Scotlander, page 24
Jeff took umbrage, and an impassioned debate on the state of LARPing in America ensued.
Later, after Scottish fajitas and a fair amount of acrimonious conversation made it clear they’d reached the point in their immersive experience where they were getting on one another’s nerves, Willa heaved the basket of dirty plates and cutlery on to her hip, headed out of the courtyard and up the path towards the house. It was a longer walk than she’d anticipated and made her appreciate, yet again, just how hard Orla worked. And with a smile throughout.
When she got to the house, no one answered her knock, so she walked round the back where she found the kitchen door open. She took a step inside.
It looked like a hurricane had hit it. The huge trays of lasagne they’d eaten like wolves the night before were stacked in sloppy piles of dishwashing soap and burnt-on cheese. Trug buckets full of potatoes sat, unpeeled, on the floor. Huge slabs of salmon stuck out of another trug, the pink flesh obscured by frost suggesting they’d just been taken out of a chest freezer. There were heaped baskets of dirty and clean laundry. It was difficult to discern which was which. There were multiple drying racks covered in children’s clothes. Sheets draped on doorframes. On the centre of the round, wooden kitchen table were stacks of paperwork, half-opened mail, an embarrassment of envelopes with bold, red lettering on them, some very serious-looking documents that bore the stamp of an impressive-looking bank, a couple of geriatric laptops, a calculator, an abacus, and a five-litre paint tin filled to overflowing with stub ends of candles. Sitting in a room just beyond the kitchen – the dining room from the looks of the long rectangular table and the formal, high-backed chairs, sat Orla, Dougie, Duncan and Finn. They were completely silent and wore a collective look of shock.
‘Hey, guys.’ She waved, openly freaked out at their tableau. ‘Everything okay?’
Duncan looked at and then through her.
Dougie dropped his head into his hands.
Big, fat tears began skidding down Orla’s cheeks, down her chin and into the knitted shoulder and neck wrap Jennifer had given her that morning with a detailed explanation as to how she’d done it in the MacKenzie clan colours. She wasn’t bothering to wipe them away.
‘Harvester,’ Finn managed, his blue-grey eyes wide with disbelief. ‘We won’t be able to fix the harvester. And the college can’t lend us theirs.’ The look he gave her spoke volumes. They’d run out of options. He got up, walked straight past her, and went outside. A few moments later she heard the whack, whack, whack of his axe cleaving logs into firewood.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Text Messages: Your Message Mailbox is full. Please delete some messages.
Voicemail: Willa. Jenkins. You have . . . one hundred . . . and . . . twelve . . . voice . . . messages. To listen to your . . . messages . . .
Email: You have 137 unread emails.
Chapter Thirty-Five
O, happy days! Bryony, it turned out, had forgotten to tell everyone she was off for a girls’ trip to Hawaii with her mother on the same weekend all of the sweeps-week specials were meant to be filmed.
Rather than firing her (children of senior level executives did not get fired), the production team, in their wisdom, had decided their only option was to turn to Willa to fix it.
The slew of messages ran something like this:
Willa, where’s the [fill in the blank with whatever thing they couldn’t find that was exactly where it always was]?
Willa, do you know if/when the interview’s going to start/end/happen/be cancelled?
Willa, could you resend all of the information you’ve already sent because trawling through the emails to find it would be hard?
PR dogsbodies, PR VPs, marketing managers, freelance promotions teams, studios, streaming channels, Indies, YouTubers, TikTok glitterati and, of course, actual celebrities. Countless fame-seekers pleading for a bite of precious airtime, sweet-talking you while it mattered, blanking you when it didn’t.
That was Hollywood.
She picked some straw out of her corset.
And this was Scotland.
Was this the moment she bailed and went back to LA?
When she weighed up what Finn and his family were going through versus what the highly paid TiTs production team had decided was their best course of action (turn to the one person who was legitimately on vacation), she knew where she wanted to put her skills to use.
When she finally came out of her hayloft, all eyes rose to her. She forced on a smile.
‘Everything alright?’ Jennifer asked, knitting needles clacking away. The rest of the group was still hanging around the firepit, the acrimony from lunchtime still simmering. Everyone was quietly nursing mugs of tea or darning a hem or readjusting their kilt straps (Jeff had both grown and shrunk over the course of the week). Gabe and Lachlan were stacking Finn’s pile of abandoned firewood into something that deserved to be admired for its beauty, but all she could manage was a paltry thumbs-up.
Normally by this time of day, they would’ve been heading back out for their afternoon chores. But the Scots – Errol, Trevor, Kirk, Alastair and now Blair – were nowhere to be seen. They’d been called to the house to hear the news, no doubt. Or, more worryingly, gone off to find work elsewhere.
Nerves churned round Willa’s stomach like the contents of a cement mixer as she relived the moment when she’d found Finn and his family. With no ability to bring in the harvest, there was no point in carrying on this mad charade any longer. Orla wasn’t up to it, physically or emotionally. They couldn’t afford it. And soon the bank would come calling. Not to mention the fact the rosy hue of ‘immersive Jacobean style labour’ had lost its rosy hue.
But somewhere between the house, her barrage of messages from TiTs and rejoining this strangely beautiful collection of mismatched superfans – a group of strangers all seeking the same thing: a moment of purity in their complicated lives – she’d come up with an idea.
This was your classic make-or-break movie moment. The risk Michael J. Fox took when he pressed his foot on the gas pedal and raced, head on, towards the town hall. Dorothy’s decision to follow the yellow brick road. Bambi’s mother’s decision to go into the clearing. Life-altering decisions that could elevate or destroy.
‘Willa?’ Jennifer asked again, putting her knitting down in her lap. ‘Is everything okay?’
Her normal, go-to work answer was Absolutely! Then she’d shove whatever it was that had been bothering her down to the bottom of her things-that-mattered pile and get on with improving someone else’s life. The only time when she hadn’t felt the need to lie was with Valentina.
And that’s when it hit her. This was why she was here. She didn’t need to read Val’s letter to know what was in it. The one person who had always believed in Willa, even – no, especially – when she hadn’t believed in herself, had been Valentina Ortiz: dental hygienist to the stars.
Val would have loved her plan.
More than that, she would’ve championed it and thrown herself in feet first. Now it was Willa’s turn to wear the mantle so ably worn by her best friend, a woman who had taught her all the very best things there were to know about loyalty, love and sacrifice.
So when Jennifer asked her for a third time if everything was alright, she turned to her and said, ‘No.’
A dam’s worth of pent-up regrets broke through her taped-up heart and poured through her. This was her make-or-break moment. It wasn’t fiction. There was no guaranteed happily ever after. It was all terrifyingly real. But she wanted to do it anyway. She looked Jennifer in the eye and said, ‘It’s the opposite, actually. Everything’s awful.’
She waited until the entire group gathered round before she explained. And when she did, she told them everything. About the farm’s precarious financial position. About the castle’s history (both old and new). About how Orla and her family had been doing their best to caretake Balcraigie Farm while Finn decided what he wanted to do about his inheritance.
She knew it was a risk, this level of honesty. It exposed Orla and her duplicity. It shone a light on Finn and his lack of decision making. Herself for not saying anything earlier.
She didn’t paint the picture in terms of deceit. Life wasn’t that black and white. This was family. It was complicated. There were feelings involved. History. And, if, according to Lachlan’s Guide to the Scottish Emotional Spectrum, the Gaelic people had only been offered the world’s tiniest emotional toolbox to work with, it was little wonder it had taken an actual, life-changing crisis to bring them to this point. One where, if they were agreed, they could bring all their energies together and put some good into the world.
Though it was yet another beautiful, sunny, crisp autumnal day, Willa’s skin felt clammy. Her nerves grew as the group’s collective silence deepened while she spoke.
They were within their rights to turn on Orla and Finn, demand their money back, report them to whoever you reported fraudulent immersive Jacobean experiences in the Highlands.
The simple truth was that Orla had charged them a lot of money for the privilege of doing farm chores.
Their anger, if that’s what they were feeling – it was hard to tell because they were all staring at her gape-mouthed – would be justified. And, as such, there were a number of ways this could go.
They might shout, scream, then remember that Orla was actually a kick-ass cook and that they’d all, up until this moment, had a really good time even though their personal hygiene had gone to pot.
They could sue for emotional distress. Physical injury. Fraud.
Maybe they’d pack their bags, call a taxi, and head to Edinburgh and take a real tour.
They could expose everything on Twitter.
Maybe they’d blame Willa. After all, she’d known the situation pretty much from the start. Part of her hoped they’d channel their hurt on her. Go ballistic the way her exec producers did when she informed them a celeb had decided against baring their darkest, most intimate selves to the American public at 8/7 Central.
She could take it. For Finn. For not watching boxsets with Val. For wishing she’d been born into a different family.
All of these things were possibilities.
But the truth was, she knew deep down, that each and every one of these people – these epic, big-hearted, kind, generous superfans – believed this had been about as close to a perfect experience as you could get. It lacked the whole raping, pillaging and sword-fighting element, sure, but . . . they all had jobs to return to, long lives yet to live. Orla had largely delivered what the brochure had promised. A Jamie (or Claire). Jacobean fayre. Jacobean clothes. And an authentic understanding of how the Highlanders went about their day-to-day lives.
Stripped of the amenities of modern-day life, they’d all come to enjoy the ice-cold showers, the searing heat on one side of their body at the fire circle, the satisfaction of a hard day’s work. The porridge! The porridge just kept getting better and better. Not to mention the meat pies and the festy cocks – delicious oatmeal pancakes, which were the Scots comfort food version of cheese on toast.
Willa made that point and many more. From the moment they’d landed, Finn and Orla had done their level best to provide an authentic Jacobean experience. Exactly what the brochure had advertised. It hadn’t mentioned filming sites or meeting the celebs or any of tchotchkes the other tours had on offer.
They’d asked one simple thing of their visitors: to take a step into yesteryear.
And what could be more olden days than getting to midwife cows and unearth walled gardens and build stone walls for livestock on the shores of a bonnie loch?
No one said a word.
So she carried on advocating for them, knowing that the more she talked, the more she was setting herself up for some serious backlash. If not from these lovely people here, their hosts: Finn and Orla.
But that was just the way the shortbread was going to crumble today.
She’d do her best to take the brunt of it. Years of working at TiTs – being the most convenient person to scream at, to blame, to hold accountable for things that had never been within her control let alone her fault – had made being the object of someone’s wrath commonplace.
What did scare her was Finn’s reaction to her decision to tell everyone the truth.
He liked her. She liked him too. Had from the moment she’d laid eyes on him in that stupid, flimsy brochure with those perfectly beautiful blue-grey eyes of his looking thoughtfully off into the middle distance. Back then he’d been a fiction. Not a living, breathing, complicated, intelligent, thoughtful, insightful man. He was real. Losing the connection that had grown between them over this last week wasn’t something she was willing to do. Not yet, anyway. Not until she’d done her level best to prove to him that when she’d said ‘sweet’, she’d meant like honey. Natural, golden perfection. The type of man she’d never imagined herself with because he came with a life she’d convinced herself she didn’t want. But now, like the way his dad had changed chores into Farm Delights, the life she thought she’d wanted may have been there all along, it just needed a little spin. Like a kaleidoscope. The same colours seen by the same mirrors, but with just the right change in perspective.
‘This was the first time I got to pick our experience.’ Rosa looked as if she was going to hyperventilate. ‘Are you saying that . . . that it’s over?’
The question broke the dam.
What had happened to their money? How long had Willa known this? Was she complicit in it? Could they get a refund? They’d got actual blisters from working here – did Orla and her so-called ‘team’ know this? Did they appreciate how hard everyone had worked to save the money to get here only to be conned? There were people they could call. People who would know people who could get them out of this. Had anyone noticed if the place was ABTA certified?
Jennifer didn’t seem to be able to absorb any of it. She sat, her knitting on her lap, looking as if she’d just been told her cat had died. ‘I haven’t finished Duncan’s scarf. I promised him . . .’
ChiChi wrapped her arms around herself and said to no one in particular, ‘Outlander has brought me to my happy place so many times. So many times.’
The reminder of why they’d all come here stopped everyone short. Talk turned to Jamie and Claire and what they did when things didn’t go the way they’d planned.
Jules shifted gears from angry dragon to fired-up unicorn. ‘Blair and I did not get blisters and calluses and cuts and bruises to see some nameless, faceless, corporate fucker slap a foreclosure notice on this place.’ She kicked the log bench, howled in pain, then punched her fist into the air. ‘This place is not going down. Not on my watch!’
Fenella rose from the bench. ‘Willa, are you saying that the lads – our fake hubsters – are going to be out of jobs for real?’
‘That’s up to us,’ Willa said. ‘I don’t think Finn and Orla can see the wood for the trees right now.’
A chorus of ‘What do you mean?’s shot across the fire circle.
‘I mean,’ Willa said, her idea gaining traction, ‘that if you’re willing to try something a bit outside of the box . . . we might be able to help them.’
The suggestion hovered in the air as everyone considered what they wanted to do. There were two choices. They could take a risk that what Willa was suggesting might work, or pack their bags and walk away.
After an excruciatingly taut silence, Jeff broke it.
‘I’m willing.’ He pulled Rosa in close to him. ‘This is the trip of a lifetime for us and, I know I’m speaking for Rosa here, but we want it to end on a high. If we can be a part of saving this place, we want to play our roles.’
Rosa beamed up at him and mouthed, ‘My hero.’
‘I’m in,’ Gabe said, his eyes latching on to Willa’s. ‘I’ve got resources. Let’s make use of them.’
ChiChi said she knew she wasn’t very practical, but she was willing to put her hands to anything she couldn’t break.
Jennifer stabbed her knitting needles into her basket and pronounced herself a woman of action.
Jules cheered and shouted, ‘I fucking love you, Mother!’
They all threw around enthusiastic high fives and fist bumps and Jeff, the largest of all of them, pulled everyone into a massive group hug. They all stank. Their clothes were filthy. Their smiles cut through it all.
When they eventually untangled themselves, all eyes, once again, turned to Willa.
‘Right, then, chook.’ Fenella gave her a little salute. ‘You’ve got your army, now run us through what it was you wanted us to do.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Willa’s plan was out there, but . . .
The alternative was eating Finn alive.
When she’d come to him and told him her idea, he’d been dubious. What had made him agree to come out here to the stable’s courtyard was the spark in her eye. The one that flared bright when she spoke about Balcraigie and how much being part of their immersive experience had meant to her. How much being with him had meant to her.
So, here he was, sitting with a group of people he’d planned on turning away from his home, only to discover they were all willing to give everything they had to help him keep it.
When they’d got there, everyone looked nervous. Finn and his family. All the guests. Even the lads – Errol, Trevor and Alastair – men who Finn had rarely seen crack so much as a sweat during a fistfight down the pub. They were quiet and restless. Fidgety.
Finn was still trying to wrap his head round the proposal. He used Willa’s trick of repeating what he’d just heard back to her. ‘So, what you’re saying is, you want me to announce to the world that we’re broke and that we need their help.’
‘Not the world.’ Willa shook her head. ‘Just the superfans.’
He scratched his short nails into his scalp as if the accompanying pain might summon a voice – his father’s, his mother’s, anyone with a solid, pragmatic Scots approach – to tell him that saying yes would be akin to pleading guilty to murders he hadn’t committed.
