Face The Wind And Fly Page 2

  ‘Hello Harry,’ she said, resolutely cheerful. ‘Where is she, this gorgeous woman who has captured your heart?’

  She saw him trying not to wince and knew that yet again she’d hit the wrong note. She never got it right, not with Harry. But he smiled and, even through whatever it was he was thinking, pride of possession shone through. ‘She was here a second ago. Ah, there she is – Jane!’ He reached out and laid a hand on his fiancée’s arm. ‘Here’s Dad and Kate.’

  Harry always called her Kate. What else should he call her? The age difference was such an awkward one. How had Andrew ever thought she’d take easily to motherhood? She’d only just finished being a student, for heaven’s sake, just graduated from living in messy shared flats, clubbing, drinking, dealing in easy laughter and long lies and endless days of zero responsibility. Then there’d been Andrew Courtenay, and they’d fallen in love, and her life had taken a direction that hadn’t been anywhere on the road map she’d drawn for herself.

  Jane said, ‘Hi!’ and air-kissed her. She was effervescent, as sparkling as the bubbles in the champagne she was holding, the perfect foil to Harry’s worthiness.

  ‘You’re looking beautiful!’ Kate exclaimed, and meant it. Her own gamine looks drew compliments but she still envied women with Jane’s conventional kind of prettiness.

  ‘Thanks. Got to shine tonight, haven’t I?’

  For all Jane’s vivaciousness, she seemed to Kate to lack warmth. Or maybe she had just picked up on Harry’s coolness? Already talking was difficult over the noise of conversation, so she kept it brief. ‘I’m so pleased for you both, Jane.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Courtenay.’

  ‘Kate,’ she corrected automatically, as she had many times already.

  ‘Kate,’ Jane repeated and smiled again – but already her gaze was directed behind her, to Andrew.

  Kate gave up.

  ‘Champagne, madam?’

  The waiter looked little older than Ninian. She picked up a glass and looked round for them both, but they’d already been swallowed up by the crowd. She inched her way towards the window, where there was a magnificent view across the gardens to the Castle.

  ‘Fabulous, isn’t it?’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘How do you know the couple?’

  ‘I’m Harry’s stepmother.’

  ‘Really? You don’t look nearly old enough.’

  The amazement was all too familiar. The nineteen-year age difference between Andrew and herself always took people by surprise and everyone reacted differently. Kate negotiated the conversation on autopilot while her mind flitted back to this morning’s meeting. She’d been drawing, she remembered, only half listening because she knew she wasn’t involved in the project under discussion. She’d dragged her pencil across her notepad and watched as a fine, flowing line spread itself from edge to edge. She’d drawn another, the exact mirror image. A blade of a wind turbine materialised, as beautiful and symmetrical as a petal on a dahlia. Another flick. Two. A stem for her wind-flower. Her turbine was complete, ready to make its magic of turning God’s breath into power. Bold. Ingenious. Controversial.

  ‘And finally,’ she remembered Mark Matthews saying, ‘we come to Summerfield.’

  There was a touch on her elbow. Jerked back to the present, Kate focused on the earnest stranger who was talking to her. ‘I said, such a happy occasion, isn’t it? You must be very proud.’

  ‘Yes. Happy. Proud.’

  ‘Oh, there’s Mrs Slater. Will you excuse me, dear? I haven’t seen her in an age. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all. Nice to meet you.’

  She should find Ninian. Still, she hadn’t had a moment to think about the meeting. She’d finished her drawing, she remembered, because Summerfield wasn’t her project. Hills had appeared, tufts of grass, a cloud. Her pencil had produced a small bee and she’d added a frowning, anthropomorphic face.

  ‘So what do you think, Kate?’

  Mark was seated at the head of the table and ten faces were all staring at her expectantly. There’d been something else there too. Surprise? Shock? What had she missed?

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. What did you—?’

  ‘Summerfield,’ he’d said, weightily.

  ‘Yes?’ Summerfield was Jack’s project.

  ‘I’ve decided it would be best if you take this one on. What do you think?’

  ‘Jack’s doing Summerfield.’ She’d fingered her Burberry scarf like a comfort blanket. It was one of her favourites, in royal blue and turquoise with a section in bold houndstooth check.

  ‘Yes. That was the plan.’ Mark had spoken with elaborate patience. ‘But I have been discussing it with the senior management team and we’ve decided to make this change.’

  Kate had fought rising concern. Why had the executive been involved in a decision about the project management of a very small-scale wind farm?

  ‘You are familiar with Summerfield?’

  She had a degree in environmental science and a Masters in renewable energy technologies – she was not only familiar with the project, she’d done much of the early planning for it. ‘Yes of course, you know I am.’

  ‘So I take it there’s no problem.’

  He’d said it as a statement rather than a question and she’d realised that his earlier ‘What do you think?’ phrase had been in the same category: rhetorical. ‘What do you think?’ meant ‘starting Monday’.

  Jack was avoiding her gaze, studying the table as though the graining on the cheap veneer held all the fascination of sixteenth-century Italian intaglio.

  ‘Summerfield? Me?’

  ‘I know you’re used to running things on a rather grander scale, but you know more about it than anyone. It makes sense.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it. Sorry. We discussed this, Mark. Behind-the-scenes work is one thing, but high visibility involvement is out of the question.’

  Don’t argue with your boss. Not in public.

  Too late.

  ‘Jack’s terrific, but we need your experience on this one. Sorry.’

  Kate’s glass was empty again. How had that happened? She dumped it on a passing tray and picked up a glass of juice. It wouldn’t do to get tiddly tonight.

  Summerfield! She paraded the difficulties in her head.

  Summerfield was a small council estate that sat like a pimple on the forehead of the charming old village of Forgie, east of Edinburgh. Just twelve wind turbines were planned and by the time the public consultation was over, there would probably only be eight. They would sit on the hillside above the council estate. This aspect of the project was hardly problematic – AeGen would ensure that there would be significant community benefits to the estate and the residents of Summerfield would almost certainly be happy to accept the trade-off: a few wind turbines in exchange for a new community leisure and sports centre, additional home insulation or double glazing perhaps. No – the problem would be the residents of the small, pretty, historic and extremely well-heeled village of Forgie itself.

  And Forgie was where Kate lived.

  Local knowledge. They were anticipating trouble and were expecting her to draw on the bank of goodwill and friendship they assumed she must have in the village. Mark had handed her a briefcase full of toxins and she’d been forced to accept it.

  Kate wiped a hand over her forehead. What a day. Someone near her said, ‘Isn’t that Andrew Courtenay over there? Harry’s father? The novelist?’

  She followed the gaze and saw that Andrew was with a rather oddly dressed girl, maybe about Jane’s age, late twenties. When she drew close she heard Andrew say, ‘So he poisoned the woman using a concoction of berries of belladonna, stewed and stirred into hot ale.’

  The girl looked rapt. ‘Really?’

  Andrew loved to impress. Some novelists hid behind their laptops, but Andrew revelled in an audience. He’d been a teacher before he turned novelist, and the innate showman in him still survived. He took Kate’s elbow and drew her in. ‘
Kate, this is Sophie MacAteer. She’s a cousin of Jane’s.’

  ‘And a huge fan of Mr Courtenay’s books. Really. I’ve read all of them.’

  ‘But that’s just the first murder in the latest novel.’ Andrew looked at Sophie indolently. Andrew’s lazy gaze could be intoxicating, as Kate knew from experience. She could see that Sophie was transfixed. She was wearing a cloche hat – or was it a headscarf? – pulled tightly over her hair and gathered into a knot on one side, just above her ear, completely concealing her hair so that she couldn’t be sure what colour it was. The thing was a statement, though quite what it was saying Kate wasn’t sure. Her skin was as pale and translucent as a baby’s, she had plucked her eyebrows and painted her lips dark red. She was certainly striking.

  ‘Does the woman die?’

  ‘Of course. Would there be a story if she didn’t?’

  ‘But does the boy get caught?’ she persisted.

  Over the years Andrew had learned how to deal with admiring fans. ‘Well now,’ he temporised. ‘That would be telling. The book’s out next month. You must come to the launch party.’

  He did it so easily. A fan delighted, another book sold. Tick. Job done.

  Kate said, ‘Darling, I see Charlotte,’ and nodded in the direction of the stairwell, where Charlotte Proctor had just appeared.

  Charlotte was Kate’s oldest friend. She’d shared a student flat with Charlotte and studied engineering with her husband, Mike. Kate had gone into renewable energy, Mike into oil and gas.

  ‘I’ll be over in a minute,’ Andrew smiled.

  ‘Hello Charlotte.’

  ‘Hi! You look fab.’

  ‘Where’s Mike?’

  ‘He’s offshore. Went yesterday. I’ve brought Dad instead.’

  ‘Kate!’ Frank Griffiths took her hands and kissed her ceremoniously, right cheek, left cheek, right cheek again. A gentleman of the old kind – courteous, affable, and erudite – he wore his dinner jacket and bow tie like a birthright. ‘You look supremely elegant, my darling, doesn’t she, Charlotte?’

  ‘Kate always looks magnificent.’

  Compliments or no compliments, Frank was the chair of Summerfield and Forgie Community Council and an unrepentant opponent of wind farms. Kate foresaw trouble.

  He leaned towards her and said, ‘This wind farm, Kate—’

  Charlotte groaned and rolled her eyes. ‘Dad! Not here, please!’

  ‘—We’ve just been notified about the planning application.’

  So I was right, Kate thought, it’s starting already.

  In all their years of animated but affable conversations about renewable energy, Kate had never convinced Frank either of the need for it nor of the merits of new technologies and his reactions now were predictable. ‘The application’s just for a Met mast.’

  ‘It’s the first step to disaster.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  Frank’s face was growing redder. ‘A wind farm above Summerfield would be a catastrophe for the whole neighbourhood.’

  ‘Dad!’

  Frank stepped back. ‘I know it puts you in a difficult position, Kate,’ he said in a more conciliatory tone, ‘working for AeGen, but I’m sure you must have some kind of inside line that could help us in this consultation process.’

  ‘Inside line?’

  ‘You know, Kate, come on, some stuff on the QT, some facts and figures. Something that’ll help us fight the damned proposal. I know it’s your job but you can’t really want the blessed things hovering above Forgie, be truthful.’

  ‘They’ll hardly be visible from Forgie village.’ Kate decided to get it over with, risk swift execution rather than death by a thousand cuts. ‘Frank, I think you should know that I’ve been put in charge of the Summerfield project – so we’ll have plenty of opportunities to discuss this properly.’

  He was clearly thunderstruck. Kate felt nothing but empathy, because his reaction exactly mirrored hers at the meeting that afternoon, but she could hardly show it.

  ‘Now,’ she said with forced cheerfulness, ‘come and let me introduce you to Jane’s parents, they’re right over here.’

  Kate sat down for dinner and readjusted her scarf. Although the room was hot, the top table was by the window and she could feel a slight draught at her back. She draped it round her shoulders like a shawl, and took stock. Harry and Jane had seated Andrew next to Val, a small piece of manipulation she found unsettling. Andrew and his first wife had learned politeness, but a whole evening was a long time to sustain it. Harry was making a point with this arrangement and rightly or wrongly, Kate took it personally. Across the room, she saw Ninian, hunched over, his shoulders slumped. Was it just because he was finding the tie disagreeable, or had he found no-one to talk to? Harry was so inconsiderate, he should have seated Ninian here, with the rest of the family. She watched her son as he raised a pint glass to his lips. Had he drunk beer before? Not in her presence, certainly. Could he cope with the alcohol? The tables were so tightly packed there was no way of reaching him.

  Ninian glanced across at her. She raised her eyebrows and picked up her own glass, tapping it queryingly then pointing at him. Ninian, in return, gave his innocent ‘What?’ look. She knew it well. ‘What me? Would I? As if!’ More often than not it concealed mischief of some sort. She frowned at him but he grinned and shrugged, draining his glass. It was impossible to do anything, she was completely boxed in.

  After dinner, Harry stood up. ‘I’d like to say a few words.’ There was laughter, and comments – A few? That’ll be a first! and Go, man!

  Across the room, Ninian was looking queasy. She’d find him as soon as she could.

  But when the speeches finished and the throng of guests made their way out of the dining room, Ninian and Andrew had both disappeared again. Kate drifted from one group of guests to another, smiling vaguely, then finally spotted her son slipping back into the supper room. From there, glass doors led to a balcony. Perhaps, sensibly, he was looking for some air.

  The room was dark. Ninian had crossed to the far side. Kate was about to call out to him when she saw him pull up sharply and stare at the balcony. There was someone out there. She couldn’t make out who, she just saw shadowy shapes, half hidden by the blinds at the far end. She started to pad across the carpet towards her son.

  ‘Oh, fuck!’ Ninian swivelled round and covered his hand with his mouth. It was a futile gesture. He threw up, violently, all over the plush carpet.

  ‘I haven’t been so embarrassed since you bared your bottom to the bishop when you were four,’ Kate said after the staff had masterminded the clean-up discreetly. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’

  ‘No, you’re all right,’ he muttered, not looking at her.

  ‘Are you ill? Or was it the beer?’

  ‘Mu-um. I’ve drunk beer before.’

  ‘Well you shouldn’t have. Here, drink some water.’

  ‘It’s so boring,’ Ninian protested, but he drank the water.

  ‘Well being sick was hardly the best way to enliven proceedings. Are you really all right? You’re still looking a bit green.’ She couldn’t just turn off motherly concern even if Ninian’s illness was self-inflicted.

  ‘I’m fine. Just let me sit here. Go and chat up whoever you have to chat up.’

  An hour later, all chatted out, she went to find him again. They could wait together till Andrew was ready to go home. She spotted him across the large landing lounging on a leather sofa, talking to Harry, and padded across the thick carpet unseen.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell Kate,’ she heard Harry hiss.

  Kate shrank back a step.

  ‘But I saw them, I tell you!’ Ninian muttered, his voice furious.

  Skulking was ridiculous. Kate stepped into their line of vision and blazed a smile. ‘Saw who, darling?’

  ‘Nobody,’ Harry said.

  Ninian scowled. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Oh come on. What was it you weren’t to tell me?’

  But neither
was to be drawn.

  ‘Can we go yet, Mum?’

  It was nearly midnight. Kate twisted her scarf round her neck.

  ‘Find your father, then,’ she said, giving up. No doubt their little secret would emerge in time.

  Chapter Three

  Ibsen Brown loved weather. When friends or clients complained of the wind or the rain, he’d shrug and say, ‘It’s just weather,’ before putting on a jacket, or a sweater, or a waterproof and getting on with the task in hand. At six feet tall, Ibsen was built like an Olympic swimmer, with broad, powerful shoulders, trim waist and neat, muscular legs. Not that he’d ever been inside a gym – he was a gardener and his fitness came from hard physical work. He spent his days digging and hoeing, building small patios and terraces, lopping trees and rooting out unwanted stumps whose roots burrowed obstinately deep into cold earth.

  Ibsen never thought about fitness, or six-packs, or bulging biceps. He wasn’t vain, far from it – he barely looked in a mirror. His idea of smart dressing was a clean tee shirt and jeans and he refused to have his hair cut. It was dark and thick and irrepressible and he controlled it by pulling it back into a pony tail and securing it with an elastic band – or, if he couldn’t find one, with an odd piece of string pulled from some pocket.

  No, what Ibsen liked was growing things. He liked the feel of rich brown earth in his hands, but most of all, he loved watching leaves unfurl and strong, questing shoots pushing up through the soil from bulbs he’d buried below months earlier. He’d been a draughtsman, once, qualifying the hard way, head down every evening swotting for his exams while he sat by day in an architect’s office. It was what his father wanted him to do – Tam Brown, who was head gardener at Forgie House, was a self-taught man who prized education.

  Ibsen had loathed it, but supporting Lynn and—