‘So…’ Finlay’s eyes had turned puppy-dog wide. ‘You can stay for breakfast, or breakfastandlunch?’
The hope reflecting back at him made Murray’s heart swell. ‘And after that, afternoon tea?’ Murray teased, unable to hold back his smile.
Nell’s ears had pricked up at all this talk of food and she peeped her head around the arm of the sofa.
‘You can have some too, Mutt,’ Finlay said, putting his hand out to her so that she transformed into a bouncing, tail-swinging lump of pure energy once more.
Murray shoved his phone between the sofa cushions and joined in with the dog pats, and the pair let themselves forget about the world outside once more, just for a little while longer.
38
The thing about the Highland winter weather that people down south neglect to mention is how some of the finest, brightest, crispest days of the year can come in February, surprising everyone with their chilly beauty.
Today, Wednesday the fourth of February, was one such day, though it only went a small way to mending the longing ache in Alice’s heart. She’d tried to fill it, of course, with her therapy and her work, and with treating Finlay Morlich without the need for a hospital admission, something everyone, especially Finlay, had agreed was for the best, given his attitude to busy institutions and, well, people. Then of course, there’d been last Saturday, the very last day of January, which she’d spent away from Cairn Dhu in a wonderful old castle with its own spa and pool, and a series of group talks and activities arranged by Bonnie, the counsellor, for lots of her women clients who battled with anxiety and trauma, and the whole thing had been eye-opening and challenging, as well as freeing and restful.
For some reason, everyone in town had wanted to want to pick her for details about it. She couldn’t understand why it was anyone else’s business and she’d explained to no one, not even to the overly invested Gracie, what exactly she’d done on her precious spa day.
There was one person she’d have liked to tell all about it, but he still hadn’t returned to town and Alice had begun to accept that, horribly, he was never coming back.
She’d needed him too, on Sunday, when no one was around to help with the garden project because Finlay and Murray were recovering at the cruive, and so she’d had to muddle through the planting of some winter pansies and the turning of the compost heap all by herself until, much to her surprise, the whole gang had arrived; Mr Forte, Kellie Timmony, Livvie and Shell, Mhairi and Jolyon, and they’d all stuck it out for at least twenty minutes before they’d fled inside the warmth of the shed and demolished Senga’s big cairn of chocolate-dipped rock cakes in front of the fire.
Even though everyone had been chattering away, getting to know one another better, and the two kids seemed to be happily sharing Jolyon’s tablet to watch cartoons, Alice hadn’t been able to join in with their talk with quite the same enthusiasm as she might have had Cary been sitting next to her taking a deep interest in her life, the way he used to.
She’d noticed Kellie being quiet too, hanging back from the conversation, until Roz had come in bringing the two puppies and asking if anyone wanted to help walk them. Kellie had been the first to volunteer and she’d gone out on her own with both of them, walking the tumbling, squabbling little dogs in slow laps around the repair shed and the new garden so many times Kellie said she’d lost count, but the whole time she’d been smiling more broadly than Alice had ever seen. When her parents had picked her up, Kellie had a hard time saying goodbye, not to the rest of the group, but to the dogs. Alice had already asked Roz if Murray would mind her incorporating the pups into all the garden project Sunday activities until such a time as they were rehomed, to help Kellie’s recovery, and Roz had, without even checking with Murray up at the cruive, said that would be more than OK.
On her lunch break today, which Dr Millen was insisting she take away from her desk, Alice arrived at the repair shed and took her customary peep inside, just to check. Cary’s workbench was still piled with new repair jobs – she wasn’t the only one hoping for his return – and behind it stood his grandfather clock under a dust sheet, all fully repaired, according to Dr Bonnet, who was making herself at home in her designated corner of the shed which was already cluttered with her tools and with umpteen ticking clocks on the wall.
Alice had ordered and eaten a toastie with salad and crisps, and a slice of fruity flapjack with green tea, then she’d sought out the other thing she had come here for. There was the small matter of the garden project participants’ feedback forms to attend to and, as patient liaison, that was her job.
She reached for the little box on the café counter, hand crafted by, of course, Cary. It put her in mind of the polling station boxes where she’d slip her voting papers back home. He’d made it knowing they needed a way for folks referred to the garden project to anonymously report on their experiences of it, and this was Alice’s first time emptying the thing.
She tried to put from her mind the knowledge that Cary’s hands had cut and hammered, sanded and painted it – in a gaudy pink to match the shed’s neon logo on the wall – and she turned the catch to release the door on the back.
Inside were three folded papers. She sat at one of the café chairs to read them, since there was nobody in here this morning, except Rhona pottering behind her counter, and McIntyre washing oil from his hands with stinky Swarfega.
The first paper showed a stick-figure drawing in crayon of a boy with a red curving smile and a girl holding his hand with what looked like a blue blanket in her free hand, standing under a spiked yellow sun. She turned the paper over to find in an adult hand the words in Biro:
Thank you. We are enjoying meeting new people.
Mhairi and Jolyon Sears, thought Alice. It had to be.
A second paper displayed the shaky whispery ink of someone trying hard to control the pen.
Too cold for gardening. What kind of eejit starts an outdoor project in January? Enjoyed meeting new folk, even if it is freezin. Come summer, mind, I might feel up to a wee bit of weeding. We’ll see.
Alice was sure this was Mr Forte who had spent a good amount of the last session complaining that it just ‘wasnae the weather for pottering aboot outside’. She hoped the project wasn’t already at risk of losing its first participant, put off by the elements. Maybe she’d put him on seed-sowing duty inside the shed, if he came back.
A third paper was filled in with bullet-pointed notes in a youthful script. Kellie’s, for sure.
Friendly
Cold
Well organised
Bonus puppies
Kind of a weird atmosphere between some of the project facilitators (do they fancy each other or hate each other, or what?!?)
