by Kait Jagger
In due course, the event spilled over to the kitchen, where Luna and Ruth sat at the table, Luna giving Ruth a detailed account of her exchange with Magnus Petersen.
‘God, I can’t wait to tell Chris,’ Ruth said, draining her bottle of beer. ‘He swore you’d never talk Magnus around. I want to watch him eat his words.’
As Luna rose to fetch two more beers for Ruth and herself, Liv sat down at the table, a glass of red wine in the hand and an expectant look on her face.
‘So, Luna,’ she said, ‘dating the boss’s son, eh?’ Clearly she and Dagmar had been talking. If she wasn’t on her third beer, Luna might have been tempted to unleash a cold stare on her. The fact that Stefan was her employer’s son was neither here nor there, and certainly none of Liv’s business.
But Luna had found that the cold stare didn’t work so well when she was tipsy, and besides, Ruth interjected at this point, ‘Is this the one who was at the textile museum yesterday? Kat rang me the minute he left.’ Jesus wept, Luna thought, Shetland really is a small island. ‘She was practically hyperventilating at how gorgeous he was. When do I get to meet him?’
‘He’s, um… he’s back on Friday.’
‘Keen, eh?’ Ruth grinned.
‘Dagmar says he’s quite the ladies’ man,’ Liv noted. ‘You’d better keep an eye on him.’ On you, more like, Luna thought frostily.
But overall, it was a good night. After she and Dagmar sorted out taxis for the inebriated knitters and took a joint decision to leave tidying up for the morning, Luna climbed the stairs to her bedroom feeling a warm sense of accomplishment. She stripped off her clothes and let them lie where they fell, climbing into bed completely naked. Yawning as she pulled on her cotton gloves and stretched under the covers, she marvelled anew at how much warmer her room was now.
Her mobile rang a half-hour later, just as she was drifting off to sleep, and she was tempted to leave it. But it was Nancy’s witching hour, New York’s post-cocktail period when she often phoned to gossip, so Luna climbed out of bed and retrieved her phone from the floor. It wasn’t Nancy, but the number looked familiar.
She answered in professional mode, ‘Luna Gregory.’
‘Flicka,’ came Stefan’s voice. Ah, she’d forgotten to add him to her contacts on the new phone.
‘Hi,’ she replied, diving back under the covers. ‘How was your flight back?’
‘Uneventful. And you? How was your day?’
‘Good,’ Luna said, briefly telling him about that evening’s knitting club festivities, feeling again, unaccountably shy.
‘What is it you are knitting,’ he asked playfully, ‘in this club of yours?’
‘I am knitting a scarf,’ she said. ‘Badly.’
Stefan laughed in a way that indicated this didn’t completely surprise him. ‘And the ladies of the textile museum gave me a good report, did they?’
‘“Gorgeous” was the exact word they used.’
‘Ah, the women of Shetland, renowned for their discernment…’
*
The only other occurrence of any note that week was the visit by representatives from the Italian company making the silk lining for the coat, as well as silk scarves for their accessory range. They had tried hard to wheedle out of it, the Italians, when the idea of a meeting in Shetland was first mooted, but Dagmar had been insistent.
‘Always it is “come to Milan, you must come to Milan” from these ones,’ she said when Luna reported their reluctance. ‘It is good for them to get out.’
Luna began to suspect that her boss had a hidden mischievous streak when she accompanied the three Italian designers on a tour of Malcolm’s farm, followed by lunch at the Fisherman’s Rest. As the lead designer, whose expensive hand-stitched leather shoes were never going to be the same after their encounter with sheep droppings, picked his way through a shepherd’s pie, she could imagine what he’d be telling his stylish friends back in Milan about today’s outing.
Later, after Luna drove them back to the airport and she and Dagmar were sitting in the kitchen going through the samples again, she encouraged her boss to talk, to explain why one sample was better than another, or fit the concept of the line more closely. She was freshly struck by how clever Dagmar was; how creative. Luna lifted one of the scarves, which featured a motif of lushly entwined birds, and said, ‘This one’s my favourite, of course.’
The design on the scarf was Dagmar’s, and Luna had been with her at its inception. The two of them had taken a hike together around a local nature preserve a month ago and Dagmar had brought along her coloured pencils and pad, quickly sketching out abstract drawings of some of the birds they’d seen. When Luna praised her artistry, she’d been quick to demur. But she’d been thinking, she ventured hesitantly, that it might be nice to subtly incorporate some local wildlife into the line.
‘Probably Sören won’t agree,’ she said doubtfully, but Luna insisted she sit down at the kitchen table on their return home to make a sketch the silk company could work to.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Luna said now, stroking the fabric with one hand and resting her other hand on Dagmar’s shoulder. ‘You must show it to Sören.’
Dagmar looked at her and smiled slightly, and for a moment Luna thought she would reply, but instead she began folding the samples up, placing them in a box along with all the leather samples for the gloves in the accessories range. Still, Luna made a point of reminding her about the scarf when she drove her to the airport on Thursday afternoon. She’d asked if she could use the car that weekend and, though Dagmar had promptly agreed, Luna could see she was biting her tongue, or whatever Swedes did to prevent themselves from telling you what an awful mistake you were making, getting involved with that man.
*
Luna was chopping potatoes in the kitchen whilst braising cubes of stewing beef on the Rayburn. It was mid-afternoon on Friday and she was due to pick Stefan up at the airport at 6pm; although he’d cleared the rest of his Fridays for the next few months, he had a meeting he couldn’t get out of today.
Not a problem for Luna, who was glad of the time to tidy up the house, buy wine and beer to replace what had been drunk by the knitting club, and work on tonight’s meal. She’d been slightly stung by Liv’s comments about her cooking skills, or lack thereof. Luna actually prided herself on being a perfectly good cook, thank you very much, though admittedly she hadn’t been particularly motivated in that regard whilst living on Shetland. Still, she didn’t want Stefan to think there was any truth to Liv’s jibes.
This recipe, for beef stew with dumplings, was an old standby, one she had made many times for her father, and later for the girls when they shared a house in Manchester. She liked it for all the sous cheffing it entailed; mindless chopping and dicing of vegetables. Checking her watch, she reckoned that if she added the beef and veg to the beef stock simmering on the Rayburn quickly, there’d be just enough time for it to cook for the requisite three hours before Stefan arrived.
She felt oddly nervous, for reasons she couldn’t entirely explain. Stefan had kept his word about daily calls, phoning her at roughly the same time on Wednesday and Thursday night, but it was hard for him, she could tell, to completely change the habits of a lifetime. So while he asked interested questions about her day, people she’d talked to, places she’d been, he volunteered little about himself, responding… politely to her own questions. It shouldn’t have made her feel insecure, his reticence. But it did.
She stood and checked on her beef, draining the fat and carefully pouring the cubes into her stock, followed by the diced onions, potatoes, the red pepper and celery. Dipping a spoon in to taste the stock, she quickly ground a little more black pepper into it and replaced the lid.
She thought about what she was wearing: jeans and her light grey Shetland sweater. And her hair, currently in a braid down her back. She’d found the French twist she customarily wore it in at Arborage just didn’t work here on Shetland, not least because of the wild weather. But maybe s
he should put it up? Stefan did, after all, like to watch her taking it down. And her clothes, maybe she should change to something less utilitarian?
She heard the dogs barking out front and looked out through the kitchen window to see a taxi pulling up. Going to the door, she opened it to find Stefan paying the driver, his leather duffle bag in hand. He was dressed in his dark grey business suit, a favourite of hers.
She walked out into the yard as the taxi reversed back down the drive. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you till—’
She got no further, Stefan’s arms dragging her toward him and his mouth coming down on hers. The kiss lasted till she was forced to disengage, laughing breathlessly, ‘You’re early!’ To which Stefan grinned and hoisted her up, hands under her butt. Luna wrapped her legs around him as he quickly squatted to retrieve his bag and carried her into the house.
He lost his balance slightly in the front hall, banging her into one of the posies on the wall, causing a shower of thyme to fall to the floor. And then he dropped his bag and devoted himself to the task of kissing her thoroughly. Luna slid her arms under his suit jacket, along his back and up to his broad shoulders.
‘So,’ he said finally, his mouth still against hers. ‘I was sitting in my meeting this morning and thinking to myself, why am I here?’ Luna pulled back from him and waited for him to continue, but first he gave her another quick kiss. ‘It’s not even a client meeting,’ he went on, ‘just a monthly video conference between my Stockholm and London offices, one of these things that started out as a quick catch-up.’ He paused and looked down at her, really looked at her, then lowered his mouth to hers again. ‘Mmm…’ Lips hovering next to hers, he continued, ‘And then it morphs into this three-hour meeting where everyone talks about their projects, who they’ve worked with that week, followed by useless things like what they’re doing at the weekend.’
Another kiss, this time with his hand on her cheek, his finger twining in a strand of loose hair near her temple. ‘And all I could think was, I know what I’m doing this weekend, and I would like to start doing it right now.’ A little kiss, but with a swift bite of her lower lip.
‘So I say, “Wait, I have been thinking. This meeting, it has become a monster. We’re a management consultancy and look at us. We can’t even manage our own time. So each of you has exactly thirty seconds to talk.’ Stefan gave her a look then, like God, I want to tell this story but I just can’t seem to resist you, and Luna tilted her face up toward his obligingly and received another kiss.
‘And eight minutes later I am out of there, running for my car. And—’ Quick kiss. ‘Really, I must thank you for this, Luna—’ Kiss. ‘Because I think—’ Longer kiss. ‘I think this is a much more efficient way of doing meetings.’ This time it was Luna who kissed him, out of sheer delight at his storytelling prowess. After some time, he pulled his mouth off hers and lifted a hand as if to say, I will never finish this tale if you keep interrupting me.
‘But it took some running, let me tell you, to catch the 12.30 flight to Sumburgh. Literally, I was sprinting through security to get to the gate in time.’ A final, deep, long kiss.
‘But you made it,’ Luna said eventually, resting her head in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent.
‘I made it,’ he agreed, and kissed the top of her head.
Given that dinner wouldn’t be ready for another few hours, she decided to take him to the Fisherman’s Rest. He changed into his grey jeans and the black wool sweater Dagmar had made for her, which was oversized on Luna but fit him perfectly, then insisted that as he was demonstrating his newfound affinity for Shetland wool Luna could afford to forego wool for one night. So she wore her black silk polo neck and black jeans.
When she pulled the car into a spot next to the pub’s beer garden, empty save for a few hardy smokers puffing away in the chill wind, Luna turned to Stefan and cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘I’m, um, a little different in there,’ she warned him, inclining her head toward the pub. Stefan’s expression communicated his lack of understanding, so she tried again. ‘I come here mostly for work purposes, so I’ve had to, kind of, adopt a different persona.’
‘Evening, gents,’ she announced two minutes later as she and Stefan approached Chris Ollason and three other farmers standing at the bar. ‘What can I get you to drink?’
‘Luna!’ shouted the four men in greeting, to which she clapped her hands together and gave them a quick, impish rub. A signature Kayla move, for it was her more than anyone else who Luna pretended to be here at the pub. Hard drinking, straight talking Kayla – one of the lads.
Fortunately, Stefan seemed happy to go with the flow, if a little incredulous at the transformation of his quiet girlfriend into a back slapping, beer swilling bloke. After she’d made introductions, he got stuck right in chatting with Chris while she and the three others played darts. She felt a little thrill of possessive pride when Ruth entered the pub shortly thereafter and headed straight to Stefan, Shetland’s telegraph wires having clearly been abuzz with news of his arrival.
Later, as Luna sat at a table with Magnus Petersen, Stefan sauntered over with pints for both of them, leaning down to whisper in Luna’s ear, ‘You drink. I will drive home.’ Luna, or rather Kayla, rewarded him with a quick parting pat on the bum, drawing a cheer from her friends at the bar.
‘Hunh,’ Magnus Petersen grunted, taking a sip of his pint.
‘What?’ Luna asked.
‘I t’ought du and dat Swedish wummun were…’
Luna’s brow wrinkled, but then she took his meaning and smiled at him enigmatically. ‘Who says we’re not?’ Prompting a double take followed by a roar of laughter from the older man.
It all went so well, Luna inhabiting her Kayla façade so completely, that she felt the need to explain herself to Stefan on the ride home two hours later.
‘When I got here back in February, I didn’t feel equipped to do anything. But I couldn’t just curl up into a ball and hide like I wanted to,’ she said as Stefan negotiated a bend in the road. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat, Luna twisted her fingers together. ‘For one thing, I had your father to think of.’
‘My father, who had handed you a poisoned chalice,’ Stefan said in a mildly jaundiced tone.
*
‘So,’ she summed up later as they sat at the kitchen table over two bowls of stew, ‘I pretend to be other people sometimes, when I’m feeling out of my depth.’ She looked down at her spoon, then across the table to Stefan, her dirty little secret out in the open.
But he merely nodded and topped up her wine glass, like what she’d said was perfectly reasonable. When she continued to stare at him, he reached over and clasped her hand on top of the table, saying reassuringly, ‘Luna, everybody does this. Do you think I don’t sometimes ask myself what my father or one of my uncles would do, when I’m in a tricky meeting with a client?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘you don’t understand. I actually pretend to be other people. I pretend I’m them.’
He lifted his eyebrows and Luna stumbled on, telling him about the time when she’d imagined him sitting in the car with her, commentating on her disastrous first visit with Petersen. Stefan’s eyes softened at this and he squeezed her hand on the table.
‘And then later, when I saw Mr Petersen in the pub and my first impulse was to run away,’ she said, ‘I heard your voice again, telling me not to. So I went up to him and I… acted like you, and insisted on buying him a drink.’ She was silent for a few seconds. ‘And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Acting like Kayla or Nancy. But mostly like you.’
‘Hmm,’ Stefan said, spooning some stew into his mouth. Mouth sexily full, he lifted a finger off his spoon and said, ‘Well, flicka, let me first say that—’ he chewed reflectively and swallowed, ‘—you couldn’t have chosen a better person to impersonate. I don’t mean to brag, but yes, I see why you went with me.’
Luna pursed her lips and raised a knuckl
e to her mouth. For a moment Stefan just blinked at her as if to say, what’s so funny?, but then he smiled his honey on toast smile and added, ‘And second, although you have my approval to do this from time to time, please do not do it while we’re in bed together.’
Luna nodded. ‘Because you wouldn’t want to…’
‘Fuck myself,’ he said. ‘That’s right. I have no desire to fuck myself.’ Luna lost it then, laughing so hard she eventually groaned and pressed a hand to her aching ribs.
After that, it was like floodgates had opened. She spent the better part of the next hour talking almost non-stop, telling him about the wooing of farmers’ wives, and the strategic joining of clubs and the cajoling of Dagmar. About her rules for living in Shetland, and how she’d invented them as a way of coping with her sadness, but ultimately found that they benefited her in other ways.
Stefan listened to all this largely in silence, occasionally interjecting with a comment or question. He seemed to realise early on that Luna was looking for something from him, seeking validation. That having been essentially on her own for the past two months, with little guidance from Dagmar and no real template for how to proceed, she remained unconfident of her methods, and worried about her endgame.
She finished by telling him about Magnus Petersen signing his contract earlier that week, concluding, ‘But I… well, it hasn’t exactly prompted a stampede of farmers to my door, ready to sign on the dotted line.’ She drew her fingernail along a crack in the wooden table, shoulders dropping a little.
‘Luna,’ Stefan said seriously, ‘I wasn’t joking earlier when I said this assignment of my father’s was a poisoned chalice. There is resentment here among the crofters and others for our family. “Absentee landlords”, “Swedish know-alls”, that sort of thing. And some of them must suspect that the reason my father is doing all this, playing the benevolent landowner, is because he wants to raise their rents.’