Chapter 9 #2
‘I know, right!’ Peaches couldn’t help exclaiming, even if her sudden change in fortunes and the opening up of her world in new ways felt strangely too good to be true.
‘Listen. About this Beltane bonfires thing,’ Euan was saying, a new shift in nervous energy in the air around him. ‘I was wondering if—’
‘Euan Sparks!’ screeched a voice from the barn doors, and every pair of eyes in the place flew to the woman silhouetted against the bright April day, her arms spread across the doorway like a bird of prey in full span.
Peaches watched the pink flush drain from Euan’s cheeks and his Adam’s apple bobbing in a gulp. He rose to his feet.
‘I’m here, Caren— I mean, Ms McDowell. Is something wrong?’
Carenza reached him in a few furious strides, bringing with her a strange charred smell.
‘You just cost me five hundred pounds and lost me my good standing with Fire Officer Dunoon.’
Now she was face to face with Euan, Peaches could see the singed ends on one side of her mother’s platinum-blonde bob.
‘Mum! What’s happened?’ She was on her feet too. Partly out of concern for her mother, partly to insert herself between Carenza and Euan, who was shrinking beneath her mum’s burning stare.
‘What did I do?’ Euan said after a quick glance around the room, as if to confirm that, yes, every single person was transfixed on whatever drama Carenza was meaning to bring down upon him.
‘I called by the flat to check on your work of this morning.’
‘OK?’ Euan’s voice grew smaller and shakier.
‘I keyed in the security code and boom! The entire circuit board blew, but not before the alarm keypad erupted in sparks and smoke like you’d packed it full of firecrackers!’
‘I assure you, I—’
‘Your shoddy workmanship singed my hair and put two burns in my LaCroix scarf! See!’ She demonstrated both atrocities to the stunned and gaping Euan.
‘And now my regular electrician is on his way back to town to put right whatever it was that you did! But first the whole building has had to be evacuated until the fire officer inspects the place and declares the hazard over, with no further risk to life.’
‘Mum, it was just a scarf, wasn’t it? Nobody was hurt?’ Peaches tried, only to be rewarded with a sharp glance that meant she should be quiet and remember her place.
‘I take my commitment to my tenants very seriously, Mr Sparks!’
‘I care about my customers…’ he tried before she cut him off again.
‘Because of the fire—’
‘There wasn’t a fire, Mum!’ Peaches refused to let her blow this out of proportion like she did so many things.
‘There was an electrical explosion, Peaches. Which meant the plaster had to be torn from the walls around the keypad to trace how far down the wires the burning had extended. There is now a gaping hole in the plasterwork. The whole thing needs redoing. Plus, the cost of a new alarm system, plus the call-out costs for the electrician and any fines the fire officer chooses to impose, and it will need a full review by the buildings inspector. On top of that there’s the expense of rehousing the tenants temporarily. ’
Peaches knew her mum had a few empty flats in the area, so it wouldn’t be that much of an issue, but she dared not say anything.
‘I’m sorry,’ Euan said, gulping. ‘But I did everything by the book. I used the keypad you left for me; I followed the manufacturer’s instructions from the box. I checked and rechecked it was working. It was fine when I left, I promise.’
Carenza wouldn’t hear his protests. ‘Young man, Fire Officer Dunoon told me about the flood at the school which you were responsible for.’
These words made the whole shed fall deathly silent.
‘You ought to have informed me about that.’
‘That was nothing; just a teensy mistake, anybody could have made it…’
‘You have made your last mistake in the employ of Carenza McDowell!’ she tolled. ‘And I’ll see to it that you cannot dupe any other hapless property owners into hiring you ever again!’
‘Mum!’ Peaches cried, but there was no stopping her when she was caught up in indignation like this.
‘Mrs McDowell, please…’ Euan began, before realising his mistake, one millisecond before Carenza picked him up on it.
‘It’s Ms,’ she told him coolly, and turned on her heel, attempting a dignified sweep from the room. ‘Peaches,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be late home tonight. Goodness knows how Arnaud at the salon will sort this!’
‘You’re going to Inverness? Now?’ Peaches ran after her, stopping only to tell Euan not to worry, she’d fix this.
Her mum just needed some time to calm down and she’d see sense.
She hoped Euan could tell from the way she squeezed his wrist that she didn’t just mean she’d fix the whole electrical explosion thing; she was going to make sure their Beltane bonfire date still went ahead too.
Euan, however, only crumpled onto his chair, pulling at the cape fastened around his neck and throwing it off.
‘Mum!’ Peaches ran behind, catching up just as Carenza was getting into her Lexus on the gravel drive. ‘Wait.’
‘Darling, do you mind if I pick us up some dinner on my way home?’ She was already pulling her seatbelt on, barely registering the urgency in Peaches’ looks.
She knew there was only one way to stop her mother, running to the passenger side and getting in the car.
‘Sweetheart, what on earth are you doing? I was lucky to even get an appointment at the salon. I’ll have to leave this minute.’
Once in the seat, Peaches pulled the door closed.
‘Did you have to yell at him in front of everybody like that?’
‘What?’ She blinked in wonder. ‘That boy could have destroyed one of my properties with his incompetence.’
‘You don’t know it was his fault, and it wasn’t destroyed, was it?’
Carenza shot her daughter a cautioning look. This was usually enough to stop her in her tracks, but not today. Not when they’d finally made some kind of progress towards cutting the apron strings.
‘You’re not changing your mind about Euan, are you?’
Her face set hard. ‘How can he work at my properties with a reputation for danger? Be sensible, Peach.’
‘I don’t mean that, Mum, I mean did you change your mind about the Beltane Bonfire and the date?’
Carenza drew back her neck. ‘Have you been using the hot glue gun again?’ She placed a hand on her forehead. ‘I’ve told you about the dangers of working with solvents before.’
‘Mum! Have you changed your mind about my date?’ If she wasn’t curled on the passenger seat she’d have stamped her foot in frustration.
‘Of course not! Why on earth would I? Have you changed your mind?’ Her mother’s voice lost all its edges, turning soft and ticklish again.
‘No, Mum. I really want to go.’
Carenza let her hand settle on Peaches’ cheek. ‘You are a good girl.’
They were getting somewhere. She exhaled hard with the relief.
‘On that note,’ Carenza said, momentarily putting aside the urgency of her hair appointment and the long drive ahead of her in favour of her new pet project.
She slipped her phone from her blazer pocket.
‘Have a look at these. I was going to show you later.’ She jabbed a slightly singed red fingernail over her screen. ‘Valerie sent these over.’
She stopped scrolling, pausing on an image of a good-looking guy Peaches had never seen before in her life, and he was absolutely covered in kittens and grinning in a casual sweater and shirt collar.
‘Isn’t he lovely?’ Carenza enthused.
‘Uh… I guess?’
Had her mum finally cracked? She was the one not making any sense. Maybe she’d inhaled some fumes during the fire?
‘And here he is again.’ Carenza scrolled one more time.
This time her screen showed the same guy in a suit, his shirt collar open, shades on, leaning against a wing-door car, his sockless ankles crossed casually, and again with the same perfect white grin.
‘Sorry, Mum. Why are you showing me these?’
‘This is your Beltane date, of course. Valerie Cromarty’s son?’
Peaches had to hold herself very still for a moment while the world spun around her.
‘My date?’ she said as the heavy-hearted, nauseous feeling spread through her system.
‘Oh, don’t be nervous, darling! I know he’s handsome, but you’re a true beauty! He’ll be besotted with you! Besides, he’s already seen your pictures, and just like you, he agreed to the date without reservation.’
‘He did?’ Peaches shrank down in the seat. How was this happening? ‘The other day, in the repair shop, this is who you were talking about? This guy?’
Carenza wasn’t listening. ‘You know he donates a percentage of his company profits to Cairngorm cat rescues?’
Peaches could only shake her head.
Carenza carried on misreading her daughter, just as Peaches had completely misread her mother the other day when she had heard only what she had wanted to hear. Her mum hadn’t had any intention of setting her up with Euan, a lowly local sparky.
‘Well, who even is he?’ Peaches said.
‘I’ve already told you, Valerie Cromarty’s son. Felton.’
‘Felton?’
‘The tech trader. I’ve talked about him many times, remember?’
Her mother talked about a lot of people, but it was true, she’d told her about this Valerie and her clever, rich son.
‘He’s a good sort, but, as I’ve said, he doesn’t know a soul in town, other than his own mother, and knowing this, and what with everything I’ve done for you, I knew it would be a small matter for you to say yes to a simple date with this impressive chap.’
‘Valerie Cromarty, from your Women in Business Association?’ Peaches said, monotone and dry, piecing together fragments of half-remembered one-sided conversations at home.
‘That’s right.’
‘The woman you said was expanding her apartment staging and interior design business into Cairn Dhu?’
‘Correct again. I knew you were taking it all in, clever girl. Valerie is looking for properties to showcase her apartment-dressing and design talents, and might well be willing to work for a reduced fee, and… well, who else has a luxury property portfolio that could benefit from a little showcasing sparkle, hmm?’ She preeningly pulled at her singed scarf.
‘To get a foothold in the region, Valerie is prepared to compromise on price, and as an added bonus, you get to meet a nice boy.’
The gleam in her mother’s eyes said it all. A city boy, steeped in stocks and shares, would make an extremely nice addition to the McDowell business empire, plus she’d get her mates’ rates with Valerie Cromarty.
At that moment, Euan let himself out of the repair shop doors and clambered onto his motorbike. He didn’t look their way. In a blink, he had zipped his leathers, hidden his face behind the visor, and was gone in a dusty plume of bike exhaust.
‘Win win,’ Peaches said, her voice cracking, not that her mother noticed.
Those were the words Euan had said only moments ago, when she’d mistakenly thought he was talking about how he’d landed a job and a date in one fell swoop, back when Euan had thought Carenza so reasonable, like she represented nothing to be feared.
The whole time, the pair of them had been talking at cross purposes.
Peaches knew now that he couldn’t have been talking about dating her, because Carenza had never even considered approaching him about entertaining her precious daughter.
When her mum had dragged Euan aside out here on the gravel the other day and they’d shaken hands, they must have simply been talking about the electrical installation job that had led to his downfall.
‘Win win!’ her mum echoed, delightedly.
Peaches searched for something to say that would get her out of the date as quickly as possible and back on track with Euan.
‘You didn’t delegate Euan Sparks a job to do at the bonfire.’
‘Hmm?’ Carenza rearranged her hair in the rearview mirror. ‘Didn’t I?’
‘Everyone else was given a job to do.’
‘Oh, well, I’m sure he could help Cary with the litter-picking. I won’t be letting him anywhere near the bonfire! Can you imagine! Hah!’
Delighted with this, Carenza repositioned the mirror and pressed the car ignition button. The engine hummed softly into electric life. ‘Do you want me to drop you off at home, darling? It’s on my way.’
Peaches found she couldn’t say another word, but she knew the last thing she wanted to do was go back inside the shed now that Euan wasn’t there. His Beltane costume must still be in there along with their mugs of tea, probably still warm.
Carenza didn’t notice Peaches’ dejected looks, only pulling silently away, carrying her daughter along with her, irrespective of her deepest wishes, just the same as she always did.