The Aga was still warm, of course, as it always was, and he pulled up the other chair—his chair—next to it.
“Don’t let me disturb whatever you’re doing,” he said gravely.
Oddly, Flora found she had spirited the notebook away into her bag. She didn’t want to upset him, obviously, by letting him see it. She felt too, somehow, as if this were something private, between her and her mother.
“Just thinking about dinner,” she said, glancing around.
“Well, it seems you’ve done a lot already,” said her father.
She brought him his tea, and he touched her arm when he thanked her for it, and somehow there was something—an air of detente, a thaw—that struck them both.
Fintan came in next, looking around crossly.
“Oh right, the cleaning fairy’s been in,” he said. “Showing us the error of our ways, are you, sis?”
“Why are you being so aggressive?” said Flora.
“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re stomping around here with a face like a wet weekend because you hate everything about your background and family and heritage? Yeah, maybe that’s it.”
Flora rolled her eyes.
“You smell. What have you been doing?”
“None of your business. Nothing intellectual enough for you, anyway.”
Eck looked up sharply.
“Have you been down in that dairy again?”
“I think it’s going to be something special, Dad.”
“Well, it’s wasting enough of our time, that’s for sure. And our money.”
“It doesn’t cost anything to do.”
“Well, it does, because I don’t have you seeding the lower field.”
Flora wondered what the hell they were talking about and was about to ask when Fintan sniffed.
“I suppose there’s no dinner again?”
“I’ll get Innes to go to the chippy,” said Eck.
“No!” said Flora, fingering the notebook. “I’m going to do it.”
They both looked at her and laughed, and Flora’s fragile good mood dissipated almost immediately.
Chapter Sixteen
If Flora had had a fantasy about coming home, it might have gone a little like this: everyone would be thrilled to see her, and desperate to hear her stories of life in the glamorous big city. Okay, maybe not the Tinder dating stories, but definitely the others. And her handsome boss would turn up and extol her virtues and she would be incredibly busy and important, taking meetings with Colton Rogers and effortlessly doing his business all round town, instead of hanging about trying to look inconspicuous and fill time.
Then, over meals the boys all pitched in to make, they would open a local ale and trade anecdotes about their mother, and her near-white hair, and how funny she could be over a sherry at Christmas, and all the stories she used to tell about life on the island—bogles and witches and selkies and pixies—which she thought were comforting and charming and they found bed-wettingly terrifying, and they would laugh and bond and celebrate her life and Flora would basically have put the family back together and they would all thank her sincerely and be very impressed by her amazing work, and then she would go back to London and pick up where she’d left off. Except better and more successfully, and she’d look healthy and well from the open air and good food.
She looked around resentfully. Her father was already snoozing by the fire, first whisky well on its way. Fintan had disappeared again, God knows where. Oh well.
She opened the book at pies and took out the ground beef, gently heating the pan and chopping the onion. Unlike yesterday, when she’d panicked and gone too fast and turned up the heat and felt watched and judged and had an absolute disaster, she tried to calm down. Remember what her mother had done. Mix the pastry carefully with cool hands, nothing rushed, as if she’d done it hundreds of times before.
While the pie was cooking, she heated up carrots and peas for the side, and mashed the locally grown potatoes with a great wodge of butter from the dairy—she added more and more, it was so good—and plenty of salt, until she had the most gorgeous golden mound of fluffy goodness and every single bad carb and fat and salt sin under the sun in a single earthenware bowl, and it was all she could do not to scarf down the lot, and she didn’t even have to call everyone in; they all appeared automatically at 4:55 P.M., summoned by the wonderful smells.
“I like it, Flora,” said Hamish, and for once the others didn’t disagree with him, simply trading glances.
“Did you get this out of a packet?” said Innes.
“Shut up,” said Flora. “And say thank you.”
Eck looked up in surprise. “This is—”
Everyone knew he was going to say, “just like your mother used to make,” but nobody wanted him to get to the end of that sentence. Flora cleared her throat and changed the subject.
“So, anyway, I know I’m repeating myself, but . . . how’s the farm doing?” she said, trying to sound cheery.
Innes blinked.
“Why? Are you going to sell us out to Colton Rogers?”
“Of course not! I was just asking.”
Eck sniffed.
Hamish smiled.
“I like Chloe.”
“She’s a terrible goat,” said Innes.
“I like her.”
Innes sighed.
“What?” said Flora.
“Nothing. Just . . . transporting livestock . . . I don’t want to get into it. It’s just. I mean, you must have heard what’s happened to the price of milk.”
Flora nodded. “Not up here, though?”
“Oh yes. There’s no escape for us. And trying to sell the cattle on the mainland . . . I mean, the cost of transportation . . .”
“What about keeping it local?”
“Where? There aren’t enough shops, there isn’t enough trade, there isn’t enough for us to do here. Haven’t you noticed? Talk to your friend Lorna; ask her how many people are raising their families here these days.”
He sat back bitterly. Hamish had simply taken the bowl of mashed potatoes and was eating straight out of it with a spoon. Flora would have told him off for it if she hadn’t wanted to do exactly the same thing herself. God, she had forgotten how good real food could taste.
“How bad is it?” she asked, glancing at their father, who either hadn’t heard or was pretending not to.
“Really, really bad,” said Innes. He shot Fintan a foul look. “And someone isn’t helping.”
Fintan stared straight ahead, chewing and not taking part either. Innes sighed, just as his phone rang. It was Eilidh, his ex. He stood up and wandered over to the big window at the back, where the white sky was fading to a high late blue, but it didn’t hide the fact that they were clearly bickering.
“Fine, I’ll take her!” shouted Innes finally, ending the call.
“Agot? Don’t you want to see her?” said Flora before she could stop herself.
“Of course I do,” said Innes. “But we’re plowing tomorrow. It’s no place for a kid.”
“She loves the tractor,” said Hamish.
“I know,” said Innes. “Loves it enough to run in front of it.”