Highland Fling

by Emma Baird

  “Yes, well,” I butt in before Mhari recreates all the sorry Ryan/Gaby story and my less than noble part in it. “How are you, Jack?”

  He tilts his head towards his shoulder. “All the better for seeing you, Gaby.”

  I’m reminded of the truth of words. Tone, pitch and eye contact tells you what you want to know far more than the arrangement of letters. I award him ten out of ten for sarcasm and rein in the instinct to blow him a fat raspberry once more.

  He turns from the shelf he was inspecting to Mhari. They exchange glances, Mhari to Jack, Jack to Mhari and then both of them to me. Whatever silent communication went on there, minds appear to have been made up.

  “The Avon Skin So Soft, Mhari? Have you got any of the stuff in?”

  Mhari comes out, ‘Mah-rrrie”. I could try saying it a hundred times, and I couldn’t roll my ‘r’s half as beautifully. The woman herself bends down, rummaging around in the boxes underneath the counter and emerging with five bottles of the stuff.

  “You’re no’ to tell anyone I’ve got stocks of this in,” she hisses at me, hastily throwing all the bottles into a plastic bag. “And especially no’ Alison. Well, tell folks. But it’s special arrangement only. Gaby, I’ve just let you into a ginormous secret. If you tell folks, I’ll have to kill ye.”

  Gosh. She’s serious. Alison is her boss, the pharmacist. I am, as the locals say, flummoxed. What is so special about a cheap spray-on oil from a well-known beauty company?

  Jack hands over a stack of tenners that Mhari doesn’t bother ringing up through the till. I’d no idea the stuff was so expensive.

  “Go,” she says, shooing us with her hands. “Both of ye! And mind, this didnae happen. Or if it did, folks have to contact me first, and then I’ll arrange the drop.”

  With that, we are out of the shop—me clutching my anti-histamines and Jack with his plastic bag of black market goodies.

  Out on the street, he turns to face me his expression still unfriendly. “I suppose you’re headed to my house to do some work?”

  “If that’s okay!” It comes out as a squeak, and I curse myself. What is it about this man that brings out the idiot in me? Every single time I’ve met him, I’ve been at a disadvantage. From turning up late to being caught looking at an embarrassing post on the internet to having him walk in on a conversation about his ex-girlfriend. Not that I rate her advice, but I think Christina the Dating Guru would say, Whoops girlfriend! A man is supposed to a) fancy you, b) respect you; and c) like you. Ticking none of those boxes? Retreat, retreat.

  I stomp off anyway, fed up of his rudeness. “Yes, I am. If that is okay with your lordship. Do you want money for the electricity or broadband, by the way? I’m more than happy to pay it.”

  He rushes to catch up with me. “No, his lordship doesnae mind. And apologises for being a rude git.”

  I slow down. The face now level with me appears to wear a sincere expression. “Apology accepted. The skin-so-soft stuff, Why did you pay so much for it?”

  He holds the bag up and, I hear the clatter of plastic bottles knocking together. “It’s an anti-midge thing. When I’m taking people out on the Highland Tours, they’re not always used to the midges. How are you finding them?”

  When I stare blankly, his faces relaxes. “You must be one of the fabled lucky ones. The midges don’t bother you. Midges are Scotland’s mosquitoes; maybe worse than mosquitoes. And they love fresh blood. I take out tourists, and they’re no’ going to be happy if they spend the days after their wee tour of the lochs and castles scratching themselves raw. For some reason, the midges don’t like the skin-so-soft stuff. I hand it out to the tourists when they get on the mini-bus and tell them to spray it all over. Then their lasting impression of Highland Tours are the lochs and castles instead of the bites and itching. And they give me good reviews on TripAdvisor and the like.”

  I hear every word, but what strikes me more than anything is that he’s stopped frowning by the time he’s finished. I think there might be the hint of a smile at the end of his little speech. And we’ve reached the house too.

  “Is this contraband then?” I ask, pointing at the plastic bag. He places a forefinger at his lips and widens his eyes.

  “Totally. This stuff’s in high demand. If you ever reveal my sources, I’ll have to kill you too.”

  The friendly thing is short-lived. Jack lets us both into his house, makes himself a coffee (without offering me one, I note, marking it as a con in the who Gaby should fancy list) and leaves two minutes later, saying he needs to get the mini-bus valeted. I have a tonne of work to get on with, but I can’t resist a phone call to Katya. Apart from anything else, I have the Kirsty/Christina thing to tell her about.

  “Woo!” she says. “I was not expecting that. She doesn’t sound Scottish.”

  No, she doesn’t. I’ve now listened to her podcast, Boyfriend Hunter, and she’s got an American accent. If you pay close attention though, it slips at times, seguing from upper east New York to Scottish.

  “Anyway, I’ve got something to tell you!” Katya’s adopted that super-bright voice, and my heart sinks. That almost always means I’m not going to like what she says next. The trouble with—and this sounds rotten ungrateful, I’m aware—with knowing someone so well, is that they signal good news and bad news with hyper-clarity.

  Here it comes, the bad news.

  “Facebook!” she announces cheerily which convinces me what she says next will be dreadful. “You said the signal isn’t great where you are?”

  I nod, before remembering that we weren’t doing FaceTime and she couldn’t see what I did. “Nope, not at Kirsty’s house anyway,” I say, “I haven’t been on Facebook for yonks.”

  And why would I? At 26, I’m only a year or so older than Gen Z. We don’t do Facebook. The last time I looked, my mum was too busy posting her hundredth ‘Why middle-aged women shouldn’t drink’ meme—Hashtag Wine O’clock. Hashtag Prosecco—at the same time as uploading endless pics of glasses of wine tagged #WeDontCare. I took a ten-second glance and decided whoever said middle-aged women shouldn’t drink was a person of sense, someone my mum and her generation ought to heed. I worked out Facebook wasn’t for me and prayed my mother never strayed across Instagram, WhatsApp or anything else she suddenly decided she had to be all over.

  Katya ums and aws. “You should check it out. Your Facebook page.”

  I click on it, and my body zooms in to the screen as if I’m sucked to the monitor. Lordy, lordy.

  In the name of flip. What do I do now?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Beneath the last thing I posted is a poster, the words Gaby! I love you taking up most of the space.

  It’s been designed, not a professional job the graphic artist in me notes, but well enough to grab attention. It features a picture of Ryan and me grinning at the camera, and a line underneath—Help me get my girlfriend back. I dumped her too quickly. Ryan’s poster has been shared on the Ryan Reynolds official account. As a result, it is all over Facebook and Twitter. Some three million (it feels like) people are now screaming at me to get back at Ryan. Someone filmed Louise when she first saw my list of reasons for not getting engaged on the garage Twitter feed, her mouth pursing and her forehead wrinkling in fury, and they’ve turned it into a meme—the line, ‘Louise would be the mother-in-law from hell’ popping up endlessly as she reads it again and again.

  In the broad light of social media day, none of this reflects well on me. Many people have seen it as their mission to tell me what a cow I am. That’s not the word they use. And they add I do not deserve someone as magnificently chivalrous as Ryan. I click out before I read any other nasty comments about me, my appearance and my life choices.

  Should I phone Ryan? In a fit of pique—and commanded to do so by Katya—I deleted his number from my phone after he sent me ten texts making his feelings crystal clear. I could email him, I suppose but...

  ...do I want him back? Um... no?

  Back from valeting the
mini-bus, Jack sticks his head around the door. “I hear you’re off to Glasgow on Monday morning?” he asks, and I nod wondering which villager told him that before narrowing it down to Scottie’s owner or Mhari.

  “I need to head there on Monday,” he says. “Got to pick my next load of tourists up at Glasgow airport.” He jangles the keys to the mini-bus in his right hand, and I sense a man wondering whether to take the plunge. He takes a deep breath and appears to decide.

  “I can give you a lift...?”

  I stare at him, what a lift, what you’re offering me is... a lot of hours in your company. Rude git and all, the idea of it shimmers, a tantalising prospect banishing all thoughts of Ryan and his poster.

  “I need to get to Glasgow for nine am as I’m meeting my boss there so we can talk to our client,” I say, crossing my fingers underneath the desk the flight he is meeting is an early one.

  “No problem. The flight I’m picking up gets in at eight am. I could drop you at the airport, and you can get a bus from there into the city centre. The first day of the trip ends in Glasgow too, so if you don’t mind kicking your heels there until five o’clock, I can give you a lift back too.”

  Melissa had scheduled the meeting with Dexter Carlton of Blissful Beauty for nine till twelve. But I could have lunch with Melissa afterwards and then wander around Glasgow until five looking at all the big shops and getting myself reacquainted with fashion. Besides, nothing will stop me from accompanying Jack on a journey I’ve worked out takes five hours there and back.

  The daft bit of me fast-forwards to fantasy mode. Goodness me, imagine how friendly it might get. Perhaps I can persuade him to call me Sassenach? I fit the criteria for the name, and on a good day with the help of subdued lighting and if I put in a few hours wrapping strands of my hair around curling tongs, I reckon I could pass for Claire, Jamie Fraser’s big love...

  I spend the weekend working to ensure I can present Dexter with an impressive amount of work, but also to avoid thinking about Ryan and that Facebook post. The heat had died down a little. It wasn’t getting the shares and comments it had been receiving; yet another one-second viral wonder. But still my friends and family commented, and most people appeared to take Ryan’s side.

  Weirdly, he hadn’t sent me any direct, private messages either by email or through social media. I composed and discarded endless replies. Hey Ryan, hope you are okay. The poster was sweet. But nothing said what I wanted it to, and I couldn’t work out what my ideal scenario was. Even if he came up with a reasonable explanation for Kayleigh and he promised me a Louise-interference-free wedding (life), did I want him back? No, yes, no, yes, no. My brain skipped left-side, right-side and back again too many times.

  It’s a huge relief when Monday arrives, even if the thought of all that time in Jack’s company and the prospect of a high-powered meeting ties my stomach up in knots. Breakfast proves too much to ask of it. Mena has decided she likes scrambled eggs. A blessing, seeing as they cost a lot less than smoked salmon, and she ends up the lucky recipient of the meal I can’t eat at five o’clock in the morning. Instead, I spend half an hour on the Dating Guru’s website where I read up on everything from make-up to sparkling conversation topics on a first date and how to make him want you. Christina the Dating Guru promises me you need a light touch with make-up for a first date. Men, she says, don’t like women plastered in make-up. The delicate souls find it intimidating. Although I curl up my lip as I listen to this on YouTube, perhaps she could be on to something. A light pink lip gloss makes your lips seem kiss-able the advice goes, whereas if you opt for red or dark lipstick a guy draws back, frightened he will end up covered in the stuff.

  In the end, I settle for an impression I hope screams ‘not trying too hard’. I am going to a business meeting, so I choose a pencil skirt with a velour hoodie and slogan tee shirt. As a graphic designer, we’re allowed to subvert the suit when it comes to attending meetings. As per Christina’s make-up instructions, the foundation I choose promises it is invisible, and I dust on bronzer and apply a slick of the least gloopy lip gloss I own.

  When a horn sounds outside at five thirty bang on time, the curling tongs have only made it half-way around my head. I’m only half way through I do the tong thing with my hair. I grab my phone and the old laptop I’ve loaded with all the Blissful Beauty design work I’ve done, and head out the door, emerging with a head of hair that is half curly and half poker straight.

  Blast it. Jack isn’t the mini-bus’s only occupant and the excitement I’d allowed to build up trickles away. Next to him in the front seat is Scottie’s owner, the man whose name I don’t yet know. He waves enthusiastically at me. My return wave isn’t quite as energetic.

  He throws open the door and budges up so he’s in the middle and I’m left with the outside seat. The mini-bus is dark grey on the outside, the decals on the side feature a big sign saying Highland Tours: Your Authentic Scottish Experience. Inside, it’s luxurious, dark grey seats, little curtains at the windows, and small table trays so people can eat their sandwiches in comfort.

  “Aye, aye Gaby! I telt Jack ye were going to Glasgow and suggested he could take the two of us wi’ him.”

  Great. So it wasn’t even Jack’s idea. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. This bloke is tres rude, and it is not healthy to fancy someone so much when you’re still recovering from a break-up.

  “I’m going on a day course,” Scottie’s owner adds, “at Glasgow Caledonian. By the way, you havenae finished brushing your hair. It looks funny.”

  “What is the course?” I ask, fastening my seatbelt and preparing for a long morning. My lift fixer is a nice chap, but if boring people were an Olympic sport, he would qualify for Scotland’s national team. During the next two hours, we are going to hear a lot of details about subjects as fascinating as how to make excellent porridge and the number of midges expected to hit the village this year.

  Jack puts the mini-bus in reverse, turns it around in Kirsty’s driveway—a piece of manoeuvring so precise and professional I would swoon if that kind of thing impressed me—and tilts his face so that only I can see. Was that the ghost of a wink?

  At least I get Scottie’s owner’s name. Jack says it when he reminds him to fasten his seatbelt as we leave the village and Stewart continues his explanation of the course he’s off to do. Unlikely as it sounds, he talks about it non stop for an hour. He’s off to learn about coding, meaning he will be able to start work developing websites for local businesses. In theory, this might be an exciting subject but by the time Stewart has told us all about the differences between JavaScript, Binary, MySQL and HTML, my head keeps dropping as I struggle to stay awake. Goodness only knows how Jack is staying alert enough to drive.

  When I see the sign that says Glasgow is thirty miles away, I butt in.

  “Amazing Stewart,” I say. “You will learn so much. So, Jack how many people are you picking up today?”

  “But I haven’t told you yet about CSS and jQuery!” Stewart bursts out, and I mutter ‘perhaps later’ and that I deal with CSS every day in the desperate hope that between now and five o’clock he loses his voice.

  “Ten,” Jack says, and I swear there’s that ghost of a wink again. “Americans. All of them claim Scottish ancestry that dates back to at least the fifteenth century despite record-keeping not being that great in those days, so I’m taking them to the People’s Palace in the morning and Loch Lomond for the afternoon.”

  I jump in with another question before Stewart can start up again. The scenery’s changed. For the first hour, we travelled through stunning countryside. All high hills topped with swirling mists that gradually revealed themselves as the rising sun burnt them off, lochs and fields full of russet-red cows with wide horned-heads. Now though, the traffic has intensified as we head further into the concrete jungle of three-carriage roads, high-rises and large warehouses.

  I long to ask Jack personal questions but even if I thought he’d answer them, I can’t ask them in fr
ont of Stewart. I settle for the practicalities of ferrying tourists around. What does he do with himself while they explore? Does he know a lot about the places they visit and is he expected to answer all their questions? Jack’s answers are short, and he gives me no openings to ask for more details. It’s all ‘yes’ ‘no’ and the occasional, ‘I’m not sure’. So much for my Sassenach fantasies.

  You are such a wa—my inner censor draws the line. ‘Terrible person’, it adds instead. Why do I bother liking/lusting after you?

  We get to the airport five minutes ahead of time, and Jack jumps out to show us where we need to go to get the bus. He’s wearing that kilt again, as you might expect a Scottish tour guide to do. It falls just above his knees, and what fantastic knees they are too. Bear with me on this one. Some knees are knobbly and almost repellent; Jack’s are smooth and big, hinting at an impressive set of quads above them. My mind does that half-naked towel imagery again, and I have to shake my head so I can focus on what he’s saying. He says goodbye and repeats the directions I’ll need to get to where he is to pick me up later.

  Stewart starts up the coding conversation once more when we get on the bus that will take us to Glasgow city centre. Thankfully, the trip only takes twenty minutes. Stewart’s coding chat is still ongoing when I get off outside the main train station, the one Jack promised was nearest to West Nile Street where Blissful Beauty has its office.

  The streets are busy with people making their way to nine-to-five jobs. I’d forgotten what ‘busy’ streets are like, the sea of people you get waiting at traffic lights, the honk of horns when cars and people dodge red lights and the courier and Deliveroo bikes that weave in and out of the crowds. Glaswegians sound different too. I’ve grown used to the Lochalshie accent. It’s still indecipherable at times, but the snatches of conversation I hear now are voices that are harder and edgier.

  West Nile Street is off Buchanan Street, and Blissful Beauty has taken over all three storeys of the part of the street where the road curves around a large church, the company’s logo and branding plastered on the front. I stare up at the building and the logo, the Bs a swirly mass of silver stars. Melissa is there already, left wrist held up so she can glare at her watch even though I am bang on time. Suddenly, the nerves ramp up. Most clients I meet with do not understand design. Farmers are grateful for anything you do, but Blissful Beauty is a well-established brand. I won’t be able to palm off half-baked ideas on these people. I wish I’d put more thought into this.