Chapter 28
At five thirty on the dot, the expedition moved off from the repair shop on their journey through the snow along the lit-up high street carrying the banner (now beautifully painted in rainbow colours with the words ‘Cairn Dhu Ski Centre Memories Exhibition’), along with all the boxed-up frames, donated artefacts, souvenirs, and other carefully catalogued, precious bits and pieces.
The parents had collected their children two hours ago but a few had remained, wanting to be pulled along the road on the few re-donated vintage toboggans that weren’t completely falling to bits.
Roz shared the work of hauling both Jolyon and his friend Shell at the head of the procession, helped by their mothers.
Florrie had to admit the excitement of seeing Hamish again was making her insides fizz like lemonade poured over a Christmas glass of Advocaat.
Seeing his face when surprised with his town turning up to support him would be worth the cost of any last scarce, price-inflated airline ticket that she might have lucked out with today.
Her hunch that even the mighty Empressa couldn’t get her out of the Highlands had been confirmed just as she’d been putting down her paint brush to admire her and the kids’ handiwork.
There was, Empressa had told her, a small chance of a waiting list flight to Aspen tomorrow, flying out of Edinburgh, if there was a cancellation, but there was nothing available for Oslo or indeed back to Italy until the day after.
How did Florrie wish to proceed, Empressa had asked.
Florrie replied with, ‘Let’s hold off making any plans,’ and immediately powered down her phone so she didn’t have to keep replying to the messages from her parents, both of them wondering what on earth she was up to and each vying for a festive visit from their only daughter.
It had felt a relief to be cutting off the outside world, even though she knew she couldn’t ignore it forever.
By the time they reached the ski centre, Florrie’s heart was drumming in her chest and she was weaving and bobbing through the line up to get the first glimpse of Hamish who, she hoped with all her might, was going to be incredibly pleased to see her.
Unaware of the approaching hordes, Hamish was in the ski hire shop, and fighting back tears for Kenneth’s sake.
Kenneth was asking across the ticket desk, ‘Hey, did you hear they’re advertising for somebody to drive Fan-Dabi-Snowzie? So, it’s not all bad. I’ll find something soon, nae bother.’
The snow had brought in a few newbie skiers today, as well as some boarders wanting to brush up their skills without the bother of going all the way to the big resorts, and there had been a steady stream of families with under fives wanting to play on the donut slope.
It had felt a little like old, busier times.
Hamish looked at his pal, bemused and gloomy. ‘Do you really want to be a gritter and snowplough driver? It’s dangerous work, is it no’? Clearing the upper paths? And at all hours of the night.’
Kenneth shrugged. ‘I could do it before my milk round, if I wasnae on the doors here any more.’
‘But with a baby at home and night feeds? You’ll want to be there to help.
’ Hamish pulled on his last resources of strength.
They’d only just been looking at the most recent baby scan pictures and Kenneth had told him about the birth plan, which seemed to involve a lot of Lucozade and gong music. ‘We’ll think of something else, eh?’
‘Boss.’ The way Kenneth said it was so doused in meaning, the word would have burst into flames had there been a spark. ‘Let’s be realistic, eh?’
Hamish felt his spine rounding with the awful weight of it all. ‘Ach,’ he sighed hard, leaning over the desk, ‘when do applications close?’
‘Friday. You could put in for the job as well, if you wanted? I wouldn’t mind a wee bit of friendly competition.’
How could Kenneth say this so generously when he must be petrified for his little family? Hamish shook his head. ‘Naw, not for me. I’m not much of a driver,’ he said, patting Kenneth’s shoulder. ‘You can count on me for a glowing reference.’
Kenneth had taken this as his sign to be on his way for the night, and he’d been nearly at the door when the loyal doorman stopped and squinted through the glass. ‘What the…?’ He turned to Hamish with his mouth open and eyes shining. ‘You better come take a look at this.’
There’d been a lot of noise and a big squeeze getting into the shop, and some of the people were still stuck outside but passing their exhibition items hand over hand until the objects were stacked up on the shop counter in front of a dazed and weepy Hamish who’d kept his hands cupped over his mouth as it dawned on him what everyone in town had been getting up to all day.
Florrie found herself jammed into the corner and unable to reach him, but she’d briefly caught his eye in the crowd as he scanned the faces in utter astonishment. He hadn’t really reacted to her presence. Maybe it hadn’t meant much to him that she was still around.
‘And the kiddies made you this banner,’ Roz was telling him as it was unfurled over everyone’s heads. ‘I’ve protected it with sealant spray so it can hang outside in whatever the December weather brings.’
‘Aww, guys,’ Hamish was saying through his fingers, his hair falling in lovely sleek curtains of black. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Big Kenneth, however, was howling heartily, great tears cascading down his face as he squeezed his way through the townsfolk, lifting each one in turn off their feet in an emotional hug.
‘It’s the least we could do,’ McIntyre replied from where he was wedged in the door frame packed with grinning locals.
‘Coming through,’ a voice called from outside. ‘Someone rang the Cairn Dhu newspaper?’ A young woman pressed through the bodies, phone in hand. ‘I’m Olivia Noa. Who is it I’m meeting?’
Fifty hands pointed in Hamish’s direction, and there was some general shifting about and growing agreement that, since they’d done their job of delivering the goods and making everyone cry, it was time to get going for their dinners.
‘Cheers, everybody,’ Hamish called to those on their way home, but a lot of the repair shop volunteers stayed behind to talk Hamish through the donations while the reporter gathered the gist of what was happening and took some notes.
Florrie would have to wait for her chance to speak to Hamish. She was happy just to observe his dawning understanding of the comprehensiveness of the archive collection now in his hands.
Three of the centre’s long-errant toboggans, still in reasonable nick, were piled behind the till, and it was agreed that, if Kenneth and the McIntyres cleared off the old hire clothing and ski boots from the shop’s shelving units, the pictures and old newspaper cuttings could be displayed upon them in their frames.
Roz showed the reporter and Hamish the repaired chairlift attendant’s snowsuit uniform with its special sewn-on badge and said she was going to pop back to the repair shop with Willie and they’d return with her tailor’s dummy to help show it off properly, and Hamish seemed delighted to tell them he’d found a whole box of the same embroidered ‘Cairn Dhu Ski Centre’ patches in the lock-up the other day.
‘You could sell them as an exhibition souvenir,’ Willie said. ‘True eighties vintage, as well! Amazing!’
‘And folks have donated their old souvenir postcards and keychains that must have been sold here in the shop, back in the day,’ McIntyre told him. ‘And we’ve an old video of the chair lift working. You could run it on a loop if we hook up a telly in here.’
And so, the outpouring of good news and generosity went on, and the reporter took down all the details.
‘And it’s definitely Christmas Eve that you’ll close for the last time, right?’ Olivia Noa said, and the atmosphere in the room nosedived.
‘Correct,’ Hamish replied, trying to smile.
Florrie was arranging vintage Cairn Dhu ski resort postcards sealed in plastic on a donated spinning rack that Pauline from the post office had brought in.
Even though Mr Banks had been complaining she hadn’t yet sent in her report, Hamish was evidently still under no illusion about what it would spell for him and the ski centre when she could eventually bring herself to submit it, which would need to be very soon.
She could feel that Hamish was growing tired and overwhelmed after the avalanche of gifts. She wished she could freeze time and talk with him this instant.
‘I’ll stay open late on Christmas Eve,’ Hamish told the reporter, ‘letting any last riders enjoy the floodlit run.’
‘And are you hoping this snowstorm will bring in a last-minute flurry of visitors?’ Olivia Noa asked.
‘Oh, I’m sure it will. Especially if there’s all this to see.
’ He cast his eyes across the stacked frames and bags of stuff that the volunteers were busily arranging in themed sections all around the room just as Kenneth was dragging the last piles of old hire equipment out towards the lock-up where he said, if anyone was wanting it for the slopes, they could pick it up from there.
‘And what will you do?’ the reporter pressed on, prioritising getting the story over saving Hamish’s feelings.
‘I, uh…’ At last, Hamish glanced in Florrie’s direction. ‘Who knows, eh? The world’s my oyster, as they say. I might get a job up at Glenfoss, if I’m lucky. Ski rep, or course groomer?’ He was trying to smile, shrugging off the uncertainty. ‘Who knows,’ he said again.
‘When’s this exhibition opening, then?’ retorted Olivia Noa, clearly not a person troubled with much sympathy.
‘Oh, eh… day after tomorrow?’ Hamish guessed, scratching his head and looking to McIntyre as if he might have the answer.
‘Tomorrow first thing?’ McIntyre corrected. ‘Might as well. We can add more bits as they come in, letting the display grow in an organic, community-led way.’ McIntyre had shifted over to the reporter’s side to check they were writing down his words. ‘Did yi get that? Organic, community-led? Aye?’
Olivia Noa stopped typing into her phone and looked back at McIntyre with glassy eyes. ‘Let’s get a photo.’
‘Right you are,’ McIntyre said, giving up trying to influence their reporting.
‘Can all the helpers get in shot,’ the reporter said. ‘Hold the banner up in front.’
As the volunteers arranged themselves, Hamish threw Florrie an enquiring look, offering her a place in the photo, but she shook her head. She didn’t belong in what would likely prove to be the very last news story included in the ski centre’s archive.
She watched on as Kenneth seemed to hold the wilting Hamish upright and the Giffords, McIntyres, Cary the carpenter, Dr Bonnet, Sachin, a boy called Jolyon and his friend Shell and their mums, and lots of other people Florrie didn’t know by name, grinned for the photo.
She saw the tight smile fixed across Hamish’s blanched lips and the way his eyes had turned swimmingly deep and watery blue in the camera flash.
Soon the reporter was making to leave and the helpers were thinning out. Rhona had gone home exhausted, and Senga pounced upon Olivia Noa, asking slyly if she might have a word.
A few hardy helpers still worked on making the jumble look more like a proper gallery exhibit, and Ally was talking with Murray and Finlay about how best to make their voice recordings available for future generations of Cairn Dhu residents, perhaps in an installation housed at the town library.
Florrie had watched Hamish approaching McIntyre and the pair of them had been talking in hushed tones for a while. She found she couldn’t wait any longer to speak.
‘Hey,’ she waved her plaster cast in an awkward arch, announcing herself at their backs.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ McIntyre said, cutting short whatever they were conspiring over and dodging out the way. ‘I’ll pop back later with the stuff,’ he said before he was gone out the door.
‘What was that about?’ Florrie asked Hamish with a nervy laugh.
‘Ach, you know McIntyre, always cutting aboot, up to something or other,’ Hamish replied, not quite able to meet her eyes. ‘So, you’re here, still?’
She nodded. ‘Grounded by the snow.’
Now he really looked at her and his chest rose and fell in a heavy way.
Neither of them seemed to know quite what to say until Florrie broke the tension. ‘No sign of Mr Banks, then?’
‘He didn’t stay very long.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He was measuring up. Very enthusiastic about how many flats he’d be able to fit onto this land.’
‘That’s not very tourism, leisure and sports of him.’
‘Something tells me he’s got a sideline in property developing going on at the Regional Authority.’
‘Hmm.’ Florrie thought of her dad and how he never missed an investment opportunity when he saw one either.
‘He seemed like the type, from what I could see of him around your bathroom door.’ She attempted a laugh but it fell flat.
‘So… since I’m stuck here, I wondered if you wanted to do something tonight? ’
Hamish’s face fell.
Had she got this wrong? Wasn’t he glad she’d hung around? Was it because she’d said she was ‘stuck here’? Maybe he hadn’t liked that?
She’d been about to explain herself better, when he spoke.
‘I’ve got a lot to do here,’ he said, stiffly. ‘There’s all this,’ he moved his eyes around at the rapidly transforming room, ‘and there’s… something else I need to attend to.’
‘Oh, of course.’ She tried to wave her embarrassment away. ‘I get it. I guess I’ll…’ she hiked her splinted thumb towards the door. ‘I should get on with some stuff too.’
‘Yep. Sure, sure, sure.’ He was backing away, bumping into the stack of toboggans and stooping to stop them falling.
She turned her face away, her insides feeling like they were shrinking, already calling herself all kinds of names in her head for assuming he’d want her here to witness the closure kicking in.
‘Will I see you at the repair shop party tomorrow night?’ His voice, like a lasso thrown round her middle, stopped and held her in the door frame. Her heart started its pattering again.
She glanced back for a moment with a smile of pure relief. ‘You will.’