by Karen Swan
‘Today?’ she laughed. It was so crazy as to be farcical.
‘For the debrief. They’d be coming over from London, so they wouldn’t get here till tomorrow now.’
‘Oh well, then . . .’ she drawled. ‘Tomorrow’s fine.’
He didn’t smile, this wasn’t funny to him. ‘I realize it’s a big ask, Willow.’
He had no idea. That this might be their last night in Lorne castle? Seven hundred years’ unbroken ownership ended with a day’s notice? How on earth would she ever talk her mother into it? ‘But you’re asking me anyway.’
‘Look at it this way – what I’m proposing is to do work we would have done once we’d bought the property. Instead we’d be doing it before it’s ours. That means the risk is all on our side. We could spend a small fortune getting it the way we want it, but the property is still yours – if you choose sell to someone else before we’re in a position to move . . .’ He shrugged. ‘We lose.’
‘On the other hand,’ she countered, ‘you’re proposing overhauling my family’s home, without making any meaningful financial commitment to buy at the other end.’
‘My word is my bond.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘Did you say that to my father too?’
There was a silence as they hit the impasse. ‘Well then, I guess it comes down to whether or not we think we can trust each other. Can you trust me?’
Willow stared at him, the question echoing through her body and vibrating in her heart. Could she?
Chapter Seventeen
‘Here, take my arm.’ Ottie held out her arm and braced to take his weight. Ben was hobbling around at a decent pace on the crutches, but any steps at all were problematic when he couldn’t bend his knee.
She heard him wince as he tried to swing his leg over the step. Her house might be built on one level but that level still happened to be three steps higher than the garden path.
‘You need to lean on me,’ she said, stepping in closer and forcing him to put one arm over her shoulders. She felt his weight reluctantly bear downwards as together they struggled up the steps and into the house. She sensed he wasn’t one for accepting help gladly.
‘Well, here we are . . . home sweet home,’ she said a few moments later, closing the door behind them, faintly embarrassed by the spartan Scandi-esque decor as he stopped to take in his new address for the next couple of weeks. Was it okay, she wondered, her gaze sweeping afresh over the black-stained elm floorboards and double-height plain white walls, the eighteenth-century calico chairs she had yet to upholster (she had done a course at the sixth form college in Gallaloe), the ill-advised white linen sofa she had bought in a sale and which had been permanently shrouded ever since with a black throw.
She didn’t know what he was used to in New York – a Manhattan penthouse bachelor pad? A rent-controlled brownstone? A picket-fenced cottage in the suburbs? An industrial loft in SoHo? She knew nothing about him at all. Not for the first time she wearied at the impulse that had propelled her into offering up her home to a complete stranger.
On the other hand, she reminded herself, he’d spent a night with a broken leg and arm on an exposed cliff edge in a storm thanks to her. She figured she owed him.
‘That is one hell of a view,’ he said, his eyes immediately fastening on the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that gave onto the crescent beach and the purple hills further down the coast. The sky was a heavy, moody blue today, the sea rolling into the beach in big froth-topped waves, a lone windsurfer in full neoprene-hooded body-kit cutting across the bay at speed.
‘Thank you. I like it.’
Dropping his arm off her shoulder, he hobbled forwards, throwing a barely curious glance over the small all-white L-shaped open-plan kitchen on the right-hand side, heading for the picture window.
‘The bedroom’s just off to the right there,’ she said as he passed by the bedroom door and he paused to look in from afar. The black metal frame of her contemporary four-poster could be seen through the doorway, the sheepskin rug on the floor straightened, all her worn clothes that usually spent three weeks draped over the calico chair before making it to the laundry now washed and pushed away again.
He twisted back to look at her. ‘Look, Ottie, I know you said I could take your room, and I accepted purely to get the consultant off my back but I can’t accept that. It’s not right. I’ll be perfectly fine on the sofa.’
But as he said it, he looked down at the snug two-seater. It was clear that even if its four-foot-wide frame could have accommodated his six-foot one, its squashy feather-filled cushions would never provide any support.
‘I insist,’ Ottie shrugged, seeing his expression. ‘Miss Cunningham said you need to keep your leg straight and elevated for the next ten days and I’d rather not have to buy a new sofa just for that.’ She gave a smile and made him think he was doing her the favour.
‘God no.’ He looked at her with his usual directness. ‘I guess I still don’t understand why you’re doing this. It’s not like we hit it off when we first met. I could just as easily have stayed at the rehabilitation home.’
She gave a wry smile. ‘You really couldn’t. The average age there is eighty-four and, besides, there have been . . . care issues recently. It’s really not a problem having you staying here. I’ll be out most of the time anyway.’
‘Working in the campsite?’
‘And on the estate.’ She put down her bag and walked over to the kettle, but in truth, she wasn’t sure if she even did work there any more. Legally, the estate was Willow’s now and apart from at the hospital with Pip, they’d not seen each other or talked properly since their father’s final wishes had been made known. The shift in responsibility – and power – was a boulder between them; they could talk over it but not step around it, and Ottie had no idea if Willow wanted her to continue with the projects she had been working on with their dad. ‘Would you like a coffee?’
‘Sure.’
She heard the dull tap of the crutches on the floor as he made his way over to the rocking chair near the window and awkwardly lowered himself down. It would have been hard enough for most people with just one mobile leg, but a strapped-up wrist too challenged even his strength and mobility.
‘How’s your pain? D’you need any more painkillers?’ she asked, seeing how he struggled. ‘You were due another dose half an hour ago.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ he said, wincing slightly as he used his good hand to pinch the fabric of his trousers to lift his leg into a better position.
‘Sure? It’s good for keeping the inflammation under control,’ she said, reaching for the cups.
‘I prefer not to use medicines if I can help it.’
Ottie arched an eyebrow. Post-surgical pain relief wasn’t just any old medicine. Then again, the man clearly knew his own pain threshold. Most mortals couldn’t run one and a half marathons per day for three days. ‘How d’you like it?’ And when he looked back at her quizzically, she held up the sugar pot. ‘Sugar? Milk?’
‘Black, no sugar.’
She felt him watch her as she poured. ‘So how long have you lived here?’
‘All my life. My parents own the estate.’ Her hand stilled momentarily at the slip of tenses – when would it become . . . automatic? The new normal? ‘We grew up in the castle but this was always my favourite spot. That view captivated me right when I was a little girl and it’s never let me go.’
‘You grew up in a castle?’
‘Haven’t you seen it?’
He shrugged. ‘I just studied the course map.’
Of course he had. ‘Well, you’re on the Lorne Castle estate.’ She gave a small smile. ‘It’s not that unusual here anyway; there’s quite a lot of castles in Ireland.’
‘So does that mean you’re a princess?’ His face remained impassive but she could hear the slightly sardonic tone in his voice. ‘Should I bow?’
‘Ha!’ she scoffed, bringing the coffee over and handing him his. ‘Only in my dreams. No, n
o airs or graces – although my father was the last living knight in Ireland.’
‘That sounds very cool.’
‘Thank you. It was.’
‘What does a knight do, exactly, these days? I assume jousting requires safety permits?’
She laughed, appreciating his dry sense of humour. ‘It’s sadly just an honorary title now – a lot of charity work mainly, a few ceremonial dinners in funny clothes once in a while. We still have the suit of armour worn by the 1st Knight of Lorne. Rusty, we call it, for self-evident reasons. But there are no princesses to protect in towers any more.’
‘Except you, surely? I’m sure he was very protective of you.’
She smiled. ‘I have two sisters as well.’
‘Three princesses for your knightly father to protect! Your teenage boyfriends must have been terrified.’
‘Yes!’ she laughed. ‘They probably were, although more so of Pip, my middle sister, than Dad. He was a softie.’
He watched her curl up on the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her. ‘And what was it like to be the daughter of the last living knight in Ireland?’
Jeesht, there was a question. ‘Well, obviously it was nice for us to grow up here – these views, the grounds, the history of the place.’
‘Why was he the last knight?’
‘The title had to be passed down through the male line. It was rather bad luck that neither I nor my sisters deigned to be born as boys.’ She shrugged her shoulders as carelessly as she could.
‘Oh, I see . . . That’s a tough gig.’ A look she couldn’t explain lurked in the backs of his eyes, as though he found her faintly perplexing. ‘That must be a pretty hard thing to live with.’
‘For my father? Yes. I think he felt guilty, as though he’d failed.’
‘I was thinking it must be hard for you too.’
She had never lived without it but she gave what she hoped was a careless smile, scuffing over the hollowness that came from knowing the moment of her birth was a devastating let-down, that no matter what she did in her life, it would never be enough to compensate for what she wasn’t. She had always been the firstborn – and the first disappointment. A girl: bonny and bouncy, taller and faster than average, talking at ten months and walking by twelve – but no heir. That was the one thing she could never be. ‘It was what it was. Our parents loved us. We knew that.’
He nodded, watching her interestedly. ‘When did he die, your father?’
Ottie felt her expression freeze. ‘. . . A fortnight ago.’
Ben looked shocked. ‘God, I’m sorry. I had no idea it was so recent.’
‘Of course not, how could you?’ she said lightly, forcing a smile. How had they wandered onto such intense – and private – ground so quickly? Shouldn’t they still be discussing the weather and where she kept the towels?
An awkward silence bloomed and to cover it, she got up quickly again, grabbing the small footstool that also housed her sewing box and brought it over to him, lifting his foot and gently setting his leg up. She took a few scatter cushions from the sofa and elevated his leg higher still as he watched on, impassively. ‘There.’
‘Thanks.’ His all-seeing eyes followed her, as though knowing her fuss was simply distraction. ‘So you were saying you live and work here?’
Back on safe ground again. ‘That’s right. I run the campsite when it’s open but most of the time I help –’ she corrected herself – ‘helped Dad with the running of the estate.’
‘It’s very beautiful – well, what I saw of it, clinging to the cliff. Lovely . . . views.’
She gave a shocked laugh at his dark sense of humour. Her father would have liked him for sure.
He allowed a wry smile too and it softened his face inordinately. ‘Have you ever not lived here?’
‘Well, I nearly cut and ran five years ago. Almost escaped.’ She grinned. ‘I had a place at art school in London and rather fancied the idea of artistic destitution in a bedsit in Haringey.’
‘But?’
‘I got a better offer. Dad asked me to run this place with him, and as the eldest I felt it was my duty to do what I could here.’
He nodded, looking at her keenly. ‘Not many people live by notions of “duty” these days.’
She shrugged. ‘I can’t pretend we Lornes are a typical bunch. What is it you do?’ she asked politely, horribly aware all the conversation was about her.
‘Well, I’m a pollster.’
She hesitated, not sure she’d heard correctly. ‘Pollster?’
‘I know, it’s close to mobster. But then I work for politicians so . . .’
She smiled.
‘Yeah, I conduct surveys and polls for politicians, governments, think tanks, corporations . . .’
‘It sounds very high-powered. Do you enjoy it?’
He thought for a moment. ‘I’d say I like the unpredictability of it.’
‘But isn’t yours, by definition, the industry of predictability?’
‘Ah.’ He almost grinned. Almost. A slight light coming into his eyes. ‘There’s a difference between prediction and predictability, and I’ve found people never fail to surprise you.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
He shrugged non-committally. ‘It depends.’
‘Who have you worked for? Anyone I’d have heard of?’
‘We worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.’
‘Oh my God! That is seriously big bananas!’ she exclaimed.
‘Big bananas?’ he queried drily. ‘Now, is that an Irish term I should be familiar with – or a Lorneism? “Seriously big bananas”,’ he repeated, his accent making it sound funnier. ‘I’ll try to utilize that in my next meeting.’
Ottie laughed. ‘I wouldn’t. Not unless you want them to think you’re nuts.’
‘They think that anyway.’ He gestured vaguely to the surroundings but she knew he meant being here, racing in the Ultra.
‘Is it going to be a problem, you being out of the country for so long?’ she asked, sipping her coffee.
‘It’s definitely not ideal but hopefully they can patch me in on some conference calls. And things are slightly quieter now that the mid-terms are behind us.’
‘Did you accurately predict the results for those?’
‘We did.’
‘Are your results always accurate?’
He hitched up an eyebrow slightly. ‘You mean, did we predict Trump was going to beat Hillary to the presidency?’ From his tone, she guessed this was a question he was asked a lot. She didn’t suppose it was a good thing to be on the losing side of one of the biggest political upsets in the past century. ‘No. Our surveys were accurate at a national level – we predicted she’d get the popular vote by three points; it was actually two. But at state level, our responding sample groups were proportionally too heavily weighted with college-educated voters; we didn’t foresee the last-minute undecided voters’ swing to Trump.’ He shrugged. ‘But we’ve learned from it.’
Ottie suspected he didn’t take well to losing. ‘So how did you get into the profession? Does anyone actually grow up wanting to be a pollster?’
Again, his almost-smile hovered on his lips. ‘I started out in advertising initially. Worked with the big brands, had flashy lunches, accrued all the toys.’
She pulled a face. From his tone, it wasn’t sounding like a good thing. ‘But . . .?’
He opened his mouth to reply, but for a moment, nothing came out. ‘. . . I had a wake-up call,’ he said finally. ‘Things that had once seemed to matter, didn’t any more. I realized I was just part of a cycle of making people want things they didn’t need; that all I was doing was just perpetuating the cult of buying stuff. We don’t have experiences any more – we buy them. We watch people on Instagram journey to the places we’d like to go, we buy clothes only to wear them once . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I needed something that created and found connections between us and I found I liked that the data we collected for polls could
directly affect a politician’s policy or media strategy. Taken to its natural conclusion, it can alter the fate of an entire country.’
Ottie was impressed. The most she ever had to deal with was unblocking the loos and litter-picking the site, commissioning the masons to rebuild sections of old stone wall or getting the lake dredged. ‘And ultra running. How did you get into that?’
‘It was around the same time as my career switch. After my wake-up call, I decided to train for the New York marathon and on the day, I ran it six minutes faster than I’d hoped for. So then I ran the Boston one too and a similar thing happened. Then in Berlin. And London. Soon I was cruising them. Marathons just seemed to suit my body, so I needed another challenge. Something more.’
‘That is nuts,’ Ottie sighed. ‘I can’t imagine how anyone can be suited to running marathons.’
‘I take it you don’t run?’
‘Only to the pub. Or to the loo in the middle of the night—Oh!’ She gave a little gasp as she realized something.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Uh . . . nothing.’
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’
She looked at him. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? ‘Well, it’s just I remembered that the bathroom – the only bathroom – is off the bedroom through there.’ She shook her head quickly. ‘But it’s fine. I can use the campsite facilities.’
‘Out in the field? Now who’s nuts?’
‘It’s important you rest properly. I don’t want to disturb you.’
‘Don’t worry, you won’t,’ he said. ‘I’m pretty sure the anaesthetist gave me a horse tranquillizer back there. I’m not so much sleeping as falling into complete oblivion at the moment.’ He stretched his neck out, dropping his head down side to side. She realized suddenly how exhausted he looked. He was still freakishly pale, offset by a quickly growing fuzz of dark stubble. ‘Speaking of which, I should probably—’
