‘You see, the thing is, the surgery approached us here at the shed about a social prescribing scheme where patients can join in with the building of a garden just out there.’ Murray pointed through the wall of the shed. ‘It’ll be made using recycled and repurposed stuff, fully organic, zero waste. It’s for the patients’ mental wellbeing. To get outside, meet new folk. You’re being loaned to us, to help with the native wildflower and tree planting, aren’t you? Our wildlife expert.’
Finlay held up a hand, shielding himself. ‘Not me.’ He attempted another escape.
Too bad for one of the other rangers, getting saddled with that. Though, from what he’d observed of his ranger colleagues, they’d be pretty well cut out for this kind of thing. Chattering, eager, sociable. Sure, Finlay knew wild plants and trees and the names and habitats of all the wee sneaking creatures, but so would the others. ‘I’ll be off.’
He took steady strides towards the doors and it seemed he really was going to make it outside to freedom this time.
He ignored the startled silence and the feeling of eyes at his back as he escaped into the floodlit carpark, lurching away from the old mill house, feet crunching hard on the gravel. That had been a close scrape, and way too much idle chattering for his liking.
There was just enough time to collect his book reservations at the library before it closed, and so that’s where he headed, planning a speedy in and out with zero chit-chat, even though there was one librarian who always made reading recommendations for him, and, admittedly, she was usually bang on with ideas for stories he’d enjoy, but when he got there he found the library closed and so died the tiny light that had been burning within him for a backpack heavy with new reads. So, he gripped at his rations tin and worked his legs, left right, left right, along the last bit of the high street towards the turning he’d take for the mountain path, unsatisfied.
The sign for Cairn Dhu doctor’s surgery at the edge of town flickered with a dodgy bulb. He couldn’t account for it catching his eye otherwise.
There’d be no community project meetings for him. Definitely not. No getting involved with repair shop folk, even red-haired men with spiked auburn lashes.
He was relieved to be getting away with his peace (and his precious block of sweet tablet) safely preserved.
He stalked away from the lights, slowing only to tear at the paper around the tablet, taking a hungry bite, working his jaw, sweetness bursting on his tongue. Comfort in a crumbly block. Only, something was off, and the sensory hit he’d been seeking didn’t quite satisfy him.
Had Finlay been capable of interpreting the clamorous urges warring within him, he’d know the delicacies he guarded like a dragon with its treasure hoard wouldn’t be able to placate the fresh pang of need surging within him.
On he stomped, back to the mountain and his solitude. It was going to take a hard lesson before Finlay Morlich could slake his long-neglected appetites. For now, his sweet treats had to suffice.
6
Two vexatious things were about to shake up Finlay’s peace.
The first came in the shape of a note found on his doormat when he let himself inside his cottage cruive after his encounter down in the town. It was handwritten, and signed by Jemmy, his boss, the rangers’ station manager for this part of the region, the one who’d given him the job in the first place almost four years ago, when he’d said he could see Finlay wanted to be in the mountains and how impressed he was with his knowledge about wild Scotland and that he had every hope the work would ‘bring him out of himself a wee bit more’. Jemmy had held onto that hope ever since, no matter how patently Finlay had failed in that regard.
Finlay glowered over the note as he read, stomping his way to the fireplace with its grate already set for a fresh evening blaze. He’d switched on the one overhead bulb to better see the words, powered from his cruive’s solar panel.
SORRY TO MISS YOU. HOPE YOU DON’T MIND, WE VOLUNTEERED YOU TO HELP OUT WITH THE SOCIAL PRESCRIBING GARDEN. A PITY YOU DIDN’T MANAGE TO ATTEND THE INITIAL MEETINGS ABOUT THE SCHEME, IN SPITE OF ALL THE EMAILS, BUT YOU ARE SURELY THE EXPERT IN CAIRNGORMS FLORA AND FAUNA OUT OF ALL OF US. I TOOK YOU OFF THE ROTA FOR SUNDAYS SO YOU’RE FREE TO HELP OUT. REPORT TO THE SURGERY FOR FIVE-THIRTY ON MONDAY AFTERNOON FOR MORE DETAILS.
BEST OF LUCK,
JEMMY
There’d been a deal of mumping and moaning after reading this (which is an especially Scottish kind of grumbling, and a good deal more sweary than the English sort), ending only in the crumpling of the note and the striking of a match.
There’d be no peace though, he knew, as he watched the note catch light amongst the kindling and balled-up newspaper sheets. There was no way out of it. What Jemmy said went, and not because his boss was a tyrant, but because Finlay owed him big time.
‘Dammit!’
A white curl of smoke rose as the kindling caught. Sundays in the town, helping make a new garden? And at the repair shed, of all places.
Though why this one place was any worse than any other, Finlay’s brain wouldn’t enquire more deeply. Yet there was no forgetting the feeling of what had happened down there earlier this afternoon.
Adding the smallest of the dry logs from the hearth pile to the fire and swinging the black kettle on its metal hook over the flames, he mulled it over now.
He’d almost gone and done it again; lost his rag with a stranger. As his mum always reminded him, he wasn’t properly cut out for dealing with people. He got folks’ backs up.
Only, Murray McIntyre hadn’tlooked at him like he’d encountered a mountain yeti, a faerie-dog or forest bogle that had accidentally stumbled into Cairn Dhu, the way that townsfolk sometimes regarded him. On the contrary, his lips had curled up at the corners. A sparkle had lit his green eyes. He’d seemed – Finlay tried hard to fathom what that reaction had been – impressed, somehow?Delighted, even?
Mulling over recent altercations like this was nothing new for Finlay. He could spend hours decrypting exchanges after a visit to town: like that GP’s receptionist who wanted to know what exactly was wrong with him before she’d give him an appointment (‘That’ll be nane o’ your business,’ he’d told her, while the whole waiting room’s ears were flapping, before he’d stalked out of the surgery), or that ditsy woman, Laura Mercer, from the bicycle delivery deli who he’d meet every Tuesday at noon down at the rangers’ station to hand over his loaves, salad stuff and fresh fruit and to refill his tea caddy and his canisters of rice, pasta, and scotch broth mix.
She’d say suggestive things to him about how she was still single and ‘just waiting for the right fella to come along and sweep her off her feet’, and she’d simper in ways that made him wonder how she could possibly think he liked her inthatway, or in any way, really, when in fact he’d be happy to buy his messages (that’s ‘groceries’ for those outside of Scotland) from literally anyone else if there was a more convenient way. Mind you, Laura didn’t bring everything wrapped in polythene like the big shops would. That was one big point in her favour, he supposed, and he always made sure to tip her on top of her delivery charge because, goodness knows, the rangers’ station carpark was a fair bike ride out of town for her and she never once missed a meeting.
As much as he’d muse over town conversations when he was alone again (before letting himself forget all about them) he couldn’t quite forget Murray’s voice, not that the man had said anything particularly noteworthy. Maybe it was how Murray’s voice hadfeltthat he was having difficulty shrugging off? That hand upon his as he’d steadied himself after their clash had also left a sensation inside Finlay’s bones that had made him check and recheck his fingers ever since, flexing his hand, peering closely at his skin. No damage. So why the burning feeling?
