Face the Wind and Fly (25 page)

He slammed his fist onto the kitchen table. Two plates, still waiting to be put away, clattered alarmingly. ‘How could you do this to me, Mum?’

‘We’re not going to start blaming anyone. I won’t blame your father, he won’t blame me, and you won’t blame either of us. Shit happens. We will work together to find a civilised way through it.’

She wasn’t sure, even as she said it, that she believed it, but she needed to try, for all their sakes.

Ninian’s self-regarding outrage crumpled abruptly. ‘What’s the point of falling in love, then, if it all ends like this?’

His hands were fisted in tight, sour balls. She uncurled them finger by finger, then sandwiched them between her own hands and stroked them softly. This was about Alice Banks as much as his parents.

‘She’s lovely, Ninian.’

He looked at her, his eyes dull and hopeless.

‘Listen to me,’ she said, finding the right voice at last. ‘You make choices in life, you follow a path, you see where it leads. Sometimes it goes round a blind bend and ends up against a wall. Then you have to retrace your steps and find another route.’

His head had dropped.

‘Look at me. Ninian, look at me.’ She pumped the words out with urgency. When she had his attention, she grasped his hands more firmly and said, ‘It can be hard, of course it can, but there is always the possibility that the new path will be a better one, and of course you will bring to it all the things you have learned on the first path, so you will be stronger and better able to travel along it. That’s life.’

His mouth was still slack and his lower lip jutted out like a small boy denied sweeties. ‘I don’t want you and Dad to get divorced.’

‘Let’s just take one step at a time. Hey?’

The tension in his shoulders relaxed just a fraction and his hands softened. Kate thought,
I’m getting through to him
, but he jerked his hands away. ‘I don’t believe this is happening,’ he muttered. ‘You and Dad—’

Kate didn’t quite believe it herself.

It wasn’t all gloom. Nicola Arnott dropped by for a coffee and to give Kate an update on the garden.

‘The digging’s finished, but I guess you know that. We owe you a huge amount, Kate, both for the idea and for setting things in motion. And for persuading Ibsen Brown to get involved.’ She smiled across the mug. ‘He’s quite a character, isn’t he? Everyone adores him.’

‘Ibsen. Oh yes. Quite a character.’ Kate stirred her coffee slowly, watching the treacly liquid swirl and eddy.

‘He’s done a fantastic plan, you know. We had an open meeting to discuss it. I did email you an invitation but—’

‘I’m sorry. Things have been a little strained here,’ she muttered. She was only half thinking about what Nicola was saying because the delicate blocks of colour and fine pen work of Ibsen’s painting had started to swim in front of her eyes, each stroke the outline of an intricate memory. The paper had still been warm from his body. That was the night they had made love. Two fragile souls seeking solace, perhaps, but it had been a union of sharp delight.

Kate sat bolt upright. The coffee slopped onto the table as she thudded the mug down, heedless of its fragility or of its contents. Ibsen had allowed her to glimpse his pain. Why had she not understood that that was important?

‘Kate? Is everything all right?’

She shook herself. ‘Sorry, what? I just thought of something.’

‘About the garden?’

Kate could feel her cheeks growing hot. ‘No. No, not the garden. A related issue. Listen, I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

Ibsen confided in me. And I turned my back on him.

How could she have been so stupid? Didn’t she have an ounce of insight?

‘I said, Gail from AeGen came to our meeting to give us advice about what we needed to do about applying for funding. We need to get started now, apparently, because funding kicks in from the day the wind farm comes into operation.’

‘If it comes into operation,’ she said automatically, her mind still on Ibsen.

‘Looks pretty likely, don’t you think?’

‘I really wouldn’t know, I’m not working there at the moment.’

‘Neither you are, I keep forgetting. I’m sorry Kate. They don’t appreciate how terrific you are.’

Kate’s lip curled at the compliment. It was only half a smile. ‘Apparently not. They’re alleging gross misconduct and they’re doing a “full investigation”.’

‘That’s terrible! What are you going to do?’

‘I’m hoping they’ll reinstate me.’

‘That’s good.’ Nicola must have seen the look on Kate’s face because she added, ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is.’

Andrew called, sounding strained. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Don’t you think the time for talking’s over?’

‘Come on, Kate. For better or worse?’

‘What could “better” be?’

‘Talking. Trying to understand each other.’

‘Where are you, Andrew?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘You’re at Sophie’s, aren’t you?’

His hesitation told her everything she needed to know. She slammed the phone down and went out for a walk.

Chapter Twenty-six

Wellington hated storms. Lightning made him jittery. This particular storm swept in from the northern Atlantic and past Iceland and Norway, gathering momentum and getting colder all the way. By the time it reached Edinburgh it was three o’clock in the morning. It hit Summerfield half an hour later. Unable to contain his terror any longer, Wellington lifted his head and howled.

Ibsen woke, sweating, from an uneasy dream. It was one he often had – he heard a child crying and was walking down a long, dark corridor towards a crack of light under a door. When he opened the door, the crying stopped. There was a cot – but it was empty.

Damn. He hadn’t had the dream in an age.

He rolled onto his side and was about to pull the bedclothes back over himself when he heard the dog.

Howl
.

The wind was up. It had found the cracks in the old window frame and was strong enough already to make the flimsy curtains flutter. ‘Why don’t you get new ones?’ Mel used to ask, irritated by his lack of domesticity.

She wasn’t around to nag him any more.

Howl.

He sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on a sweater and joggers.

‘Okay boy. You’re all right.’ In the kitchen, he squatted down and gathered Wellington into his arms. The dog was shaking from head to tail. Damn. If he’d known the storm was coming, he could have given him a tranquilliser. Getting anything down him now would be a task and a half. Wellington buried his head as deep as he could in Ibsen’s lap, reminding him of how he loved Kate’s crotch.

Couldn’t blame the dog.

‘Okay boy. We’ll sit it out together, right?’

He contemplated trying to lift Wellington and carry him through to the bedroom, but the kitchen seemed a better option. He turned on the oven and opened the door, then sat on the floor with a great lump of hairy Labrador in his arms while the lightning flashed above them and the wind seemed to take up the dog’s howling.

‘Hush, boy. Hush. You’re all right.’

After a time, they both slept.

Kate wasn’t used to being on her own. She was only just beginning to drop off to sleep when she heard the wind begin to rise. When it started to whistle round the chimneys, whipping twigs and leaves off the trees and slapping them against the windows, she gave up all hope of rest and pulled open the heavy curtains. She saw the lightning first, but the thunder was barely a second behind it. The wind had merely been the herald of a full-scale storm – and Willow Corner was right in its eye.

‘Mum!’

She whirled round from the window. Ninian was standing in the doorway, his face white.

‘I had a bad dream—’

Ninian hadn’t had a nightmare for years. When he was little, there’d been a period when he’d run in to their bedroom with inconvenient frequency, begging to be allowed to share their bed, his small body quivering with some night terror or other. He’d grown out of bad dreams over time, just as he’d grown out of puppy fat and, later, of spots.

‘Come here.’ She opened her arms and he ran across to her. It seemed strange to be comforting her child again, now that he was almost a grown man, but holding Ninian was comforting. ‘It’s the storm. It upsets the nervous system. That’s all.’

‘I know. Sorry.’ He pulled away from her, just as a spectacular flash of lighting lit the night sky. ‘Wow! That was brilliant!’ The thunder was so loud it seemed almost overhead. Ninian, his nightmare forgotten, peered out into the night, his face alight with excitement.

Another flash of lightning lit half of eastern Scotland. Kate’s mouth fell open. The power of the storm was terrifying. ‘Hope it doesn’t do too much damage.’

The rain was battering against the window and the wind hadn’t let up.

‘Is someone out there with a high-pressure hose?’ Ninian asked, more cheerful now. ‘By the way, did you know, Mum, that lightning actually goes from the ground to the sky, not the other way around?’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. At science, we—’

Ninian’s physics lesson was cut short by the next flash of lightning, the most dramatic of all. Electricity mapped the sky with blinding rivers of light that crackled and roared and flared straight to the willow tree down the garden.

‘
No!
’

Kate gripped Ninian’s arm as the tree appeared to explode. Branches shot into the air and were picked up by the wind and blown in every direction. ‘Oh my God! What happened there? I’ve got to go and look at it!’ She turned to the door and started to run.

‘No way, Mum.’ Ninian caught hold of her arm and pulled her back. ‘It’s far too dangerous. Don’t you see? There might be another strike.’

She watched, appalled, as another flare of lightning sizzled and hissed, then died into the night sky. The storm was moving away, though. The silence before the thunder was longer now and the wind was dying back.

‘My willow!’

Ninian put his arms round her – this time, the protector. ‘It was getting old anyway, Mum,’ he said, as though he was talking about a pet. ‘You know it couldn’t have lived much longer.’

But Kate was inconsolable. The willows were the sentinels and guardians of her home, and one of them had just been destroyed. Of all the terrible things that had happened to her in the past few months, the loss of her tree seemed the hardest to bear. ‘It’s awful, Ninian, just awful,’ she said, over and over again.

In the morning, after Ninian had gone to school, she went out to inspect the damage. It was impossible to believe that the weather could have wrought such carnage. The sky was as blue and clear as a Mediterranean sky in summer and there was not a breath of wind. There was even, for November, a surprising amount of warmth in the sun’s rays. Songbirds celebrated with joyous melody. Where had they hidden, last night, to escape the wind’s fury?

The ravaged garden had no sweet face to turn to the sky. All around her, the aftermath of the storm was all too evident. Kate scooped up a handful of rose petals and sniffed the devastated flowers sadly. Poor things, they hadn’t stood a chance. The rose bush by the study window was all but flattened. Could she save it? She examined the long shoots doubtfully. She’d need to replace the trellis that had supported the climber and tie the whole thing up again. Some growth would have to be pruned away completely, but was that possible without killing the plant? She had no idea how to tackle the job.

The cherry tree in the southern portion of the garden looked just as forlorn. Only a few brave leaves still clung to its branches and one whole branch had snapped off and was hanging by a splinter. The wind must have been whistling round the corner of the house because there was a huge pile of garden debris heaped up against the kitchen door. It had been prevented from whirling any further by the bay window – and it seemed little short of a miracle that none of the windows had been broken.

She left the willow till last. She could hardly bear to inspect it.
Salix alba ‘tristis’
. Sad white willow. Today its name was a distressingly apt description. By the stream, the damage was worse than anywhere else. The younger willow looked bedraggled, sadder than ever, but the older tree had been completely destroyed. The trunk had fractured right down the middle. One large branch was lying ten feet away, another half on and half off the garden wall thirty feet further on. Smaller branches and twigs crunched and snapped with every step she took and there were leaves everywhere. Her favourite seat between the two trees had disappeared altogether. She started, half-heartedly, to try to organise the chaos, piling leaves here, twigs there, branches nearer the path. It was thankless work. After half an hour, breathless and increasingly frustrated, she stood back and surveyed her handiwork. She’d accomplished very little. Disheartened, she went back inside. She’d start again after a coffee.

As the kettle boiled, the phone rang.

‘Kate Courtenay.’

‘Kate, it’s Helena Banks.’

‘Hi, how are you? How did you fare in the storm?’

‘We have a few roof tiles off. How about you?’

‘I haven’t even looked at the roof yet,’ Kate confessed. ‘I’ve been trying to deal with the willow.’

‘Problem?’

‘The older one was directly hit by lightning. Ninian and I saw it.’ She tried to laugh, but the sound that emerged was more like a choked sob. ‘It was certainly a spectacular cremation.’

‘That bad?’

‘It seemed to explode. Literally. There are branches everywhere.’

‘Have you got anyone to help you clear up?’

Andrew would have organised it
, Kate thought. She was beginning to realise how much Andrew had assumed responsibility for in the house and garden without her even being aware of it. ‘No. Sadly not.’

‘Are you going to be in this morning?’

‘I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.’

‘Well listen, I have to go into Edinburgh, but I’ll send someone round. Okay?’

‘That’s really kind of you, Helena, but—’

‘No worries. Listen, I must go, but I’ll be in touch, I promise you.’

It wasn’t until after she’d put the phone down that Kate realised who the ‘someone’ was likely to be: her gardener. Ibsen Brown.

She ran upstairs. She couldn’t see him looking like this, with her ancient Ugg boots and frayed denims. She pulled one item of clothing after another out of the wardrobe, examined it, tossed it on the bed. Nothing seemed right. A skirt was too girly, a dress out of the question. Tailored trousers too much like work wear, a skimpy top too sexy.

Stupid!

She wasn’t Melanie and she never planned to be. A scrawl of sadness drew itself in front of her eyes – girls without names or faces, girls who’d been rejected by Ibsen Brown. No. Not for her. And in any case, she was still married and Andrew wanted to talk – and that was something she had to think about, because of Ninian.

Annoyed with herself, she raked through the pile of clothing again and decided on simple slim-fit black jeans and heeled ankle boots, swapping her threadbare old rib-knit sweater for a more stylish long cashmere number in cream, with an asymmetric hem. The left edge dipped half way between her knee and hip, the right edge clipped the very top of her leg. Not too sexy, not too tatty. And because it was cold, she reached for the Missoni black and ivory striped scarf, a winter favourite.

Then she waited.

She tidied away the heap of clothes. She made the bed. She was about to pull out the vacuum cleaner when she realised she might not hear him arrive above its noise, so she found a duster and some polish instead. Wiping the sills and polishing the furniture had an unexpectedly therapeutic effect.

By the time Ibsen appeared an hour and a half later, she had given up altogether and had started to tackle last night’s cooking pots. When she heard his asthmatic car, she was up to her elbows in soapy water. She wiped her hands quickly on a towel and wrenched open the front door just as he was raising his hand to ring the bell.

When Helena Banks asked him if he’d go and help Kate Courtenay, Ibsen’s first instinct had been to refuse. Then he remembered that Helena was paying him, so refusal would be difficult. After that it dawned on him that in fact there was nothing he’d like more than an excuse to see Kate again – but when he walked up the path and lifted his hand to the doorbell, his stomach was churning.

‘Hi!’

She looked sweet enough to eat, all dressed up in some kind of lopsided sweater and little ankle boots with heels that raised her a good two inches towards his chin. When had she last cut her hair? The close crop had grown out and curls had begun to appear round her ears. They softened her appearance.

The jitters in his stomach receded. She was real, and she looked as nervous as he felt.

‘Hi, Kate,’ he managed to say as Wellington finally managed to bypass his legs to nose her crotch, his tail a flapping flag of ecstasy.

‘Hello, Wellington!’

‘I think he’s pleased to see you.’

She straightened and smiled. ‘Like the sweatshirt.’ His wardrobe of sweatshirts came from the same stable as his tee shirts. Today’s was dark green and simply read ‘Hardy Perennial’.

‘Thanks. Like the, erm, top. Did it shrink on one side?’

Kate blushed. ‘Okay, I know, it’s a bit “ladies who lunch”. Want to come in?’

His eyes never left her face. ‘It’s good to see you, Kate,’ he said softly.

The blush extended from her face down her neck. He saw her swallow, then she whispered, ‘And you.’

This wouldn’t do. She’d made it clear that her marriage had to come first and Ibsen was no marriage wrecker.
Get a grip.
He stepped backwards. ‘Let’s look at the damage, shall we?’

She followed him into the garden. ‘Did any of your dahlias survive?’ she asked as they made their way towards the storm-hit willow.

‘You remembered. Thankfully, all the tubers have been lifted and are safely in storage.’ They rounded the corner of the house and he stopped dead. ‘Oh dear.’

‘Isn’t it awful?’

She sounded teary. He said matter-of-factly, ‘I did warn you it hadn’t got long to live.’

‘Yes, but to end like this—’ Kate gestured at the bits of willow scattered twenty yards in every direction.

Ibsen stepped across one of the larger branches and bent down to examine the trunk. ‘This is really interesting.’ He beckoned her towards him. ‘See this?’

She bent to look, so close that he could smell shampoo and some light fragrance. Damn. This was difficult. ‘What?’

‘When a tree is dying, it sometimes dies from the outside in. Most of any life-giving sap that’s left is deep in its core.’

‘So?’

‘Lightning looks for the most conductive route – in this case, the moisture path. You had a direct hit, at a guess?’

‘Yes. I saw it happen.’

‘Must have been spectacular.’

‘And scary.’

‘The electric charge would have been unimaginably powerful. It found the moist core and simply boiled the water, like a pressure cooker, so that it exploded.’

‘What, so quickly?’

‘Instantly.’

‘Good heavens.’

‘The power of nature is fascinating, isn’t it?’

‘What do we do?’