Scotlander, page 26
‘Finn?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I . . . ehmm – I—’
His fingertips brushed over that tender, vulnerable spot at the base of her neck. A hot shiver of approval swept down her spine.
‘Sorry.’
‘No.’ She pulled back and away from him. ‘It’s just, you know, busy day ahead.’
He nodded, parked his hands on his hips, eyes searching for some invisible thing on the floor. He looked like a sexy Scottish cowboy. She wanted to jump him so much she ached.
When he looked back up at her his expression was resigned. ‘I guess you’ll be looking forward to getting back to LA and your real life.’
She barked a laugh. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No. You’re working on your vacation.’
‘This?’ She pointed at the courtyard beyond the door. ‘This does not feel like work. Being at work feels like work.’
He spun his finger round indicating he would finish her corset.
‘I don’t follow what you’re saying.’ Tug. Tug.
She dug her heels into the ground, trying to stay balanced, her brain fuzzing periodically as his fingers made contact with her skin.
What was she saying? She wanted him to see how flimsy her professional life felt in contrast to what he was fighting for. ‘You spent half the night fixing tractors and preparing them to harvest dozens of hectares of potatoes that will feed people and your family. I spent half the night talking someone through a Top Ten Tchotchkes for the Alpha Generation segment.’
‘I understood about two of the words you just said.’
‘Exactly.’
Finn tied the knot at the small of her back, then ran his thumbs up along the criss-crossed ribbons before coming to rest on her shoulders. Her body was on fire. ‘There you are, lass. All done.’
They stood, silent for a moment. She could feel his breath upon her neck. His height. His strength. The intensity of his curiosity about her. It was like living through a rewind of the Jamie and Claire wedding night when Jamie, the virginal groom, painstakingly slowly, undressed his new bride, wanting to ensure that everything he did made her feel beautiful, desired, and most of all, cared for. Safe.
Her breath caught in her throat. This was Finn’s version of preparing her for his world, for the life he lived, and asking her to tell him just how much of herself she was willing to give to him.
She wanted to tell him that she believed in him. In everything he was doing. And that even though her plan was to leave, it didn’t diminish the power of what he was doing for Balcraigie or, indeed, the time they were spending together. And then it hit her. She wanted him to ask her to stay.
The handful of centimetres between their bodies felt electric. Charged with an energy that lay taut, coiled between them as if their proximity to one another created another life force.
More than anything she wanted to lean into his touch and tell him she was falling for him. Instead she blurted, ‘What I do is made of glitter. Stardust. It’s inconsequential.’
‘According to Gabe, what you do is highly commoditable.’
‘You grow food, Finlay. That’s highly commoditable.’
‘You make entertainment. People pay for entertainment. Food? Not so much.’
‘Why are you devaluing what you do?’ When he said nothing she pressed, ‘If we can get the worlds of entertainment and farming to collide this week? It’ll start a new trend. Like . . .’ She sought something he could relate to. ‘A week-long Field of Dreams experience. With kilts.’
‘That was corn.’
She flicked her hand. ‘Whatever.’
‘What if no one comes?’
Ah.
Her heart dropped.
There it was. The real reason he was here. He’d sought her out to get reassurance, not to play sexy, sexy with her corset ribbons and convince her to stay.
She realigned her features and flicked her thumb in the direction of the main drive where they’d asked people to gather. ‘You haven’t been out there yet?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah.’ He did the cap-and-head-scratch thing. ‘Too embarrassed.’
‘Embarrassed? Why?’ Embarrassed was the last thing he should feel. She ached to pull him to her. Soothe away the worry lines on his forehead. But she was Kevin Costner in this scenario. She’d built a dream. Now it was time to prove to Finn that he was right to have put his faith in her.
‘I might’ve done something,’ he said.
‘What?’
He reached into his pocket and tugged out his phone, thumbed through a couple of pages until he hit an app. He pressed play and turned it round.
She glanced up at him, confused. ‘What is this?’
‘Just . . . watch it.’
It was Finn. And pictures of her he must’ve taken when she hadn’t been watching. There were some of the others as well, but mostly they were of her. Willa beaming with cow poo on her face. Willa singing off key during the wool waulking. Willa proving it was possible to toast and eat three marshmallows at once. And over the images of the LARPers and the farm, was Finn’s beautiful voice explaining what had happened in his life, how he thought he’d messed it up. How he was hoping he could fix it. How he knew he couldn’t do it alone and he knew being a man who had a castle wasn’t exactly the world’s worst problem, but that really, the true heart of Balcraigie was the farm, and they were going to lose it. ‘And all of this, asking you folk for your time, your energy, is the dream child of someone who comes from an entirely different world to mine. She’s brought colour back into our lives. And, no matter what happens, I will always be grateful to Willa Jenkins for everything she’s done for me and my family.’
He’d put it on YouTube. And Twitter. And Instagram. Everything he could think of. Thousands of people had watched it. Judging by the number of retweets and the number of likes, thousands more would.
It was the biggest show of gratitude anyone had ever done for her.
Instead of kissing him, which was what she really wanted to do, she took one of his hands in hers and did a weird sort of victory punch thing, as if she was a boxing coach who’d known her outsider could beat the odds. ‘Let’s go mega-potato!’
And with that, she swished past him, flung open the door and headed to the main entrance, praying he was following because otherwise the big, dramatic reveal she was hoping for would have been for nothing.
‘Oh my god,’ said Finn when he caught up with her.
Willa nodded in silent agreement. Even she, a girl who always hoped for the best, hadn’t expected this.
Orla, Fenella, Jennifer, Jules, ChiChi, Rosa and Jeff – everyone she’d come to think of as a friend over these past few days – ran past her, squeezing her shoulder, telling her what a good job she’d done, all flying to action stations while she stood there like a Jacobite wax figure.
She’d been to big events before. Huge. Stadiums filled with seventy-thousand fans all cheering for one tiny singer. Festivals that sprawled across the desert to the horizon. She’d even been to an event in Austria celebrating a long-dead Mozart that drew three million superfans.
There weren’t three million people here. Not even close. But somehow this felt bigger. More authentic. Because it wasn’t about getting hammered, or high, or cultured, or even about getting a glimpse of a person who had enriched your life because of their music/movie/good looks. It was about helping someone. Someone who’d torn their heart out of their chest, put it on their sleeve, then put that sleeve out there for the whole world to see.
Dougie was standing outside the main entrance directing an endless stream of camper vans, hippy mobiles and a surprising number of horse and carts into a nearby field to park up. Duncan was directing a handful of tractors with old-fashioned harvester attachments towards the fields that abutted the loch.
Willa knew they’d put this out to the universe. That they had literally asked people to do this. To come to Balcraigie, roll up their shirtsleeves, and get down and dirty. But she was astonished at just how loudly the universe had answered their plea for help.
Everyone was wearing at least one thing that gave a sound nod to Scottish clothing over the ages. Great kilts, modern ‘working man’ kilts, tartan ‘trouse’, ghillie tops with a cord of leather lacing at the neck. Stoplight-red tam o’ shanters with shaggy clumps of bright orange hair (real and synthetic) warming the wearer’s ears. Knee pads with the saltire or favourite football clubs emblazoned on them.
These people were bursting with passion for Scotland. They were also here to work.
The men carried pitchforks and shovels and buckets and – holy shit – one man had brought an entire trailer full of hessian potato sacks with . . . was that . . . the silhouette ChiChi had done of the castle emblazoned on its side. He must’ve worked through the night to get that done.
The women were equally impressive. There was, of course, a preponderance of ‘Claire’ costumes. Plaid, earth-toned skirts and bodices, huge pinafores, petticoats, knitted shawls and wraps. Some women had refashioned potato sacks into on-trend garments. A few wore steampunk outfits, but, hey, pairs of hands were pairs of hands, right?
Even the children flying out of the cars, off the carts, and arriving on foot were dressed in yesteryear potato-picking garb. If Willa hadn’t felt transported a week ago when she’d arrived here at Balcraigie, she did now.
Many folk had baskets hanging from their arms or balanced on their hips. The covered ones were presumably filled with the provisions they’d asked people to bring to feed themselves as there was no way, if more than five people had shown up, Orla would have been able to feed them all. It was an all-hands-on-deck scenario and right now there were hundreds of pairs of hands all heading out to the fields, attached to people who, judging by the hubbub, thought this was the best fun ever. They were laughing, singing, introducing themselves to one another. Valentina would have been beside herself.
Sometimes you have to step away from who you think you are, to become the person you want to be.
This was who she wanted to be. A person who organised events that really mattered. Made an impact at grassroots level. Or, in this case, tuber level. She wanted to be someone who created gatherings that made a difference for years to come. Generations even.
She fished around in the deep skirt pockets Jennifer had added to her dress and pulled out her phone.
She thumbed past the email notifications, deleted a few texts that began with the words ‘Bryony was meant to’ or ‘Martina suggested I check in with you’, then clicked on the Balcraigie crowd-funding page.
Her heart flew into her throat.
People were contributing. Adding five pounds here. Two dollars there. Euros. Yen. Renminbis. It all added up. It was mind-blowing, really. It had been less than twelve hours since she’d put Balcraigie’s future into the hands of the fates and they had answered . . . in spades.
She clicked on to her Twitter feed and instantly went light-headed.
Ben Affleck had retweeted her post. This Canadian reporter knows her stuff! If she says the potatoes are to die for? Get in there, peeps!
And it wasn’t just Ben. All sorts of famous Outlander superfans hadn’t just crept out of the woodwork, they’d leapt out, social media guns blazing: Lin-Manuel Miranda, William Shatner, Michelle Obama. Even the series’ actors had retweeted multiple posts and pledged their support.
#KeepingItRealScotsStyle
#TattieHolsAreTheNewBlack
#SaveBalcraigieLikeAJacobite
And on and on it went.
The rest of the morning was lost in a blur of activity.
The day was bright, but the wind had a bite to it.
Half an hour’s worth of picking turned many of the pickers’ fingers white with cold. Duncan got a few volunteers to help him build three big bonfires around the periphery of the fields. Before they set them ablaze, they dug pits and charged them with a few buckets of the freshly unearthed potatoes.
Orla was helping shop owners from down the village set up pop-up stands along the loch edge for those who hadn’t brought enough food or wanted to try some local fare.
Trevor used the tractor to drag a couple of the logs from the barnyard over for people to rest on. There were so many people that even if groups of them were resting, warming themselves by the fire or accepting one of Jennifer’s rapidly increasing knitting circle scarves, it meant there were still scores of people following the tractors, baskets steadily filling up with farm-fresh potatoes.
‘Willa?’ Dougie appeared by her side and nodded towards the drive. ‘I think you might need to see to this.’ He turned her around.
A television satellite truck was lumbering past the stables.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
This had just become, very, very real.
Her world colliding with . . . what was this? Her new one? Her temporary one? She and Finn hadn’t really tackled that part of their conversation this morning. Whatever it was, part of her heart lived here now.
She scanned the area, desperate to find Finn. He should be the face and voice of this whole thing, not her. She couldn’t see him anywhere.
She asked Dougie to send the truck down to the loch’s edge – she’d meet them there – then ran towards the fields where a dozen geriatric tractors were churning up hundreds upon thousands of potatoes, for the men, women and children following steadily in their wake, collecting them just as their forefathers (or someone’s forefathers) had for centuries. By hand.
They were chatting, singing, making the best of a back-breaking task with the shared joy of one another’s company.
A pure, crystal-clear voice rang out and above all of the pickers. The singer, a tall woman with short shock-white hair, had on a hessian dress, Doc Martens, plaid gardening gloves and a blue sequin-covered tam o’ shanter. Her voice was familiar and otherworldly all at once. She was singing a Eurythmics song Willa’s mom used to sing to her dad when she was doing dishes and wanted him to come and help dry. ‘Right by Your Side’. Not in the regular way – fast paced and in need of a techno beat back-up. A cappella. Beautifully cadenced. And utterly unforgettable.
Willa put her hand above her eyes and stared at the woman. Hard.
Her breath abandoned her when she realised who it was. There, in the field, with dirt on her face and her hands full of potatoes, was Annie Lennox. Picking tatties along with the commoners. No one seemed particularly fussed that one of the top singers on the entire planet was serenading them as they worked. In LA there would’ve been mammoth security guards holding off a massive throng of autograph seekers and then the whole thing would have to be shut down when the potatoes began to be trampled on or a tractor ran over a child or any number of other horrible things that could happen during a publicity stunt gone wrong.
But not here. Because it wasn’t a stunt. Or for show. Everyone was respecting the unspoken message voicelessly whispered through the throngs of people pouring down to the fields literally preparing to dig in: we’re here to work. Everything else is gravy.
Her attention was snagged by the news crew who pulled up to the side of the field. It was a standard team. A producer (easily identified by the multiple phones and attempts to micromanage everyone). A very well-groomed twenty-something man dressed in a kilt – the talent, probably. A camerawoman and a sound man (both of whom were also wearing kilts).
She ran across to them. ‘Hey! Hi. Can I help you?’
‘Aye, lass.’ The producer made a scoffing noise and in an entirely non-subtle aside said to the crew, ‘Didn’t I tell you an American would be the first at the gate?’
Before Willa could ask him what the hell that meant, he continued in an even thicker Scots accent, ‘Can you point us in the direction of whoever’s properly in charge of this wee affair? We’re here from the BBC.’ He shook his head in disbelief as he looked out at the scores of people already filling their baskets with freshly unearthed potatoes. ‘I have to tell you. I didnae expect this. A few bampots in kilts, mebbe—’
‘Oi!’ cut in the camerawoman. ‘First of all, are you saying this wee lassie here can’t be in charge because she’s a woman? Or because she’s American?’ She held up her hand. ‘Don’t answer that. It’ll instantly be offensive no matter what you say. And as for the bampots – I’ll have you know my mither is among them.’
Willa grinned. This woman was awesome. If she had half of her chutzpah when she spoke to Martina, she’d probably be exec producer by now.
‘Your mither?’ The producer fuzzed his lips. ‘Next you’ll be telling me she did this as a wee one to keep food on the table.’
‘Aye, she did as well, you snotty old so and so,’ the camerawoman shot back. ‘She was poor and needing money.’ Her voice rang with pride as she continued, ‘She used to ride out on the buses during the tattie hols. Earn her ten pound and all. Right up through the eighties. And for the record, the pickers aren’t bampots. They’re called howkers.’
‘Eh,’ he said. ‘Well.’ He gave his head a scratch, finally having the grace to realise he’d been a presumptive asshole. ‘I didnae ken.’
‘Well’ – she gave him a short, sharp nod, then popped her camera on to her shoulder – ‘you ken noo.’
‘Hey!’ Finn jogged up to Willa. Her heart grew wings and began flapping around her ribcage.
He’d changed. He was kitted out in his workman’s kilt, ghillie and his weather-battered wax jacket. His flat cap was tipped back, exposing those thick, shiny tufts of straw-coloured hair. His blue eyes were bright, lit from within. This was a man in his element. It was the happiest she’d ever seen him.
She jogged towards him, meeting him a few metres away from the crew.
‘Everything alright, Willa?’ He glanced at the TV crew. ‘Do you want me tae give these jokers the boot?’
She grinned. ‘I think using them to your advantage might a wiser use of your time. Maybe tell them what you’re doing here?’
He flicked his thumb over his shoulder to where people were still pouring into the fields, taking up places behind slow-moving tractors now backloaded with enormous crates. ‘I don’t think it’s much of a secret any more.’
