Chapter 33 Tilda
TILDA
The estate agent calls just after lunch as I’m standing in the gin garden where I’ve been hoeing weeds from between the rosemary plants, mainly because it seems like the safest option.
Finn’s been pacing around the kitchen muttering for most of the morning and Georgia’s gone into list-making overdrive.
I’ve decapitated every single weed that’s dared to show face after the rain yesterday, and the place is looking pretty good, if I say so myself.
It’s just a shame that right now, I’m not sure how we’re going to get any visitors through the door to see it.
“Good news,” the estate agent says, and I can almost imagine him rubbing his hands together with delight. “We’ve had an offer. Full asking price. Cash buyer. They’d like to close the sale as quickly as possible.”
For a second my stomach flips over. I should be relieved. This is what I wanted – no more ghosts, no more worrying about money or the future. A clean break, handed to me on a plate.
“Okay,” I say slowly.
“Can you come down to the office and we can discuss? I much prefer doing business face to face.”
I leave Flora with Georgia and the spaniels and grab the van keys, telling her I’ve got something to pick up in the village.
“Grab me a tray of brownies if you can,” she says, not even looking up from her laptop.
I park outside the cottage and walk down the street toward the estate agent office, butterflies dancing in my stomach. This is what you wanted, I tell myself again, as I stand on the doorstep with the handle in my hand.
“Tilda, hello,” he says, pulling the door open so I fall forwards and step inside, wrong-footed physically and metaphorically.
He walks to his desk as he says, “Have a seat. So, as I said we’ve had a full offer from a potential buyer who is happy to proceed asap.
All I need is your agreement, and we can get things moving. ”
“What kind of buyer?”
He looks up, eyes narrowed a fraction, pen paused in mid-air. “Sorry?”
“I said what kind of buyer.”
“Oh,” he says, smooth as silk. “Company purchase, actually. Glen Mhor Holdings.”
I don’t know why I even doubted it. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “And what exactly would Glen Mhor want with my cottage?”
He lifts one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Well, they didn’t say explicitly, but from my previous dealings with them I imagine it’ll be part of their offering.”
“Their offering.”
“Part of what they call the premium retreat experience.” He sounds like he’s reading from a script. “For whisky tourists. Very exciting. Excellent news for the area, of course.”
“Is it?”
He sits back in his chair and looks at me with his head cocked and one brow very faintly raised. “What do you mean?”
“How is it good for the area? If the cottage is owned by Glen Mhor and the visitors are channelled to Glen Mhor and they’re fed by Glen Mhor and entertained by Glen Mhor…”
I stare out of the window and spot Dave in his high-vis jacket heading down to the harbour to wait for the arriving ferry.
On the other side of the road the young mum from the cottage two doors down rushes past holding hands with her little girl, who turns and spots me, giving me a gap-toothed grin and a little wave.
A premium retreat experience. In other words, my dad’s old cottage tarted up with Farrow & Ball paint and hired out by the night to visitors who won’t spend their money buying bread from Hattie’s cottage bakery or shopping from the store.
They won’t go on one of Dervla’s seal-spotting boat trips or take a wildlife walk around the shore with Tom, the nature writer.
But they will put more money into the pockets of a massive conglomeration and make some fat cat shareholders even more obscenely rich than they are already.
“No, thank you,” I hear myself saying.
The estate agent coughs. “I’m sorry?”
“No. It’s not for sale. Not to them.”
“Miss MacLean, this is a full asking price offer. In cash. You won’t do better than this.”
I look down at the printed images of the cottage on the sale particulars he’s made up.
I see the gaudy geraniums outside the door and the dated kitchen with the wonky larder door that doesn’t close unless you shove it with your hip.
I see the tired furniture and my dad’s old chest of drawers and my imperfect white paint job.
And for the first time since I walked in with the keys, I don’t see a white elephant that I’m waiting to hand off to the highest bidder. I see a home.
“I said no,” I say again, my voice firm. “Not to them. And cancel the clearance van, too, please. I’ll sort it myself.”
I get up and stump out of the office.
The cottage is uncomfortably silent when I get back.
I make a cup of tea and sit at the kitchen table, hands shaking.
I’ve turned down a full asking price offer.
In cash. The kind of money that would have solved everything.
I could have walked away, set up the business, got myself a place in Glasgow—
But selling to them would have been like a betrayal – of the island, of my dad, of everything I’ve worked on since I got here. I wonder what he would have made of it all.
I reach down into my bag and pull the folded letter out, my heart skipping against my ribcage.
I’ve been avoiding reading it since I found it, torn between a weird knowledge that these are the last words he'll ever say to me and a sense of panic that they’ll be a reprimand – a reminder of all the ways I’ve failed.
My hands shake as I unfold the paper.
I don’t expect you to read this, but I wanted to write anyway.
You’ll have been told plenty about me, most of it true – once upon a time.
But I’ve been sober for a long time now, and I think about you every day.
I wish I’d done things differently. I wish I’d fought harder to stay in your life instead of hiding from the mess I made in it.
I can’t undo the past. The man I was, the father you remember – that’s not who I am anymore, but I understand that might be hard to believe. And your mother had every right to keep you safe.
Coming here to Benruar saved my life. It gave me space to breathe and work and become someone I could live with. The island asks for nothing and gives you everything in return, if you let it. I found a peace here that I’ve never known anywhere else.
What I wish for you, Matilda, is that you find happiness. Whatever and wherever that might be. Whatever it looks like. You deserve it.
If you ever find yourself here – if life brings you north and you find this in your hands – I hope you see what I see.
Not the rain or the wind or how far away it is from anywhere, but how the light shines on the water in the morning and how people show up when things go wrong.
How you can be forgiven, if you give yourself the chance.
The kettle will always be on.
Love always,
Dad.
The words blur and I push the heels of my hands against my eyes, but the tears come anyway, hot and fast and bearing all the grief I’ve carried since the day I learned he was gone.
Not grief for the father I thought was lost to drink.
Grief for the man I didn’t get to know – the one who tended a garden and made plans for gin and believed I’d make my way here one day.
The man that Susan and Malcolm knew and appreciated.
By the time the tears slow, my tea is cold. I fold the letter carefully and tuck it back in the notebook. Then I grab my keys. I need to get back to the house.
When I walk back into the kitchen, it’s to find Finn and Georgia have turned the kitchen into a war room.
Malcolm’s in the corner with three bottles – whisky, gin, and something faintly lilac coloured.
He’s pouring splashes into mismatched mugs and sniffing them.
He holds one out to Dervla, who is perched on the end of the kitchen bench.
She dips her nose in, sniffs, and then makes a face.
“Too much?” Malcolm chuckles and scribbles something down on a notepad next to the bottles.
“I don’t see why Glen Mhor should get to dictate the story of Benruar,” Georgia’s saying in her loud, clear voice. She pushes her glasses up her nose and looks up. “Oh, hello, Tilda. Any luck on the brownie front?”
“Oh.” I show my empty hands. “Sorry, I completely forgot.”
“Never mind.” She looks over at Finn. “Right. We need action.”
Finn’s leaning on the Aga, arms folded. His eyes meet mine and he smiles.
“You okay?” he mouths at me when Georgia looks away.
“I’ll tell you later,” I say quietly. “But yes.”
I nod, and realise that yes, I’m okay. I really am.
“They’ve already decided,” Georgia carries on. “So let them have their coach tours and their fancy glass cubes. We’ll do what they can’t.”
“Which is?” Malcolm looks up, putting down the bottle. Flora patters across the floor to join him, earning a scratch behind the ears.
“Tell the truth,” Finn says finally.
Everyone looks at him, waiting. He shifts against the rail of the Aga and rubs his forehead. “The truth about the seals. The bere barley, the crofts, the knitting circles. The whole bloody island. We don’t tart it up. We show it how it is. How we live here.”
Dervla beams. “I’ve been saying for ages we should make more of the seal rescue centre. We could get people here, show them the distillery, take them on a boat trip to see the dolphins and round to visit the centre. People could buy a dram then adopt a pup at the same time.”
“And we could do workshops, too,” says Georgia, scribbling furiously. “Spinning, brewing. Finn, you could—” He growls and she puts both hands in the air. “Okay, maybe asking you to give a workshop is a step too far.”
Malcolm’s shoulders shake with laughter at the prospect.
“None of this is as fancy as the Glen Mhor lot, but it’s real.” Dervla looks at Mhairi.
I’m perched on the edge of the armchair by the door, listening to the ideas tumble over each other. None of it matches Jennifer Ross’s tick box list, but it’s alive in a way that Glen Mhor could never be, because it’s full of the heart of the island and the people who love it here.
“We need a central point,” I say, surprising myself. “One place where people know they could come – like a community hub.”
Finn looks over at me and nods. “We could do something with the old stable block. If everyone worked together, we could have it done in no time.”
I stand at the side of the room watching as everyone kicks up a gear, talking over each other and making plans. I know I said we, but the truth is even with the link to my dad and the gin garden, I’m still an outsider here.
I slip away when nobody’s looking, taking Flora’s lead so it looks like I’m taking her out for a bit of fresh air.
I drive down to the village and walk her along the beach path, watching the gulls wheeling over the fishing boat that’s coming back from sea.
I deliberately turn my head to avoid looking at the estate agents.
I’ve said no for all the right reasons, but I can’t help wondering if it’s another one of my snap decisions that’ll end in disaster.
But I pull the phone out of my pocket and send a message, one I suspect my mum’s been waiting to receive.
I’ve been working at the distillery. I know about Dad.
I don’t even calculate what time it is there, I just hit send.
Instantly three dots appear and then disappear. They dance back and forth for a whole minute before her reply appears.
I did what I thought was right
I look at the screen and then look out to sea for a long moment.
I know
Maybe that’s the hardest truth of all. My mother might be far from perfect, but she’s not the villain in this story. She was a scared woman protecting her daughter the only way she knew how.
He was a good man, Mum. In the end.
Another long pause.
I’m glad you got to see that, darling
I swallow back the lump in my throat and blink hard.
And are you okay?
I look at that message with surprise.
I am. I’m happy.
And I realise that despite the uncertainty, and everything that’s happened in the past, and what I’ve missed out on, I feel hope. Maybe forgiveness isn’t about erasing the past. Maybe it’s just about making peace with it.