Page 88 of Scotlander

‘I might’ve done something,’ he said.

‘What?’

He reached into his pocket and tugged out his phone, thumbed through a couple of pages until he hit an app. He pressed play and turned it round.

She glanced up at him, confused. ‘What is this?’

‘Just . . . watch it.’

It was Finn. And pictures of her he must’ve taken when she hadn’t been watching. There were some of the others as well, but mostly they were of her. Willa beaming with cow poo on her face. Willa singing off key during the wool waulking. Willa proving it was possible to toast and eat three marshmallows at once. And over the images of the LARPers and the farm, was Finn’s beautiful voice explaining what had happened in his life, how he thought he’d messed it up. How he was hoping he could fix it. How he knew he couldn’t do it alone and he knew being a man who had a castle wasn’t exactly the world’s worst problem, but that really, the true heart of Balcraigie was the farm, and they were going to lose it. ‘And all of this, asking you folk for your time, your energy, is the dream child of someone who comes from an entirely different world to mine. She’s brought colour back into our lives. And, no matter what happens, I will always be grateful to Willa Jenkins for everything she’s done for me and my family.’

He’d put it on YouTube. And Twitter. And Instagram. Everything he could think of. Thousands of people had watched it. Judging by the number of retweets and the number of likes, thousands more would.

It was the biggest show of gratitude anyone had ever done for her.

Instead of kissing him, which was what she really wanted to do, she took one of his hands in hers and did a weird sort of victory punch thing, as if she was a boxing coach who’d known her outsider could beat the odds. ‘Let’s go mega-potato!’

And with that, she swished past him, flung open the door and headed to the main entrance, praying he was following because otherwise the big, dramatic reveal she was hoping for would have been for nothing.

‘Oh my god,’ said Finn when he caught up with her.

Willa nodded in silent agreement. Even she, a girl who always hoped for the best, hadn’t expected this.

Orla, Fenella, Jennifer, Jules, ChiChi, Rosa and Jeff – everyone she’d come to think of as a friend over these past few days – ran past her, squeezing her shoulder, telling her what a good job she’d done, all flying to action stations while she stood there like a Jacobite wax figure.

She’d been to big events before. Huge. Stadiums filled with seventy-thousand fans all cheering for one tiny singer. Festivals that sprawled across the desert to the horizon. She’d even been to an event in Austria celebrating a long-dead Mozart that drew three million superfans.

There weren’t three million people here. Not even close. But somehow this felt bigger. More authentic. Because it wasn’t about getting hammered, or high, or cultured, or even about getting a glimpse of a person who had enriched your life because of their music/movie/good looks. It was about helping someone. Someone who’d torn their heart out of their chest, put it on their sleeve, then put that sleeve out there for the whole world to see.

Dougie was standing outside the main entrance directing an endless stream of camper vans, hippy mobiles and a surprising number of horse and carts into a nearby field to park up. Duncan was directing a handful of tractors with old-fashioned harvester attachments towards the fields that abutted the loch.

Willa knew they’d put this out to the universe. That they had literally asked people to do this. To come to Balcraigie, roll up their shirtsleeves, and get down and dirty. But she was astonished at just how loudly the universe had answered their plea for help.

Everyone was wearing at least one thing that gave a sound nod to Scottish clothing over the ages. Great kilts, modern ‘working man’ kilts, tartan ‘trouse’, ghillie tops with a cord of leather lacing at the neck. Stoplight-red tam o’ shanters with shaggy clumps of bright orange hair (real and synthetic) warming the wearer’s ears. Knee pads with the saltire or favourite football clubs emblazoned on them.

These people were bursting with passion for Scotland. They were also here to work.

The men carried pitchforks and shovels and buckets and – holy shit – one man had brought an entire trailer full of hessian potato sacks with . . . was that . . . the silhouette ChiChi had done of the castle emblazoned on its side. He must’ve worked through the night to get that done.

The women were equally impressive. There was, of course, a preponderance of ‘Claire’ costumes. Plaid, earth-toned skirts and bodices, huge pinafores, petticoats, knitted shawls and wraps. Some women had refashioned potato sacks into on-trend garments. A few wore steampunk outfits, but, hey, pairs of hands were pairs of hands, right?

Even the children flying out of the cars, off the carts, and arriving on foot were dressed in yesteryear potato-picking garb. If Willa hadn’t felt transported a week ago when she’d arrived here at Balcraigie, she did now.

Many folk had baskets hanging from their arms or balanced on their hips. The covered ones were presumably filled with the provisions they’d asked people to bring to feed themselves as there was no way, if more than five people had shown up, Orla would have been able to feed them all. It was an all-hands-on-deck scenario and right now there were hundreds of pairs of hands all heading out to the fields, attached to people who, judging by the hubbub, thought this was the best fun ever. They were laughing, singing, introducing themselves to one another. Valentina would have been beside herself.

Sometimes you have to step away from who you think you are, to become the person you want to be.

This was who she wanted to be. A person who organised events that really mattered. Made an impact at grassroots level. Or, in this case, tuber level. She wanted to be someone who created gatherings that made a difference for years to come. Generations even.

She fished around in the deep skirt pockets Jennifer had added to her dress and pulled out her phone.

She thumbed past the email notifications, deleted a few texts that began with the words ‘Bryony was meant to’ or ‘Martina suggested I check in with you’, then clicked on the Balcraigie crowd-funding page.

Her heart flew into her throat.

People were contributing. Adding five pounds here. Two dollars there. Euros. Yen. Renminbis. It all added up. It was mind-blowing, really. It had been less than twelve hours since she’d put Balcraigie’s future into the hands of the fates and they had answered . . . in spades.

She clicked on to her Twitter feed and instantly went light-headed.