Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
T here is, objectively, nothing worse than camper-van season in the Outer Hebrides. Something seems to possess the soul of those who wish to venture across the Minch, convincing them that, whilst they have never driven anything bigger than a polo on a four lane, they need a double-wide tank to chauffeur them down single-track roads with no access to google maps.
Tourism was the economic lifeline of the islands, but God they needed smarter tourists. Or maybe a drop-in driving course on the ferry. Until that day, though, Ivy was sitting in traffic. Traffic. On an island that usually had fewer cars than a hundred metre stretch of the M8. She leant her head out the window for an update. Just round the corner she could see a comically large camper being put in its place by a tricky corner and an unbothered sheep. Had they had a smaller mode of transport, they would’ve been able to fit comfortably between the woolly blockade and the steep drop on their other side. But at the expense of time, Ivy’s sanity, and the unfilled rooms in local B and Bs, they probably had a king-sized mattress in the back of that thing.
Whilst she couldn’t claim total superiority, neither an islander nor a true blow-in herself, only here once a month, Ivy was at least better than this. She leant forward, putting her head to the steering wheel between her hands and exhaled deeply. A deft pair of hands could get them all back on route sharpish, but that didn’t seem to be on the cards just now, and as much inner peace as the Hebridean landscape instilled in her, traffic was still traffic, no matter how nice the view was.
Deciding she wasn’t getting back to Stornoway any time soon regardless, Ivy reversed back far enough to turn around and drive back the way she’d come.
She made the most of the non-existent traffic to meander slowly along the road. Much as she judged the incompetent camper-vans, she also couldn’t fathom the locals who flew round these bends at over seventy miles an hour. As she navigated expertly between both duet parts of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, she wondered if she stayed here long enough would these roads feel so familiar, and the view so ordinary, that she could speed around them like they were nothing.
As Ivy, Elton and Kiki, ‘Ooh-Hooed’ for the thousandth time, she remembered one of the other reasons she usually drove slowly. Deer.
“Fuck!” Ivy squealed, jerking the wheel away from the bastarding stag that had just jumped down from the verge above her. Thanks to the steep gradient, her wheels spun, and she slid across the road. Coming to a bumpy stop, the culprits continued on their way without so much as a backward glance.
“Shit, shit, shit” Ivy whined, feeling her heart slowly sliding back down her throat as she confirmed all body parts were still attached. “Dicks,” she directed at the now well clear deer, smacking her hand against the steering wheel.
She leant back against the headrest and took a deep breath. Running her hands down her face as she groaned the breath out, she realised she needed to look at the outside of the car.
Please don’t be fucked, please don’t be fucked , she murmured to herself as she dragged herself out of the door, her eyes half shut in fear of what she was going to discover.
Once she got to the front, she exhaled in semi-relief.
“Ok. Ok. This is… Ok.”
It could’ve been worse. The passenger side front wheel was firmly planted in the mud of the shallow ditch that ran alongside the road, but the car itself seemed structurally unaffected.
Ivy wasn’t entirely sure how long she’d been standing there trying to come up with her next move, but the playlist had rolled onto Stuck in the Middle with You, and she felt great affinity with the ‘Pleeeeeaaase’-es right about now.
Apparently, whatever all powerful being was in charge today, heard the Spotify-facilitated prayer, and she heard a car rumbling round the corner, approaching.
Running a hand through her hair, she plastered on her best smile, aiming to look like the type of person you’d stop your car for, and not the type who would then use the opportunity to kill you. Though, she acknowledged, they didn’t really have a choice but to stop, given her car mostly blocked the road. But they did have a choice whether or not to help. And as the car stopped and its driver stepped out, the smile dropped a touch, and she worried about what that choice might be.
“Hi.”
She hoped her tone was suitably remorseful as the man from earlier got out of his car. In the split second it took him to close the distance between them, she got her first good look at him, having been somewhat hindered by the saltwater blindness, and then the distance, earlier.
He was at least 6’2. A broad shouldered, solid man, with dark, tousled hair dusting his collar. His face had caught the sun, and the stubble did not look like it had only bloomed today, but he couldn’t have been more than thirty. He was… well currently, he was walking straight past her without so much as a glance.
He stalked round the side of the car, paying it much more heed than he had Ivy.
“I’m really sorry,” Ivy babbled, unsure how to handle this uncertain dynamic. “There was?—”
“A bend in the road?” He cut in without looking up at her, still poking around the stuck wheel.
She let out a foreign, high-pitched laugh.
“Em, a deer. I was going to say there was?—”
He looked up at her then, scanning her head to toe as if he would find some explanation for the apparent misfortune that had so troubled his day, based on the look on his face. When his gaze arrived back level with hers, she did not miss the sceptical arch of his brow.
“Look…” He paused, and she assumed he was waiting for her to fill in the blank, which was progress.
“Ivy,” she chipped in.
“Look, Ivy.” His tone did not support the progress theory. “You shouldn’t be driving here if you can’t handle a car on the roads. People live here. And have places to be.”
What a prick.
“I actually?—”
“Get in the driver’s seat please.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Get in the car.”
She blinked at him. Why did these things happen to her? How was her rescuer actually worse than being stuck in a ditch all night?
She felt heat rising up her neck, and her volume climbing with it.
“Who do you think you are?”
“Tourists,” he mumbled to himself, pushing up from his knees and walking to her car door.
“I’m not?—”
“In. Please,” he said, now holding her door open.
“Whatever.”
Ivy sat in the driver’s seat, and he closed the door after her. She remained baffled, whilst his expression was at best bemused.
He tapped on the window, before performing a winding gesture. Had she said Prick yet?
Once she had the window down, he placed both hands on the ledge and leant over her. A breeze swept past them, and she caught his scent. Whatever cologne he had on was… well phenomenal really, which annoyed her more than anything. A) because she didn’t feel like being impressed by anything he did and 2) because she’d had eyes on him for hours so was confident there’d been no reapplying, and she could never get her own perfume to last that long.
“Ok?” His voice, whilst still low and coarse, was softer now, and a warmth was visible in his eyes this close. Had she woken up in Wonderland this morning, what was with this guy?
“I—em—yes?”
“Great,” he said, smacking both hands against the inside edge of the door and he stood up again. Talking louder now, he continued. “Put her in reverse, put your foot down, and I’ll push.”
Before she could open her mouth again, he was in position, giving her no indication that there’d be a signal of readiness.
“Well ok then,” Ivy mumbled to herself, following his orders.
Starting the car up, she looked over her shoulder to confirm there was nothing behind her but his car. With her foot down, the tyres spun a few times, and then she began to move. Within twenty seconds, she was back on the road.
He brushed his hands down his work trousers and then looked up. Their eyes met for a second and she felt a catch in her chest. She opened the door and scrambled out, as he was determinedly striding back to his own car.
“Hey,” she called out. “Um, thanks for?—”
She stopped suddenly as he turned around, almost crashing into his chest.His hands jumped to her shoulders to steady her. Instead, Ivy felt more off kilter than before as their gazes snapped together. The blue that looked down at her did not help her get back on kilter and she willed her feet to move, any part of her to move really. The corner of his jaw twitched before he stepped backwards.
“Can you move your car?” His voice cracked briefly. Then, clearing his throat and looking back at her, “Please.”
“What?”
He had regained whatever grumpy composure he had been looking for and went on. “Your car isn’t stuck anymore. Why aren’t you in it?”
“Are you actually ? — ”
“Some of us aren’t here prancing about the beach on holiday. I need to get back to work.”
“I’m not on holiday. I work here. A lot. I?—”
Ivy Hamilton was not a woman who shouted at people in the middle of the road. And yet here she was, doing just that, with a barely recognisable shriek in her voice. The heat was crawling back up her throat, her pulse drumming in her ears.
This time he interrupted her by simply turning back around and getting in his car.
Ivy remained anchored in place, open mouthed, as he closed the door and started pressing buttons on the console. After what felt like minutes but could only have been ten seconds, he looked up and quizzically shook his head at her, waving his hand at the clear, open road ahead.
In the next second, Ivy considered every swear word in her vocabulary, the finger, banging on the window, or sitting down in the road in front of him. As the surge of rage passed, she ultimately walked away, muttering to herself as she got back into her own car. Her skin prickled, as she turned the key, heat failing to dissipate from her chest, even as the pounding in her ears subsided.
Back in Stornoway, the local butcher had come through for Ivy, and so, after a shower, she was now gazing through the glass door as she waited to be reunited with a generous serving of steak pie and mash. Maybe it was two servings, but it wasn’t Ivy’s fault that society had decided to package everything for two. She tapped her fingers on the counter impatiently as the thought tripped her up. It wasn’t the first time in the months since she and Chris had split up that she’d found it to be the little things that stopped her in her tracks. Binning half the spinach because it wilted, running out of milk because the small one is too small, but the big one always spoils, not being able to get that spot right in the middle her back when she put fake tan on. Their breakup had been amicable, largely because it had made so much sense. They had started to hold each other back, even if unintentionally, and would be better tackling their individual goals without anything in the way. All of that, and the many more excellent reasons she could produce on tap, did nothing to negate the fact that sometimes it felt like a second pair of hands would be nice.
Before the spiral could reach terminal velocity, the oven beeped, and Ivy snapped back to reality. The smell of the rich gravy and local beef reminded her that shit could be worse. She was on the cusp of getting The Job. A partner at a major PR firm had been on the vision board since day one, and going it alone was how she was going to finally do it.
Generous portion now in hand, Ivy backed into the living room door of the cottage she was renting and made her way to the sofa. The ancient Harris tweed furniture hugged her hips as she sunk into it, tucking one bent leg beneath the other and cradling the bowl to her chest.
Ivy moaned as she took the first bite, pleased with her reheating skills. The mash was all her though, so she gave herself an imaginary pat on the back. Once she’d finished eating, she lifted her phone, scrolling to her best friend Anna’s contact and hitting video call.
Prepared for their usual evening chat, she was instead greeted by the redhead in full glam, grinning out of the phone at her.
“You look pleased with yourself. Do I need to be worried?”
“I have news.” Anna’s mouth was set straight, trying hard to contain the excitement her eyes were betraying.
“Ohhh kayyy, I’m definitely worried then.” Ivy laughed.
“You are looking at the newest project lead in the art department.”
“Ah! Oh my God! You got it!”
Having met at uni, the two of them had been fast friends and thrilled to get jobs at the same firm after graduation. They had worked many a project together, both knowing the other’s aims and aspirations, and Ivy had even done long hours of prep with her friend for last week’s interview.
“I know. It’s only short term, obviously, until Cara’s back after the baby. But I’m in there!”
“They’re bound to keep you on somehow, Annie, you deserve it!”
“I hope so. Thanks for your help, some of your prep questions even came up, so I will have a drink in your honour.”
“A big one please,” Ivy chipped in.
Anna pulled a face, a green tinge to her cheeks. “Not that big, I’m still hanging from last night.”
“The date went that well?”
“No amount of gin would’ve made that man interesting,” she groaned in reply.
Laughing, Ivy demanded a full debrief.
“Right, I’m bored of myself, what about you?” Anna eventually insisted.
Ivy scoffed. “What about me?”
“No island strong-but-silent type swept you off your feet yet?”
“Oh God, wait for this one. I literally couldn’t be further from a Hebridean husband.”
“Do I even want to know?” Anna groaned.
“Of course you do.”
“You’re right, carry on.” She had now scraped her hair into a messy bun, and Ivy could tell from the new angle that she’d propped her phone up and was now lying on her own sofa in Edinburgh. Thinking that seemed like a great idea, she did the same, placing her phone inside a now empty mug on the coffee table and lying back like she was in therapy.
“So, after I dropped all my stuff here, I went to go out to the beach.”
“I will never understand you outdoor swimming people.”
“Then when I get out, I’m getting changed and can barely see anything?—”
“Because your eyeballs were probably half frozen gal.”
This time it was Ivy rolling her eyes. She had yet to make a wild swimmer of her friend.
“And in my blind stripping, I toss my bikini, and it hits someone!”
“Stop.”
“Swear to God. And this guy is not impressed,” she laughed.
“How rude, I’d love to be assaulted by your lightly used swimwear.”
“Right back at you, babe. So, he slopes off in a huff, and I head back to the car and go to leave.”
“Ivy, what have you done? I’m feeling an impending sense of doom.”
“I wish I had at the time.”
“Hamilton. What did you do?”
“I’m driving along and a big fuck off deer runs out in front of me and my car goes into a ditch.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, so?—”
“You crashed your car!”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Ivy!”
“Shhh, I’m telling a story.”
“I’m telling Chris.”
Ivy held a hand out to the side, toward the phone with a finger raised, without stopping her tale.
“Anyway. So, my car’s stuck, but then I hear a car coming to save me. And guess who it is?”
“It was Bikini Man, wasn’t it?”
“Of course it was!” Ivy yelled, her hands raised to the ceiling. “So, I’m there like ‘Oh great, is he even going to stop?’”
“Well, you were probably in his way.”
“True. So, he gets out and is all ‘Fucking tourists, slowing me down.’”
“You have said exactly that, like, a million times.”
“Shut up. I’m nice. And I’m there with my sweetest disposition on show,” She ignored the snort from her phone and pressed on. “And he finally does help, but once my car is out of the ditch?—”
“Ooh, he sounds strong,” she derailed, wriggling her eyebrows.
“Concentrate Anna. I get out to say thank you, and he just goes ‘get back in your car’ and storms off.”
“What did you do?”
“Got back in my car.”
“So, he was hot then?”
“Oh my God, so hot.” She whined, pulling the cushion from the far end of the sofa and pressing it against her face.
“Give me a visual.”
“Like 6’2, broad, dark hair and beard. Arms like you would not believe.”
“I’m in love.”
“If only he wasn’t a dick,” Ivy pointed out taking a sip of her tea.
“If only you got a name.”
“I don’t date here. It’s just not practical.”
“Yeah, sure. What’s the excuse for the lack of action in Edinburgh then?”
“I hate you.”
“The truth hurts, Ivy.”
“The truth hurts, Ivy,” she mimicked back teasingly. “Your children need a fun auntie to corrupt them.”
“And who am I going to corrupt if you won’t talk to anyone carrying the sperm to give me niblings?”
“What’s that? Sorry, I think you’re breaking up. Island signal, you know?” Ivy grinned, making static crackles very obviously with her mouth as she rolled over and retrieved her phone from the floor.
“Nice dodge. I will talk to you later.”
“Love you.”
“Bye.”