by Kait Jagger
‘Hello, you,’ she said, standing and walking toward the kitchen.
‘Hi. How are you?’ came Jem’s voice, sounding as if it were right next door instead of several hundred miles away.
‘Very good, very good,’ Luna said, sitting at the oak table next to the Rayburn. ‘Just got back from this week’s knitting club. It’s all party all the time up here in Shetland,’ she added drily. ‘And you? How’re things going with your big party this weekend?’
A few weeks ago Jem had sent Luna an invitation to the post-launch party for Remainers, which had surprised everyone by becoming the fastest-selling video game in the UK during its first month on the market. They were having the party at Arborage, appropriately enough; a costumed affair where attendees were encouraged to dress up as characters from the game.
‘It’s been pretty frantic, but I think it’s going to be a fun night… that was actually why I was ringing you. You haven’t RSVPd yet.’
Luna bit her lip. She’d assumed Jem sent her the invitation purely as a courtesy. ‘Sorry, I—’ she hesitated. ‘I didn’t think I needed to.’
‘So you’re not coming.’ The disappointment in Jem’s voice was clear.
‘Well, no,’ Luna smiled, as if somehow Jem could see it. ‘It is a long way to come for just one night, Jem.’
‘Not so far that you couldn’t come last weekend, though.’
Luna winced. It was true, she had been in London the previous Friday. ‘But that was just for work meetings,’ she explained. Not strictly true, but she added more honestly, ‘And I was only there for a day.’
‘Yet you found time to go to the West End and watch Kayla.’ Luna flinched again as Jem continued damningly, ‘Not so much as a phone call to me, but you had time to see her play for, what, the second time in three months?’
‘I—’
‘And Nancy. All she has to do is have a fight with Robert and you’re on the first plane to New York.’
Luna struggled to respond, genuinely taken aback. Jem was usually the most even-tempered of all her friends. Where was all this angst coming from?
‘But when I have a party to celebrate this major achievement in my life,’ Jem said, ‘which is a really big deal for me and for Rod, you’re too busy.’
‘It’s not like that, Jem,’ Luna protested. ‘You know how proud I am of you.’
‘Do I?’
‘It’s just, it’s awkward, with the party being at Arborage.’
‘And you having to see Stefan. That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve given him the push and you don’t want to have to face him.’
This was unfair, though Jem didn’t know it. Not for the first time, Luna wished she hadn’t concealed the truth of their break-up from her friend. And Jem wasn’t finished.
‘It’s like you’re punishing me for staying friends with him.’
‘That absolutely isn’t true,’ Luna said adamantly. ‘I want you to be friends with Stefan.’
There was a loaded silence on the other end of the line. Eventually, Jem said tightly, ‘All I know is that this is a really exciting time for me, and I feel like I can’t share it with you. Like you don’t really care.’
Then, to Luna’s amazement, Jem hung up on her.
Luna sat and stared at her phone for a moment, heart thumping dully in her chest. She went to the Belfast sink and filled a kettle with water, putting it on the Rayburn to heat, then paced the kitchen. The door to the front room was open and she suspected that despite her efforts to speak quietly, Dagmar had been listening to her side of this exchange. Dagmar, who knew rather more about Luna’s love life than Luna would have liked…
Chapter Three
A few weeks earlier, when Sören had suggested a face-to-face meeting between himself, Dagmar and Luna in London, Luna’s first thought had been not of Jem, or even Kayla, but of her motorbike. It was the only thing she’d been forced to leave behind at Arborage when she left, and she very much wanted to get it back.
She was weighing up the possible risk, to be avoided at all costs, that she might run into Stefan whilst retrieving it, when she remembered something useful from her previous job. Sitting at the kitchen table one afternoon, she pulled up the website for the Association of Historic Homes. And there it was: ‘AHH Annual Conference – 27 March.’ This was a major fixture in the Marchioness’s diary. Luna couldn’t imagine her Ladyship, or indeed Stefan now that he was the heir presumptive, missing it.
Indeed, scrolling through the agenda, she discovered that Stefan was the keynote speaker this year. There was a headshot of him standing next to one of the stone lions outside the portico at Arborage. ‘Arborage House – Reinventing the Lionsbridge Brand’ was the title of his speech. His hair had grown, she noted with a pang. It suited him, his dark blond locks falling over the collar of his shirt. Almost like a lion’s mane.
As Luna swallowed her pain at the sight of him, Dagmar happened past. ‘Ah, the boss’s son,’ she observed, surprising Luna by bending down to study the website.
‘I was, uh—’ Luna stammered. ‘This is an event my former employer is attending. Stefan Lundgren is speaking there. You know him?’
‘Yes,’ Dagmar said, frowning slightly. ‘We have many of the same friends, go to the same places in Stockholm.’
Luna clicked over to her calendar and swiftly changed the subject. ‘I was thinking, our meeting with Sören, could it be on the 27th? Maybe you and I could fly to London, and you could fly home to Stockholm with him when we’re finished. Would that work?’
‘Sure,’ Dagmar said, sitting down next to Luna at the table. ‘That works fine.’
Luna nodded and started closing her laptop.
‘You know,’ Dagmar said quietly, ‘he is not worth your suffering.’
‘I—’ Luna choked, filled with dismay that she had been so transparent, or that somehow her and Stefan’s relationship had become fodder for the rumour mill among his and Dagmar’s mutual friends.
‘Many women in Stockholm have suffered for him,’ Dagmar continued heedlessly. ‘Men like him, they don’t care.’
Luna stood in a hurry, her wooden chair screeching along the flagstone floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and quickly left the room.
*
They flew down to London together the following week, she and Dagmar, and met with Sören in his usual coffee shop near the British Museum. Afterward, with time to kill, Luna went to the West End theatre where Kayla was appearing in a revival of Cats to see if there were any ticket cancellations. Having had a shaky preview night in the autumn, the show had been completely revamped, opening to rave reviews and sell-out audiences.
Luna was pleasantly surprised to be able to get a matinee ticket, and even more pleased to find that the production now did justice to Kayla’s starring performance as Grizabella the Glamour Cat.
She texted Kayla later, on her way out of London: Just watched you perform. So incredible! My friend the star!!!
Kayla phoned her almost immediately. ‘Babe! You’re here?’
‘Just for the day.’
‘Why didn’t you come backstage? Where are you? I can come meet you.’
‘No, I’m not staying in town,’ Luna explained hastily. ‘I have to get straight back up north first thing tomorrow. I just thought, since I was here, I’d come see the show again.’
‘Now it isn’t a complete train wreck anymore, you mean,’ Kayla laughed, adding eagerly, ‘And you liked it?’
‘I loved it, Kay. And you know how much I hate Andrew Lloyd Webber, so that must mean it’s good.’
‘Aw, babe, I wish I could see you.’
‘Me too. Maybe next time.’
She stayed at a hotel a few miles away from Arborage, rising at dawn the next day and dressing in her biking gear, travelling by taxi to the entrance of the estate. She’d made advance arrangements with the head of security, so the guard there opened the massive wrought-iron gates and waved her through.
Sitting in the back seat of the cab, Luna inst
inctively turned her face away when the house loomed into view. Instead, she looked out onto the passing parkland, where deer were grazing in the distance. She instructed the driver to turn off onto a service road leading to the barn where Arborage’s staff vehicles were kept.
She felt emotional, but in a good way, as she walked into the barn and saw a familiar shape in the corner, covered in a dust cloth. And when she pulled the cloth off and saw her Enduro – Michael, that was what she had secretly named it – she had to resist a sudden urge to hug it.
Luna made herself stop halfway down the drive, lifting the visor on her helmet and turning around to face the house. Arborage was practically glowing in the early morning sunshine, its yellow sandstone exterior punctuated by dark green box topiary. It was going to be a beautiful spring day here on the estate.
Having faced her fear, Luna pulled her visor back down and drove away.
It took her two days to get back to Shetland. Two long days of cold, gruelling motorway driving punctuated by hourly breaks at motorway service stops, an overnight stay near Durham, followed by the overnight ferry, where Luna managed, just, to avoid spewing up this time.
But she had been glad, the minute she drove her bike off the ferry and headed for Malcolm’s farm, that she had gone to the trouble. Even gladder the first time she’d ridden it into the Ollasons’ yard and seen Chris Ollason’s eyes light up. Quietly glad too, when she’d ridden it over to her local pub, the Fisherman’s Rest, for Wednesday quiz night, to see the looks of interest her Gore-Tex suit generated amongst the regulars.
It was like having a silent partner, the bike. Luna knew that Shetland wouldn’t be the same as Nice and Miami, where she’d lived previously; the girls wouldn’t be clamouring to visit her here. She knew, she knew, that it was only a piece of machinery, but having the Enduro with her made her feel better, like having a friend parked outside.
Of course, the Enduro couldn’t keep her warm at night. Her attic room, furthest away from the Rayburn, remained freezing cold despite the fact that it was now April. So when her pan of water began to boil, Luna carefully poured it into a hot water bottle. Moving to the small wood-panelled bathroom at the back of the cottage, she brushed her teeth and quickly changed into a flannel grandfather nightshirt Dagmar had given her. She didn’t bother to say goodnight, walking straight upstairs and into her bedroom, crawling into her bed.
Hugging her water bottle to her chest, she curled herself up into a ball under the duvet. The rain had turned to hail, which was coming down like thousands of tiny pellets on the skylights, but she knew she would have no problem sleeping that night. Sleep was her ally, her refuge. Luna welcomed it like an old friend.
*
The next morning she got up early and went for a run, one of the few habits of her previous life she’d maintained here, although the almost lunar landscape of the moorland here was a world away from Arborage’s meticulously maintained gardens.
Running past Malcolm’s fields, where his flock of black sheep were grazing, Luna thought, not for the first time, that black was the loveliest of all the various colours Shetland sheep came in. She understood all the reasons for farmers’ reluctance to breed them. But they were so unexpected, all these small black creatures against the green fields, with their wide-set, sweet faces and oversized, shaggy pelts. Adorable.
She was looking forward to lambing season in a few weeks’ time. Not just for the excitement of it, but because Dagmar had arranged a promotional photo shoot for the Lundgren range to coincide with the arrival of the lambs, with models, and a creative marketing guru friend of hers from Stockholm.
Dagmar had left for the building site by the time Luna returned, gasping and sweating, to the cottage, so she showered and dressed, opting for her dark grey sweater – another promise she’d made herself, that during colder months she would always wear a Shetland sweater in public – and drove the Enduro two miles down the road to the Fisherman’s Rest. She’d initially started going there a few nights a week as part of her making friends initiative, the pub being popular with many of the area’s farmers. When she found out it offered free Wi-Fi, she started using it during the day as well.
The Fisherman’s Rest wasn’t a traditional pub, or at least not the kind Luna was used to in Berkshire. With its floral wallpaper and dado rails, it looked more like someone’s front room with a bar plonked in the corner. It was cosy and welcoming though, and the staff there were invariably kind to her.
Luna sat at a small wooden table near the door and a slight, blond woman came over with a cup of coffee.
‘Ta,’ Luna smiled.
‘Bit of shortbread on the side for you,’ the blonde replied as she moved away.
‘Mmm, lovely.’ Luna had never in her life been offered as much free food as she had during her two months on the island. Shetlanders were generous that way, she had found, and the women here seemed to be on a mission to fatten her up.
‘Du have a face laek a limed buggie,’ octogenarian Judith had said to her the previous night, urging another chocolate biscuit on her. Apparently ‘limed buggie’ was not a compliment.
Scrolling through her inbox, Luna found an email from Malcolm with comments on some paperwork she’d completed on his behalf; another grant application. She thought about pinging a response suggesting he come join her at the pub, but then thought again. Liv, she knew, was sensitive about how much time the two of them spent together. It had gotten to the point where Luna could practically see his Norwegian wife’s lips tighten every time she came over.
Liv and Malcolm had met while she was backpacking around the island a few years previously. Looking at the photos of their wedding on the walls of their bungalow, Luna would have said that, yes, they looked like a May-December couple, but a happy one. Three years and one small, demanding toddler later, however, Liv seemed homesick; the farm was a far cry from cosmopolitan Oslo.
Homesick… and maybe just a little jealous. Which was mad, of course. Luna had absolutely no interest in Malcolm. She wasn’t interested in anyone. She was aware that there was speculation about her, and there had been a few fumbling approaches here in the pub by regulars and trawlermen on leave. All of which she’d politely but firmly rejected. She’d have liked to say it was out of professionalism, but the reality was that she couldn’t bear the thought of sharing her bed with anyone who wasn’t Stefan. She hoped that this would change. It had to change.
It had been while she was getting a round of drinks in for her quiz team the other night, having just fended off another trawlerman, that Luna had first seen Rafe Davies’ car advertisement. She’d heard the music first, recognising her father’s song within the first few notes. And there it was on the telly behind the bar, the footage Rafe had shown her in February of a young man driving through London at night, perfectly married to Lukas Gregory’s music.
She looked around the room, wishing that there was someone she could tell. Or that she could point to the television and shout, ‘That’s my dad singing!’ In truth, what she really wished was that one of the girls were there, to help her savour this moment. But they weren’t. And these people were strangers. So she watched the ad in silence, feeling as alone as she ever had here in Shetland.
Back in the present, Luna finished her coffee and her shortbread, then headed out to the building site. Malcolm was there with Dagmar and the project manager, watching concrete being poured into the foundations. Luna caught Dagmar’s eye and pointed to her watch. They had a conference call in five minutes with the company producing a range of silk scarves to go with the line.
They took the call in the car, the quietest place they could find in a noisy building site. The company making the scarves was Italian, and Dagmar led the call. It was in these situations where her natural skills came to the fore, her bullishness and creativity combined, and Luna could see what made her such a valuable asset to Sören.
When they finished the call, Luna and Dagmar sat in silence in the car for a moment, the sound of th
e concrete mixer truck droning outside.
‘I need to take this Friday off,’ Luna said.
She felt her boss stiffen beside her; knew that she knew what this meant. But before Dagmar could say anything, Luna fixed her coolest gaze on her. The one that could freeze water. Her personal life was not up for discussion, Dagmar needed to understand that.
The look had its desired effect. Words that had been forming on Dagmar’s lips died there.
Instead, she simply said, ‘Okay.’
Luna texted Jem later, writing simply, I’m sorry. Can I come to your party Friday night? Pretty please?
Chapter Four
‘God, Luna, I’d forgotten what a massive booty you have,’ Kayla said. And then she and Nancy looked at each other and cackled heartlessly.
‘Nice,’ Luna replied witheringly. ‘That’s really nice.’
She was standing in front of a mirror in the Soho loft of Kayla’s friend Patrice, who designed the costumes for Cats and who had occasionally been pressed into service as a stylist for Luna. At that very moment, he was kneeling directly next to said booty, inserting pins into a dress he’d selected for her to wear at the party that evening.
Speaking out of the left side of his mouth, the right side being full of pins, he said, ‘Your friend has lost weight.’
‘Not on my arse, apparently,’ Luna groused, to peals of laughter from Kayla, who was sitting cross-legged on a velvet chair next to the window. Nancy, meanwhile, was admiring her own silhouette behind Luna in the mirror. She had decided, nay insisted, on dressing as one of the three lead characters in Remainers, which posited an alternative reality in which Britain had lost World War II and the Nazis had invaded England. Nancy was dressed as the character of Elle, a super sexy, extremely violent female spy out for Nazi blood.
She looked perfect, with her platinum blond hair and compact figure, in the close-fitting black skirt, off-white satin blouse and seamed stockings that were Elle’s trademark look in the game. Whereas Luna… well, suffice it to say, her own costume still needed some work.