Chapter 14
Chapter 14
S truan was trying his best to be brave, but a summons from the head teacher was, even though he was a grown-up and also a teacher, still never an appealing prospect. Particularly when you were planning on announcing your resignation at the end of term and were slightly nervous someone might have got wind of it already. Also, he was worried about his primary 6s. Well. Most of them were fine, bellowing away as usual, but wee Oksana was still so quiet, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He’d gone out to say hi to her mum, but her mother had looked very worried and asked immediately if Oksana was being a good girl, and he’d assured her that she was, at which the woman had raised her hands, as if to say, what the hell did he have to worry about then. This seemed reasonable, considering everything else they had going on.
As she left, Struan had noticed a skein of wool trailing from her bag, and thought briefly of his new tenant. It was so strange, he had no memory of her from school at all. Saskia would no more knit than fly in the air. As it turned out, flying in the air was very much on the agenda.
T HE HEAD, M RS. McGinty, did not have her happy face on when Struan knocked and entered her small office. On the other hand, if she had a happy face, it was truly only visible when she was trying to suck up to parents, even—sometimes especially , Struan reflected ruefully—when their kids were absolute bampots, because the parents who had the bampot kids were often the rich est and most entitled parents in the area, and were often, quite frankly, bampots themselves, albeit bampots who brought Mrs. McGinty particularly nice presents at the end of the year.
He sighed.
“I see you were late again, Mr. McGhie,” she said. Struan didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t been able to sleep the night before because he was in a new place and nervous about his upcoming audition, and had ended up in a corner of the tiny sitting room, sipping whisky and listening to Kris Drever on his headphones, which was rarely likely to cheer anyone up.
“Aye, I’m fine,” he said, although he was conscious his shirt was unironed and his curly hair badly in need of a cut. Saskia usually told him when he needed to go to the barber, but she hadn’t mentioned anything recently, which was, he realized now, a bad sign in itself; a sign that she didn’t even care. Instinctively he touched the back; it was matted. Damn. As the supposedly cool young music teacher he got a fair amount of leeway about dress, but this was taking it a bit too far. The hole in his shirt probably wasn’t working out brilliantly for him either.
“Well,” she said. Mrs. McGinty liked to give the impression that as a peripatetic he was basically only just above pond scum and Struan felt it deeply: he often felt that way about himself anyway, and there were many many women in his life who had expressed it too.
He wasn’t to know that in fact Mrs. McGinty had spent her distant youth madly in love with one guitarist after another—on distant stages or down at her local youth club, it didn’t matter. And she hadn’t been noticed by one of them. Not the lowliest member of the worst youth punk band had given her a second glance. One that she’d managed to glom on to, from a wedding band, had treated her absolutely horribly. Obviously, she told herself now, it was Struan’s bad timekeeping and “eff it” (Mrs. McGinty didn’t even think in swear words) attitude that she didn’t like about him and not the fact that even though she was very nicely dressed in a new M that was nothing these days. Bloody divorce.
Fortunately she had a plan to punish him and was looking forward to bestowing it.
“Regardless, I was doing the Easter schedule, and it occurred to me, you haven’t done the Outward Bound course for years...”
Struan straightened up. He hadn’t done the Outward Bound for years, because it was on a weekend and he was normally working weekends. But he had been there once; they’d gone to Mure. There was an incredibly competent couple called Jan and Charlie who took the kids away and basically told the teachers to just leave and they’d get in touch if there was a problem. It was brilliant. There was the loveliest coffee shop in Mure Town, and a bar at the Harbor’s Rest and a very pretty Icelandic girl who worked there... Struan remembered suddenly playing his guitar for the very pretty Icelandic girl—Inge something—and suddenly found himself blushing. Oh yeah.
“Well, okay,” he said. He was finding this conversation difficult. Women normally liked him, at least until they got to know him, or—no, that wasn’t fair. He had plenty of good women friends. At least until they tried to settle down with him and plan for the future. That’s when it tended to go pretty wrong. But Saskia would be different. “Sure, that’ll be great. On Mure, yeah? Love that place.”
Mrs. McGinty was enjoying this. “Ah, unfortunately they’re all booked up this year; they’re taking on more kids in care. So we’ve found somewhere a bit closer to home—you’re going to go with the mountaineering group in Archland.”
“Mountaineering?” said Struan, unsure if he’d heard properly. He wished he’d had a shave: Mrs. McGinty was always so disapproving of stubble. He rubbed his chin. “The Primary 6s?”
He thought briefly of Hugh McSticks’s generous padding and frowned.
“I mean, they’re only wee. I don’t know how they’re going to get up a mountain.”
“They’ll be guided up,” replied Mrs. McGinty. “It’s more of a gentle stroll really—it’s the north side that’s famous. The south side has a path. Then camping for a night at halfway up, then getting nice and dirty and tired and going back to their parents. One solitary night without their phones. Everyone’s happy. Of course you’ll have to camp with them.”
“Camp?” spluttered Struan, who hadn’t camped since he was a child with his parents and had violently strummed Metallica songs on his guitar until the campground manager asked him to stop. After that, his parents hadn’t taken him again. Even when his band played music festivals he’d turn down the cider and drive home late to get back to his own bed. “I have to camp?”
“It’s character-building,” Mrs. McGinty said crisply.
Struan sighed internally.
“I think I might be...” He was toying with weakly making up an excuse.
“Part of your contract states that you have to go on the rota for school trips,” said the head teacher.
“Yes, I was thinking I might take them to see the Lost Spells Project...”
“I’m afraid that’s already been taken. This is all that’s left.”
I bet it is, thought Struan.
“Who’s the other teacher?” he asked.
“I’m still working on that,” the head teacher replied.
S TRUAN WAS HALFWAY to the flat, deep in thought, before he remembered he didn’t live there anymore. He could maybe stop by quickly: he’d left one of his guitars in the hall cupboard anyway.
Morag wasn’t in that day; just Gertie, rather shell-shocked after a nerve-racking interview where she’d asked for a possible sabbatical from the ScotNorth and instead of shouting “How dare you! Never darken these doors again!” as she’d imagined, Mr. Wainwright had actually been incredibly kind and said how much they’d miss her and that there’d always be a job here for her. He’d wished her luck. And then all the women had come forward and said how much they’d miss her mittens and vests and Gertie had promised faithfully to keep knitting for them and it had been an emotional day all round.
That was even before she’d gone to break the news to the KCs who were obviously delighted, but also immediately launched into the most terrifying plane-crash stories they knew; about the plane out of Malaysia that had gone missing and never been seen again. About planes crashing full-on into mountains because the pilot was having a crisis—although having discussed it fully they thought this probably wouldn’t happen with Morag, even if she was over thirty and that young man didn’t seem to be any closer to making an honest woman of her. She probably almost certainly wouldn’t deliberately crash a plane because of that.
By the time they’d started on 9/11 Gertie had made her excuses. Elspeth though—Elspeth had been pleased, thought Gertie. She could always tell by the way her needles clacked as to her grandmother’s mood.
“You’ll take me up?” she’d said, the old eyes glaring at her. Gertie was fishing rich browns and blues out of the oddments box. She had an idea she might write up something new for her knitting blog, even though she very rarely updated it; the fact that it was a blog, now, in 2024, and nobody ever read blogs, and the only people who read hers were the other KCs, who would write in the comments that everything was brilliant (Jean, Marian) or complain about the dull colors (the twins) or suggest she try something a little simpler (Majabeen, unable to help herself in case Gertie got too good, even though her own children were “too intellectual” to knit).
She was back at the flat, looking at her blog again, when the doorbell rang. This was a surprise, and Struan standing there was an even bigger surprise. She stared at him, feeling her mouth drop open slightly. This was ridiculous, she told herself. She was a grown-up, starting a new job, getting on with her life. She was not a schoolgirl. You can’t be a schoolgirl forever.
Struan looked at this friend of Morag’s. She had very long legs, which gave her an ungainly appearance, like a wobbly fawn, and she didn’t look remotely happy to see him.
“Hi,” he said, then grasped for her name and they both realized at the same moment he had forgotten it.
“Yeah, hi, I’m Gertie?” she said. “You remember. The person you take all that money off each month?”
“Och aye,” said Struan. “Sorry. Long day. Have you knitted me a new guitar case yet?”
“I have not.”
“Disappointing. Is Morag in?”
“I am now,” said Morag, coming up the road behind. “Cor, what a day. They’ve built a new gin distillery on Larbh, and we were bringing back a consignment and one of the bottles broke.”
“Thank goodness,” replied Struan, standing back and holding his nose. “I thought for a moment you were literally the drunkest pilot on God’s green earth.”
“All right, all right,” said Morag, sniffing her sleeve. “Blimey, that’s strong. What are they making it with, sheep dip?”
She pulled out her complimentary bottle. It was actually called “Sheep Dip.”
“Huh,” she said.
She glanced up at Struan.
“You know we live here now, right? You don’t live here anymore. That’s why we gave you all that money?”
“That’s just what I said!” said Gertie.
“I just came to get one of my guitars,” said Struan. “I’ll get out of your...”
“Don’t be daft, I was just teasing.” Morag rolled her eyes. “Come and have tea.”
“... gin?”
“T HE HEAD’S DROPPED me in it,” Struan was explaining. “She really doesn’t like me.”
“Is it because you keep staying out all night playing in bands and because you’re leaving to play in an even bigger band?” asked Morag. Gertie had disappeared and reappeared with a large box of biscuits the ScotNorth had given her, only slightly broken, and everyone was delighted, as they went surprisingly well with the gin, which tasted as fresh as the watery place it came from.
“I’ll be flying you up there, come to think of it,” said Morag. “It might be fun.”
“How is climbing up a mountain with a heap of ten-year-olds fun?” said Struan. “Do you want to do it?”
“Gregor never minds the kids,” Morag went on. “They come over and pester him with questions about his goshawk.”
“Yes, well, Gregor is of course perfect,” said Struan. “Whereas, as Saskia keeps pointing out, I am very much not.”
He chomped into a chocolate ginger, disconsolately.
“Have you got a boyfriend?” Morag asked Gertie, realizing this was the kind of question she should probably have asked before they moved in together, in case the answer turned out to be: yes, he’s a professional bodybuilder out of his head on steroids all the time and every so often he comes round and breaks all the windows.
Gertie shook her head.
“Got your eye on anyone?”
Gertie thought of Calum Frost, coming in when she was in her uniform, saying would she like to go for a coffee after work sometime? I mean, it wasn’t entirely appropriate with her working for him now, but it was only for a little while, wasn’t it? Meanwhile he’d just have to hang on...
“I’m kind of off men,” said Gertie. “They smell.”
“They do,” agreed Morag.
“Oi!” said Struan.
“Oh, you don’t count,” said Morag, reassuringly. “You’re a teacher.”
“And you don’t smell,” said Gertie, also trying to be reassuring.
“I think that’s because Saskia cleaned the bathroom,” said Struan, looking a bit glum. Then he perked up.
“Anyway, I’ll soon be a sexy rock star again. I’m playing the town ceilidh on Saturday.”
Morag rolled her eyes. Then looked at Gertie. “Hey, you should come! Loads of chaps there, all the young farmers!”
“What did I just say about not smelling?” said Gertie. “Plus my Knitting Circle always come and get stocious and embarrass me.”
“Your mum is dead nice!” said Morag.
“She is,” agreed Gertie. “She just kind of likes to sit and talk about me very loudly as if I’m not there.”
Struan grimaced.
“Oh yeah, Saskia does that,” he said absentmindedly, then looked surprised as both the girls stared at him. “But she is very hot,” he added, as Morag made a mental note not to move too much furniture in.
“Right, I’d better head,” said Struan, getting up.
“Get that mountaineering training started!” suggested Morag, and Gertie giggled.
Struan took the guitar and clattered down the stairs.
“Not a whit has he changed,” said Morag, shaking her head.
Gertie wondered what Calum had been like at school. Adorable, probably.