She plastered on a smile as he walked up to the porch. ‘So, you got some insulation then?’ she asked, eying the fleeces. They looked like they’d been sheared from the dirtiest sheep in the flock.
‘Yeah, they’re not in the best of nick but they’ll do the job.’ He rummaged in his pocket. ‘And I got you these.’ He pulled out a pair of voluminous tan women’s tights. ‘They’re for the doorstop. I thought we could stuff the legs with some of the wool.’
Zoe took them from him and raised an eyebrow. ‘Dare I ask where you got these, Jamie?’
The colour rose in his cheeks. ‘I, er, borrowed them from Mum.’
Zoe clapped her hand over her mouth as a shocked giggle burst out. ‘And when were you going to give them back?’
He blushed fiercely. ‘You can’t say anything.’
‘James Robert MacDougall, I can’t believe you went rummaging around in your mum’s underwear drawer and stole her stockings!’
‘Promise you won’t tell?’ he pleaded, sounding more and more like the little boy he once was.
Zoe laughed and put her hand to her chest. ‘I promise. Hand on my heart, hope to die.’
Jamie joined in with ‘stick a needle in my eye.’
They both smiled at the memories from long ago and Jamie deposited the fleeces on the porch.
‘I’ll tackle the door. There’s no way I’m stuffing my mum’s tights.’
For the next hour, they worked companionably together, Jamie unpicking one side of plastic sheeting and stuffing the inside before re-fixing it back, Zoe filling the tights along with a length of wood inside to keep the shape and the doorstop anchored to the floor. There was plenty of wool left over, so they went around the door and window frames, plugging any obvious gaps. As they worked, Zoe snapped photos; the contrast between the wool and the wood, Jamie’s hands as he worked, his profile against the open door with the loch in the distance behind. Focusing on the beauty in the small details helped give the bigger picture a rosier glow.
She then followed him out, and drove up the road until she found a phone signal, spending a happy hour on Instagram, editing the images from the day. It was so beautiful here, even when it rained. She had messaged Sam who demanded to know why she was being ‘chased by weird looking cows’, and who the ‘Scottie hottie’ Jamie was. Zoe promised she would collect all the hotties in Kinloch for a non-specific day in the future when she was brave enough to come for a visit.
After speaking to Sam, Zoe rang home, sensing her mother’s unease and worry crackling down the line, then returned to the cabin, to make herself more pasta for tea. As she ate, she wondered how she could run a small fridge. If she didn’t get some vegetables into her diet soon, she was sure her mum would sense it and drive all the way up to force-feed her broccoli.
Without a TV or the Internet, and with her Kindle low on battery, there was nothing left to do in the long evening. She spent a couple of hours moving the old table around the cabin, balancing on it to clean the log walls of their prehistoric cobwebs, then rearranged her meagre possessions. She placed the bird’s nest pride of place on top of one of the plastic boxes outside her tent door. Snuggled in her sleeping bag, under the twinkling of the battery-powered fairy lights she’d clipped inside the tent, she smiled. The unpleasantness with Rory seemed far away.
6
Zoe was not a morning person. It was at least an hour after waking before she was able to pass as a fully functioning human being, and the process had to involve a cup of tea. With her new front door up and running, she hadn’t zipped her tent shut, and when the pale morning light hit her face she lay there, eye mask still on, checking all limbs were intact before she found the energy to move. It was ten minutes before she removed her mask and earplugs. She lay, gathering together her waking consciousness ready to deal with the day, listening to the birds outside.
There was another noise though, a scrabbling, scratching noise, closer to her. She corralled her brain into waking up, but no logical explanation came to mind. The noise was coming from right outside the tent. She opened her eyes looking at the plastic box with the bird’s nest on top. Half-awake, her mind still not yet fully switched on, she stared at the nest. She felt detached, as if watching a TV show, as a cute little head poked out, with big round ears and whiskers. It looked at her, licking its paws, bringing them down over its face to clean it. It was so comfortable, so at ease in its surroundings, that Zoe could only stare. It looked like a cross between a fluffy hamster and a mouse. Was it some sort of rat?
Finishing its morning ablutions, it tentatively ventured out of the nest. It was large, with big, floppy ears, a glossy chocolate brown coat and fluffy white underbelly. The half-awake part of Zoe was telling her she should at least be screaming by now. The half-asleep part was telling her how utterly adorable it was.
Before her conscious mind could assert itself enough to create motor function, the creature had jumped out of the nest, off the box and onto Zoe’s pillow, where it curled up next to her and fell asleep.
Was she still dreaming? She gingerly lifted her arm and gently stroked the soft warm body beside her. It opened its eyes, and nudged against her hand, as if wanting more attention. A half-laugh caught in her throat as she sat up, running her fingers over the silky fur. It was kind of rat shaped, but there was no way it was wild.
‘Good morning to you,’ she whispered. ‘Why do I feel you’re here to stay?’
Zoe took lots of pictures of her new friend while she made breakfast, as if recording the event made it somehow real rather than the invention of a scrambled mind. It was remarkably domesticated and ridiculously cute, sniffing the front of her phone as she snapped away. It wanted to be wherever Zoe was, and its favourite place was sitting on her shoulder, playing with her hair.
She had always wanted a pet as a child, but it had never happened. First her mother was ill, then they lost their house. Zoe stopped asking at that point, but would spend hours outside, trying to coax birds and squirrels into being her friend.
She wasn’t so enamoured of her unexpected pet that she forgot it needed a toilet. She ripped up paper and placed it in the bird’s nest, clapping like a proud parent when the creature she’d decided was a rat, immediately got the message.
‘If you’re going to stay then you need a home for when I’m not here,’ she solemnly informed her new friend. ‘Let’s find a pet shop this morning.’
Zoe emptied a small plastic box she was using for storage and lined it with a towel to make a temporary home for the rat. She then took it, the bird’s nest as a portable toilet, and her bag to the library in Kinloch. Ratty was asleep by the time she arrived, so she left him in the truck and went inside.
Sitting at a desk, she posted her latest photos to Instagram, including the ones from the morning, imagining the reaction that Sam would have to the rat. She charged her phones, Kindle and power packs, and continued her cabin renovation research.
Each time she added another line to her spreadsheet her heart sank. Why was it so expensive to renovate a cabin? Even the most basic essentials were going to max her out. The roof was the biggest unknown. If it needed a complete replacement it would make the whole project unworkable. She also had ongoing storage costs for her furniture and non-essential belongings. She didn’t want to pick everything up only to put it in a house with a leaking roof.
She sat back, staring into the middle distance. She needed to see the roof, find out how bad it really was. But first, she either had to donate the rat to a pet shop or commit to looking after it. She gathered up her belongings and grinned. Life in Kinloch was proving far from boring.
Zoe stood outside the only pet shop in a fifty-mile radius and tried not to giggle. The Time is MEOW! the sign pronounced, the windows full of fluffy little balls of cuteness; there wasn’t an old or ugly creature in view. The interior was a pungent mix of animal feed and sawdust, softened by the warm greetings of an older couple. Their clothes were utilitarian, in nondescript browns and greens that hid a multitude
of animal sins.
‘Can we help you, lassie?’ asked the man, smiling as Zoe gingerly brought out the rat.
The couple lit up and the woman exclaimed, ‘Basil!’ She nudged her husband. ‘I just knew he would be going to a good home.’ She stroked the rat, cooing. ‘Hello, you little cutie! How are you enjoying your new human?’
‘Err. You know this rat?’ Zoe asked.
‘Of course, my dear, we know all of our babies. This is Basil, he’s a Dumbo rat. See his big ears. Aren’t you gorgeous, my darling! And such a lovely present for a pretty girl! Your boyfriend came in yesterday to buy something special for you and decided it had to be a rat.’
‘My boyfriend?’
‘Oh aye, strapping fella, lovely hair and bright eyes. Good teeth too.’
Her husband turned to Zoe. ‘Do you have everything you need? He said you had the essentials, but you might need a little more to get you going, and if you’re going to be away from him a while then he needs a friend. Rats are sociable creatures you know.’
Zoe’s jaw moved but no words came out. The lady stepped back and Basil scurried to Zoe’s shoulder. The couple let out a collective happy sigh.
‘Awwww. Friends for life!’
* * *
Zoe left the pet shop considerably lighter in the pocket and heavier on unanticipated purchases. She hadn’t budgeted for this. She sat back in her truck, Basil running happily back and forth along the dashboard in front of her.
Rory. Her mind hadn’t left him since the pet shop. What in god’s name was he up to? Did he think she would run back to London because of a rat? And did he think she was that much of an idiot she’d believe beautiful Basil was wild? Well, she had told him she thought he was a bear. She sighed. And he’d said she was his girlfriend? Fat chance of that. Not only did he despise her and want her out of the cabin, he obviously thought she was a half-wit as well.
Well, she would show him. She wasn’t going anywhere and neither was Basil. She whistled to him as she fired up the truck and he leapt from the dashboard to her shoulder, chattering away.
* * *
Zoe stood in front of the tall tree she used to climb with Jamie and Fiona when they were children. It was perfectly placed to offer a vantage point of the cabin’s roof, and if there was phone signal up there, then so much the better.
However, the tree seemed to have grown far more than she had in the last nineteen years. She could touch the lowest branch but it was too high to haul herself onto it. Basil climbed to the top of her head as she contemplated it, as if a second pair of eyes would solve the problem.
‘Right then, Basil, let’s show them,’ she said, as she strode confidently to the cabin, returning with the least rickety chair which she set against the trunk.
She made sure her phone was secure in a zipped pocket and lifted Basil down. ‘Now then, you must keep still. I haven’t done this since I was just a bit bigger than you, so you’ve got to be a help, not a hindrance. Okay?’
Basil twitched his nose in agreement and she placed him behind her, in the hood of her jacket. She stepped onto the seat. So far no broken bones. She reached her arms over the branch, lifted her right leg up and tried to swing it over, but it was too high.
‘Come on, you can do this!’ she told herself, bringing her right foot back onto the seat, then tentatively placing her left foot on the back of the chair.
It wobbled and she pushed it back against the trunk so the chair was now balancing on its back legs. Not wanting to take it past tolerance, she grasped the trunk securely with her arms, put her weight through her left leg, swung her right leg over the branch and heaved, just as the back bar of the chair snapped and the whole thing fell over. She was up!
‘Yes!’
She punched the air at the small victory, then glanced at the broken chair. She turned to Basil who had worked his way to her shoulder.
‘Come on now, that chair was knackered, I’m not that heavy. Now back into your seat and hold on tight.’
Basil scurried into her hair as she got to her feet on the branch and began her ascent.
The tree was a great one to climb once you got going. As a kid she’d never climbed that far but it still felt very high. As she reached each new branch, she took out her phone to check the signal. Nothing.
She paused on the seventh branch, high enough now to see the roof. She could see where a few of the shingles had come loose. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it certainly wasn’t pretty. She zoomed in with the camera on her phone to take photos. She could show them to someone who knew more than she did and make sure she only spent as much as she actually needed to.
Putting her phone back in her pocket, she heard a chattering noise above her and saw that Basil had gone exploring and was now perched above her, squeaking.
‘Oh, what are you doing? Come back here! We’ve seen enough and there’s no signal so we’re going down now.’
Basil didn’t budge.
‘Are you stuck?!’
Basil continued his chattering and squeaking. Hadn’t the lady in the pet shop told her that squeaking was a sign of stress?
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ she called up to him, ‘Mummy’s coming.’
She rolled her eyes at herself and the devotion she was showing to a rat that had been in her life less than twenty-four hours and hauled herself up the next two branches. Basil was higher but the next branch wasn’t easy. It involved wedging her foot into a crack in the trunk as a step and she was beginning to realise she was higher up than she had ever been before.
‘Do NOT look down now,’ she said as she eyeballed Basil. ‘You are in so much trouble, young man. Wait till I get you home. No TV tonight and only bread and water for tea.’
Basil was running back and forth excitedly, knowing she was nearly there. Zoe took a big breath in, wedged one foot into the crack, dug her fingers into the bark above and yanked herself up with all her might, swinging her other leg over the branch where Basil was perched and pulling herself up. She lay across the branch, eyes closed, heart thudding, whilst Basil sniffed about, making sure she was still alive.
A series of pings, dings and vibrations in her pocket alerted her that she had a phone signal at last. She sat up, checked her messages, then took photos from her vantage point and selfies of her and Basil. Thank god her parents didn’t know what Instagram was.
With her back resting against the trunk and Basil wrapped around her neck, she posted the shots of them both up the tree, checked her bids on eBay, and read Sam’s messages. She said Zoe had managed to go feral in less than a week and asked if Basil was a joke. Zoe replied that he was the cutest chap she’d met so far.
She then rang home. She knew both her parents would be busy at work but she left a message. Hearing her mum’s voice on the answering machine sent a stab of pain to her chest. The last time she had been up this tree she hadn’t even known she was going home to a mum. She was so grateful. She had wanted to break away from her parents, from their expectations of what they thought she should do with her life. But now she missed them terribly and they were very far away. She kept her message short and upbeat, injecting as much positivity into it as she could.
As soon as the cabin was as inhabitable as she had claimed, she would get them up. Just not before, or she knew they’d be taking her straight back down south, perhaps in a straightjacket.
Finishing her message, she had the urge to pee and realised she had been in the tree over an hour. She turned to Basil. ‘Right, little monkey, we’re getting out of here.’ She secured her phone, stretched, then glanced down.
Big mistake.
Adrenaline had taken her up the last branch to get to Basil, but now adrenaline was showing her exactly how easy it would be to fall and end her life, thumping into every branch on the way down to the ground.
She groaned. ‘Come on, come on, Zoe. You can do this.’
She felt sick. Dizzy.
‘Come ON!’
Face down on the
branch, she gripped it with her arms and right leg. Putting her left leg towards the trunk, she felt with the point of her boot for the crack.
Where had it gone?!
Her heart raced. Her muscles strained with the effort to keep herself on the branch whilst still reaching lower with her left foot.
Where was it?
She hauled herself back up fully onto the branch, feeling the bark against her face, and tried not to panic. Dammit. She was stuck up a tree. Like the idiot she knew she was. Why didn’t she just buy a ladder and look at the roof a sensible way? She’d need one anyway to fix the bloody thing.
She brought herself back to a sitting position, then rang Jamie but it went to voicemail. He worked out of town as an electrician on new build projects and said he didn’t always have a signal. The next call was to Morag, who thankfully picked up.
After Morag went through two minutes of worry, she reassured her she’d send someone out straight away. ‘Don’t worry, love, there’s at least two people in the post office who could be your knight in shining armour. Sit tight, okay?’
Zoe thanked her and rang off. Her phone battery was now down to eighteen per cent, so she put it in her pocket and sat back to wait, wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm.
After ten minutes, the phone rang. Jamie?
It was Sam, who didn’t even bother saying hello. ‘A rat! You’ve got a frigging rat? As a pet? They carry the plague. You’ll get boils, then die all alone in your Scottish shed and then your rat will EAT YOU!’
As an actress, Sam saw every situation as an opportunity to be dramatic. She called it ‘expanding her range’. Zoe often asked why her range never included quiet, shy, retiring types, or nuns.
‘I mean, for a rat, he is pretty cute but seriously, have you lost your mind? They piss over everything, all the time, and stink, then breed like fricking rabbits and chew through wires so you’ll get electrocuted and die. Then they move onto chowing down on your hot, sizzling corpse.’
Highland Games: sparkling, sexy and utterly unputdownable - the romantic comedy of the year! (The Kinloch Series) Page 6