Chapter Thirty-Eight
Angus
“You have to turn the hot tap all the way before anything will come out – not halfway, or some of the way, all the way. And the downstairs toilet blocks easy, so make sure you don’t let anyone put anything except toilet paper in it.
There’s a plunger under the kitchen sink, and another one in the barn if you need them, and I left some extra bottles of bleach in there too—”
“Angus—”
“Oh, and Doug is coming next Thursday to look at the barn door. I’ve fixed it so many bloody times, but for some reason it’s still listing, so hopefully he’ll have better luck with it than I have.
And that reminds me, the electric bill is due on the second of each month, but you can save a shit ton if you lay a fire in the kitchen when it starts getting cold.
I’ve chopped enough wood to get you through most of this year, but call me if you start getting low, and I can chop some more, no trouble. And—”
“Angus!” Stuart puts both of his hands on my shoulders and shakes me. “Stop.”
“Sorry.”
I look at the farm buildings around me, breathing in their familiarity, and then down at the bunch of keys I’m still grasping in my hands. I’ve been holding on so tightly, some of my fingers have indents where I’ve pressed the metal into my flesh.
“We don’t have to do this,” Stuart says. “It’s not too late to back out.”
“The paperwork is signed. The farm and the business, they’re yours.”
“We can call the lawyers. God knows they’ll be happy to take more of our bloody money.”
I force my fist to relax. “No. It’s okay,” I say, holding out the keys. “I don’t want to back out.”
“Are you sure? Because you look like you’re in pain. Are you in pain? Any sweating? Difficulty breathing? Light-headedness?” He peers at me closely. “Ross and Mason will kill me if you have a heart attack.”
“I’m not going to have a heart attack.”
“It’s a big step. I’d understand if you’re not ready.”
“I’m ready.” I push the keys towards him again. “Please, Stuart. Take them.”
“Alright.” Stuart fiddles with them, turning them first one way and then the other, as if he can’t quite believe they’re real – or that he’s holding them. “You’re still a part owner, you know that? That’s what tenants in common means. I’ve bought into the property. I haven’t bought you out.”
“I know. The lawyers explained it to me. I’m not a total idiot.”
He gives me a long look. “You can come back here anytime. There will always be a room for you. It’s still your farm.”
“Not my farm. Our farm.”
Stuart smiles. “Our farm. I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.”
Our farm. I roll the words around in my head. They feel good. Light. As though I’m part of something, instead of responsible for something. Which is exactly the point.
“When’s Jonathan coming up?”
“Tomorrow. He said he needed an extra night ‘to say goodbye to the city’.” Stuart shakes his head. “Bloody Londoners.”
Bloody Londoners indeed. One bloody Londoner in particular, whose voice I can’t stop hearing, whose touch I can’t stop missing.
The question comes out before I realise I’m asking it. “Do you think there’s a world in which she’d forgive me?”
Stuart, ever perceptive, doesn’t need to ask which she I’m referring to. “You were an arsehole,” he says with biting honesty, “and it’s been a year. And you didn’t know each other very long.”
“Right.”
Of course she won’t. I fucked it up too badly. And now I’ve waited too long. Who am I kidding? There’s no way Rowan has been waiting around for me.
“She’s still on your mind then?” Stuart asks.
“All the fucking time,” I admit. “Close my eyes, Rowan. Lie down to sleep, she’s there. Look at the sky, think about her eyes. I thought it would go away, but…”
But without her, the world isn’t as bright. The sunsets are dimmer, and the rain is colder, and my smiles are smaller, and even the view from the top is less beautiful because she isn’t there to see it.
I’ve never felt this way before, not for Evelyn, with whom I shared my first kiss, nor Kat, who took my virginity in the back of her dad’s truck, or Terry, who I dated on-and-off through university, sleeping cramped in her student single bed.
Not even Violet, who I had it in my head to marry, before everything happened with Da.
None of them have even come close.
I shake the thought away. “It’s stupid. Forget I said anything. Like you say, it’s not like she’ll forgive me anyway.”
“I never said that.”
“You did.” I tick the reasons off with my fingers. “You said I’m an arsehole, which I am, and it’s been a year, which it has, and we didn’t know each other very long, which we don’t.”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I didn't hear the words she won’t forgive you in there.”
“You know what I mean. It’s implied.” My neck is growing hot, and under my clothes I feel itchy. A year of therapy has helped me learn how to open up, but at heart I’m still the same Angus, and every instinct I have is screaming at me to end this conversation fast.
“It’s unlikely,” Stuart says slowly. “It's not impossible. You’d have to apologise.”
“Of course.”
“It would have to be sincere.”
“Right.”
“You would have to use words.”
“Stuart,” I growl.
“What?” But he’s chuckling. “Why now?”
I glance around us at the farm. Same weathered stone buildings. Same ivy growing up the walls. Same ramshackle eaves. Everything the same, and yet utterly changed. No longer mine. Ours.
“Last year, I wasn’t ready to feel about anything the way I feel about Rowan. Da, everything that happened with him, I still hadn’t processed it. And Ross was right. I was scared.”
“I can’t tell you how much I hate that you said that.”
“Ross is right?” I shudder. “Awful.”
“You cannot tell him.”
“I’d rather roll naked in nettles.”
Stuart is quiet for a moment. “So what’s changed?”
Wind whistles through the courtyard, stirring the dandelions poking their yellow heads between the flagstones. It smells of late spring: wet and loamy, the last bite of frost, the perfume of flowers, the promise of warmer days ahead.
“Time, I suppose. Therapy. Time again.” I sigh.
“I’m not my Da. No matter what happens, I’m never going to turn into him.
I couldn’t save him. Fuck knows you were right about that.
But I can save myself. I can make different choices.
Better choices. And Rowan is one of them.
I wasn’t ready then, but I am now. If she’ll forgive me. ”
“I’m so happy to hear you say that, Angus.” Stuart’s eyes gleam with unshed tears.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
“I’m not!” He holds up his hands and blinks rapidly. “Promise!”
“If you start, I’ll start.”
“I’m not starting!” Stuart turns away, only looking back when he has himself under control. “You like her that much then?”
“I love her,” I admit, saying the words out loud for the first time.
They feel right.
“Then go after her. Show up at her door. Stand outside with a boombox. Do the whole grand gesture thing. Women love that shit.” He claps me on the back. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“She slams the door in my face and tells me she never wants to see me again.”
A shiver runs through me at the thought.
“At least you’ll know.”
“I don’t have her address.”
“We both know someone who can help with that.”
“Who?” I search my mind. Bloody Ewan. Of course.
Stuart already has his phone out and is typing rapidly. “Oh,” he says, peering at the screen. “Oh!”
“What?”
Instead of Rowan’s address, Ewan has sent Stuart a screenshot of an Instagram post, five aubergine emojis, and a message: You’re welcome, grandpa.
I grab the phone and zoom in. “Is this what I think it is?”
I know that loch. I know that campsite. Rowan isn’t in London. She’s here.
In the chaos of the sale, I’ve lost track of time. But it’s the second week of May. The first day of the walk. Rowan knows I do it every year. My heart skips a beat. Has she really come all this way? Could she… But no. It’s too much to hope that she’s here for me.
Still…
She’s so close. She’s here. And I love her.
“I have to go.” I can barely keep my feet still.
“Wait, what?” Stuart’s face is a picture of confusion.
“I have to find her.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“Well, fuck.”
But I’m already running. Out of the courtyard, down the rutted track, away from the farm. Now that I’ve made the decision, now that I know, there isn’t another second to waste.
In the distance, I can hear Stuart on the phone.
“Babe. You’ll never guess what Angus is about to do…”