Tall, Dark and Kilted

by Lizzie Lamb

  Giving her usual insouciant: ‘Whatever,’ Isla shrugged off his hands and got into the front seat without further protest. Murdo stood for a few moments looking towards the mountains, composing himself. Then he rubbed his scalp as though it was prickling in the summer heat, and climbed into the Land Rover. He drove on without another word and the rest of the journey passed in a tense silence. Fliss hoped that once she got to Kinloch Mara and became immersed in the therapy centre, she’d see little of Isla - which would suit her just fine!

  Two hours later, Murdo pulled off the main road and started a long slow descent, leaving the mountains behind and following a minor road flanked by a mixed plantation of pine and deciduous trees. Eventually he stopped and pulled off the road, turning round to Fliss he gestured at the stunning view in front of them.

  ‘There she is: Tigh na Locha, Fliss. The House by the Loch’

  ‘Oh God.’ Isla laid her head on her arms on the dashboard. ‘Dead man walking,’ she intoned, as if thoroughly dejected by the thought of the life she’d left behind in London.

  ‘Don’t be such a drama queen, Isla,’ Cat slipped in one last dig as she and Fliss clambered out of the Land Rover with Lassie hard on their heels.

  From their vantage point, the mountains behind them were hidden by trees and Fliss could see soft, rounded hills that swept all the way down to a large loch. The colours were dazzling; the green of the hills and trees, the blue sky reflected in the deeper blue of the loch and the ochre of the sandy beach which gave way to paler sand near a pebble path. The shore line dipped in and out of the expanse of water and in the distance, at vanishing point, the opposing shores appeared to link hands, cutting the loch off from the sea.

  And, way below them, nestled in the trees with a wide lawn leading down to the waters’ edge where it became a beach, was Tigh na Locha. Solid, ancient, a slice of Scottish history complete with white painted turrets and stepped gables, and with a look of permanency that said: ‘I’ve been here for a thousand years. Wha’ dares challenge me?’

  After the car journey, the view of the loch was balm to her soul and Fliss let out a long, shuddering sigh. Unasked for tears prickled her nose and blurred her view. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, a catch in her voice. Then she whispered softly so that no one could hear: ‘I’ve come home.’

  Chapter Nine

  I’ve come home? Where had that fanciful thought come from?

  She looked at the beautiful view and a kind of peace settled on her. She knew it was whimsical, but she felt as if she’d visited Kinloch Mara many times in her dreams. She glanced quickly at the others hoping that they hadn’t witnessed her fey moment. Luckily, they were wrapped up in their own thoughts …

  … Isla - head bowed on the dashboard, the picture of misery. Murdo - striking an unconsciously heroic pose in his Kilt, thick white socks and biker boots as he gazed into the middle distance. And Cat - happily throwing sticks for the dog, her face flushed and healthy. Quite a change from the night of the party when she’d looked like an extra from Twilight.

  ‘Did you say something, Fliss?’ asked Cat.

  ‘I said it’s beautiful.’ She made her way slowly back to the car. Encouraged by the romantic setting of the loch, hills, turreted castle and misty islands in the distance, Fliss could almost believe this overwhelming feeling of remembrance and homecoming was some long buried memory. That if she took a DNA test she would discover that she had Scottish genes running through her blood.

  It wasn’t like her to be so fanciful. Events over the last few years had left her little time for daydreams; it was level-headedness that had got her through college and hard work that paid the bills - not wild imaginings. Yet she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that the novels she’d read, the movies she’d seen … The Flight of the Heron, Local Hero, Braveheart, the Thirty Nine Steps … had somehow coalesced in her subconscious to create an image so familiar that arriving in Kinloch Mara did indeed feel like coming home.

  The Glen was working its magic on all of them, even Isla. But it didn’t take long before she was back in character, tutting loudly as she held her mobile in the air and checked for a signal.

  ‘About time Ruairi got a mobile mast erected on the estate. How am I supposed to keep in touch with all my friends if I can’t get a signal? Oh - wait a minute, I forgot. They’re all having a wonderful time in Ibiza and I’m stuck up here in highland hell, with you three.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Murdo said, grim-faced.

  Fliss listened to the absolute silence. In place of the familiar soundtrack to her life: traffic, planes in holding pattern over London and people generating a hubbub of noise - there was the soft soughing of the wind in the trees and the call of birds deep in the woods. And something else …

  ‘Listen Fliss. Can you hear the waterfall? I’ll take you there. We can go exploring together,’ Cat began enthusiastically, grabbing Fliss’s sleeve. ‘I’ll show you the Jacobite cave where Bonnie Prince Charlie hid after the Battle of Culloden and -’

  ‘Fliss’s come here to work - she’s not a guest,’ Isla cut her short.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me of that, Miss Urquhart.’ Fliss’s tone was sharp enough to penetrate even Isla’s self-pity. ‘Perhaps at the weekend?’ she suggested to Cat and turned back to the Land Rover where Murdo was still admiring the view.

  ‘I never tire of it,’ he said. Then he gave Fliss a quick, worried look. ‘Has anyone run your appointment past Ruairi? He has decided opinions about Mitzi’s business schemes.’

  ‘Unlike you, Murdo Gordon, we don’t need Himself’s permission for everything we do.’ Murdo flushed at Isla’s inference that he was little more than a hired hand.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no, then?’ he asked Cat who had stopped throwing sticks for the dog.

  ‘Chill, Murdo. Auld Aberdeen Angus is bankrolling Mitzi this time. Ruairi’s got no say in the matter.’ Murdo’s expression made it clear that he thought differently. ‘Dinnae fash yerself, Murdo, laddie. Come on, let’s get home, I want to see Mumma.’

  Fliss climbed into the Land Rover, glad she’d insisted on a contract of employment being drawn before she’d left London. It gave her security of tenure for six months - just to see how the therapy centre panned out. But one month had already passed as she waited for the go ahead to travel north with the sisters. That left her a scant five months to turn the therapy centre round and make it a viable concern.

  Had she been a fool to get involved in Cat and Isla’s hare-brained schemes? Time spent in their company was like real life Snakes and Ladders. Roll the dice, move forward, and up the ladder … get a job running a therapy centre. Yay! Roll the dice again; woops, no one’s consulted Ruairi Urquhart about the centre - down a snake. Tough luck. Back to square one. Back to Pimlico and unemployment.

  The therapy centre had Angus Gordon’s financial backing, but it now appeared that everything hinged on the final word of the Laird of Kinloch Mara. The man with the charmless telephone manner apparently had power of veto over everything on the Kinloch Mara estate.

  The Land Rover swept under a stone gatehouse at the end of a long avenue of trees. It rumbled over a wooden bridge, crossed a fast flowing torrent of a river, tinged brown by peat from the hills, and made its way along a tarmacadam drive before pulling up at the back of the house.

  ‘We always enter the house by the back door,’ Cat explained as Fliss glanced up at the ancient, turreted peel towers linked together by a central wing. ‘We never use the front drive or open the big gates except …’ She leapt out of the Land Rover without finishing her sentence as the large, nail studded door swung open and several small dogs shot out, tangling themselves round her feet.

  Murdo helped Fliss out of the Land Rover and they walked towards the house together, leaving Isla to sulk. He guided her along stone corridors with walls so thick that window embrasures had been cut into them and looked as if they’d once held shelves which stored household goods. The walls were painted the colour of butter
milk in order to shed light on the gloom, where - even in high summer - electric lights were burning and it was bone-chillingly cold. The passageway gave onto a large kitchen with an Aga, huge refectory table with bench seats, floor to ceiling painted cupboards and a batterie de cuisine hanging over a Belfast sink. The dogs were creating such a nuisance that Murdo chased them out and into the hall before beckoning Fliss to follow.

  This part of the house was early seventeenth century and had pine panelled rooms leading off it. It was dominated by a large stone fireplace and a splendid cantilevered oak staircase which climbed up to a large landing. The front door gave onto lawns and gardens where, through magnificent ornamental gates whose gilded finials caught the sunlight, the loch could be seen.

  ‘Mumma!’ Cat shrieked as a petite blond in her early fifties came out of one of the rooms. Cat ran forward to kiss her but was held off at arm’s length.

  ‘You can’t kiss Mumma, darling, she’s had a little work …’ Mitzi Urquhart held her face in profile and lifted her highlighted hair so the bruising on her jaw line became visible. ‘And just the teeniest drop of Botox. But you can hug me; careful now.’ As they embraced, Mitzi turned to Murdo and put her hand on his arm. ‘Darling Murdo, thank you so very much for bringing my Puss Cat home. Fliss! Darling girl. Your coming was foretold by old Mrs MacLeish. She’s a taibhsear,’ she pronounced it tav-sayer, ‘and has the sight; and is never wrong. My therapy centre will be a huge success. And where’s Isla - sulking in the Land Rover? So like me at her age. Well, she’ll come in when she’s ready. Let’s have a drink to welcome Fliss to Kinloch Mara.’

  She didn’t stop for breath, sweeping them along in her Allure scented wake towards a large drawing room where stone mullioned bay windows gave out across the water of the loch. She handed round glasses of neat whisky and toasted their arrival with: ‘Slainte’, which she pronounced slawnn-cha. ‘Good health and welcome to our home, Fliss.’

  ‘Slainte,’ the others repeated, tossing their whisky down their throat with a deft flick of the wrist. Fliss followed suit and was left with streaming eyes as the fiery liquid caught her breath and scorched her throat.

  ‘I’d have thought a girl used to drinking in nightclubs in London could handle a wee dram,’ Murdo laughed. He poured Fliss a glass of water and she drank it gratefully before replying.

  ‘I normally drink white wine or cocktails,’ she gasped - and they all laughed at her expression. ‘To me, whisky tastes like cough medicine, only worse.’ She regretted the words as soon as she said them; it was hardly diplomatic to make disparaging remarks about Scotland’s greatest export upon arrival in the highlands.

  But, clearly Mitzi found Fliss’s declaration enormously diverting because she laughed, curled up in one of the four huge padded window seats and then indicated that the girls should join her.

  ‘It’s Midsummer’s Eve and I’ve come over all other worldly, as though I’ve had breakfast with the fairies in the Great Glen.’ She laughed, pushed up the sleeves of her cashmere sweater and waved her hands in the air. ‘You do believe in fairies, don’t you, Fliss.’

  ‘I think I probably do,’ Fliss laughed. ‘In Kinloch Mara, everything seems possible, it’s so unbelievably romantic.’ It was clearly the answer Mitzi hoped for because she gave Fliss’s hand a squeeze.

  ‘I’ve organised a welcome home party for my gur-uls’ (she pronounced it in a cod Lowland Scots accent). Like Murdo she spoke with a cut glass accent which would have been more at home in Chelsea or Mayfair. ‘And you, too, of course Fliss.’ Her gold bracelets jangled as she held Fliss’s hands and then released them. Touched by the warmth of her welcome, the power of the whisky and the magical setting, Fliss began to relax.

  Mitzi needed her. Everything was going to be all right!

  ‘On the beach?’ Cat asked excitedly. She and Fliss twisted round and looked towards the loch where tables, chairs and cooking equipment were being unloaded from trailers by uniformed staff. ‘Mumma, you are a darling. And I’m going to kiss you,’ she leaned forward carefully and kissed her mother’s forehead. Then her face darkened. ‘But, didn’t Ruairi say that we were to live on neeps and tatties and be confined to barracks until he got home, Mumma? He’ll go ape shit when he finds out we’ve had a party.’

  ‘Don’t worry, he won’t find out,’ Mitzi brushed her cares aside and turned confidingly to Fliss. ‘I love Ruairi dearly, but he can be such a wet blanket. Now don’t pull that face Murdo, you know it’s true. Anyway, who could let June the twenty-first pass unmarked? Midsummer’s Eve,’ she gave a little shiver. ‘Ill met by moonlight proud Titania, and all that.’

  Fliss was charmed by Mitzi Urquhart, but she could well believe that Ruairi had his work cut out keeping a check on her and her errant daughters.

  ‘My Cognitive Behaviour Therapist says I must keep upbeat through positive thinking, Fliss. Soon the nights will start drawing in - it’ll be harvest and then in no time, Christmas. Even my SAD lamp can’t counteract the effects of a gloomy Highland winter, deprived of love,’ she said, seemingly referring to her widowhood of ten years. ‘The most positive thing in my life right now is the resurgence of the therapy centre. If Ruairi starts raising objections, why - I - I’ll spend winter in the Bahamas with Angus in his villa and he can organise Christmas at Tigh na Locha on his own.’

  ‘No, don’t do that Mumma. Look what happened last time … Fiona broke off their engagement and bolted just before the wedding, Ruairi left for the Far East and everyone was positively miserable.’ Cat was openly alarmed at the thought of spending another Christmas away from home, familiar things, family traditions - and without her friends.

  ‘Exactly. So you see, this party is like therapy, don’t you agree Fliss?’ Fliss nodded, somewhat bemused by Mitzi’s flawed logic. ‘So, don’t you fret my darlings, I’ll brave Ruairi.’ She gestured for Cat and Fliss to get up, linked arms and walked with them into the hall. ‘Besides, I have it on good authority that he’s not expected home for another couple of weeks - and this is just a quiet little celebration. Only a hundred close friends. Oh, and did I say, you are to dress as a character from a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Even you, Murdo. Oh, don’t groan, darling, it’ll be fun.’

  ‘If you say so, Mitzi,’ he had paled slightly at the mention of the number of guests she’d invited and the thought of dressing up as a six feet two fairy!

  ‘I do say so. Would you rather that I had chosen The Wicker Man as our theme. The cult sixties version, with Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, naturally. In my youth I looked a little like Britt Ekland, you know.’ She fluffed up her hair and carried on talking about the merits of one film version against the other while Cat took Fliss upstairs to rest before the party.

  Chapter Ten

  Some hours later Fliss woke with a start. Disorientated, she pushed herself up onto her elbows and tried to figure out why she was lying on a huge brass bed in a room with a turret window. Focusing on the nymphs and shepherdesses frolicking in the toile de jouy wallpaper she rubbed her eyes and stretched out on the bed, languorous as a cat.

  She glanced at the clock on the bedside table and then sat bolt upright, all traces of sleep gone. Ten fifteen - it couldn’t be! The clock was wrong; it had to be much earlier - the sky was as bright as day. Realising that she’d probably slept the clock round and missed Mitzi’s party, she flopped back on the pillows, dismayed.

  Some first impression she was going to make!

  She reached out for her silk kimono someone had thoughtfully draped across the foot of the bed and shrugged it on. Feeling like a hungover princess in the tower, she made her way to the window which looked over the rose gardens and the loch. Below her the party was in full swing. People were dancing on the sands in the luminous twilight and she couldn’t wait to join them. As the last vestiges of sleep drifted away, she remembered Cat mentioning something about how, during the summer in Wester Ross, it never really got dark.

  Then, just as she was turning away from the window he
r eye was drawn towards something black and malevolent squatting on the edge of the sands. A helicopter! Of course, it must have been the beat of its rotors as it landed which had woken her from her dreams. She moved away from the window, no longer feeling like the princess in the fairy story. Somehow, the black helicopter - so out of place on the gingerbread coloured sands - generated a sense of unease.

  It was difficult to say exactly why she felt on edge. Her welcome to Tigh na Locha had been genuinely warm and friendly. She was here at Mitzi and Angus Gordon’s invitation to sort out the therapy centre, had been treated like an honoured guest and given one of the best rooms in the house. So what was worrying her?

  Not what - who - a voice whispered in her ear.

  Until now she’d shut her mind to the possibility that Ruairi Urquhart could put a stop on the therapy centre. But here, where his word was law and even Mitzi seemed in awe of him, it now seemed a distinct possibility. Taking a deep breath, she counselled herself to think positively - when he jetted in from Hong Kong in a couple of weeks the centre would be up and running and there would be nothing he could do about it.

  She knew she was a born worrier but - this time - she told herself sternly, there was simply nothing to worry about. ‘I’ll have oodles of time tomorrow to raise the topic of the therapy centre with Mitzi and Angus, ask a shed load of questions and get everything shipshape,’ she told her reflection in the mirror.

  Tonight was all about having fun.

  But as she made her way over to the en suite bathroom and caught another glimpse of the black helicopter sitting on the sands, her blood ran cold. Something about it made it seem like an omen, a harbinger of bad luck.