Go Home, Ivy
Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
I vy groaned, rolling up her window as her boss’ name flashed on the display in front of her.
“Duncan, hi.”
She had been working on her business voice after listening to a podcast on presenting powerfully in the workplace, and hoped the quick change from belting along to her music, while she admired the view running parallel to the single-track road, wasn’t undermining today’s attempt. There was something inherently bullshit about the recommendations that, to get ahead in the office, you should just act like a man. Not that they had said that, obviously. They wouldn’t have a podcast much longer if they did. But they did advocate power stances, low and level speech, and monochromatic dressing to create the illusion of size. So, acting like a man, really.
“Ivy, how are you?”
About the same as she was when she left the office six hours ago, Duncan.
“All good. Arrived on Lewis and bags at the cottage and all.”
“And everything on track for the next few days? Meetings all confirmed?”
At least he tried pleasantries before proving he was checking up on her.
“Yes, I’ve touched base with all the relevant parties. I’m on track for a productive visit.”
Ivy was on the cusp of moving up to being a junior partner. She was trusted within the team to do a good job at things, but they had yet to fully let her off the leash. The Western Isles project was a big step up. Not in Ivy’s eyes, truthfully. She thought she had shown more than enough competence to be given a chance. But in the eyes of her senior management team, sure, she had never fronted a multi-pronged project that was being coordinated outwith the Edinburgh office and outwith their watchful eyes. So, she had been prepared for many check-in calls disguised as a friendly catch up. And, in her defence, she would have touched base with the relevant parties by sunset. It was just that the relevant parties happened to be some of her best friends, and, most importantly, the sea.
“Your line is rubbish, Ivy, sorry. I’ll just assume it was a yes. Few more tricks like this project and we’ll get you working on stuff where there’s decent signal!”
“Thanks Duncan. Listen, I’m about to lose you here. I’ll check in tomorrow.”
“No problem, I’ll let you go. Chris is on call for any issues.”
Ivy rolled her eyes as the call ended and her playlist returned. Chris, her ever successful ex-boyfriend was, of course, the partner assigned to babysit her. It was a sensible choice of manager. He’d been involved on the peripheries of the project throughout, was one of the few city boys at the firm to have actually set foot on the island, and even post-break-up, he and Ivy worked together well. It had hardly been an acrimonious split, and she often suspected people at work had forgotten that they’d ever been together in the first place. So, it was fine. But even extra fine salt stings when rubbed into a wound. And, however well healed, your colleague-come-ex boyfriend, who got promoted above you mere weeks after your breakup, being the person to oversee your audition for your own promotion was still a wound.
It could be worse, admittedly. There were plenty of alternatives who she wanted as far away from the project as possible. Marketing the islands was a fine balance between maximising income potential and respecting that people actually lived here and didn’t want the place turned into an Americanised fantasy land. A fine balance, but one that Ivy thought she was getting close to nailing. Part of the need to get it right came from the promotion that waited for her at the end of a job well done, but so much of it came from loving the place just for what it was and not wanting to have any part in ruining that. Some things were sacred.
The car park at Bosta was empty when she pulled in, always a treat at this time of year, so she quickly deposited the car into a space and skipped to the boot and began to dig through the chaos. Once she had chucked wellies, wetsuit socks and a towel on the ground, she sat herself on the now slightly clearer edge to change her shoes over. The breeze caught her under the open dry robe and made her take a second look at her wetsuit. On further thought, the idea of battling with the thing seemed worse than the Atlantic vs bikini situation, so she stayed as is.
Ivy felt a familiar peace creep over her as bare feet met sand. For June in the Western Isles, it was practically a heatwave. A comfortable eighteen degrees, sun soaking the white expanse of beach and the ever-present wind toying with the loose strands falling around her cheeks from the hastily formed plaits that dusted her shoulders. The sea was alive here, and it was infectious. She often saw people compare the white sand and turquoise waters of the Hebrides to the likes of Thailand and Indonesia, but that didn’t feel right to her. Those were beaches where you lay out and the world melted away. Here, the world demanded its presence be felt. It was anything but silent, with crashing waves and gusting winds, but there was nowhere where Ivy could hear herself think quite so clearly. There was almost hostility to the coast here. The place belonged to an ancient nature, and it let you know who was the boss. So instead of knocking back a few cocktails and rolling in tanning oil, revelling loudly in tipsy bliss like she was by the Indian Ocean, Ivy quietly removed her dry robe, inhaled and exhaled deeply and thanked God she had done the Food industry module in her marketing degree that allowed a publicist to flee up here. She could practically feel her blood pressure lowering as she piled her belongings haphazardly onto a rock unattended. Something else she suspected she wouldn’t be doing in Thailand.
She had plenty of poetic thoughts about the crashing waves and the aggressive cliffs, but one thing Ivy had not worked out how to romanticise was the temperature of the water. Baltic didn’t even begin to cover it, and she swore under her breath as she eased herself away from the beach. She’d been on many courses that hammered in the importance of entering the water slowly to acclimatise and avoid temperature shock. She wasn’t sure any of those course leaders had ever been in the sea up here and had made the executive decision many years ago to edge in up to her waist and then just dunk on in there. Compromise. By the time she had cycled through her swear words vocabulary, she was ready to take the plunge and, facing out toward the horizon, she hopped up and down a few times, inhaled sharply, and disappeared under the surface. At this point, Ivy was an experienced open water swimmer. She knew these waters as best as someone can understand something so unpredictable, and she knew her own body. But she had never decided whether the catch in her chest as her heart seemed to stop, with the boom in her ears each time she immersed herself was a physiological response or an emotional one. She always had to resurface before getting to the bottom of that one and today was no different.
Emerging again, now facing back to the beach, she was laughing as she swept her now soaked baby hairs back. Her hands fell behind her neck, and she tilted her face up to the sky, her contented exhale funnelled through a smile.
When she did open her eyes, she realised she was no longer alone on Bosta. She could make out a tall, broad figure, walking along the beach, in the opposite direction to her. As much as Ivy loved the fantasy of an empty beach, she was always grateful for at least one extra body lest she end up in bother in the water. Though, whilst there may be someone to phone the coastguard, she also paused over whether that outweighed the ‘strange man where no one would hear me scream’ thing. Being a woman was fun.
Deciding that if she was going to be murdered, she might as well have gotten a good swim out of it, she began to swim outward, planning around ten minutes in the water this evening and then a large tea from the flask she’d stashed in the pocket of her robe.
Once she was satisfied she had topped up her endorphins enough, Ivy swam back to shore. Extricating oneself from Hebridean waters was less Bond Girl and more damp frenzy. The breeze was barely warmer than the water, so she hauled herself up the beach to where she had left her belongings. Shoving herself quickly into her dry robe, she began faffing with her swimsuit, eyes still half closed as seawater dripped from her straggled hair into them. Finally freeing herself from the bikini and tossing it aside, Ivy heard a cough.
Her eyes found her discarded bikini first and then followed the foot underneath it up a pair of solid legs, past a broad torso and landed on a less than impressed looking face.
“Oh. My. God. I am so sorry!” She laughed. “I didn’t see you there. I was rushing… The seawater…” She trailed off.
His face had yet to change, remaining hard set and stony. He hadn’t moved his foot either. Ivy glanced back at her suit- bright red, with a blue whale motif scattered across the cups. All profits had gone to saving the whales, which was of course admirable, but she now wished she had gone for a quiet black option. Whales be damned. Or had just never taken up swimming in the first place. People who stayed at home and crocheted didn’t fling almost-underwear at stern faced men.
“Are you going to—” Ah, he speaks.
“Oh, fuck, yes, sorry,” Ivy replied, quickly swiping the offended piece up to her chest. She threw him a tight-lipped smile, shifting awkwardly on her feet, suddenly unsure of what to do with herself.
His eyes skirted up and down her length, and she felt her cheeks burn. He seemed to hesitate as his gaze returned to meet hers, lingering with an expression she couldn’t quite make out. Somewhere between horror and curiosity, though, she thought.
She opened her mouth but was beaten to the punch.
“Right then.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and headed back towards the car park.