‘Maybe we’ll keep walking,’ he said decidedly, and Ally followed him on up the pass, their laughter getting lost in the dampening air.
Ally wished they were still holding hands as they climbed up towards the bothy, its white walls and grey roof just visible at the top of the curve of the pass, but the walking was getting harder and she had to pick her steps alongside a shallow spring that had come from nowhere and was making the walking soggy underfoot.
‘So…’ Jamie said from a few paces behind her. ‘Any news of Switzerland?’ The question made her heart soar as high as the buzzards.
He’d remembered. She’d not mentioned it since the night at the Ptarmigan, but he was still thinking about the possibility of her leaving. That had to mean something.
‘Well, when you were recuperating, I had a second interview,’ she called over her shoulder, wishing she could see how that news landed. She didn’t dare glance back in case he thought he was being tested, observed for signs of distress.
She told him in a jolly way all about how she’d presented the glamorous Andreas Favre and Barbara Huber, as well as someone from HR, with her plans for growing the repair shop and café as a shared space with the aim of repairing their community, sharing skills at risk of being lost, bringing people together and combatting loneliness. She told him about how meeting up with her girlfriends had been the deciding factor. She’d seen how isolated and lonely they were, just like she’d been, and how tough things were, and she’d come up with her strategy. He’d listened as she outlined all the suggestions the repair café experts had come up with to help her make it a reality too.
‘And I presented all that stuff to Future Proof Planet, along with how you helped me bring people back to the repair shop after the whole stolen jewellery thing.’
There was admiration in Jamie’s voice when he said, ‘I hope you took credit for that yourself and didn’t mention me.’
‘Of course I mentioned you in my presentation.’ It was getting harder to walk and talk. She gulped for breath. ‘It was a collaboration. Fifty-fifty as far as I remember? You were running around knocking on just as many doors as me. And you got snooty Carenza on side. I couldn’t have done that without you.’
The bothy was getting bigger and the clouds grew lower. Ally had to swipe droplets of moisture from her face as they walked deeper into the mountain mists.
‘We made a good team,’ he said.
The words hung amidst the suspended rain droplets as they walked the last few yards to the squat little stone cottage, one of many all across the Highlands, left unlocked for walkers needing rest and shelter.
They did make a good team. Ally couldn’t deny it. Jamie was calm and firm and persistent. He saw the good in everyone. She’d learned recently how tenacious she really was, and she had an innate appetite for fixing things and a curiosity about the world that had only recently been re-ignited, in part due to the man who was now coming to join her in front of the door of the bothy, his hand reaching for the handle at the same time as hers.
Somehow, he was reading her mind because he said the exact thing she was thinking at that moment.
‘I hope there’s nobody else inside. I want it to ourselves.’
His hand on hers, they turned the handle and pushed the door open.
21
Peat-scented and low-ceilinged, the bothy slouched tiny in the grand landscape, waiting to welcome them. They clomped inside, Ally wondering aloud if she dare take her boots off, the backs were rubbing at her heels, and she was sure her feet had swollen. But would she get her boots back on if she did?
Jamie sat on the low bench at the door as Ally sealed them inside. She slipped the thick wooden latch, knowing he’d notice.
He was throwing his running shoes off in a careless way. ‘Get cosy!’ he said. Then, thinking better of it, he immediately reached for them, placing them neatly side by side.
There wasn’t much to the little shelter: stone walls and a fireplace, a threadbare rug, probably seventy years old by the looks of it, spiderwebs and a small window under the eaves.
‘A hobbit house,’ Jamie said, delighted with the place, now unpacking their picnic.
‘I wonder who was here last?’ Ally said, lifting an old jumper off the back of the only chair in the place.
‘Whoever it was, I love what they’ve done with it.’ Jamie was about to unzip his jacket but thought better of it. ‘Are you cold too?’
Together, they lit the fire with kindling and the smallest of the dry logs from the pile by the hearth. It was slow and smoky but better than nothing.
‘We need to make sure that’s extinguished properly when we leave,’ Ally said, not remotely wanting to think about leaving.
She lifted the lid on a polystyrene storage box in the corner and found sealed bags of dry pasta inside. On the floor stood a container of fresh drinking water, ready for an emergency and a long stay if needed.
Jamie had unpacked their picnic and Ally passed him her bottle of handwash.
As the fire tried its best in the hearth, the world beyond the little window under the eaves grew duller and further away.
‘I could live here,’ Ally announced, fancifully.
