The only good thing to come out of the roiling mess of emotional debris was the vow she’d made. She would never, ever, let herself be led up the Swanee ever again. She was mistress of her own destiny from here on out. New job. New home. New life. For the next five weeks anyway. Even if it all felt absolutely terrifying.
Fighting the inevitable sting of the tears that had been lurking, un-spilt, these past three days, she spread her arms out wide, relishing the assault of wintry sea air.
‘Eh, lassie! You’ll not want to fall into those murky waters.’
Audrey lurched in surprise, nearly doing precisely that.
The man, a member of the ferry crew if his uniform was anything to go by, grabbed hold of her until she was steady again. She threw him a semi-grateful smile and then her eyes flicked up. Ugh. Perched atop his knitted blue cap was a headband bearing two multi-coloured, fairy-lit reindeer antlers.
She grimaced. Couldn’t he see she was having a moment? A melodramatic moment, to be sure, but it was certainly a step in a better direction than drowning in a sea of her own tears—the more likely option if she’d stayed in London. Stupid London, with all its cheery Christmas lights and decorated windows and restaurants and bars bursting with yuletide cheer and mistletoe kisses. And, of course, her ex-fiancé. She was well shot of the place.
‘Consider me duly warned,’ she said, in a tone that sounded miles away from the Audrey she used to be.
What a difference seventy-two hours and a bit of awkwardly placed tinsel could make.
The sailor gave her a your call look and took a step back. ‘Fair enough. Advance warning, though. When we hit the dock there’ll be an almighty thud. You’d be best to come back away from the railings.’
As if actual bruises would be a problem. He should see her bruised heart. ‘And how long will that be, then?’
He squinted into the murk, then gave a nod as if his X-ray vision had just clicked in. ‘About ten minutes. Twelve, max.’
Plenty of time to get her Kate Winslet vibe back.
She gave him the side-eye, which proved sufficiently powerful to get him to back off.
Alone again, she closed her eyes and shook her head, willing the bracing North Sea wind to blow the dark memories away. When she opened them again everything looked just the same.
Miserable.
It was only two o’clock in the afternoon. It got dark early up here in Scotland. If she hadn’t triple-checked the boat’s destination a dozen times before and after boarding, Audrey might easily been convinced they were heading to a wintry Brigadoon rather than her new island posting: the Isle of Bourtree.
The town was called Bourtree Castle, which had sounded promising in the same way Windsor Castle did, but a quick internet search had made it pretty clear Bourtree Castle was no place for royals. Tiny population. Ever diminishing. The ‘castle’ was actually a pile of rocks. And the only way to get to Bourtree was by the ferry. Which only ran three times a week.
Trust her to find the one locum position in a Scottish Bermuda Triangle. Perfect for the way things were going for her. Very, very badly.
She let go of the railings again.
‘You’re not the locum district nurse, are ye?’
Audrey whipped round. This guy had most certainly never seen Titanic and—Wait a minute... ‘How did you know?’
The twenty-something redhead shrugged, his felt antlers bobbing in the wind. ‘I know everyone else on the boat, and Coop said I should keep an eye out for you. So...voilà!’ He spread his hands out wide. ‘Job done. Welcome to Bourtree.’
He nodded out towards the foggy gloaming beyond the boat where, now, she could just see the odd twinkle of light.
‘And Happy Christmas.’
Bah! Audrey scowled. Christmas.
She replayed everything he’d said. ‘Hang on a minute. Who’s Coop?’ There’d been no mention of a Coop when she’d got her posting.
‘Dr MacAskill.’
She was still none the wiser. ‘And he is...?’
‘House calls doctor. Well, he’s a flash A&E doc from Glasgow, but he’s come back to Bourtree to help out until they find a proper replacement for Old Doc Anstruther. He’s retiring.’
‘Ah.’
It was an awful lot of ancillary information. If memory served, she was pretty sure Dr Anstruther was the one she was meant to contact regarding her accommodation. With her luck it’d be a leaky igloo.
‘Folk want him to stay on, but no one’s banking on it.’
‘Who?’
The sailor shot her a keep up look. ‘Coop.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. He’s island born and bred, but...’ He stopped himself mid-flow, as if he were about to give away a state secret. ‘Anyway, they’re taking bets down the Puffin, if you want to lay down a fiver.’
‘What’s the Puffin?’
‘Pub. It’s where pretty much all social life begins and ends on the island. You’ll find out all you need to know about Cooper and anyone else on the island if you sit there long enough. So mind you don’t do anything too outrageous, because before you know it all of Bourtree will, too.’
Intriguing. And also annoying. If he was doing house calls that most likely meant they’d be teamed up when necessary. She really could’ve done with working on her own, using the downtime between patients to sort the rest of her life out. Then again, this ‘Coop’ character sounded a bit of an enigma. Focusing on someone else’s dilemma would be better than thinking about her problems.
‘Why wouldn’t he stay? It’s a nice place, right?’
Please, please, please say yes.
‘Ach, it’s nice enough. But Coop’s not lived here for fifteen years. For what it’s worth, I think he’ll stay. It’s not like back in the day when—’ Another guilty look pulled him up short.
‘Understood,’ she said, not really understanding at all—but what did it matter? She was leaving in five weeks. If this Coop character left tomorrow or stayed forever it wouldn’t matter a hill of beans to her.
More importantly, it was growing increasingly tricky having this conversation with the sailor. His nose was bright red with the cold, and looking him in the eye was virtually impossible with the blinking antlers bobbing in and out of her eyeline.
She drudged a bit of civility from the caverns of ‘The Audrey She Used To Be’, gave him a polite smile and said, ‘Happy Christmas to you...erm...’
‘Scottie,’ the man said, with a light touch to his knitted cap.
He turned and went, the sound of a whistled ‘Silent Night’ travelling in his wake.
Bleurgh.
Christmas.
Even so...just because she wasn’t getting married in three weeks’ time didn’t mean everything was awful. She had a five-week locum post that would allow her to recapture the passion of her true calling: district nursing. And the accommodation that came with the job would keep her off the streets until she figured out what to do next. She had several hundred miles of cushioning between her and the wedding she’d no longer be having.
What a fool she’d been to pay for the celebration herself. She’d thought it would act as proof that she wasn’t marrying Rafael for his money. Or his movie star good looks. Or his charm. A triumvirate of desirables that he clearly felt free to spread around.
Fat lot of good the wedding insurance had done her. They didn’t pay up when you cancelled because your fiancé was a snake.
C’mon, Audrey. He’s an out-of-the-picture snake now. It’s your life. Your destiny.
As she plumbed her brain for another nugget of positivity, the cosy faux fur lining of her coat nestled against her neck. There! She was warm. She gave the puffy down ankle-length coat a grateful pat. It had been her final purchase before leaving London behind...perhaps for ever. Pristine white, able to withstand arctic cold and, as an added bonus,
two deep, hand-warming pockets. A winter essential up here in the North Sea—even if it had reduced her bank account balance to zero.
But now that Christmas was off, she was newly homeless, and was going to have to start her whole entire life over again, thanks to her lying, cheating ratbag of an ex-fiancé, a little bit of comfort shopping had seemed necessary.
Her phone buzzed deep in her pocket.
She pulled it out. A message from a number she didn’t recognise.
Dr MacAskill here. AKA Coop. Hope you’re ready to hit the ground running. Several house calls to make when you land.
This, followed by a slew of Christmas emojis.
Oh, good grief. This locum posting was beginning to hit a rather unpleasant chord. An ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ type of chord.
At least there was work to do. If she couldn’t spread any cheer, the least she could do was help improve people’s health. Seeing patients had a way of reminding her just how fragile the lives everyone led could be.
She’d learnt that particular life lesson the hard way. Her mum had passed away when she’d been a little girl and her father, after devoting himself to raising her, had suffered a fatal heart attack two years back.
At least he’d been doing what he loved. Fishing. Knowing he’d died with a smile on his face had taught her to cherish each and every moment life offered—the good moments, anyway. A proviso she hadn’t really considered for the past six months whilst Prince Bloody Charming was wrapping her round his duplicitous little finger.
She harrumphed, then squinted into the pea-souper. Nope. Still couldn’t see more than a metre or so. They should be getting closer now. There’d been some lights a minute ago—Oh! Wait a minute. Her heart soared, then plummeted. Was that a Christmas tree glittering through the fog?
A lighthouse? Acceptable.
A Christmas tree as a beacon of hope? Nope. No way.
Not after what she’d seen under her own Christmas tree.
Correction.
Her former Christmas tree. The one she’d decorated to Rafael’s exacting standards. Standards she’d thought she’d be embracing as her own right up until she’d realised they were double standards.
An uneasy feeling swept through her. One that was becoming a bit too familiar. Had she been so dazzled by her surgeon fiancé’s fancy lifestyle that she’d failed to notice his ‘love’ lacked emotional depth?
She fuzzed out a raspberry. He’d wooed her straight and simple. Even the hardest of hearts would’ve melted with his golden spotlight shining upon them. The elf he’d been wooing under their Christmas tree had certainly looked enamoured.
Whatever.
That was then—this was now. Christmas tree or not, Bourtree Castle was where she was going to have to reinvent herself. Make herself a harder, less vulnerable, more man-savvy Audrey than the one who had existed seventy-two hours ago.
She looked down at her immaculate white down coat and grinned. The Ice Queen of Bourtree Castle. Perfect. She was ready to let the past go and let her new life begin.
She grabbed on to the railing with her mittened hands. She wouldn’t be caught out when the boat lurched into place against the dock. She wouldn’t be caught out by anything ever again.
* * *
‘Nice outfit, Coop!’
‘Black Friday special,’ he shouted back to the dock worker, who laughed and gave him a jaunty salute before heading towards the end of the dock where the ferry was due any minute.
He had to hand it to the islanders. It had been a week since his gran’s funeral, and not one person had yet to grind in the guilt that had enveloped him since she’d passed. There’d been a fair few queries about a wake, but he’d get there. Eventually.
Perhaps the collective tactic was to jolly him into paying his penance in the form of taking up Doc Anstruther’s post when he retired. Or maybe—and far more likely—they were letting him stew in the sludge of his own mistakes while they got on with their lives.
Whatever. He couldn’t worry about that now. He had a district nurse to collect and patients to see and joy to spread. He’d get a smile from each and every one of his patients if it killed him.
He gave his feet a stamp and his leather-gloved hands a brisk rub. Island cold was definitely different from mainland cold. A childhood on Bourtree should’ve made him immune to it but, despite the layers, fifteen years away from the island meant that today’s wind was digging straight through to his bones.
His gran’s voice came through clear as a bell. ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, Coop, only bad clothing choices. Every day’s fine as the next so long as you’re dressed right.’
His grandmother had had a truism for everything. Even him.
‘Cooper, your problem is you’re too busy looking to the future to notice the here and now. Stop and smell the roses, laddie. Otherwise the only thing you’ll end up with is a life with no memories and no one to share it with.’
So here he was. Trying to make some good memories on Bourtree. Memories he wished like hell he could share with her.
He looked up the long cobbled lane that led to the enormous Bourtree Castle Christmas tree. The castle ruins and the glittering tribute to Christmas spearheaded the small town square some twenty-odd metres above the docks. He gave the tree a respectful nod. He’d chosen it as a visual reminder that the Christmas spirit started at home and, like it or not, Bourtree was home. For the foreseeable future anyway.
A big man—muscular, not fat—wearing rugby shorts and a short-sleeved shirt walked up alongside him and the small crowd of folk waiting for the ferry coming in from Glasgow.
Strewth. Shorts and a T-shirt in this weather? The man was either mad or Bourtree Castle through and through. Red hair, face covered in freckles, light blue eyes. Could be from any number of families on the island.
‘Coop.’ The guy gave him a nod and a smile.
‘All right, mate?’ Cooper replied, not at all sure what the man’s name was.
He looked familiar. Had they been in the same class at school, or had Cooper seen him in one of his gran’s stacks of local papers, fist in the air, cheering some sort of rugby triumph?
He still had a face full of acne... The cauliflower ear was new. As was the nose that looked to have been broken a few times and...yup...the scar cutting across his eyebrow. A scar mostly likely ‘won’ when the opposing team had crushed him at the bottom of a scrum pile.
It was a level of tough-as-nails that Cooper had never aspired to. Not that he shied away from sports. He went to the gym. Ran regularly. Did his weekly weights routine. But bulking up to get tangled in a pile of men who could throw a caber as easily as they could a toothpick? No, thanks. Fixing their compound fractures afterwards? Yeah. That was more his thing.
‘Gone soft over there in Glasgow, have you?’ the man asked, taking in Cooper’s layered ensemble and foot-stamping.
‘Hardly!’ Cooper barked, despite the fact they both knew otherwise. ‘Life on the mainland’s like bootcamp in the arctic. Harder.’
The white lie dug the sharp knife he’d been carrying around in his ribs just that little bit deeper. Who the hell was this guy? He should know him. He squinted, stripped away the crinkles round the man’s eyes, then tried to imagine him scrawny. That was it. He used to be scrawny.
‘Robbie? Robbie Stuart?’
‘Aye. Well done. Knew you’d get there in the end. Changed a bit, me, haven’t I?’ Robbie grinned, thumped his chest with one of his fists, then gave Cooper a proper thump on the back with the other. ‘Good to have you back on the island, even if—well—we’re all missing her. Your gran. Never met a woman with more spark in her. Or more sense of community spirit—specially this time of year. The Nativity’ll never be the same. Like herding cats to pull that thing off, and she always did it. A tough-as-old-boots islander through and through, Gertie was.’
‘Aye, well...’ He was trying to fill the Gertie void as best he could, but growing up on Bourtree hadn’t exactly been a bed of roses for him. A change of topic might be in order.
‘What sort of get-up do you call this?’ He tipped his head at Robbie’s shorts and T-shirt ensemble.
‘It’s my work gear, isn’t it? I just finished a PE session down at the college, then got a call from my brother to come and pick up my wee sister, as he’s helping out Dad down the shop.’
Hearing about family members helping family members as naturally as they breathed should’ve been a heart-warmer. Especially this time of year. Instead it dug that proverbial knife in deeper still.
‘Do you remember Rachel?’ Robbie asked. ‘She’s living over in Glasgow now. A librarian at a kiddies’ school, but comes home twice a month, rain or shine. Sometimes it takes a bit of wrangling, what with her roster and her boyfriend and all that, but she makes it work.’
Cooper, to his shame, neither remembered Rachel nor knew her routine. To say he hadn’t been a regular on the Bourtree-Glasgow ferry would’ve been a massive understatement.
He’d spent most of his time on Bourtree plotting ways to get off the island, not back on it. Staying away had been a far easier way to avoid stories about his mum and dad. A car accident had taken them in the end. Little wonder with the way they’d regularly shirked the drink-driving laws.
Each time he had a patient suffering from liver failure, he thought of his parents and how they’d got off easy. It was a painful way to go.
‘Speaking of get-ups...what’s this for?’ Robbie asked, tweaking the fabric of Cooper’s jacket between his massive fingers. ‘You preparing to throw yourself down some chimneys?’ He laughed at his own joke.
‘Picking up the new district nurse,’ Cooper corrected.
‘Oh, aye? Getting your foot in the door with Dr Anstruther, are you?’
‘Just helping out.’
He was testing the waters. Seeing if working here would do something—anything—to ease his guilt over not having been here for his gran. The ‘uniform’ was as much a buffer for him as it was for the patients who might not be so keen to have the island bad boy turn up at their door with a doctor’s case in hand.
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