Face the Wind and Fly (5 page)

‘What—?’

‘Cuddle?’

‘I thought you were going to read.’

‘I am. I will. But not till you’ve given me some attention.’

He took his glasses off and rolled towards her. His hand started to stroke her breast obediently and she felt desire quicken. It was ... comfortable. Nice. She was annoyed at this because she wanted fireworks.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered afterwards, as he always did.

Habit can be reassuring, but it can also be worrying. Andrew’s breathing deepened and he started to snore gently.
Sophie Maneater.
The tiny question mark Ninian had planted inside Kate glowed briefly, then curled in on itself and went to sleep.

She extracted her briefing papers from her bag and started to read. Soon she was absorbed in a report on new developments in nacelle construction.

Chapter Six

When Ibsen and Lynn were married they lived in a small new-build in Summerfield, close to the primary school, where she was a teacher. Lynn kept it pin neat yet homely – his ex wife had a knack for homemaking.

They’d still be together if Violet hadn’t died.

Ibsen lay with his arm round Melanie McGillivray’s slumbering form and despite its seductive softness was filled only with sadness at the memory of what had happened.

Would he never get over it? Waking that morning, going into Violet’s little room, ready to pick her up, finding her—

Bugger
it!

He blinked as his eyes welled up. It had been five years now. In those terrible hours and days after their baby died in her cot, he and Lynn had pulled together as a team, but over time grief had taken them down different routes and being together only reminded them all the more of what they had made, and lost.

Melanie stirred and Ibsen extricated his arm and slid out of bed. He had maybe another half hour before she’d wake and the day would start. He padded noiselessly across to the window of the small cottage where he now lived – alone, except for Wellington and the occasional company of whoever he happened to be dating – and glanced out of the window, set deep in the thick stone wall. From here he could just see Forgie House, the modest mansion that had been built by some minor member of the Scottish royal family in the seventeenth-century. The house was simple and absolutely symmetrical, almost like a child’s drawing. Its main door was set on the first floor and was accessed by a curved staircase leading up to it on either side, which added a touch of elegance. As he watched, the sun rose above the nearby trees and splashed onto the walls. Ibsen smiled. The building was harled – faced with small pebbles mixed with lime – and painted ochre, so that in the sun it looked like a fat satsuma sitting in the verdant green of the lawns.

He pulled on his jeans and a tee shirt and went through to the kitchen. Wellington leapt to his feet, tail flapping, and looked up at him with round brown eyes.

‘Morning old thing. Yes, yes, it’ll be breakfast time shortly. Off you go now, do your business.’

He opened the door to the garden and the dog trotted out obediently. Ibsen filled the kettle.

After he and Lynn had finally acknowledged they could no longer hold their marriage together, he’d given up on draughtsmanship and embarked on a diploma in horticulture. Tam, his father, was head gardener on the Forgie House estate and when Ibsen qualified he was lucky enough to land a job as his seasonal assistant. The post came, miraculously, with the tenancy of the cottage next door to his parents and here, in the perfect tranquillity of the estate, he at last began to find his own peace.

With tea in his hand, Ibsen walked out into the small garden where he cultivated the dahlias that were his pride and joy. The early morning sun had just reached this small patch and he tilted his face towards it. There was real warmth there already. Good. As he thought, the snow had been a freak blip. All his instincts told him that in another week or so he’d be able to pinch out the tubers and plant them. He had twelve different varieties this year and he was eager to see which did best.

‘Morning, Ibs.’

Melanie emerged from the kitchen door, her endless legs disappearing finally under one of his old checked shirts, her strawberry-blonde mane tumbling messily down her back, both attributes reminding Ibsen just why he’d been so attracted to her in the first place.

‘Hi. You okay?’

‘Mmm.’ She yawned luxuriously and slid an arm round his neck. ‘I’d be better if you came back to bed for a bit.’

‘Tempting.’ He buried his face in her hair, which smelled vaguely of wood smoke. They’d lit a fire in the living room last night to ward off the last of the chill from the snow.

He felt the vibration of the phone in his pocket a couple of seconds before it rang.

Melanie pulled away, pouting.

He didn’t recognise the number and was tempted to ignore it. ‘Hello?’ he said reluctantly.

‘Mr Brown? This is the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Your sister has asked us to call you—’

Ibsen’s heart jump-started in alarm. ‘Cassie? Is she all right? Her baby’s not due for another month.’

‘There’ve been a few problems—’

‘I’m on my way.’ He shoved the phone back in his pocket. ‘I’ll have to run. It’s Cassie.’

Melanie’s mouth was still puckered in a sulk, but she recovered herself quickly. ‘Can you wait five minutes,’ she pleaded, ‘and drop me in Hailesbank?’

Every instinct urged Ibsen to head off now, this very second, but he could hardly abandon Melanie here with no transport. ‘Hurry, then, love. I’ve really got to go.’

He whistled for Wellington and saw him racing across the huge expanse of grass, ears back, tail streaming. ‘Good boy, we’d better get you fed quickly.’

Cassie and Ian had been trying for years to start a family. Twice his sister had miscarried, a third time she’d gone to term, but the baby was stillborn. Watching her mourn each tiny passing of life had torn him apart though it wasn’t till Violet died that he fully understood what she’d gone through. She was nearly forty now and this baby might be Cassie’s last chance. Ian was working offshore and his parents had gone off for a week in the sun planning to be back in plenty of time to support her. If something had gone wrong—

He raced to the van and turned the engine over. Thank goodness it started this morning, sometimes it could be contrary.

‘Here, boy, up you go.’ He opened the back doors for Wellington.

Why hadn’t they called him earlier? Who’d taken Cassie in? It was too early, by a long way. Surely that was bad news?

Melanie jumped in beside him.

‘That was quick. Thanks, love.’

‘No bother. I know how much it means to you. Just drop me off at the end of the High Street, okay?’

Ibsen swung the van out of the estate gates and down towards Hailesbank. ‘You’ll be hellish early.’ Melanie worked as a hairdresser in the town. It was barely seven thirty and she wasn’t due at work till nine. ‘Sorry.’

‘I’ll survive. I’ll go get a bacon buttie.’

‘I’ll make it up to you, honest.’

In Hailesbank, Melanie turned her face to his for a kiss. ‘Hope everything’s okay. Call me later?’

Ibsen cursed as the van hiccupped away. Time he looked for a new one.
Don’t let me down now
. At least it was still early. He’d miss the worst of the rush hour traffic.

Later, he called Melanie.

‘Is she all right?’

Ibsen, still lightheaded with relief, said, ‘She’s had the baby. A girl. She has eclampsia.’

‘That’s dangerous, isn’t it?’

‘Very. But she’s okay.’

‘Great.’ There was a pause. ‘Can I see you tonight? Take up where we left off?’

It had taken Ibsen five years to get through the grief, then the divorce. When the decree nisi finally came though, he’d taken a vow never to get serious again.

‘I don’t do commitment,’ he now told each new girlfriend, maybe not on the first date, but on the second, because a second date was, in its own way, a kind of commitment.

‘Great, I like it that way myself,’ they’d say, or, ‘Suits me.’ But in his experience that attitude quickly changed. After a few dates they’d be on the phone, texting to ask where he was or why he hadn’t called, or when they’d see him next.

Melanie McGillivray was perilously close to becoming possessive and with every emotion stretched tight and quivering from the dramatic birth of his niece and Cassie’s brush with death, he had no room to spare for her demands right now.

‘Sorry, love, I can’t. I’ve got to get back here to see Cass, there’s a hundred people to call and anyway, I’m picking the parents up from the airport at midnight. Do you mind?’

‘Oh. Okay. When, then?’

‘I’ll call you.’

On any other day Ibsen might have been tempted to linger around the hospital and pop in to see Cassie again in the afternoon, but this morning he had his first appointment with a new client. Frank Griffiths lived in one of the houses on the main street in Forgie, one of the pretty, painted cottages near the old corner shop. He remembered going in there as a boy, cycling down from Summerfield and spending his pocket money on sweets and pop. There was no shop there nowadays, though, it had closed years ago – no need for a corner shop in a village where everyone has posh cars and likes to buy uniformly shaped courgettes and tomatoes that have no taste. Ibsen hated shopping, disliked supermarkets and was, in any case, spoiled by having garden-fresh vegetables on hand and on demand.

He found a bell hidden under a climbing rose and pushed it, while Wellington sniffed around the roots and relieved himself to establish his presence.

No-one answered.

He was just about to push it again when a lean figure in blood-red corduroys and a richly patterned sweater strolled out from an arched gateway beside the cottage.

‘Morning Ibsen, good to see you. No-one ever uses the front door.’

‘Morning Mr Griffiths.’ Ibsen took the outstretched hand and shook it.

‘Call me Frank. Hello boy, what’s your name?’ He bent and patted Wellington’s head. ‘Lovely coat, you keep him in good condition.’

‘That’s Wellington.’

Frank laughed. ‘Don’t you need two of them, then? Come on in, we’ll go round this way.’ He turned back the way he’d come, under the arch. It was the first view Ibsen had had of it and he stopped, astonished.

‘Like it?’ Frank Griffiths looked at him, obviously pleased by his reaction.

‘It looks amazing. Not what I expected at all.’

Amusement was evident on the elderly man’s face. ‘What did you expect?’

‘Something much smaller, for a start. I didn’t realise these old cottages had such big gardens.’

‘Put you off?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I’ve done it myself for years, but I’m getting older. Myra – my wife – tells me it’s time to get help, and there’s only so long you can put up a fight against the wife, isn’t that right?’

‘I wouldn’t know, sir, I’m not married,’ Ibsen admitted.

Frank laughed. ‘Don’t know how lucky you are. Want a tour?’

All Ibsen’s work was by word-of-mouth recommendation. He’d met Frank Griffiths at another client’s house one day and although fitting in an extra four hours a week was going to stretch him, he’d taken to the man. The garden was semi formal, with well-trimmed low box hedges arranged geometrically to make an abstract pattern in the shape of a rose. At the centre was a large stone planter. Soon, he could see, it would be brimming over with trailing lobelia – white, he suspected, maybe the dark purple variety as well, because that was clearly the theme of this garden. Filling one box-hedged ‘petal’ he could see glorious white peonies, their heads bowed under the weight of their own abundance. Another was a blaze of purple and lavender and white tulips. A third contained heavy-headed hellebores and early-flowering white roses.

Ibsen let out a low whistle. ‘This has taken some work – and a great deal of planning.’

‘Years. I get a bit obsessive about it, I do admit.’

Round the outside of the garden, formality gave way to a more relaxed style. Magnolia candles dripped their wax to set a riot of azaleas ablaze. The bleeding blooms on a large flowering currant contrasted with the green and red flames of a pieris. Ibsen was in heaven. Wellington, sniffing his way along the bottom of the high wall, was in heaven too.

Frank said, ‘I hate to admit it, but the work’s getting a bit too much for me.’

‘Happy to help. Where do you want me to start?’

‘This rose.’ Frank stopped by a large bush that had grown woody. ‘It needs to be rooted out. Think you can manage it?’

‘No problem. I’ll get started right away.’

Ibsen never minded heavy work. Heavy work cleared his mind and flattened out the lumps and bumps in whatever emotional path he was on at the time – and today the bumps felt more like mountains.

Two hours later, though, he was thankful when Frank offered him tea.

‘Take a break, Ibsen. Myra’s made a cuppa, come and sit in the conservatory and we’ll talk grafting and pruning.’

Ibsen’s clients were usually out at work and most of the time he drank tea from his flask or just gulped water. Frank Griffiths was clearly going to be a client of a different sort – he was zealous about his garden and wanted to share his passion. Ibsen didn’t get many chances to share his love of plants with someone knowledgeable and he followed Frank eagerly.

The conservatory faced the garden and was essentially a glassed-in courtyard between the oldest part of the cottage and a later extension. Ibsen sank onto a wooden bench, grateful for a break. Wellington, exhausted by his own busy explorations, sank at his feet, yawned, stretched and fell asleep.

‘How are you getting on?’

‘I’ve managed to hack the rose bush back, but getting the roots out is a bit of a challenge.’

‘It’s an old bush. Well rooted.’

‘So I’ve discovered.’ Ibsen ran his fingers across the palm of his hand. Used as he was to hard work, he was going to have a new blister.

‘You’ve heard about this damned wind farm, I take it?’ Frank handed him a mug of tea and held out a plate of shortbread.

‘On Summerfield Law?’ Ibsen bit into the shortbread. Very good and obviously homemade. ‘I’ve heard about it.’

‘What do you think?’

Ibsen hesitated, unsure about what Frank wanted him to say and unwilling to alienate a new client. He said cautiously, ‘I’d like to know a bit more about it.’

‘Ghastly things. Blight on our landscape. You’re going to be staring at it, aren’t you? From that cottage of yours in the Forgie House grounds? Shouldn’t have thought you’d be keen. They’re useless things anyway, they don’t even work half the time.’

‘I’ve never been able to understand – if they don’t work, why build them?’

‘Subsidies,’ Frank growled. ‘Bloody Labour government thought it was a good idea, people jumped on the bandwagon to make a killing, and the damn things have sprouted up everywhere. Well, not in my neighbourhood, not if I can help it. Someone has to take a stand.’

‘Oh, I absolutely agree.’ Ibsen had his own reasons for not wanting a wind farm on Summerfield Law, but it was one only his family would understand, and Lynn. ‘But—’ he tried to be fair, ‘—we need energy, I guess, and no-one wants a new nuclear plant on their doorstep, they’re so dangerous.’