Chapter 17 Finn
FINN
“If you look over there to the left, you can see the planting we’ve just finished,” Jamie says, slowing up as we climb the moor road beyond Loch Morven.
My seat jolts as Tilda shifts to peer out of the window as we pull to a stop.
I turn to admire the serried rows of young whips – the tiny saplings that will one day become a forest, long after we’ve gone.
Pine resin scents the air while overhead, a kestrel hangs, wings beating as he holds steady in the sky.
Jamie insisted on driving us in his pride and joy, his new pick-up with the Loch Morven Rewilding Project branding printed all over the side doors.
It’s anything but understated, but he’s determined to make a splash and who am I to argue.
He’s gone as far as the Scottish Parliament to make his case, fighting and making speeches which, for my dyslexic little brother, is pretty impressive.
Now he’s giving a running commentary from the driving seat, which lets me keep half an eye on Tilda without anyone noticing.
An old drovers’ track winds up through what was once rough sheep grazing.
A row of leftover fence posts lean drunkenly at an angle, furred with lichen, the wire long rusted away.
Jamie’s chatting about soil health and seed mixes, and his grand plan to knit corridors of wildness back into the land our ancestors stripped bare over centuries.
Tilda leans forward, dark curls tumbling loose from the clip in her hair, her gaze intent on the open hillside, following Jamie’s direction as he points out the kestrel.
There’s nothing polished about her. Her jumper has a hole in the elbow I doubt she’s noticed, and the make-up she’d put on last night has been washed clean in the shower.
I grit my teeth as my mind offers the exact image I don’t need – Tilda naked under the hot spray of water in a bathroom I know all too well.
I get out and make a show of checking the gate hinges. Tilda and Jamie have followed, and she stands between us, leaning over the top bar looking over the moorland. I catch myself staring at the curve of her cheek as she turns to listen to Jamie, who is off on his tangent again.
“So, this was all sheep run-off,” he says, one hand gesturing to the gully below.
“Eroded, compacted, pretty much dead ground. We’re planting here in the hope it’ll take the pressure off the land.
Hopefully, it’ll take after itself then – birds will come back, insects, the whole cycle.
It’s already changing. D’you see that heather? ”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it,” she says, chin in hand.
“Come on,” Jamie says, leading the way as we return to the truck. “There’s loads more where that came from.”
We crest the hill, and he shows her the planting they’re doing around the stream, going off on a long monologue about salmon and life cycles I’ve heard before.
I’m discomfited by how I’m feeling and how I can’t stop thinking about Tilda’s face last night when I made the throwaway comment about her in front of the others.
I was trying to shut them down, and in the process, I did my usual and put my size twelve foot in my mouth.
It was easier when Benruar was predominantly men, with just Georgia – who seems impervious to my lack of tact – to deal with my crap.
Jamie pulls up at a familiar gate and turns right, bumping over a little used track that leads to the edge of the peatlands.
“We’re planning to regenerate these as well as the ones we’ve already started, but Finn’s got plans for this one.” He bounds out of the truck again, loose limbed as a retriever, and waves for us to follow. “You’ll like this bit.”
Tilda missteps and I catch her forearm, feeling her warmth through the fabric. Her curls have caught the damp of the air, and a tiny ringlet hangs on her forehead.
“Okay?”
She nods briefly and steps away as if I’m red hot. The loss of contact shouldn’t register as sharply as it does.
Jamie leads us through the tussocks of reedy grass to a stretch of boggy ground where black peat can be seen like the velvet underbelly of the moorland.
“This is what I was talking about. If you cut from here” – he points to a long ridge of turf – “before we get going on the regeneration?”
I nod briefly.
“My brother wants to dig up all my good work,” Jamie says to Tilda, laughing.
She shoots me a look of consternation. “Is that true?”
I shake my head and bend down, grasping a handful of black peat and squeezing the water from it before I bring it to my nose and breathe in the cool, clean loam.
“We’re going to take a limited quantity and dry it for a special edition Loch Morven bottling. Loch Morven peat, casks from the French oak Rory mentioned last night,” I grin thinking of my older brother’s teasing, “and make something special. I hope.”
“And then we can extend the reserve, restore another two hundred acres here, and maybe tie it in somehow.” Jamie shades his eyes and looks out at the peatland.
“So, you’d use this when you’re making the barley?”
“Malting it.” I give a brief nod. “A different smoke, more mineral from the water here. It makes a very different malt to Benruar.”
She tilts her head. “And that’ll help keep the distillery going.”
“Exactly. Whisky isn’t just about the contents of the glass, it’s about the story behind it. That’s what people pay for – provenance, not marketing gloss. That’s our point of difference with Glen Mhor.”
“Don’t get him started,” says Jamie, grinning again. “Heritage, branding…”
“Rewilding, rare breed oaks, salmon breeding prospects,” I parry back.
“It’s a good thing.” Tilda’s voice is clear and low. “If people really believe in something, I think that matters. It means more.”
I think of her gardening, and how I’ve come to realise that what I mistook at first for lack of focus is anything but.
When I was in the library with Rory signing the documents, I’d looked out of the window and saw her standing in the rose garden, hands on her hips, that sharply curious expression on her face.
She might give the impression of scattering chaos wherever she goes, but there’s something compelling underneath – she has a focus all of her own.
She’s got a vision for the gardens at Benruar – her intent interest when she was talking to Jake underlined that for me.
“Maybe that’s something we all have in common,” says Jamie after a moment. And then a second later he lightens the mood. “Come on, there’s something else I want to show you before you get back.”
I check my watch. “I want to catch the two o’clock boat,” I say as we head back to the truck again. I know exactly where he’s taking us, although I’m not sure why.
We’re on the back road to the stables, and as we pull up in the yard, Tilda gives a gasp of surprise.
“Come and say hello.”
The yard is spotless as ever, the sweet scent of hay and wood shavings hanging in the air. One by one a series of heads – smaller, shaggy-haired Highland ponies and the taller Arabian horses with their pretty dished faces – pop out of the stable doors to regard us with curious expressions.
“Thought you might like to say hello to Kate,” says Jamie, turning to Tilda. “She runs the stables.”
A second later Kate appears in her habitual dark jodhpurs and boots. She’s wearing a faded blue and white striped sweatshirt, summer freckles scattered across her nose.
“Finn.” She grins. “And this must be Tilda, the gardener.”
Tilda looks shy but smiles a hello. Jamie leans back against the wall, arms crossed, observing Kate with a steady gaze.
“Jamie told me you might drop by. And Edie said you were lovely,” she adds.
“News travels fast on the Loch Morven grapevine.”
“The estate group chat doesn’t miss a trick.” Kate laughs. “Not that you’d know Finn, because you never check your messages.”
“I see what I need to.” I raise a brow.
“You’ve got us muted, haven’t you?” Jamie fixes me with an accusing look.
“I will not lie.”
“Jamie can’t resist. He’s always first with news from the village, as well.”
I watch my brother shaking his head and laughing at Kate’s teasing. My brother, the idealist, sparring with the one person who wouldn’t let him get away with anything.
My gaze shifts to Tilda who has wandered off across the yard – she’s stroking the nose of Ras, the Arabian stallion.
“You’re honoured,” says Kate, noticing. “He can be a tricky bugger.”
Tilda laughs as Ras reaches down towards the pocket of her jeans, nosing them in the hope of treats.
“You’re as bad as my basset hound,” she says, running a hand up through his silken mane. Ras nudges her shoulder gently and gives a soft nicker. The sight catches me off guard – the softness in her face, the way she laughs, completely unguarded. Something twists sharply under my ribs.
I turn away. I have no business noticing. No business feeling whatever this is.
She’s temporary, passing through. Her cottage will soon be mended, the gardens clear and when the job is done, she’ll be gone. That’s the sensible truth.
But as she lifts her head, eyes bright and cheeks flushed from the spring breeze, all I can think is how little I trust myself to be sensible around her.