Highland Heart

by Emma Baird

“Are ye goin’ to Hollywood, then, tae meet her?”

  She palmed people off with vague answers, clapped her hands and promised to answer all questions at the end, hoping an hour’s hard work would kill off curiosity.

  “Right—let’s all take several deep breaths. In one, two, three, out one, two, three!”

  Her questioners had, however, raised interesting points. How on earth did you write 80,000 words about someone who’d only inhabited the planet for such a short time? And the practicalities—did she phone Caitlin, ask questions and write it all down? An initial email had already winged its way to her inbox confirming that fat advance payment. The ‘deets’ were to follow.

  “I passed this Land Rover outside Kirsty’s old house this morning, the one Zac’s renting out,” Dr McLatchie said between pants, her legs in the air and her hands beating out the hundred counts of Pilates’ most (in)famous abs exercise. “Two women getting oot. Anyone know who they are?”

  “Aye, me too,” Mhari added. “Rich-looking women and they seemed to know your Zac well, Katya.”

  “He’s not my Zac,” Katya said. “Maybe they’re going to help with Zac’s business or something.”

  Lois and Angeline, she guessed. Visiting again. Or perhaps they didn’t visit him the first time when he wanted Katya to help him entertain them. She kept meaning to look them up, intrigued by their relationship to Zac. And their interest in Lochalshie.

  Just as she made the class do the hundred for the third time—an effective conversation-stopper—the door to the hall opened.

  “Am I too late?”

  She heard the collective intake of breath and caught Gaby’s grin. Zac stood at the door, a yoga mat over his shoulder and dressed in work-out gear Katya knew hadn’t come from Asda or any of the other cheap chain stores her other class members bought their stuff from. He’d even tied his hair back—the longer blonde strands at the front pulled into a stubby bun at his crown. It attracted stares. The man bun was unknown in Lochalshie. The tiny barber’s shop in the next village only offered men a short back and sides.

  “No,” she said, waving him to the only remaining space at the front. “Though I make late-comers do press-ups as punishment.”

  “Good practice, then!” he said, hastily unrolling his mat and dropping onto his hands and toes, elbows clamped to his sides. “It gives you stamina for the real thing.”

  Gaby sniggered. Others joined her.

  Katya wandered over to Zac’s mat, counting out loud. “One, two, three...”

  She put her foot on his back, touching him lightly so his body dropped flatter to the floor. It made the move ten times harder.

  “How many?” the question gasped out.

  “Fifty,” she said cheerfully, and the class laughed. A few minutes later, he collapsed in a perspiring heap on his mat.

  He did the rest of the class far more peacefully and hung around at the end to help her put away the mats and blocks. The hour’s hard work killed off all interest in Caitlin’s autobiography and everyone else in the class vanished as soon as she said, “And we’re done”. She and Zac had the hall to themselves, Gaby throwing another of those ‘Go on, my son!’ looks over her shoulder as she hurried out the door.

  “So, rumour has it,” he said, “you’ve got a big writing project. Bigger than mine by a long shot.”

  “Ah. I take it you accepted membership of the Lochalshie WhatsApp group?”

  She rolled up mats and stacked them in the cupboard at the far end of the hall.

  “Yes, though I left it after a couple of days. That is one lively group. If you don’t want to be stirred out of sleep at two in the morning, you need to kick it to the curb. Will you still be able to write for me if I need any more articles?”

  She nodded, flattered when he looked relieved. “Yes. I’m a freelancer. I take every job going. And your business interests me. I find it easy to write about.”

  “Do you?” he said, removing the band from his hair so it flopped forward once more. “I hate writing. When I read the stuff you wrote for me, it was so descriptive I thought it must have taken you hours. Do you want dinner, by the way? I’ll make you something meat, fish, egg and dairy free.”

  He grinned suddenly. “How do you stop yourself farting all the time? After Jack made us that risotto, I didn’t leave so quickly afterwards just to chase after you. And in the end I was glad you turned down my offer for a drink. My house stank like a sewage explosion for the rest of the day.”

  Oh—incoming, incoming... Another flashback. This time, the third time she and Dexter met up. He took her to a jazz cafe that specialised in ‘dirty’ vegan food—veggie burgers that bled, full hangover fry-ups and kebabs made from seitan. The food, rich and different to Katya’s normal fare, made her stomach gurgle repeatedly afterwards.

  “That wasn’t a fart, by the way!” she’d burst out the fifth time her stomach had complained.

  “Are you sure?” Dexter pushed down his sunglasses so he could gaze at her over the top of them, smirk in place.

  “Yes!”

  Never declare something so forcefully you forget to concentrate on holding onto the sphincter muscles. When the inevitable happened, Dexter’s smirk widened into a broad grin.

  “I love a dame who’s not afraid of flatulence,” he said, reaching over to stroke her face. Brave, given that thing’s potency.

  And I love you, I love you, I love you for that. Farting in front of a new boyfriend could play out many ways. This one convinced her Dexter was perfect.

  And now Zac did something similar to her in reverse—joking about farting in front of someone he fancied. She warmed to him.

  “Anyone new to veganism experiences the after-effects. Stick with it—if you eat a plant-based diet for a year, your digestive system will forgive you and settle down. Anyway, thanks for helping me clear up but I’ve got to go.”

  He caught hold of her hand. “Please come for dinner—a non-date dinner. I’m practising a vegan dish for the van and I need an expert to tell me if it’s any good. Please?”

  She looked at his hand—the one with the white mark on the third finger. If she went back to his house with him, she would ask him for sure.

  “A non-dinner date. Do your worst.”

  They’d just reached the house when a huge silver Land Rover pulled up beside them. The front window rolled down and a skinny hand sketched a wave.

  “Hello, darlings!”

  Zac closed his eyes briefly and said something rude under his breath. Katya recognised the posh, confident voice—Lois. Her presence confirmation of what people had discussed in the Pilates class. The front doors flung open and out she got, Angeline emerging from the other side, the two of them complaining vociferously about country roads, potholes and the inferior coffee one had to put up with outside the UK’s cities. They’d been planning to stay the night in the Royal George but had changed their minds.

  “Katya!” Angeline. “How delightful to see you. And you’ve met Zac too. We said, didn’t we, Lo-ee-lo, that they would make a lovely pair. You look like brother and sister!”

  As a general rule, you didn’t look for incestuous analogies when hooking up with someone, but Katya supposed it was true. She and Zac were close in height, blonde and blue-eyed and their faces shared similar bone structure.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We had a meeting in the George and then Lochgilphead,” Angeline said, referring to the coastal town an hour from Lochalshie. Katya noticed the three people around her exchange glances and wary looks. Spidey senses well and truly wakened, she asked what it had been about.

  “Oh, this and that!” Angeline trilled gaily. “Did you know you can take the ferry to Islay from there? I’ve never been, but we’ve booked it for next year. How thrilling! Anyway, were you on your way home? Zac tells us you live nearby.”

  Did Zac indeed? He’d talked about her to them, then.

  “We’re here for a few days,” Lois said, “why don’t you pop in some
time?” She smiled warmly. It didn’t disguise the ‘now piss off out of here’ hint to her words. Katya toyed with smiling back at her. “No, no Lois. I’ll pop in now. Zac has promised me dinner, and I’d love to see how that plays out while you and your evil twin tell me what you are up to.”

  The non-date dinner. Which I wasn't fussed about in the first place.

  Zac ran a hand through his hair, the front of it kinked where he’d tied it back for the Pilates class earlier. He met her eyes—apologetic but regretful.

  “Sorry, Katya. Another time, yeah?”

  “No problem,” the woman who hadn’t been bothered about her non-date dinner said. She blew him a kiss—so it wasn’t just him who got to do all the flirty stuff—and sauntered back to her flat, waiting until she turned the corner into her street to let her shoulders sag.

  Back in her bedroom she fired up her laptop and Googled Lois Manson and Angeline Berringer. Unlike Zac, they were easy to find online, although the page she landed came as a surprise. Hammerstone Hotels, the name behind a fair few luxury hotels located in the south-east of England.

  Looking through the list of Hammerstone properties, Katya spotted one she recognised—the Staffordshire just off Regent Street with its hip bar, where she’d met Dexter just before he rushed off for yet another marketing meeting. It explained why Lois and Angeline were there. The coincidence had bothered her.

  The website had a news page. She clicked on an article in a trade magazine—an interview with Lois where she outlined the company’s plans for expansion.

  “The modern customer,” she told the interviewer, “wants much more from a hotel break these days than sumptuous luxury and a slap-up meal. And do they want hotels at all? Look at the rise in demand for glamping holidays. People adore the idea of getting away from it all but in comfortable surroundings.”

  Did they? In Lois and Angeline’s world, perhaps. Katya reckoned most people were happy to settle for extra-large beds, fluffy white towels and a breakfast and dinner they’d not had to make.

  She put her laptop to sleep, still wondering why Lois and Angeline showed so much interest in Lochalshie and how that involved Zac.

  CHAPTER 18

  Puzzling over what Lois and Angeline wanted and why Zac had seemed so keen to get rid of her kept Katya awake for several hours, the rest taken over with Dexter regrets.

  If I tried harder to take time off. (Why didn’t he?)

  If I hadn’t thrown up in front of him. (Was he that fussed by it?)

  If I’d called him a few times afterwards when he left for London/LA. (He didn’t call her).

  She woke the next day groggy and grumpy. When the text message about a job came in, she weighed up ignoring it. But money was money, and she needed cash soon if she was to pay next month’s rent. Showered and changed, she left the house. One afternoon a week, Dr McLatchie ran a weight loss class where a person could stand on the scales, be ticked off and given information on what not to eat. Letting herself into the surgery, Katya met glares. Two women and a man sat in the waiting room, their substantial girths hinting they were there to be weighed.

  “What are you doin’ here, hen?” the man asked. “You’re no’ that fat.”

  “Er... I need to see the doctor about something else,” she said, taking the last remaining chair. “And, um, nothing wrong with being fuller of figure.”

  The two women exchanged glances at that. One of them pushed herself to her feet. “Aye, you’re right. You comin’, Angie? We can go to the Lochside Welcome and order pizza for lunch and then get some of that chocolate decadence dessert. I’m fair starvin’.”

  Angie agreed all too readily, and the two of them dashed giggling from the surgery. The man watched them go wistfully before leaving himself seconds later. The doctor’s office door swung open two minutes later, Dr McLatchie’s voice drifting out behind a shame-faced Stewart clutching a diet sheet.

  “No more beers this month, Stewart, and nae chips either. Jolene’s the one meant tae be eating for two, not you.”

  He nodded at Katya and scurried off. From the window in the waiting room, she saw him head towards the Lochside Welcome. If the doctor had just said ‘nae chips’, he might have obeyed her orders.

  “Och, I thought I had more people to see,” the doctor’s gaze swept around the waiting room. “Come on in, Katya. D’ye want to find out how heavy you are at the same time? I’ve been reading up about plant-based diets. They dinnae always make ye thin.”

  A size 14 and more than happy to be described as ‘hench’ by admirers in the gym, Katya ignored the hint. “You said you had more work for me?”

  When they’d first met at the Lochalshie Highland Games, the doctor asked Katya to help build her website presence. She’d offered decent money too. Most of Psychic Josie’s business came through stalls at the local shows and fetes and the occasional event in the cities. The side hustle made her a fortune. For Katya, anyone who wanted regular work and paid well made the ideal client. Who cared if astrology was utter tripe?

  An opinion backed up by the doctor herself, who admitted that as Psychic Josie she used a combination of social media checks, skilful reading of body language and advice so general it could apply to anyone. On the website, she posted horoscope forecasts where ninety-nine percent of the time people wanted advice on their love lives.

  Every time she wrote an article advising all Virgos to stray out of their comfort zone on Tuesday or Aquarians to be careful around the fifteenth of the month, Katya shook her head and told herself what a pile of crap astrology was. But hundreds of comments saying, “Spot on!” or “Psychic Josie, I took a different route to work as you advised and bumped into the man of my dreams!” made even the most fervent non-believer waver.

  The doctor waved Katya to a seat in her surgery. “Can ye write me an article for Psychics Monthly magazine? I’ll pay double my usual rates. Or...” her expression changed to calculating, “the normal rate and I throw in a wee freebie for you. A forecast. I’m awfy good wi’ folks’ love lives.”

  About to refuse, Katya decided to go with it. Hadn’t she spent the last few weeks chopping and changing her mind about Zac?

  “Okay, then.”

  The doctor grinned at her and steepled her hands together. “The stars are seldom wrong! Who’s the best one to go wi? On the one hand, you’ve got that pretty American boy. On the other, you’ve got that bonny English laddie. Even if none of us knows for sure what he’s up tae. Nae wonder you need advice working out which one’s the best.”

  Katya felt her jaw drop. “Dexter? But he’s...”

  Over me. Too busy working and falling in love with tiny, impossibly glamorous reality TV stars.

  “The spirits tell me you are troubled.”

  Katya curled her top lip. The spirits were weeks out of date. Wasn’t it common knowledge Dexter had chosen work over her? Asking the woman’s advice began to look even more ridiculous than it had minutes ago. Nevertheless, here she was and the devil on her shoulder whispered, “Ask, just ask.”

  “Compatibility,” she said, “I wanted to find out if Zac and I are suited. And is this one hundred percent confidential?”

  “Aye, aye,” the doctor said. “I treat my psychic clients the way I do my patients. Dinnae worry. What are your dates of birth?”

  Zac had mentioned his birthday when Katya had interviewed him the first time round. She rattled the dates off and the doctor sat back in her chair and smiled.

  “He’s a Scorpio!” she exclaimed. “And that day too! Look!”

  She typed in the address of her website on the laptop in front of her. The site featured a compatibility chart where people could input the dates of their birthday and that of their partner (or about-to-be one). The screen flashed and a pop-up banner exclaimed, ‘Bingo! Your ideal match’. Underneath it was the ‘flame’ rating for sexual compatibility.

  NSFW.

  “What does NSFW mean?” Katya asked.

  The doctor stared at her. “You’re the
young yin. Dae I have to explain modern slang to ye? Not safe for work—it means websites you shouldnae look at when you’re at work. But I use it to tell folks if sparks will fly. Basically, your birthdate and Zac’s make you one of the hottest possible combinations.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s right for me,” Katya protested.

  “Might no’ be,” the doctor agreed. “But if ye can get me the time he was born, I can run a full chart for you and that’ll tell ye for sure. I’ve got the software for it an’ all.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Aye, and it’s only eighty poun—och, free to you, then.”

  No wonder the woman was rolling in it. And if she wanted her psychic identity to remain a secret, any charts she produced for Katya would be freebies.

  Ask about Dexter. The devil on Katya’s shoulder hadn’t finished.

  “Um, what about Dexter?” she said. “He was born third August 1990.”

  “A Piscean and a Leo. You’re wasting your time.”

  The pronouncement made her deflate.

  “But you’re on the cusp—a Pisces-Aries cusp, which means you’re no’ that different after all. You’re a cusp fire-water sign and he’s a fire sign. Magic, eh? I don’t suppose you know what time he was born, do you?”

  When she shook her head, the doctor sighed. “Pity! I could gie ye all sorts of detailed information then. Water doesnae always destroy fire when signs are on the cusp. D’ye know I was able to tell someone once when she and her man would have their first child even before they’d met. Down to the exact day.”

  A lucky guess, no doubt. Katya got up, promising the doctor she’d have the article—The Star Signs and How They Can Help Our Health—by tomorrow morning.

  Outside, she bumped into Gaby, who said she needed to escape the house, having spent her morning hunched over her iMac doing yet more work for Blissful Beauty.

  The two of them watched a car roar past them, Gaby glaring after it.

  “I wish people wouldn’t drive that fast. Dead dangerous. What were you doing seeing the doctor? Are you okay?”

  If she told Gaby she’d had a consultation with Psychic Josie, she’d never hear the end of it. If, however, she confessed to something else, it might distract Gaby completely.