Chapter Thirty-Five
Angus
“And then you said what?”
“I asked her why she was still here.”
“And then she left?”
I lift the bottle of wine to my lips and take a long swig. It tastes like regret.
Stuart shakes his head, leaning back in his chair. Jonathan is pushing a piece of the wedding cake around a small plate.
“I hate to say this, Angus, because I love you, but you might be the stupidest arsehole I have ever met.” Stuart looks meaningfully at Ross and Mason, who are flinging another open bottle of wine across the table, seeing who can slide it furthest before it spills. “Which is saying something.”
I almost spit out the wine. “You were the one who warned me off her!”
Stuart sniffs. “I’m your best friend. I didn’t want you to get hurt. Seems like you did that well enough on your own. Two days, Angus! I told you to keep it in your pants for two days, not send her running for the border.” Stuart exchanges a look with Jonathan. “Are all straight men this stupid?”
On the other side of the table, Ross miscalculates the slide of the bottle and we watch in horror as it catches on a knot of wood, spins, and upends over Mason. Both of my brothers still, and then erupt into laughter, the bottle dropping into Mason’s now-drenched lap.
“Yes.” Jonathan slides his tongue along the tines of his fork, mopping up the last of the cake. He looks at it mournfully. “This is my finest creation. And now no one will ever appreciate it.”
“We’re appreciating it, honey.” Stuart pats his hand. “A masterpiece.”
Mason stabs a fork into his own piece, which is now drenched in wine, and stuffs it into his mouth. “Delicious.”
Jonathan buries his head in his hands.
“So what now?” Ross asks the question on everyone’s mind.
“Do you mean practically or existentially?” Stuart asks.
“Practically, we sulk for the rest of the day and get drunk on the happy couple’s non-refundable wine.
Then tomorrow we undo all our hard work and put the place back to rights.
And then, I guess, we start again.” He stares into his own wine; in a glass, not a bottle.
“Have you got any other bookings?” Mason asks.
“One, next month. And then… nothing.” I sigh. “Sophie said she’d still give us a good review. Tell her friends. Although I’m not sure how enticing a failed wedding venue can really be.”
I feel heavy. Numb.
Everyone has worked so hard. For the farm. For me. And now we’re back where we started, staring down the back of another difficult year, another season of insecurity and stress, hoping clients and bookings will come in, watching the farm drain us of money and life.
And it’s my fault.
“Fuck.” I press my forehead against the lip of the wine bottle. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Is he okay?” I hear Ross ask.
I tilt my head to the side and find him peering at me. “Fuck off.” I return to staring at the table.
“Is he having a seizure?”
“What kind of seizure looks like this?”
“I don’t know! I’ve not seen one in person. But this isn’t normal. Is it?” Ross waves a hand under the bottle. “Hello? Big brother? Planning to return to us any time soon?”
“Let the poor man have his feelings,” Stuart says. “Leave him alone.”
“Is that what this is? Feelings?”
“It’s Angus’ version of feelings.”
“They seem to involve non-verbal noises and little else.”
“And you’re so much better?” I ask.
“Lucy says I’m surprisingly emotionally well-rounded considering the upbringing I’ve had.” I can hear Ross slurping at his wine. I want to thwack it out of his stupid hands. “I take after Ma, you know. Whereas you and Mason are more like Da. You’ve both got the brooding, grunting thing down.”
“You hardly even remember Ma!” Mason protests.
“Nor do you!” Ross says. “Doesn’t mean I can’t take after her. That’s genetics, isn’t it?”
“Like you know the first thing about genetics.”
“Says the chef.”
“For the love of Christ, could you both shut up?” Stuart’s voice cuts over theirs. “No wonder your Ma left, if this is what she had to put up with.”
Mason whistles. “Low blow. Too low.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, bringing our Ma into it,” Ross adds.
I groan, wishing a trapdoor into hell would open under me right this moment. I’d take fiery torture for a thousand years over another second of this.
“It’s okay, Angus,” Jonathan says quietly. “This isn’t your fault. It’s all going to work out in the end. We just have to keep going.”
“I mean, he did sleep with the bride’s sister,” Ross points out. “Twice.”
“I thought it was only once? In Fort William?” Mason asks.
“Did you see the state of the Den this morning? It was definitely more than once.”
“Really? I ate my breakfast in there.”
“Hope you didn’t sit in any wet patches.”
“Enough!” I finally lift my head. “I get it. I fucked up. I ruined our one fucking chance. I’m sorry. Fuck.”
I can’t take it anymore. I took my eye off the ball. I lost us the prize. I don’t exactly know how, but at the end of the day the responsibility for the farm, its future, for everything, lies with me.
And I’ve fucked it.
The worst part is, I miss her already. I’ve ruined our future, and driven her off, and now I have nothing, and no one, and I deserve nothing, and no one.
I get up, a little unsteady on my feet; I’ve drunk more wine than I thought.
“Does he really—” I hear Jonathan say as I leave the room, open bottle of wine in one hand, the other supporting me to ensure I don’t fall.
“Of course he does.” There’s the scrape of a chair, and then Stuart is following me down the corridor. “Going somewhere?”
I start up the stairs.
“Uh uh.” The floorboards creak behind me. “You don’t get to say shit like that, then hide in your room. I won’t be having it.”
“Leave me alone, Stuart.”
“So you can sit in silence and self-flagellate until you convince yourself that everything in the world is your fault? I don’t think so.”
I stop on the top step and spin around. “Isn’t it?”
“What?”
“My fault.”
“I don’t see how.”
I slump against the wall. “You warned me. You told me not to sleep with her, to keep it in my pants, but did I listen? And now the wedding is off, and we’re fucked, and I can’t…
” I shake my head. “I can’t keep it together anymore.
I thought I could, but I can’t. It’s my fault.
It’s all my bloody fault. And everything here, every scrap of wall and inch of brick reminds me of him.
He’s seeped into the very bones of this place, and I should have been here, if I’d been here, I could have— And now I can’t— And tomorrow—”
“Angus, it’s not your fault.”
I have never seen Stuart look so sad.
“I shouldn’t have left him, though, should I? I should have stayed the course. Been a better man, a better son. If I had…”
“Then what?” Stuart is angry now. I can hear it in the cut crystal of his voice, every word clipped and precise. “What do you think would have happened? Do you think you could have saved him, Angus? Is that it?”
“I could have tried,” I snap back, stung.
“And I’m sure that would have gone so well.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You were never going to save that man. And it wasn’t your job to try! Your Da was a black pit, God rest his soul, and all he ever did was drag you and Ross and Mason down into it. Leaving this farm – leaving him – was the best thing you ever did.”
“I—”
“You Mackenzie’s are too bloody stubborn, the lot of you. For years, I kept my mouth shut. Each time you came so close to getting out, and somehow he dragged you back. But he’s gone now, Angus, and I won’t be having it. That man does not get to keep ruining your life.”
Anger stirs within me, propelled by wine and hurt. “You have no idea—” I try to say, but Stuart cuts me off, his voice like the lash of a whip.
“No, you have no idea! You are not to blame for every single bad thing that happens in this world, and you are especially not to blame for him. I am tired of watching you beat yourself up again and again for something that is not, and has never been, your fault. Do you understand?” Stuart is breathing heavily.
“It isn’t your fault. And neither is this.
And I refuse to stand by while you repeat the same old fucking patterns, okay?
Talk to me, don’t talk to me, I don’t care, but don’t you fucking dare claim responsibility for this. You are not that fucking important.”
I wait until I’m sure Stuart isn’t going to say anything else. “Feel better?”
Stuart huffs a laugh. “A little.”
I sigh. “You’re a good friend, Stuart. You… You’ve done so much for me. And all I do is let you down. I let everyone down.”
Stuart throws up his hands. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Can you hear yourself?”
“No, but really. All this—” I gesture helplessly at the stairwell, meaning the farm, the barn, the money, the help, all of it. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I’m so sorry.”
“Did you ask Sophie to call the wedding off?”
“No, but—”
“Did you tell her fiancé to be a self-satisfied smug arsehole?”
“No. But, Stuart, you don’t—”
“Did you do such a terrible job satisfying Rowan that she asked her sister to runaway bride to spite you?”
“I know how to satisfy a woman,” I retort, offended.
“Then how,” he continues, “have you, personally, ruined this event for us?”
“I…”
“Or is your god complex showing again? Does everything that happens in the world revolve around you, or is it only the bad ones?”
“I do not have a god complex!”
“No, you have a saviour one.” Somehow, Stuart manages to look down his nose at me, despite being two steps lower and about half a foot shorter.
“Go and get some therapy, Angus. And in the meantime, stop blaming yourself for things that are out of your control, come back to the kitchen and get ridiculously, obnoxiously drunk with your family.”
“You really don’t blame me?”
Stuart smacks his head. “There isn’t enough wine in the world for this.”
“Did someone say wine?” Ross sticks his head around the bottom of the stairs.
“Aye, I’m parched.” Mason says from around the corner.