The Wedding Cake Tree (12 page)

From left to right: Bynack More, Bynack Beag, Cairngorm, Northern Corries and the Tulloch Hills – enjoy!

I leant my head back against the uneven bark of the tree for a second, and allowed the warmth of the sun to soak into my face. I sighed, content. Despite my attempt to become a fully fledged spirit of the earth, however, after five minutes I felt a little lonely. Ignoring Mum’s phone embargo, I grabbed my phone from my camera bag and switched it on. Twenty missed calls and more texts than I cared to view. It was all work: tip-offs, requests from agents. One of the texts was from Paul.

Where the hell are you?

Smiling, I text back.

Guess what? I’m in Scotland! It’s great. Can’t believe I’ve never been to the Highlands before. So far I’ve met an aunt I never knew I had, been rescued from certain death by Alasdair (he looks extra sexy when he’s wet), and found out that Mum was in the RAF – intelligence of all things. Feeling like a stranger to Mum, but on the whole, the trip itself is top banana (as you would say). Alasdair is the perfect gentleman … more’s the pity! Speak soon. G x

I waited for the phone to ring, but it didn’t. A few minutes later an email came through to my phone.

Grace.

I’m in an editorial meeting, skulking at the back and pretending to be taking notes on my laptop.

Scotland eh? What do you mean, he rescued you? How? Why? I hate him even more now. Just don’t go developing some kind of hero complex towards him. By the way, I imagine Soldier Boy to have the following: 1) A flash watch (accurate to a thousand meters below sea level). Why? Who really needs that shit? 2) A really big bastard of a pen knife (most of the blades he will never use). 3) A ridiculously powerful motorbike. 4) A jutting jaw that is so chiselled he can open a beer bottle with it. 5) Bum cheeks so tight he can crack walnuts between them – I dare you to ask him to do it!

What’s his flaw by the way?

Tortoise.

I snorted at the phone. Good old Paul. I could just imagine his disdain. I hit ‘reply’.

Dear Tortoise (yeah, right!)

No flaw I’m afraid, but you’re probably right about the watch, it looks expensive … draped across his tanned, muscular forearm that is ;-) You’re wrong about the knife though, it’s like something a boy scout would have.

Bye for now. G x

I turned the phone off. Amusing as Paul could be, it was nice to be away from it all. Very nice in fact.

Resting
my head against the tree trunk once more, I began to wonder where my life was headed; always running around the world like Mum said. Maybe it
was
time for a change.

With
Mum gone, the world felt empty. I felt much older and I didn’t feel rooted anywhere. And then I remembered Jake, and thought of my tree at St Christopher’s, and smiled at the knowledge that I really did have roots, and they were still growing strong in Devon.

Unable to find answers to a gro
wing number of questions regarding my future, I did something I always did during moments of disquiet: I grabbed my camera. Concentrating singularly on capturing the beauty of the tree in full blossom, I cleared my mind of doubt and worry, for a little while at least.

Chapter Seventeen

Back at the hut,
the little door to the bedroom was open and I noticed Alasdair was asleep on the bed. He looked content. I tiptoed to the gas stove and thought about dinner – a head-scratching moment. After opening the fridge (a five-minute round trip), I rustled up a palatable pasta dish. It was better than nothing, but only just.

I looked in a
cupboard for any semblance of a dessert. Something tucked away at the back of the shelf caught my eye. It looked like a Christmas pudding wrapped in muslin. I glanced at the label – clootie dumpling – what was that? Maybe it had been left behind by people who rented the hut previously. What was the sell-by date? Last month.
Oh, it would be fine.
I noticed a bag of night-light candles under the sink – too romantic perhaps? Well, we would need more than one battery-powered lamp once it got dark. And anyway, the candles would look pretty – might make me look pretty. Yes, or maybe, no. I was having that very argument with myself when Alasdair popped his head out of the bedroom.

‘
Hi,’ he said, rubbing his eyes.

‘
Hi. Good sleep?’

‘
Too good. I noticed you’d gone for a walk and intended to crack on with dinner while you were out, but decided on a two-minute nap – an hour ago. What time is it?’

‘
Just gone seven.’              

‘W
hat’s for dinner?’ He walked across the hut to peer in the steaming pan.

‘
I went for the easy option I’m afraid, pasta.’

‘
Perfect. It’s a better meal than I had planned anyway,’ he said, taking the spoon from me and tasting the sauce.

‘
Why? What had you got planned?’

‘
My signature dish,’ he answered confidently, ‘skinheads on a raft.’

‘
What?’

‘
Beans on toast.’

After a pleasant – albeit bland – dinner he said:              

‘
Well, time to get on with my job for the evening.’

‘
What’s that?’

He
beat his chest with his fists. ‘Man chop wood, light fire.’

‘
You do that and I’ll get back to the kitchen and rustle up pudding. The suffragettes would be mortified.’

Alasdair lit the wood burner
then stepped outside to light the peat fire pot. I was more than a little apprehensive about my job. When I removed the pudding from the steaming pan, my apprehension proved to be well founded.

It was a disaster
.

Seizing the opportunity to give Alasdair a bit of a laugh, I loaded a tray wi
th two bowls, cream, coffee and – the pièce de résistance – a disastrous lump of molten rock once known as clootie dumpling. I stepped out onto the veranda and tried to keep my face straight. Alasdair sat prodding the fire.

‘
Oh, perfect,’ he said. ‘Just a minute though, it’s getting dark. I’ll sort the lamps out.’ He shot off in the direction of the kitchen and returned a second later with matches. Two candle lanterns were hanging from the veranda trusses. Once both the lanterns and the night lights were lit, the little hut was transformed.

‘
What’s for pudding then?’ he asked, looking down at the tray. He didn’t seem to notice the disaster lying prostrate in the bowl.

‘
Clootie dumpling,’ I answered, hovering over the tray like a new mother.

‘
Oh? I’ve never seen anything like it before.’

No
,
he certainly hadn’t!

I watched
as he took a mouthful. His expression was akin to a wine taster who had just taken his first slurp; food chewed slowly, eyes raised to the stars in concentration …

‘
Mmm,’ he said, ‘I’m getting raisins, orange peel perhaps and maybe a little lemon juice?’ He tilted his head to one side in a questioning manner.

W
as he serious or what?

‘
And perhaps,’ he continued, ‘a little … charcoal?’ He swallowed a mouthful of cremated dumpling, put his spoon back in the bowl and laughed out loud.

‘
You’re such a tease. How did you know I’d buggered it up?’

‘
What? You’ve got to be kidding. Other than the fact that it looks like it’s just been spat out of a volcano? That pudding should come with a health warning – do not attempt to go swimming within two hours of consuming this product as you will, almost certainly, drown.’ He flopped down onto the chair. I was in hysterics by now.

‘
I knew something was amiss the minute I saw your face,’ he added. ‘You have no poker face at all, and I take it you do know you go bright red when you’re either embarrassed or trying to hide something?’

‘
Do I ever. I hate that.’

Alasdair cleared the dumpling away
and promised to return with something a little more palatable. A couple of books were sitting on the other chair. Curiosity got the better of me. I stole a look at the covers. The first one was called
The Art of Mindfulness
. The second one was a well-thumbed book I recognised from Mum’s bookshelf,
The Working Sheepdog
. I opened the front cover and was taken aback to see a message to Alasdair from Mum.

To Alasdair. I know how much you enjoyed reading this during your last stay at St Christopher’s, so it is my gift to you. You never know, it might come in useful one day. Affectionately, Rosamund. X             

Instinctively, I opened the front cover of the mindfulness book – another message.

Alasdair. This may help. Time to slow down perhaps? R x

Hearing Alasdair’s footsteps I closed the books and hurriedly placed them on the floor. I picked up the poker and began to prod the fire while he took a seat. I decided to come clean.

‘
I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I hadn’t meant to be nosy, but I took a quick look in your books and noticed Mum had written in them.’

He
put a tray laden with coffee and biscuits on the table, picked one of the books up from the floor and flicked through the pages. I returned to my seat and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders.

‘
Jake gave them to me last November. It was nice of her to remember me. I’ve been trying to work my way through the mindfulness one, but spare time isn’t something I often have. It seemed apt to bring them along this week.’             

‘
Do you mind if I—’

He cut me short
as he took a seat opposite.

‘
Not at all, please …’

I took the sheep dog book and lifted it to my face to smell the p
aper. It was strange to hold something of Mum’s again.

‘
I was with her when she bought this,’ I said, running my fingers over the cover. ‘Oh. The penny has just dropped. Is that how you knew so much about sheep farming when we were at Annie’s farm?’

‘
Guilty as charged.’

I put the boo
k down.

‘
Is working on a farm something you would have liked to have done?’ I asked.

‘
No, not really. But I’m starting to toy with the idea of doing something completely different …’ His words tailed off into the distance and I remembered Mum’s comment in the book, time to slow down perhaps.

‘
Sick of all the bombs and bullets, eh?’

‘
Possibly. We’ll see.’

I shuddered momentarily.
Even though the fire was emitting plenty of warmth, my back felt cold.

‘
It’s chilled off all of a sudden. I think a breeze has picked up.’

Alasdair left his chair
and returned a second later with another blanket from inside the hut.

‘
Here,’ he said, ‘drape this over your legs. Make yourself nice and toasty.’

I picked up the second book.

‘What’s this mindfulness business then?’ The corner of a page, about three-quarters of the way through the book, had been turned to act as a bookmark.

‘
I’m just figuring that out. I had a quick read while you went for your walk.’

‘
And you fell asleep reading it, by the look of things. I’m not surprised.’ I flicked through the pages. ‘It looks to be fairly heavy-going.’

‘
It is a bit.’

‘
Mum was always saying, “Just you be mindful, Grace,” usually when I was being told off. Is that what this book is about?’

‘
No. This is about the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. If you are thinking you need to be mindful, then you are not, therefore, being mindful – so to speak.’ I looked at Alasdair blankly while he played with his ear. ‘It’s one of those subjects that, when you’re reading it, the text makes perfect sense. But afterwards, it’s fairly difficult to describe.’ He picked up the book, scanned the back cover and began to read aloud. It reminded me of the first time I saw him in the Olive Tree Café; the book was a tell-tale distance from his face as he read, and, yes, he definitely needed his eyes checked.

‘
Mindfulness is the attentive awareness of the reality of things, especially of the present moment. It is a clear comprehension of whatever is taking place – blah, blah – it is a calm awareness of one’s feelings, thoughts and perceptions – blah, blah, blah. When practising mindfulness, for instance by watching the breath, one must remember to maintain attention of the chosen object of awareness, faithfully returning back to focus on that object whenever the mind wanders away from it. Any clearer?

‘
Actually, yes, it is,’ I said. ‘Mindfulness is what we were doing today at the loch isn’t it?’

He nodded.

‘My interpretation of it, yes. I’m not sure I got it right though.’

I took a sip of coffee.
‘Well, it worked for me anyway. We were focusing on the immediate present weren’t we? Aware only of our immediate surroundings and ourselves – our breathing and so on. By maintaining a focus on the loch and the birds, we were able to push out all of the cloudy inner thoughts and worries we cart around every day. You know, all the crap that clutters up the brain. I don’t think you need to be a Buddhist to understand it, it’s not so dissimilar from concentrating on photography really, or playing a musical instrument, or fishing even, stuff like that. I don’t think you need all this Buddhist stuff Alasdair, just take up music, or basically something you have to concentrate on.’ He was smiling at me affectionately. ‘Is that why Mum gave the book to you, because she thought you needed to sit still for a while, push other things from your mind?’

‘
Probably.’

‘
Is that why you go to St Christopher’s?’

‘
Yes.’

‘To push some of the things you’ve seen and done as a
marine out of your mind?’

He sighed
and sat back in his chair.

‘I haven’t done anything I wasn’t prepared to do, but yes, I suppose so.
I was involved in something particularly unpleasant a couple of years ago. I couldn’t get it out of my head afterwards. Your mum was the one who helped to get me back on the straight and narrow.’

‘What was it
, this thing you were involved in?’ The question was out before I had time to think about it.

He smiled and shrugged.
‘Nothing worth talking about now.’

‘
You must have seen some harrowing things. Have you ever been injured?’ I asked, looking up from my coffee. He picked up the poker and churned the coals around in the chimenea.

‘
No, nothing serious anyway, unlike many people I’ve known, including a very good friend of mine.’

‘Why, what happened to him?’

He prodded the fire with a final aggressive poke. ‘He trusted my judgement and the poor sod was critically injured as a result. He now wears a prosthetic limb beneath his right knee, and that’s not to mention the internal injuries he’s had to recover from.’ Alasdair’s tone was cold; he remained transfixed with the fire as he spoke.

‘That must be hard for both of you.
I’m guessing from your tone you feel—’

‘Guilty?’ he interrupted.

‘I was going to say responsible,’ I offered kindly. ‘They’re similar words, but they have a very different meaning.’

He glanced up from the fire and smiled.

‘I’ve always loved my job, which must seem odd considering what I’ve said. But talking about it is something I hate to do. Do you mind if we change the subject?’

‘Of course not.
Anyway,’ I said, brightly, ‘speaking of St Christopher’s, I’ve been toying with the idea of eventually moving away from my photographic work – and away from London in fact.’ He sat back in his seat.