Face the Wind and Fly

FACE THE WIND AND FLY

Jenny Harper

She builds wind farms, he detests them. Can they ever generate love?

After fifteen happy years of marriage, Kate Courtenay discovers that her charismatic novelist husband is spending more and more of his time with a young fan. She throws herself into her work, a controversial wind farm that’s stirring up tempers in the local community. Sparks fly when she goes head to head against its most outspoken opponent, local gardener Ibsen Brown – a man with a past of his own.

But a scheme for a local community garden brings the sparring-partners together, producing the sort of electricity that threatens to short-circuit the whole system.

In memory of my dear and much-missed friend and critic,

Jan Fairley 1949-2012

Acknowledgements

I didn’t know much about wind farms when I started writing this book, so I am very grateful to SSE, who took me on a visit to one of their larger sites and gave me many insights into how wind turbines work and how they sit in the landscape. Wind farms are often controversial and there is a long process of education and engagement with local communities prior to planning approval, all of which were explained to me with great clarity.

I’d like to pay tribute to those writers who have supported me through their teaching, in particular Anita Burgh and Katie Fforde, whose experience, patience and belief in my writing abilities have been hugely valuable and much appreciated. Also, this book would certainly not have been published if it had not been for the endless support and encouragement of my writing buddies Jennifer Young and Dianne Haley – thank you so much. Likewise, I owe a great debt to others who have encouraged me. They include many members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, my friends in the e-group writersscotland, and members of a number of other forums. Also to Jan Sprenger, aka Rosie Dean, who has been of particular help during the process of publishing.

Thanks are due to my wonderful daughter-in-law, Sarah Carter, who has given me useful advice on HR matters and long-term encouragement; and to my friend Susan Inch who, like my heroine Kate, loves scarves. I’d like to thank Mrs Jane Burnett, who gave me many insights into life in a small village, and Elizabeth Garrett, in whose beautiful retreat on the east coast of Scotland many thousands of words of this novel were written.

And finally, I cannot express enough thanks to my long-suffering husband, Robin, who puts up with long absences while I’m at my computer, and is expected to contribute ideas for both plot and character at the drop of a hat – a challenge to which he rises magnificently.

Note

The company AeGen, where Kate Courtenay works, is an imaginary company, and any resemblance to any actual company is completely accidental. 

Note: Hailesbank and the Heartlands

The small market town of Hailesbank is born of my imagination, as are the surrounding villages of Forgie and Stoneyford and the Council housing estate known as Summerfield, which together form The Heartlands. I have placed the area, in my mind, to the east of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh.

The first mention of The Heartlands was made by Agrippa Centorius in AD77, not long after the Romans began their surge north in the hopes of conquering this savage land. ‘This is a place of great beauty,’ wrote Agrippus, ‘and its wildness has clutched my heart.’ He makes several mentions thereafter of The Heartlands. There are still signs of Roman occupation in Hailesbank, which has great transport links to the south (and England) and the north, especially to Edinburgh, and its proximity to the sea and the (real) coastal town of Musselburgh made it a great place to settle. The Georgians and Victorians began to develop the small village, its clean air and glorious views, rich farming hinterland and great transport proving highly attractive.

The River Hailes  flows through the town. There is a Hailes Castle in East Lothian (it has not yet featured in my novels!), but it sits on the Tyne.

Hailesbank has a Town Hall, a High Street, from which a number of ancient small lanes, or vennels, run down to the river, which once was the lifeblood of the town.

In my novels, characters populate the shops, cafes and pubs in Hailesbank and the pretty adjoining village of Forgie, with Summerfield inhabitants providing another layer of social interaction.

You can meet more inhabitants of the town and area in
Maximum Exposure
and
Loving Susie
– with more titles to follow!

Chapter One

‘You’re late,’ Andrew Courtenay said unnecessarily as his wife Kate hurried into the kitchen, a blur of arms and legs and shopping. He had already changed into his dinner suit and was lounging against the island unit in the middle of the room sipping white wine, a perfect picture of relaxation and readiness.

Kate dropped the bags and stared at him.

‘What?’ He smoothed down his tie and patted his hair self-consciously. ‘Did I spill curry down my front the last time I had this on? Should I have clipped my nose hairs?’

Andrew cut a fine figure, but then, he always had done. When they first met, she had just graduated but he’d been a young-looking forty-one. Sixteen years into their marriage, he inhabited his skin with assuredness. Master and Commander. Her master. At least, the owner of her heart – but not, right now, of her affections.  Her mind still whirling with the news she’d been given at work she said, more curtly than she meant to, ‘I thought you said you’d drive.’

‘Ah.’ He studied the glass in his hand and then looked at the clock. ‘I forgot. I was in need. Martyne has been particularly difficult today.’

Martyne Noreis was the eponymous hero of Andrew’s bestselling medieval murder mysteries.

Martyne Noreis and the Circle of Fire

Martyne Noreis and the Woman in Scarlet

Martyne Noreis an
d —

Nine of them, the tenth to be published shortly.

‘Martyne was difficult?’ she echoed, thinking of the project she’d just been handed and wondering what could possibly be so challenging about a character that had never existed.

Andrew wrote his novels in the small room next to the front door of Willow Corner, their home in the pretty conservation village of Forgie. His study overlooked the garden on two sides and had book-covered walls and a leather sofa. In winter, Andrew lit the fire. While Kate scurried into whatever the weather chose to throw at her, frequently with her hard hat in one hand and jacket and boots in the other, Andrew sidled down the comfortably carpeted stairs a civilised hour or so later, put a match to the kindling, and settled to his thoughts without ever having to put a toe out of the door. Where Andrew’s life was lived from the study, Kate spent much of hers at the top of some wind-blown hill staring at wind turbines, or where they would shortly appear.

Kate liked wind turbines, which was good, because her job was to build them, whole farms of the things. Now, though, standing in the kitchen in mud-spattered trousers and still with her high-visibility vest over her jacket, she wondered why the hell she’d picked engineering when there must be a hundred other less challenging careers she could have chosen.

‘I really could do with a— Oh, never mind.’

Sometimes she felt she had to fight with the fictional Martyne and his perfectly beautiful, perfectly sensible wife Ellyn for Andrew’s attention, but she and Andrew had agreed their division of labour years ago. She was to be free to pursue her ambitions as an engineer, he to follow his dream of writing and, because he worked from home, to look after their son Ninian. Somewhere in the small print of that agreement lay all the dull minutiae of daily tasks, negotiated and renegotiated across the years.

She crossed the room to kiss him. The wine on his lips tasted tantalising. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, memories of this morning’s difficult meeting fading as his arms came round her, ‘I’ll have some champagne when we get there. I can survive.’

‘No, I’m safe, this is my first. I’ll do my duty.’

‘Really? I don’t mind. He’s your son.’

Tonight they were going to her stepson Harry’s engagement party. It would be a celebration, of course, but she knew it wouldn’t be quite as simple as that. When your stepson is older than you are, nothing is ever straightforward.

‘Kate,’ Andrew said, his eyes deep brown and burnished, like chestnuts after roasting. Their expression as he looked down at her was at once amused and resigned. ‘I’ll drive. One drink and you’re dangerous.’

He knew her well. She was small and slim and alcohol hit her system quickly. She kissed him again and smiled. ‘Okay. Thanks. Is Ninian ready?’

‘He’s in protest mode.’

‘Surely he can wear a tie for once, for his brother?’

‘You’d think so. Will you try?’

Kate loved her son, but Ninian was now a teenager and therefore unfathomable. ‘Should I be stern or pleading?’ As if it would make any difference.

‘Jolly?’

‘Right. I can do jolly. ‘Could you—?’ She gestured at the shopping helplessly, thinking of the shower, and choosing a dress, and shoes...

He glanced at his watch.

‘I know, I know, I’ll be quick.’

She knocked on Ninian’s door as she passed it. ‘Nearly ready? Ten minutes. Do you want to borrow one of Dad’s ties?’

Another grunt.

‘Ninian? Did you hear me?’

‘Yeah, I heard.’ Gruff but not surly. At least that was a bonus. ‘You’re all right.’

She took this to mean ‘I’ll find a tie’, and turned to her own needs.

Short hair was a blessing. It received quick attention as she showered, and a rub with a towel was all it needed afterwards. Kate – slim, energetic and well organised – was mistress of the quick change. All she ever needed was a minute to assess her mood, because her mood dictated which scarf she would wear.  In the male-dominated, frenetically busy world she inhabited, the scarf was a small but defiantly feminine gesture and what had started as a quirk had become an addiction. She hoarded scarves with a passion. Her collection nestled in a special section of her wardrobe, outnumbering her clothes by a factor of twenty – she needed nothing more than a couple of well-cut suits and some neat shift dresses in black, or white, or a plain, bold colour, because the chosen scarf set any outfit off to perfection. Draped, wound round and round her neck, knotted, tied, looped through itself or thrown over her shoulders as the mood took her, Kate’s scarf was her weather vane and her security blanket.

She wriggled into a black Moschino shift and put on the pearl choker Andrew had given her for their tenth wedding anniversary, because tonight was a special occasion. A pair of improbable heels added height and sophistication. She closed her eyes. Which scarf? The Georgina Von Etzdorf pansy-printed velvet? The Versace with its bold Greek key-pattern half-border and riotous scarlet poppies? The Weston agate silk-satin, all pale blues and browns and white?

Her eyes snapped open. She had it.

Twelve shelves faced her, each stacked neatly and colour-sorted. Kate knew exactly where each scarf was stored. She reached in and pulled out one of her treasures, the fantastic hand-woven Botan Peony silk and cashmere gauze in taupe and black, by legendary Japanese tattoo artist Horiyoshi the Third. For a moment she fingered it lovingly, admiring the subtly-drawn flowers, then she draped it carefully round her neck, rearranging it to ensure that the pearls were visible.

A touch of smoky grey eye colour and a dab of mascara were all that was still needed. Elfin, her best friend Charlotte called her: ‘Audrey Hepburn in a hard hat.’ Kate surveyed herself in the mirror. No sign of Hard-hat Kate now, the transformation from business diva to soirée siren was complete.

She ran downstairs and opened the front door. It was April and all week the sun had been shining – Edinburgh had been hotter than Palma, Rome or Hawaii. Now, out of the blue, it had started snowing and the garden had turned white. She looked at it with dismay.

‘I should be wearing boots,’ she called to Andrew.

‘Wear boots then,’ he responded unsympathetically, then shouted up the stairs, ‘Ninian! We’re off. Hurry up.’

She knew it was too much to expect understanding, on this issue at least. All Andrew’s imaginative empathy was in the Middle Ages, where Ellyn Noreis would be prosaically practical about boots. She threw on a coat, put her handbag over her head to protect it from the spiralling snowflakes, and ran the few yards to the car. She really didn’t want to be late, she hated being late and the last thing she wanted was an excuse for Harry to pass judgement on her timekeeping.

Ninian bundled into the back of the car a moment later and slammed the door. She swivelled round to look at him and gave an appreciative whistle. ‘Wow.’

‘What?’ Her fifteen-year-old glowered warningly.

‘You look great, that’s all.’ She turned away, smiling. Ninian never wore a tie outside of the dreaded school uniform – and then usually knotted at half-mast – but tonight smartness was mandatory.

Andrew slid in and started to reverse the car down Willow Corner’s short drive. He swung left at the gate, down the hill past the church, and slithered into the outskirts of Hailesbank. Kate, usually talkative, was still thinking about work and besides, she was wound up about tonight’s celebration. Andrew’s first wife Val would be there.  Sixteen years had passed since Kate’s affair with Andrew had precipitated a bitter divorce and she was sure that Val had still not forgiven her.

They crossed the River Hailes and headed down to the coast. When they reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, they drove through Portobello towards the city. Here the snow eased.

‘So what’ll I do all evening?’ Ninian asked from the back of the car.

‘Talk to people. Be nice. You’ll enjoy it.’

He grunted. ‘Bet it’ll be boring. I won’t know anyone.’

‘Harry and Jane’ll be there. And Charlotte Proctor.’

Another grunt.

Ninian had been a delightful child, whose main challenges were not boisterousness and cheek but shyness and caution. Right now the hormones were kicking in. His voice had broken and his shoulders were getting broad, and the natural, unselfconscious charm of boyhood had been replaced with a gaucheness that Kate sometimes found hard to watch.

‘Will there be speeches?’

She swung down the vanity mirror and got out her lipstick. Under the pretence of touching up her make-up, she was able to sneak a look at Ninian without having to swing round. Her sandy-haired, gangly boy was growing private. Once, she used to delight in hopping into the bath with him, her special treat to both of them after she got home from a long day at work, her chance to catch up on ‘Mum’ time. That stopped without either of them really noticing when Ninian reached six or thereabouts and she had never found a way to replace the comfortable affinity of such moments. And now, she sensed, her child was beginning to slip away from her. She swiped the stick across her lips and pursed them together. ‘I’m sure Harry will say something.’

‘Harry’s always got something to say,’ Andrew commented as he turned the car into London Road.

She smiled, but was wise enough not to let Andrew see. Experience had taught her to avoid criticising her husband’s son.

‘Why does he want a party, anyway?’ Ninian grumbled. ‘We already had dinner out.’

She tried to read his expression in the mirror but he was staring out of the side window. ‘It’s a chance for our families to meet. Just be happy for your brother. Make it a night to remember. It’ll be your turn one day.’

Ninian snorted. ‘No way.’

Andrew turned his head to glance at her and she had to work hard to stop herself laughing. So far as she was aware, Ninian hadn’t woken up to the lure of girls yet, but he would. And when her handsome, funny, essentially likeable young son sloughed off the gauche trappings of the teenager and recovered his inherent charm – look out world.

She flipped the mirror up and settled back into her seat. Tonight would be another ritual dance in this complicated family of hers, and she needed to be ready.