Talking through feelings
That was the magic formula, apparently. It looked so simple set down here on her list. She inhaled, hoping the wistfulness she’d seen in Ruth’s eyes (and the regretfulness in Mark’s) was enough to suggest their relationship was salvageable.
No amount of handholding and dancing could have saved her and Richard’s marriage, she knew. Were the Firths that far gone as well? Her gut told her that was not the case, that there was still so much hidden love and hope there, so much shared experience.
Yet, looking at her list, even Beatrice worried this was way over the top, that she’d gone too far this time, but that didn’t stop her getting online to book a taxi to take the Firths on their Burns Night outfit-buying trip tomorrow, and it hadn’t stopped her suggesting to Atholl this morning that Mr Firth mightreallybe keen to join in his willow-weaving classes, giving the men a chance to talk and for Atholl to gauge, ever so subtly, whether her hunch about the Firths was right – that they only needed a little encouragement to find their way back to each other. She’d also wanted to prove Atholl’s hunch wrong; that Mark might be having an affair.
She didn’t know if Atholl had done as she’d asked and she wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to convince Mark to go with him to the But and Ben. Maybe Mr Firth was already skulking away somewhere around the village with his laptop or phone.
Beatrice almost squealed with joy when Atholl’s text message arrived a few moments after making the taxi booking.
Right, I’ve got Mark up here at the willow school. He has the look of a man taken hostage. What is it you want me to do with him again?
Beatrice clapped her hands gleefully, then typed out her instructions.
Chapter Twenty-five
Man’s Work
Mark was watching Atholl hefting the bundles of willow whips from his workshop into the chilly wide open expanse of the willow beds behind the But and Ben.
‘Cheers for saying you’d help. It’s a two-man job this,’ Atholl said, indicating that the pair of them had a further walk to make, all the way through the willows towards one of the tall trees that bounded the property, behind which there was nothing but gently rising fields stretching inland until the earth lifted dramatically into snow-capped rolling mountains in the far distance. ‘You didnae have any plans for this morning, did yi?’ he asked, and Mark, possibly a little awed by the towering Scot, simply shook his head and told him it was nothing that couldn’t wait. The men’s breath created swirling white clouds in the chilly morning air.
‘Right, so this is the brake.’ Atholl stopped under the bare branches of a tall birch and laid his hand over the metal device strapped to its trunk.
Mark peered closer at the thing. ‘It looks like a duck’s bill, only metal. What does it do?’
Atholl smiled at the description. ‘It’s for stripping the bark off willow whips, making them better for basketry.’ Atholl was already preparing to demonstrate, pulling loose from a bundle one long whip with lots of spindly branches at the growing end. ‘Pass the whip between the two bits of metal like this and… can you take the other end? You push and pull it, running it through the brake, the whole length of the whip, until all the bark is sliced off.’
Mark grabbed the end and the two men worked the willow back and forth, the duck’s bill clamp taking off a thin outer layer and all of the branches, creating long green ribbons of the thinnest bark which fell to the ground.
‘I could do with one of these at home for peeling carrots,’ Mark said, impressed. ‘That’s my job after the golf on a Sunday while Ruth makes the Yorkshires.’
Atholl let Mark pull the willow free and examine the now supple, clean whip.
‘It smells fresh,’ Mark said running his thumbs over the sappy willow.
‘It’s braw, is it no?’ Atholl loaded up another whip and the men worked on. ‘I reckon we’ll get through a decent bundle afore the others arrive for their lesson.’
Mark worked silently at the willow, concentrating hard, not wanting to mess up in front of the expert.
‘You ken, long ago, there would be special willow stripping holidays for school bairns to help with their family’s brake work? Hector, my mentor – the man that taught me all this as an apprentice and sold me the But ’n’ Ben – he told me he remembered working every springtime when he was wee, helping his mother strip the willow.’
‘Kids don’t know they’re born these days,’ Mark said, removing another beautifully stripped branch and placing it with the others, then noticing his palms were already red and likely to callous. Mark was well and truly out of his comfort zone of spreadsheets, air conditioning, and the familiarity of legalese, the smell of the photocopier toner, and the kettle and biscuit tin always no more than three feet away at all times in his cosy office on the high street. His little kingdom.
Atholl watched him as they worked on in silence, wanting to draw him out. Eventually he asked, ‘Reckon you could get used to this? It’s therapeutic, I always think. Except when the straps fail and the brake falls off the tree.’ He set another new whip inside the brake.
‘I’ll have to take my jacket off in a minute if we carry on like this,’ Mark joked, stiffly, his cheeks puffing.
‘Who needs a gym when you can do this out in the fresh air, and with views like this, eh?’ Atholl added.
Mark looked around as though wondering at Atholl’s outdoor lifestyle. ‘I get all my exercise on the golf course. Trouble is, the fry-up in the clubhouse puts it all back on.’ Mark chuckled, beginning to enjoy the novelty of working up a sweat.
‘Is that your hobby, is it? The golf?’
