AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shake my head mutely.
“So… what are you going to do?” asks Scarlett tentatively. “Have you heard anything from Jack yet?”
“Nothing,” I tell her sadly. “It’s like he’s completely disappeared. A bit like Ben did, actually. Which means it must beme, right? I mean, to lose one boyfriend like that could be an accident, but to lose two…”
“… is not your fault,” says Scarlett, firmly. “Seriously, Emerald, it’s not. You had a right to know what was going on. Jack didn’t tell you; and that’s on him, not on you.”
I’m not totally sure she’s right about that. I still feel horribly guilty for going off with Ben, and for the way I argued with Jack in the first place. Then I remember how he told me I couldn’t invite Scarlett and Dylan to the wedding — as if I didn’t get a say in it — and I’m back to feeling annoyed again.
I think this is probably what people mean when they talk about a “roller coaster of emotions” — except my roller coaster is current stuck at the top of the drop, and there’s no way of knowing whether it’s going to send me plummeting towards the bottom, or just leave me here forever.
And I never liked roller coasters, anyway.
“I’m not sure you’re even going to want to see these now,” says Scarlett, reaching for a brown folder that’s lying on the coffee table in front of us. “But here are the clippings I found in the newspaper archive. Dylan wasn’t quite right; it looks to me like all four men were around when Buchanan came up with the idea for The ‘39, but only two of them actually had a stake in it. Guess which two?”
I take the piece of paper she hands me. It’s a photocopy of a news article from the 30s, accompanied by a black and white photo of four men — one of whom is unmistakably the man from the portrait in our living room — sitting in a bar, each with a glass of whisky in his hand.
Raising A Glass for Heather Bay’s Newest Business, says the headline. I quickly scan the article, which tells the story of how the men in the photo — Frederick “Freddie’ Buchanan, Donald Steele, Douglas Fraser, and Hamish McTavish — had come up with the idea to start a distillery by the loch, during an evening at the local pub.
So it wasn’t Jack’s grandfather’s lifelong dream after all, then; it was just a drunken scheme which came together after one too many shots.
The article goes on to talk about how Grandpa McTavish had offered up some of his land as the site for the new business, while Buchanan was putting up the money. Steele was the whisky expert — which I guess explains why he felt the recipe was rightfully his — and Dylan’s grandfather was… just there too, as far as I can tell.
“I’ve no idea what his involvement was supposed to be,” Scarlett shrugs when I ask her about it. “But whatever it was, it looks like only McTavish and Buchanan had any kind of monetary stake in it; although McTavish’s was in the shape of land, rather than actual cash, obviously.”
Hmmm.
“There’s also this,” she goes on, passing me another clipping; one that makes me do a double-take, because the man in the photo looks so like Jack that for a second I think it’s one of those “novelty” photos you can get done at theme parks, where you dress up in old-timey clothes and have a sepia-tinted photo taken for your mantelpiece.
This photo, however, is very real, as is the article below it, announcing the wedding of local landowner Freddie Buchanan, and Lily Hunter of Heather Bay; who looks impossibly young as she smiles out from the photo, with absolutely no idea that the war’s about to come along and take away everything she knows.
“That one doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, obviously,” says Scarlett. “I just couldn’t get over how much Jack looks like his grandfather. Are you sure he’s not a time-traveler?”
I snort with laughter.
“Trust me, my life’s complicated enough without a time-traveling fiancé. They do look alike, though.”
I examine the photo again, wondering if Jack and I will get the chance to pose for wedding photos of our own, and feeling sad that this is even a question now.
“Uh-oh. You’re thinking about Jack again, aren’t you?” says Scarlett, taking the clipping back as if it’s a bomb that could explode any second. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s not your fault,” I assure her. “I just wish he’d call — or answermycalls. I just want to talk to him; but then I’m not even sure what I’d say if I could. Things have been so difficult between us ever since we got engaged. It makes me wonder if it was the right thing to do, after all. I mean, I thought it was what I wanted — I really did. But maybe it was too soon. Maybe we should have just kept things the way they were. Maybe then we wouldn’t be arguing all the time. Or, well,notarguing, I guess. You have to be actually talking to someone to argue with them, don’t you?”
Scarlett shuffles through the papers in her hands without answering me, then passes me another one; the same four men from the first photo, this time wearing army uniforms, under an article talking about all the men of the village who were going off to war. In this photo, Grandpas McTavish and Buchanan have their arms around each other’s shoulders, both of them grinning widely for the camera, as if they were off on some big adventure.
“Would it be inappropriate to note that Dylan’s grandad was kind of hot?” says Scarlett thoughtfully. I smile in spite of myself.
“They don’tlooklike one of them has just scammed a huge amount of land from the other, do they?” I ask, pointing to the Laird and Old McTavish. (OrYoungMcTavish as I guess he was then.)
“Yeah, well, photos don’t always tell the truth, do they?” replies Scarlett, frowning.
I glance up at her curiously, remembering that she recently found out she had a half-sister who’s a well-known influencer.
I wonder if that’s what she’s thinking about?
“Couldn’t you just ask McTavish’s grandpa what happened?” she asks. “He’s still alive, isn’t he? I’m sure I remember hearing McTavish mention him quite recently.”
“Yeah, he is. But he’s in a nursing home. He has dementia. McTavish says he barely remembers his own name most days, so it’s not like he’s going to remember something from decades ago.”
