Page 106 of Scotlander

A peek out of the window showed that everyone was beginning to file into the great hall, where Orla and Jules had prepared the wedding breakfast: vegetarian haggis rolls, deep-fried haggis bon bons, wild Scottish salmon smoked right here on the shores of Balcraigie and countless more platters celebrating local cuisine. Rosa and Jeff had flown in on the proviso that Willa and Finn wouldn’t mind if, after the wedding ceremony, they renewed their vows again. Willa was convinced they were handfasting addicts.

Diego and the girls were here, as were Lachlan and Gabe. The two of them had been living between Palm Springs and Scotland and were shortly off to a Highlands photo shoot for Lachlan’s new Rogue Yoga book, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to Desert Yoga. ChiChi and Alastair were fresh back from a holiday in Nigeria. Fenella and Trevor could be heard bickering about whether or not a kilt was meant to fasten on the left or the right if you were a woman. Fenella’s husband, the ‘Aussie plonker’ turned out to be a shy and utterly love-struck accountant.

‘It’s incredible,’ she finally said, breaking through Finn’s stream of increasingly worried commentary about how actually, really, if she looked very closely there wasn’t a solitary element of the room that was finished yet.

‘It’s a work in progress,’ she said. ‘Just like us.’

‘Is that how you see us?’ He feigned offence. ‘I was under the impression we were absolutely perfect.’

‘No!’ she protested. ‘Well . . . yes, but . . .’

‘Willa?’ Finn put on his stern face. ‘Now is not the time to inform me that you’d have been better off opening a tuna melt cafe in Pendleton.’

She sniggered. ‘A town that size couldn’t handle two tuna melt joints.’

Finn pulled her close to him. ‘So what are we then, if we’re not perfect?’

‘In love,’ she finally settled on.

‘Is that it?’ he asked.

She pulled back, aghast. ‘Isn’t that everything?’

‘Aye.’ He nodded, a quiet smile playing on his lips. ‘It is, darlin’. Now that I know what it actually feels like, it most certainly is.’ He tipped his head to her uplifted one and gave her a soft kiss. As if on cue, the warm, predatory notes of a bagpipe about to launch into song sang out. ‘Right, then, missus. What do you say we go on out there and show them how a ceilidh’s really supposed to be?’

She put her hand in his and, running down the stairs to begin the rest of their lives with the people they held most dear, they did just that.

Later, when the high of being a newlywed kept her up long after the guests had gone to bed and Finn had fallen asleep with a soft dopey smile on his face, Willa snuck back down to the great hall – a room that had, in its several hundred years of existence seen countless formative events like today’s wedding. She went over to the fire, took a stick out of the massive wicker basket and stuck a marshmallow on it, because that’s what newlyweds who lived in partially finished castles in Scotland did after their wedding. She toasted it, burnt the roof of her mouth on its brown-sugar exterior, then popped the stick into the embers, a sacrifice to the gods of fluffy, nice things. Much like the kitchen fireplace, the great hall’s massive stone fireplace was huge. Large enough to fit a family of five in. She knew because she’d forced Orla and her growing brood to be photographed in there countless times since she’d returned. Along the internal stone walls they’d hung mementos from the past they’d unearthed as the renovations trundled ever onwards. A belt buckle. A spur. A sgian-dubh bearing the interlocked Luckenbooth hearts and crown, symbolising affection, loyalty and love.

She hovered her hand above the engraved words and symbols carved into the stone by one of the guests who’d come along to a specialised stonemasonry week. As ever, she grew glassy-eyed as her fingers worked their way along the letters.

She didn’t even bother to swallow back the tears. Today had been utterly perfect. All the people they loved had been here to support them as they publicly declared their love for one another. They’d even shouted their I Dos up to the heavens expressly for Valentina to hear, but now, here, alone in this quiet space, she could admit it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. She would always be missed and, as such, Finn had long ago suggested they find a way for her to be with them. So here she was, engraved into their hearth. Their home. The place where she had led Willa when she was most lost in the world. Her very best friend. The person who’d taught her that the impossible was, in fact, entirely possible if only you held out your hand to the terror of loss and let it guide you out of the darkness and into the light.

THE McENDING