Page 25 of The Scottish Island Wedding

‘It’s not.’ Blossom let out a long, long breath, as if it contained all the stress she’d been holding on to. ‘That’s what everyone does; there’s tremendous pressure to perform this picture of happy families. And it’s what everyone wants to hear. Everyone wants to see you be a happy mummy with your cute kids, but no one wants to hear how alone you are. How scared. How you haven’t brushed your teeth yet today or eaten a decent meal in weeks. Or had an adult conversation that didn’t get interrupted halfway through. Or, gone to the toilet on your own or been able to have a bath without your husband banging on the door and asking you to change a nappy or asking what the kids have for tea.’

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Weaponised incompetence, I think that’s called.’ Heather gazed across the moorland around them, wondering how on earth anyone could be as hateful as it sounded like Tom was being.

As she gazed out, she noticed a sign just by where she’d pulled over. She read it once, and then a few more times, to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood it.

‘Heather?’ Blossom leaned over to see what Heather was staring at. ‘What is it?’

‘I can’t believe it.’ Heather whispered. ‘He never told me.’

‘What?’

‘The Campbells are building a golf course here. Look.’ Heather stared at the notice in complete disbelief.

LAND ACQUIRED FOR COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT

CAMPBELL OF GLENORCHY HOLDINGS LTD

SUBJECT OF DEVELOPMENT: GOLF COURSE

PRIVATE PROPERTY – KEEP OUT

TWELVE

Do you know about this? Heather had texted a photo of the sign to Matty before she’d driven off to the shoe shop with Blossom: she’d ordered in kitten heels for everyone, and had them dyed the precise shade of green to go with their bridesmaid dresses. When they were almost back to the castle with all the shoe boxes on board – including her own designer while silk stilettoes, which were unbelievably beautiful but also very high - she got a short reply.

Yes.

Heather stared at the one-word answer.

And??!! she replied. You can’t just say ‘yes’. This is a big deal.

I’ll be at the castle in an hour. We need to talk. I have some news.

Heather stopped the car outside the castle entrance and stared at her phone.

She couldn’t deny that she was filled with a huge sense of relief. It had been so worrying, not having Matty around, and even though they’d been texting since he sent his gift, and he assured her that he was all right and that yes, he still wanted to get married, there had been a part of her that just hadn’t believed it. She was relieved that he was back. She’d missed him. It had been five days.

But like Blossom had just been saying, and like Violet had reminded her, Heather also felt angry at Matty for abandoning her in the two weeks before her wedding. It all seemed to be on his terms. He hadn’t considered how Heather would feel if he left suddenly, leaving her to deal with his terrible family and all the stress of wedding logistics. He had left her alone in the days approaching their wedding, and, frankly, what work was so important that he had to do that? Was he secretly training for a last-minute triathlon? Had he had to sign an extensive NDA to do the King’s tax return? Had Matty in fact been conscripted to fight an alien invasion, à la Will Smith in Independence Day? Heather couldn’t imagine a sensible reason for his absence. The only things she could think of were ridiculous, or awful.

Heather knew that she’d always been right to listen to her instincts, but if she did that, it meant that she was unable to live inside a fairy tale reality where everything was perfect. Because trusting her own judgement meant seeing things for what they were, and not what she wanted them to be.

Matty wasn’t perfect, and neither was she: that was what she was coming to realise. She didn’t want Matty to have faults; she wanted the fairy tale. Ever since she’d met him, she’d put Matty on a kind of golden pedestal, but that wasn’t healthy. After all, young women often came to sticky ends in fairy tales: they were perilous.

It was better to be realistic about who she was, and who Matty was, and meet him halfway, rather than expect him to act like a prince in a story who had never been a real person in the first place. It was better to be a hopeful romantic, rather than a hopeless one.

For the first time, Heather wondered what had happened to her heroine Dorothea after she and her beloved had eloped from Huntingtower Castle. Had they, after a couple of weeks, started arguing about who was going to take whose surname, about the fact that her lover didn’t actually like her parents, or maybe Dorothea discovered that her new husband snored?

How did she know that Matty wouldn’t abandon her again, at another time of stress?

She didn’t know. That was the answer.

She wanted to believe they could be imperfect together. There was something very romantic about that: it suggested a high level of acceptance of each other’s flaws as well as their wonderful qualities – that only came with a deep love.

Perhaps that was the romantic goal: to have such a powerful love that it could embrace imperfection.