Chapter 30 Finn
FINN
“Where’s Tilda?”
Georgia’s in the kitchen, organising her papers into piles on the table.
She looks up and flashes me a cheerful smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes.
I think we both know it’s not looking great.
Once Jennifer left, everyone scattered to all four corners, as if we needed time to lick our wounds.
I’ve wandered around the gardens in search of Tilda but she’s nowhere to be seen, and Jess and Poll have taken over the entire stretch of the rug under the Aga, so wherever she is, Flora must be with her, too.
“Think she went down to the cottage.”
“Right.” Something twists in my chest, stupidly, like disappointment. I bend to the cupboard under the sink to find the toolkit. “Going to fix the latch,” I say, but Georgia’s already turned away, frowning at her screen and humming to herself.
“Come on, you two horrors,” I say, and Jess and Poll are at the door a split second later.
We head down towards the tasting room, the spaniels darting back and forth.
It feels oddly silent – the calm after the storm.
The ground is still damp from the midday rain and the smell of petrichor fills the air.
Tilda’s freshly planted red geraniums are a splash of colour against the whitewashed wall of the stillroom.
The place looks good, but I’m not sure it’s good enough.
I stop at the door of the tasting room and kneel down, screwdriver in hand.
Five minutes later and it’s apart, oiled, and swinging smooth on the hinge.
“Alright?”
I look up to see Malcolm, a crate of samples in his arms.
“Fixing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” I say, straightening up, and gesturing to the screwdriver.
“Chin up.” He shifts the weight of the crate and regards me steadily. “Don’t let them get in your head.”
That’s the closest Malcolm is going to get to a pep talk, and I appreciate it.
“I’m going to nip over and see Duncan, see how the bere is coming on.”
I find Duncan Macaskill leaning on a gate looking at his cows. The tractor and trailer are parked along the side of the road, blocking it so I pull up behind and leave the dogs waiting in the Land Rover.
“You’re causing a traffic jam.”
Duncan chuckles. “You’re the only traffic I’ve seen in the last hour.”
“Should I ask why you’ve been parked here an hour looking over the gate?”
“Hiding from the wife.” He looks at me, shading his eyes from the afternoon sun. “She’s on a decluttering mission.”
“Reasonable.”
“Nah,” he laughs again, “I was moving a heifer who’d been in for the vet. I’ve only been leaning over the gate for the last five minutes.”
“I thought I’d come and see how the bere’s doing.”
“Oh aye. What are you avoiding?”
I grin. “Just dealing with the fallout from the tourist office visit.”
“That was today?” He double checks the gate fastening then turns, and we start walking back towards the tractor and trailer. “How did the gin garden go down?”
“Not as good as Glen Mhor, apparently.”
“Aye, that’s no surprise, is it?” Duncan coughs. “They were up here again this week. Second time in a fortnight.”
“Really?” I stop dead on the road, and he turns to look at me, his face neutral as ever. Duncan’s seen it all in his sixty-five years on Benruar.
“Aye. Brought some posh lad from down south in a fancy jacket talking about conservation and investment.”
The hairs prickle at the back of my neck. “Conservation of what?”
“They’re after the peat bog out past Black Dyke.
Not to cut it, mind, they want to take some trial stacks for ‘heritage products’” – he does air quotes around the words – “and then they want it fenced off with a sign full of waffle about biodiversity so they can sell carbon credits and make themselves look good.”
“On Benruar?” I look over at the distant fields, where the dark seams of peat lie beneath rough grazing land. “That’s the sort of stuff my brother’s fighting against over at Loch Morven. You can’t save land by turning it into some fake green box-ticking exercise.”
Duncan nods briefly. “That’s exactly what they’re after. They’ve got their hands on another croft and plans for more whisky tourism.”
“More holiday cottages in other words.”
“Aye. They’re playing Monopoly wi’ the island. If you ask me that Jennifer Ross is no’ averse to taking a sneaky backhander, either.” Duncan takes a packet out of the trousers of his overalls and fishes out a rolled-up cigarette. “Don’t you be telling Helen. I’m supposed to have given up again.”
He cups his hand around the flame and sucks in before exhaling a long stream of smoke that disappears instantly on the wind. He’s a man of few words and fewer opinions. I think about Jennifer and her smug face at the Glen Mhor event.
“You reckon they’re capable of playing dirty?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Duncan nods. “It’s about money, no’ whisky with that lot.” He heads back to the tractor. “Follow me, we’ll take a run up and see how the bere’s doing.”
The Land Rover protests as we chug along at tractor speed down the narrow single-track road towards the bere barley field.
The words settle inside me like a cold stone.
It’s more than beating their distillery for the chance of a busload of tourists once a week, it’s islanders against a conglomerate who see the place as a commodity, not a community.
I think of the lads who turn up to help out when we’re loading for deliveries, and the men who work the boats day in day out in all weathers.
The families who’ve worked the crofts for generations, still trying to make a living with their crafts for sale in the village shop, and the fishermen risking their lives in the middle of winter in the hope of a good catch.
Malcolm turning up to Benruar every day of his working life.
The art lessons and the knitting classes and the tiny cottage industries that make this place what it is.
That’s what Fairfax was fighting for. Not a polished tasting room or a glossy brochure for tourists but the island itself.
I grip the steering wheel, my fingernails digging into the leather. For the first time in weeks my head feels clear. I look over the growing barley and nod in the right places, distracted by the plans that are formulating in my head, then wave goodbye to Duncan, heading back towards the village.
“You know where I am if you need me,” he says, raising an arm in farewell.
“I might take you up on that.”
I’ve been a fucking idiot.
The realisation hits me as I’m driving, the spaniels panting in the back seat. Tilda came to me after the inspection, and I shut her out. Shut down. Did exactly what I always do when things don’t go to plan – retreated into my head and pushed away the one person who might actually understand.
The one person I need.
She’s probably at the cottage thinking I don’t care. Thinking she doesn’t matter.
When the truth is, I can’t imagine this place – this life – without her in it.
I press harder on the accelerator.
I drive down the harbour road, past the hotel and a family out walking who wave at the dogs in the back window. There’s a little white cottage with twin pots of bright red geraniums on either side of the step, and a familiar, lugubrious basset face peering out of the window as I pull up outside.