Cairn Dhu, you see, despite being remote and a wee bit lost in time, doesn’t labour under cruel prejudices the way some places do. Pairings of every kind sent the old gossips into fits of matchmaking glee. Everyone here was looking out for love, it seemed, especially in the hungry, cold days of winter when salacious interest was thin on the ground.
Rhona, the quieter, put-upon Gifford sister, hastily worked her biscuit tongs and sent Murray on his way.
He straightened his spine as he made his way through the flap of plastic separating the floor of the repair shop and its café nook from the construction area at the shed’s deepest point where the massive new eco-extension was taking shape, picking his way between the cables and power tools, piles of plasterboard and wool insulation rolls.
The repair shop hadn’t been the same since Murray won the community development grant for the extension back in the early autumn. There’d been a sudden invasion of surveyors and architects and sustainable construction advisors, not to mention, more recently, the Cairn Dhu nosey parkers who wanted to have a keek (which, in Scotland, is an especially meddlesome kind of peep) at the transformation work.
‘Teas up,’ he called as flatly as he could, lifting his face to the temporary platform up in the apex of the old barn’s roof. Three heads appeared over the parapet. The gaffer, oldest of the bunch, told him to, ‘just leave ’em doon there,’ but another voice, punchy and amused, shouted that he’d be straight down.
Descending on a pulley like the Nativity angel, the man appeared before Murray’s eyes. Plaster-splattered boots slid past first, followed by two lengths of faded denim tight over sculpted calves and thick thighs. The scaffolder’s pelvic harness gripped in a way that made Murray gulp and avert his eyes, and then came the t-shirt that suggested gym-sculpted pecs alongside rainbow flashes of ink on muscled arms, followed by a beautiful neck, a squared jaw and the palest blue eyes that put Murray in mind of that time he saw a kingfisher diving beneath the cool blue of the Nithy river in summer. All of this was delivered up with a smirk on pillowy lips that hid behind them a cocky Dutch accent. Deadly.
‘Good morning, Murray. Are you joining us today?’ said the builder, pointing to the heavens through a leather workman’s glove.
Murray had to laugh. ‘Again, no. But thanks for asking,umm…’
‘Kurt,’ the builder said, his maddening tooth gap on show, white and pink.
Murray ignored the alarm bells that smile set off within him, determining to act like he encountered flirty European construction experts every day of the week and he was completely chilled about it and in control of his blushes.
‘Kurt,’ Murray repeated, not sure why he’d pretended not to remember his name. ‘Anyway… repair Saturdays are always busy busy busy. I’d better…’ He fought the urge to wince at his awkwardness, hiking a thumb back towards the workshop beyond the café nook.
‘Go fix things?’ Kurt tried, still dangling hotly from the rope pulley, his steel toecaps grazing the floorboards. He reached for one of the takeout cups on Murray’s tray and sipped through the steam without breaking eye contact.
‘Aye. I’d better go fix things.’ Murray set the tray hastily down on top of a circular saw case. ‘Not that I’m good at fixing things. Not like you… I imagine. I mean obviously you can fix things, you’re a builder.’
Kurt’s eyes sparkled with humour. ‘You work in a community repair shop and cannot fix?’
Murray cursed himself for giving away the fact that he was the obstinate underdog around here.
‘I can dosomestuff,’ he said, feeling stupider by the second.
‘OK.’ Kurt nodded slowly. ‘Go and do some stuff.’ He was mimicking Murray’s Highland accent, enjoying himself immensely. ‘Catch you later.’
Murray turned to leave, masking a hard swallow.
Kurt shouted something in Dutch to the men up above and, still holding his cup, he ascended again.
Murray could feel Kurt’s amused eyes burning upon his back as he hastened through to the shop floor, leaving the iced biscuits untouched on their plate like a votive offering on the steps of a temple.
Safely through the plastic sheeting, Murray fought the urge to pat himself down, straightening his shirt, checking his cargo pockets, his chest. For what, he wasn’t sure. Scorch marks? The few encounters he’d had with Kurt had all left him feeling this same way.
Murray hid his discomfort as best he could while passing the café nook, resolutelynotmeeting the Gifford sisters’ inquisitive glances as he went. He focused on hitting the light switches at each workstation as he walked around the repair barn.
In turn, he illuminated: the sewing area – where his mum, Roz McIntyre, would soon preside over the textile repairs and alterations with her fashion student proteges, Willie and Peaches; the woodworking bench and tool-sharpening station where carpenter, Cary Anderson, was already setting up (a man of few words, Cary gave him a friendly nod); next was Murray’s father’s bench, the messiest of the lot, where Charlie McIntyre – who everyone referred to simply as ‘McIntyre’ – would undertake all kinds of general repairs, there was nothing he couldn’t fix. Next, Murray lit up Sachin Roy’s triage counter where repair clients would arrive with their treasured belongings; and opposite this was Murray’s spot, the tech repair desk. He glumly made his way there now.
Technically it was Ally’s spot. She was Murray’s twin sister, but she was still in Switzerland temping at her dream IT technician job for Future Proof Planet, the global environmental charity where, until a few months ago, Murray had also worked, heading up international donor relations.
Now, somehow, they’d traded countries and workplaces, and Ally’s repair bench had passed to Murray. He was the first to admit he was no repair expert, and certainly no tech guru like Ally was.
He watched his dad arriving through the big sliding doors having ambled down the garden path from the McIntyre family home, the old mill house next door.
‘Morning, a’body!’ McIntyre said cheerily, stopping to turn on the pink neon sign with its steaming teacup and threaded needle passing artfully through the handle. Underneath the logo, also in pink fluoro, glowed the wordsCairn Dhu Repair Shop and Café.
The glow reached the depths of the huge barn, its gaudy pink reminiscent of the decadent nightclubs Murray frequented not so long ago in Zurich, back when he had to pretend he wasn’t his boss’s secret live-in boyfriend and he’d been content to sneak around in the glamorous wake of Andreas Favre. Back then, he’d wilfully confused Andreas’s fear of gossip for some exciting clandestine affair of the heart.Ugh!
Andreas, it transpired, had a billionaire boyfriend all along and Murray had been little more than his Scottish side piece, a convenience, devoted as a lapdog.
A drill started up behind the plastic dust sheeting just as he was suppressing a shudder of shame. Then came a lot of hammering from the workmen too, intruding on his memories.
