on the counter. “I figured it might work on a stubborn writer. ”
Morag glances up from the coffee machine and gets a measure of the situation instantly. “Edie, why don’t you have a break just now? Go and sit over there by the window while we’re quiet and I’ll bring you a coffee. Jamie, do you want your usual?”
“You’re an angel,” he says, blowing her a kiss. He swipes the tub of tablet and makes a sweeping gesture in the direction of the window table. “After you, ma’am.”
I tuck myself into the corner and watch as he folds his long legs into the little wooden chair opposite and then sitting back in his usual laid-back sprawl, looking at me with a thoughtful expression.
“So, how’s it going?”
“Good.” I pick up the tub and read the label. The ingredients are basically sugar, sugar, and more sugar. It’s the ultimate Scottish treat and it reminds me of my Grandma Rose.
“Try it.” He grins. “I’m dying to know if it’s as good as the stuff our old cook used to make.”
“Don’t let Gregor hear you say that,” I say, laughing as I open the lid. The sweet vanilla-butter scent hits my nostrils, and my mouth starts to water. I offer him the tub.
“Oh, he wouldn’t mind at the moment. He’s too loved up to notice.”
I sit back and nibble on a piece. “Oh really?”
Jamie waggles his eyebrows and nods. “Not that he’d admit it of course, but…”
“He and Janey were only a matter of time.” I knew I hadn’t been imagining the unspoken tension between them…
Jamie’s eyes widen. “Janey? I was talking about his new spaniel puppy.”
I put a hand to my mouth .
“But now I want to know all the gossip. What have I been missing?”
I shake my head, mouth full of tablet. “Nothing,” I say a moment later. “Oh god, please don’t say anything about the two of them.” I’ve screwed up enough already without creating gossip about Janey and Gregor, two people who’ve been nothing but kind and generous to me.
“Say anything about what?” Morag puts our coffees down on the table and looks at me with her head cocked. She’s a fiend for any kind of village gossip and nothing gets past her. Sometimes I think she only runs the coffee shop so she can keep tabs on everyone. I kick Jamie under the table.
“Nothing,” we say in unison.
Jamie takes a sip of coffee and looks at me beadily. “I want details, Jones, but they can wait. I’m here on a mission.”
I swallow. I’ve worked hard this last month to find my feet and try to stop thinking about Loch Morven, which has been pretty hard going in in a village named after the castle, in a community that’s driven by the estate, with two friends who rely on Rory’s foundation for their wages.
“What kind of mission?” I say cautiously.
He shifts on the little wooden chair. “I’ve got a favour to ask. The community project I’m working on. We’re doing an oral history thing – recording stories from the locals, turning into a podcast slash digital archive slash living museum sort of thing.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of slashes.”
Jamie grins. “I told them you’re the storytelling expert. Words are not exactly my strong point.”
My mouth opens then closes without any words coming out.
I take a sip of coffee and look out at the harbour.
The sea is flat calm, and in the distance, I can see a little white fishing boat heading out for the day.
In the distance the islands are dark shapes on the horizon in a cloudless blue sky. It’s a perfect day.
“You want me to…?”
“Help shape the stories,” he says. “You’re good at hearing people. You make them feel like what they say matters.”
He spins his now-empty mug around on the table, adjusting it so the handle is at right angles to the groove of the wood, concentrating for a moment before he speaks again, but his voice is lower now, softer. “The castle isn’t the same without you, Ede. It’s quieter. Less alive.”
I look at him for a long moment.
Then I nod. “Okay.”
A huge grin spreads over his face. “It’s paid, of course. Decent money. Not that I’m saying you need?—”
I put a hand up to stop him.I don’t know if he knows.
The second payment from the foundation arrived in my bank a week after I left.
I haven’t touched it, just put it to one side in a virtual pot in my account.
For the first time in my life, I’m actually doing okay financially, and even paying for editors and cover design art hasn’t made a dent in the savings I made while I was living at the castle.
“Thanks,” I say after a moment. “I’d love to help.”