‘Thanks, Mum and Dad,’ threw in Murray.
‘It’s laid to lawn at the moment,’ Cary went on. ‘There’s room for four large raised planting beds at each point of the compass, like this. One for fruits, one for veg, one for herbs and medicinal plants, and one for cut flowers. I’ll help to build the raised beds.’
‘And I’ll oversee the rotas and liaise with the surgery about patient access and safeguarding,’ Livvie said.
‘And the surgery will refer patients to the scheme,’ said the doc. ‘Although anyone can join in with the planting and upkeep. This garden’s for the whole community, yes? And, in fact, that’s where young Dr Hargreave comes in.’
Cary felt the tension sharply rising from the woman to his right.
‘Me?’ she said, her pen hovering.
‘Patient engagement officer,’ said Millen, with what passed as a smile for him. ‘It’s only social prescribing if the surgery sends a medical presence to the site to talk with the locals, do a bit of mental-health first-aiding where needed and generally facilitate engagement with the garden, so patients can fully access its benefits.’
‘But I don’t know anything about gardening,’ she said. ‘I’ve never looked after so much as a window box!’
‘You know about patients.’ Millen’s smile grew weaker still.
‘I’ll be there to help you,’ Cary told her softly.
‘We all will,’ Murray added in his easy way. ‘My role is general dogsbody, so if there’s anything you don’t know, or anything you need, you can tell me.’
None of this seemed to reassure the woman, if the waves of panicked energy coming from her were anything to go by. Cary was surprised to realise they’d set off an unusual response within him too.
Not a man who had to scrabble around to label his feelings correctly, he knew exactly what it was. It was a careful kind of tender attentiveness.
Without having to think too deeply about it, he’d already subconsciously committed to making Dr Hargreave happy in her work at the garden, and if that couldn’t be achieved, he’d strive to make her, at least, feel comfortable.
He didn’t enjoy witnessing anyone out of sorts, but this woman was something else. To Cary she appeared as out of her element as a planet in retrograde, a lost soul. Her whole demeanour was an unhappy one, her pallor sickly, as though she’d spent the last decade under fluorescent lighting. Maybe she had? A young doctor at the end of her training, at last released into the real world, and a Manchester girl too? Cairn Dhu had to be a far cry from home. He’d experienced the culture shock himself, a few years back, and he’d only moved from Glasgow.
‘We’ll need a naturalist’s expertise when choosing and sourcing the plants and trees,’ Murray was saying.
‘The trees?’ Millen asked.
‘Yes. Here, here, here and here.’ Cary pointed to equidistant points between each of the raised beds on his drawing. ‘I’d hoped we’d plant alder trees, if no one minds? They’re an indigenous species to Scotland, not to mention wonderful for woodworking.’
The others agreed they had zero objection to the idea, and Murray said it sounded ‘braw’. Alice Hargreave, however, was staring into space, her gravity turning heavier, like a black hole, emitting exhausted dark energy.
Cary heard her sighing softly more than once, and her posture slumped inch by inch. She was fighting the weight of existence, that much was obvious. It made his heart soften all the more for her.
The meeting went on for some time, and because Cary had said his piece, he had nothing more to add, other than nods of agreement. Murray and Livvie went over the flow of funding and the release of monies for the initial materials. There was some discussion of safeguarding and protecting vulnerable groups and criminal disclosure checks for all volunteers, as well as some words on patient confidentiality.
Dr Millen made sure that Alice, who had accepted her gardening fate, understood her role, telling her she’d only be required on site on some Sundays, or the occasional errand early on a Saturday. He’d see to it this was taken into account in her surgery workloading, remarking pointedly how some time outdoors would do her good. She was smiling in weak agreement when the consulting room door banged open and little Shell screamed and ran to her mother’s arms.
‘Uh, I’m sorry, I didnae mean to…’ said the gruff, hulk-like figure in the doorframe, his fists tightly curled by his sides.
‘Good grief, man!’ Dr Millen shouted, jumping to his feet. ‘What’s all this in aid of?’
Cary, always observant, noticed multiple things happening at once.
First, he saw the quailing shame in Finlay Morlich’s expression as he apologised and stomped inside, asking pointlessly if he was too late. He also registered the bright flash of something victorious in Murray McIntyre’s looks as he directed the unfortunate, clumsy ranger to the only spare chair, piled with books and next to Alice, and Cary couldn’t miss Murray’s gaze following the mountain man as he knocked every chair and table leg and stumbled over his own boots on his way to his seat.
‘Sorry, lassie. I didnae mean to frighten you,’ Finlay was saying to Shell, who didn’t look inclined to forgive him during her lifetime.
‘You’ve missed the lot,’ Millen scowled, hoiking up his trousers at the knees to sit again.
Finlay shiftily eyed the biscuit tub and did nothing to hide his dismay at finding it empty other than crumbs.
Murray seemingly couldn’t help smiling in sympathy at Finlay, but the ranger put his head down, clasping his two hands tightly together like a man steeling himself to suffer through a public meeting with no refreshments of any kind.
