Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
B ryan expected Grace to revisit her manuscript after eating the tiny ready meal, but instead she clambered back out on the roof with him and Lùc . Her tenacity reminded him of her brother, clawing his way into the starting defensive midfield position with The Bhoys of Celtic FC when he was barely nineteen years old. Diego made himself invaluable to his first professional club before being traded to the EPL for big money.
That same doggedness must have driven Grace to sell her debut novel in her twenties, earning her one of the most prestigious literary awards in youth literature, according to Google . Now she was procrastinating from finishing her second book by wasting time here with him. Why ?
And worse, was he doing the exact same thing?
After Rionnagach was such a success, Ardbeg had offered Bryan another expression of his own, but instead of graciously accepting the bird in hand, here he was eco-renovating an entire house so that someday he might distill his next whisky under his very own label. Was he actually just delaying the inevitable because he was afraid to fail?
He scowled at Lùcas as they hefted the next solar panel up the ladder, as though the lad were the one suggesting Bryan was procrastinating.
He wasn’t. This was the right next step. He couldn’t make whisky for someone else forever. Grandad had understood. Hell , the master distiller at Ardbeg had understood, so why was Bryan still having phantom arguments in his head?
This renovation was a means to an end. In a way, he supposed it was one for Grace too, if it got him out of her hair as he’d promised. And so they worked on.
Though curious eyes tickled the back of his neck, he ignored the neighbors who gathered on the beach to gawk as they mounted the solar panels one after another atop his grandfather’s roof. The same villagers had raised a ruckus when Grandad decided to replace the back with modern shingles, leaving only the street-facing side with its historical and beautiful, but difficult to maintain, thatch. Now they were clutching their pearls over the eyesore of his solar panels. Would they forgive Bryan as readily as they had his grandad?
He could see their point. All those years ago, Bryan had felt both ways about it. Thatch wasn’t only aesthetically pleasing, it was far more eco-friendly than most of the shingles on the market at the time. But thatch also needed a great deal of main-tenance, especially on the ocean-facing side of the house. Bryan hadn’t planned on being there to help repair or replace it, and a man in his seventies shouldn’t have been up and down the ladder at all hours, so he’d embraced the shingle plan. For years he’d been disappointed in himself for compromising his principles in exchange for his freedom, but if he hadn’t, the roof would never be able to support solar panels now.
“What the hell is this monstrosity?” his sister yelled up at him. “ And don’t tell me you’ve put your guests to work too, Ry !”
He grimaced. Somehow , he’d almost expunged the awful nickname from memory during his years away, and hearing it now was tantamount to rubbing his own skin off with sandpaper.
“I can see the one-star reviews already,” she went on.
Beside him, Grace snickered.
“Folk hand over good money to do hard things on vacation,” he called down, wiping his forehead on his arm.
“Digging wells for the less fortunate or hiking to the top of Everest , you mean?”
It was exactly what he meant, so he stayed quiet.
“Have you spared a thought for what the town will say?”
He’d thought of little else. “ As it doesn’t affect them, they can say what they like,” he snarled.
“All this to save you, what? A fiver a year on your power bill?”
“Not about that,” he grit out, before yawning to force his clenched jaw to release. “ If you tried, you might find them attractively futuristic.”
“Attractively futuristic? What am I , a Flintstone meeting the Jetsons ?” she shouted.
Grace froze, no longer fiddling with the screwdriver she’d been holding, likely reminded of her insult in the airport just as Bryan was. What kind of Neanderthal …
Did she regret it? Should it matter to him if she did?
“What do you want, Cait ?” he demanded.
“Brought cullen skink for the girls.”
“Mmm,” Lùcas murmured.
“No one eats that, Cait .”
“I would eat some,” Lùcas whispered, but he shut right up when Bryan shot him a look.
“Guests expect it, actually.”
“According to the one-star reviews?” He rolled his eyes, leaning more and more into the role of bratty little bother with each moment she stayed, invading his space and his peace of mind.
“When are you coming round? Ma set a place for you last night.”
“I told you I was tired.”
“Not too tired to sing at the pub, apparently.”
Christ, he missed the city. Even on Islay , everyone might know his business, but he kept himself to himself and they left him alone.
“I had things to discuss with Eòghann .”
“What sort of things? You’ve already got wee Lùcas up there. Don’t tell me you’ve dragged Eòghann into this scheme as well?”
“It’s not a?—”
“Father Murphy needs him down at the church. You can’t just waltz back into town and expect everyone to drop everything and run amok with you.”
“I didn’t ask for Eòghann’s help. I didn’t ask anyone to help,” he added under his breath, cognizant of the side-eye from both Lùcas and Grace .
“Tonight then? She’s trying her hand at vindaloo.”
Bryan sighed and set down his spanner. He didn’t want to have this conversation shouted from the roof, least of all with Grace and her enormous brown eyes looking on, likely thinking what a terrible brother and son he was. If Diego asked her to come round to tea, she’d probably go in a heartbeat.
“I’m busy tonight, Cait .”
“Tomorrow then? Auntie Eilidh’s been asking after you.”
Had she? When he was young, his Buchanan auntie had seemed to have a general aversion to small, noisy children, not to mention Bryan’s own aversion to sitting quietly indoors. But they shared a love of rugby stats and following the Glasgow Warriors . The salty old woman taught him some of his first swear words in the stands of the Barra rugby pitch.
“I’ll come when I can,” he told Cait . Couldn’t let her think she could guilt him into visiting simply by invoking the family matriarch, or he’d never know another moment’s peace.
“The sooner you do, the sooner I’ll let you alone.”
“Doubt it,” he muttered, and Grace snorted, though she was steadfastly pretending not to listen.
“I’ll just leave this inside then,” Cait called.
“Grand.”
The door banged shut behind her, and a moment later slammed again to announce her return.
“Grace, I left you a schedule of all the events for the festival. There’s bands day and night, a comedian or two. There’s a theatre troupe in town as well.”
“Thanks, I’ll let Wes know,” she replied.
“You picked a fine time to turn up, Ry . This is our biggest Bàgh a’ Chiùil yet. Even you have to appreciate what it’s doing for the local economy.”
“All thanks to the great Cameron MacNeil , no doubt,” he growled.
“Aye,” Cait laughed. “ More or less.”
She remained awkwardly looking up for a few minutes longer, but when Bryan didn’t engage, she wrapped her cardigan tight against the brisk breeze and headed off again.
He glanced over at Grace , daring her to comment on what a shite he was being. Almost as though she could feel his eyes on her, she finally looked up at him and smiled sympathetically. “ Family , huh?” she said with a shrug. “ They must have really missed you,” she added, and it sounded like a rebuke.
“They know how phones work,” he retorted.
Her eyes narrowed. “ I mean, what’s not to miss? Wit , charm, sunny disposition. I can’t imagine how they got by the last—what’s it been? Five ? Ten years?”
He scowled at her. “ How long are you here for again?” Four weeks was starting to feel interminable.
“Not long enough to be missed.”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she looked away, like maybe she’d said it because it was the truth rather than to be mean.
“You ought to take your friend out tonight. She’ll want to hear the music.”
“My friend has a name. And she’s fiercely independent. If she wants to hear music, she will. I don’t go out.”
“You and Wes went out last night. Looked like you even enjoyed yourselves.”
“I went under great duress and as a favor to her.”
Bryan snorted. “ Forced to endure an evening of wine and good food alongside my caterwauling. Absolute torture.”
“The ultimate sacrifice,” she agreed.
“The music tonight’ll be authentic. Far more agreeable.”
She shook her head. “ I’ve wasted my whole day. I can’t waste my night too.”
Her assessment stung a bit if he was being honest. Wasted . Of course she had, wasn’t he thinking as much himself? He couldn’t fathom why she’d joined him on his grandad’s roof to begin with. He nodded, offering her a wry smile. “ You might be the only person in the world as actively disinterested in my father’s festival as I am.”
Lùc snickered. “ But you both came here to be mad about it.”
“True,” Bryan agreed with is cousin. “ Why’d you enter that radio contest if you hate Scotland so much?”
“I don’t hate Scotland .”
“You’re determined to avoid experiencing anything but bad karaoke in an average pub.”
“Oi!” Lùcas jumped in, insulted by either the slight against his singing or against the Three Puffins .
“I have a deadline,” she protested.
“Then why aren’t you home finishing your novel? You couldn’t defer the trip until you were ready to actually be here?”
“Why do you care?”
Why did he?
He didn’t. Except he did.
“Why are you hiding up here with me?”
Grace opened and closed her mouth in a way that made Bryan hear schoolyard taunts of Codfish and Tangle - Tongue , and he studied his dirty hands instead of her.
“Good question,” she finally said, and promptly climbed down off the roof, slamming the door as she went inside.
“Is it a contest? Are you trying to out crabbit each other?” Lùcas asked.
Bryan hung his head. “ I don’t know. The woman just gets under my skin.”
The boy nodded. “ I went to school with a guy like that.”
“Aye? What did you do about it?”
Now it was Lùc’s turn to hang his head. “ Got super mad wae it and boked on his shoes at the end of term do. He’s off to St . Andrews in the fall, so at least I won’t have to see him around much longer.”
“Might not go away forever,” Bryan said, because Lùcas looked so sad about it. “ Why don’t you head home? Come round tomorrow. We’ll mount the rest of the damn things.”
“The old-timers are going to hate it even more than Cait did.”
“Reckon they’d prefer it if we could paint them up with MacNeil tartan?”
That made his cousin laugh out loud. “ Aye probably so.”
“Would ruin them of course. Then they really would be nothing more than an eyesore.”
“Give it a few years,” Lùcas replied. “ There’ll be all kinds of skins, just like you can get for your mobile.”
He probably wasn’t wrong, but Bryan didn’t have to like it. He tossed his gloves at his cousin as the kid disappeared off the roof still laughing.