It became clear to Lake, almost a week after Morag’s protest, that things weren’t going to plan. First, the truck full of shop fittings had taken a detour en route from Glasgow and was days late. The local courier rep didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. It had taken a threat for the truck to suddenly find Invertary. Once that was solved, he got an embarrassed call from his lingerie supplier. His order had been delivered back to the warehouse instead of to Invertary.
Meanwhile, his shop and flat had been the victim of several inconvenient and mysterious power cuts. It’d taken him three days to figure out that the old wiring in his house shared a second fuse box with the house next door. The owners swore that they had no idea how the power cuts happened. Lake had given them a look that told them he knew otherwise, then he’d sealed and padlocked the box. He was kicking himself that it’d taken three days to get to the bottom of the problem; the fact there were two fuse boxes had thrown him.
He had to hand it to Kirsty, this was pretty impressive. She’d effectively shut him down for almost a full week. He smiled in the direction of her shop as he supervised the unloading of his furniture. He was grateful for her actions. They reminded him that he was becoming soft. It was time to change that. He’d lost sight of his goal. If he didn’t make the business work, he wouldn’t be able to sell it and his deadline for a new life would pass him by. Two months and counting. Kirsty’s efforts had been impressive—for an amateur.
But it took a lot more than that to win a war.
“I like that look on your face, boy,” Betty said as she tottered up beside him. Her head barely made it past his waist. “What are you planning now?”
“You’re the last person I’d tell. You’re a loose cannon.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I can be a whole lot worse if you don’t include me in the fun.”
“Have you ever thought of getting therapy? I’m pretty sure that there’s something wrong in your head.”
“Ha!” His own personal Hobbit folded her arms and growled. “Therapy is for Americans with more money than sense. Do I look like I want to mine my childhood looking for scary beasties? There’s nothing wrong with my head that can’t be fixed with a bit of a challenge. I’ve been telling you since you arrived—I’m bored. Are you so thick that you can’t understand what I’m saying?”
Lake heaved a sigh.
“Why am I responsible for your fun? Why are you even hanging around me? What did I do to deserve this?”
“Now you sound like a namby-pamby bairn. Get a grip on yourself and do something manly. Heck, do something dangerous. But do something. Or I’ll have to fire the next shot in this war of yours. What kind of soldier are you anyway that a wee old woman has to fight your battles? It’s pathetic.”
“You ever heard of a sport called dwarf tossing?” He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head towards her.
She scowled.
“If you’re going to pick me up and throw me, at least aim for Kirsty’s shop.”
It was pointless. The woman was made of Teflon. Insults slid off her. His choices lay in committing her to some sort of asylum, or including her in his plans.
“Fine. We’ll meet this afternoon. Sort out a strategy. After we’ve got this stuff in place.”
She punched the air.
“Fandabbydozy,” she said. “That leaves enough time to go get some cakes. You can’t have a meeting without cakes.” She paused. “And Irn-Bru. You can’t have a meeting without Scotland’s other national drink.” She turned towards him with a haughty look. “Do you know that there isn’t a stain remover on the planet that will take out an Irn-Bru stain? Nothing will shift it. Isn’t that amazing?’
“Mindboggling. Makes me want to drink loads.”
She frowned again as she held out her hand.
“Give me money,” she demanded. “It’s your meeting. You’re paying.”
With a sigh, Lake reached for his wallet, briefly wondering if this was what all parents felt with unruly children.
“I’ll be back when the work’s done,” she said as the cash disappeared into the folds of her tartan tent. He assumed there was a pocket there somewhere.
With that, she hobbled up the road to the shop. He couldn’t help but notice the spring in her step.
Kirsty was feeling pretty good about herself. The women of Knit Or Die were true to their word and Lake had his hands full dealing with them, and that left Kirsty free to work on her website. She grinned widely at the screen in front of her. After much frustration and hard work, it was ready to go live. She called through to the shop for Magenta.
“Hey, what’s up?” Magenta said as she came to stand beside Kirsty’s desk.
“The website is going live,” Kirsty said with a grin. “Didn’t want you to miss it.”
“Excellent,” Magenta said.
Kirsty made a big deal out of pushing the enter key on her laptop. They waited.
“Is that it?” Magenta said.
“Feels like there should be fireworks, doesn’t it?”
They stared at the screen.
“Try logging out, then typing the address in the browser to see if it’s there.”
Kirsty did as she was told and up popped her site, all pink and mint coloured with Eye Candy in bold white lettering across the top of the screen.
“Buy something to see if it works,” Magenta prodded.
That seemed like a good idea, so Kirsty went through the rigmarole of buying a bra she already owned and paying the credit card fee for the privilege. She wasn’t aware she was holding her breath until the sale went through.
“Great, eh?” she said to Magenta. “Now all we need are people to flock to it and shop up large.”
Kirsty chewed her lip for a minute. There was something she wanted to tell Magenta, but she didn’t want it to seem like a big deal. Because it wasn’t. Really.
“There’s something else I want to show you,” Kirsty said.
She couldn’t look at Magenta while she spoke. Instead she pressed some keys and an advert appeared on a site that reviewed fashion and made recommendations on what to buy. It said: Special lingerie from the specialist in lingerie—Kirsty Campbell. Then it told you to buy at Eye Candy. There was a large picture of the shop, but in the corner there was a small headshot of Kirsty smiling. At last she looked up at Magenta.
Her young friend stood with her jaw hanging to her chest.
“You put yourself out there,” she said at last. There was a hint of awe in her voice that made Kirsty blush. “I am so proud of you.”
And before she knew it, Magenta, who never hugged anyone, threw her arms around Kirsty and gave her a big squeeze.
“That is amazing, Kirsty,” she said once she’d retreated to a safe distance again.
“It’s only a headshot.”
“It’s more than that,” Magenta said, with a look heavy with meaning. “We both know it’s more than that.”
Then, as things were getting too emotional for her, Magenta fled to the shop.
Kirsty stared at her picture on the screen. It’d been almost three years since she’d advertised anything. It was strange to see her image out in public again. Even stranger because she looked so different. Her hair was short now and she was fully clothed, for a start. For some reason she thought the world would stop if her photo advertised anything again. Instead, it felt kind of cool to have her image promoting a business that belonged to her.
She had to admit, Magenta was right. This was amazing. She pulled open her desk drawer and took out the little dish with the set of papier-mâché beads and put them back beside her monitor. For the first time in three years, she smiled when she looked at them.
Lake surveyed his shop with satisfaction. It was exactly how he imagined it would look—minus the underwear. Hopefully, that would arrive on Friday and they’d be up and running by Saturday. He’d planned a big launch party. Spending yet more money on food, drink and some teenager with a sound system. Dougal was catering the thing, a
lthough he said he felt terrible that he was working against Kirsty. To appease his conscience, he told Lake he was charging him ten percent more that his other customers. Lake smiled wryly and paid the man. The folk in Invertary played by their own rules, and it was mystifying. With any luck he would be long gone from town before his head blew up trying to figure them out.
With the shop sorted, and Betty back with cakes and her favourite fluorescent orange soft drink, Lake called a meeting in the office. He’d put a whiteboard up on the wall behind Betty’s old desk and stood at it like a teacher. Betty munched on something called a Fern cake, looking more eager than mad for a change, while Rainne slumped in the chair beside Betty. Everything about her screamed that she was hoping to be rescued.
“Okay, so this is the current situation,” Lake said in his briefing voice.
Man, he missed being in charge. He missed talking to a group of men who actually knew what they were doing. Instead he had an evil Hobbit and a scared hippy for a team. He cleared his throat.
“We’re behind schedule,” he said as he started to write on the board. “Opening is Saturday. Underwear arrives Friday, so that gives us a day to get the shop sorted. So no disappearing.” He pointed at Rainne. “The sign for the shop arrives on Friday morning. We’re going to be busy that day, people. All hands on deck.”
“Aye, we know all that, but what about the war? What are we doing about the war?” Betty demanded through a mouthful of cake.
“This is the war,” Lake told her. “The whole point is to turn this shop around. Make profit. Be the last shop standing. We don’t do that by eliminating the competition. We do it by selling more underwear.”
“That’s boring,” Betty huffed.
Lake grinned, folding his arms over his old Muddy Waters T-shirt.
“I thought you’d say that,” he told her. “This isn’t the only thing we’re doing. This is only one arm of the campaign. There are five. We’re following the Watts model. Don’t worry, there will be plenty to keep you busy. You won’t be bored.”
As Betty gave him a toothless grin, and he wondered where her teeth were, Rainne scowled and sank deeper into her seat.
“You got a problem, Rainne?” he asked, working hard to keep his tone non-threatening. “After all, this is your business too—it would be good to see a little more participation.”
She jerked upright at that.
“Is it? Is it my business? Because since you came to town, it’s been all about you and your war. You haven’t once asked me what I wanted.”
Mainly because he didn’t want to hear it. He took a deep breath.
“Fine, what do you want?”
Almost immediately the wind went out of her and she slumped back down.
“Never mind,” she muttered.
Lake hesitated before he continued.
“Okay, so we’re working on five fronts, like I said.” He made little bullet points on the board. “Intelligence gathering, marketing, exchange of skills, involving the locals and sabotage.”
“No.” Rainne shot to her feet. “This is underhanded. I don’t want to sabotage anyone, especially Kirsty. She’s been through a lot and she doesn’t need you running over her too. Why can’t we work together and pool our resources? A community effort would be much more effective.”
“What is it with you, girl?” Betty asked grumpily.
Her teeth were back. Lake wasn’t sure if that made him worried or relieved.
“What do you mean?” Rainne bristled.
She tucked a strand of now multi-coloured hair behind her ear. Lake didn’t interfere. This was the most animated he’d seen his sister since he’d arrived in Invertary.
“I mean,” Betty said as she pointed her bony finger at Rainne, “you seem to have a problem with healthy competition, lass.”
“This isn’t healthy competition,” Rainne said. “You two keep talking about war. There’s nothing healthy about that. There’s nothing healthy about you two, either.”
She folded her arms over her purple work dungarees.
“You can’t go through life letting people walk over you. You need to grow a backbone,” Betty told her.
Lake thought he should maybe point out that if Rainne stopped letting people walk over her, then Betty would lose a hobby.
“See?” Rainne flushed red as she spoke. “That’s the problem with the world. We don’t cooperate enough. We should start a committee.” Her eyes took on a faraway look. “A lingerie committee. We could set up a great cooperative. The whole town would benefit.”
Lake couldn’t take it any more. It was as though his sister was channelling their mother.
“No one would benefit,” Lake said. “The more people involved in the decision-making process, the less gets done.”
“That’s not true, Lake,” Rainne said. “You grew up in a cooperative, you should know better.”
She actually sounded hurt as she spoke, which had the effect of increasing his irritation rather than making him feel contrite. He’d hoped that running a shop would be good for her. Would teach her a thing or two about the real world. Would get her away from their parents for the first time in her life. Instead she’d let the shop sink further into debt and showed absolutely no interest in making it work.
“I remember well how things were in the commune,” he said. “There’s a reason I joined the army as soon as I was legally allowed. I was desperate for someone to make a decision, for someone to stand up and take responsibility. I can tell you, from experience, that life is a whole lot better when there’s structure.”
“How can you say that?”
Yet again tears began to pool in her big blue eyes. Lake sighed wearily. He put down his board marker and gave his sister his full attention. He’d held his tongue for weeks, listening to this crap, and now he’d had enough.
“Look,” he told her. “You’re twenty-six, Rainne. You can’t hold down a job or a relationship. You flit from thing to thing, following the rainbow and hoping for a happy ending. You know nothing about how life works. And you obviously have the business sense of a cucumber. Don’t you think that if you had a more realistic view of life things wouldn’t keep going pear shaped? You had an opportunity here. A chance to make something for yourself. To be independent. Yet you don’t seem to care.”
“Maybe that’s because you rode into town and took over. It isn’t my business any more. It’s yours. I never wanted any of this. You bullied your way in here and stole it from me.”
“Don’t forget whose money is tied up in this, little sis,” he said, feeling his temper stretch.
“How could I forget with you mentioning it every second? You never even gave me a chance to make a go of things.”
“I gave you six months. What did you do in that time? Please, tell me. Because we went even further into the red. And when I turned up the place looked like it was stuck in the ‘60s. You hadn’t even changed the damn sign.”
She thrust her hands into the pockets of her dungarees.
“I was working on it. I had an idea for environmentally sustainable underwear. I was researching suppliers.”
“Who was going to make this underwear? Design it? Finance it? Were you going to do anything with the shop while you were working on this?” He stepped towards her, wanting to shake her for being so unrealistic. Wanting her to grow up.
“I would have been fine. You didn’t need to rush in to rescue me.”
“I came to rescue my savings.”
“Money again.” She looked disgusted.
“Don’t give me that.” He was about ten seconds away from throttling her. “Every time you call, I help you. Every single time. I kept hoping that this would be the time that you grew up, that you saw how the world really worked. I wanted you to learn to stand on your own two feet. I don’t see you calling River, or Brooke, for help. And I’ll tell you why, because deep down you know that they won’t be any help.”
The tears started to fall. He balled his fists. Wi
shing she wouldn’t cry. Wishing she would fight. For once.
“That’s not fair. Brooke is still in a kibbutz and River is really busy with lobbying the government.”
“You mean protesting in a tent camp in London.”
“It’s important!”
Lake threw up his hands in disgust.
“I’m not saying any of this isn’t important—to him, anyway. What I’m saying is that you live in this world, not in some commune somewhere. And your skills for this world suck.”
“In that case, maybe I should just go find a commune and get out of your hair.”
“Maybe you should.”
Rainne wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“See, this is why Mum and Dad struggle to talk to you. You’ve sold out. You’re part of the system. You want to control us. Just like the rest of them. You don’t like free thought, or free speech. You want everyone to behave themselves and do what they’re told.”
Lake took a step towards her, making her flinch. He clenched his jaw and moved away from her again.
“The reason you have freedom of thought and speech is because there are people like me on the front lines fighting for it. So no, little sister, I don’t have a problem with freedom. I have a problem with my family. I’ve listened to this crap all my life. According to you lot having the freedom to choose your own life is great—as long as you agree with it. You don’t want people to make up their own minds. You want them to think what you think. Well, I don’t. I don’t interfere with your life. Or the rest of the family. I let you lot live like natives, now how about you leave me to be me?”
Tears were flowing down Rainne’s face now. Betty looked disgusted.
“I won’t be a part of this,” Rainne sobbed, and then she fled.
“Good riddance to useless rubbish,” said Betty.
“Watch it,” Lake snapped. “You crossed the line. That’s my sister you’re talking about. There’s nothing useless about her.”
Betty actually looked shocked for a change. Her mouth snapped shut. Lake stared at the space where Rainne had been. He had no idea what to do about her. His chest hurt from worry. She wasn’t equipped for the world. How the hell was she going to live? He rubbed his chest through his T-shirt.
“I’m going for a run,” he said.
“Now?” Betty was bewildered and none too happy that the meeting had ended before the juicy part.
“Yeah, now. We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”
He went upstairs to get changed.
“I’m sorry,” Rainne said through sobs.
It seemed that the only things she did these days were cry or apologise.
“Come here,” Alastair said, and pulled her in through the door of his tiny house.
“Who is it?” his flatmate Stephen shouted from the kitchen.
“Rainne,” Alastair called back.
Rainne was about to say that she would leave, that she couldn’t face anyone else.
“We’ll be in my room,” Alastair shouted.
He took her hand and led her up the narrow staircase. At the top were two doors. He opened the one on the left. Rainne hesitated on the threshold.
“It’s okay,” he said, and tugged her gently inside.
The walls were grey, the curtains were standard rental house brown and the carpet was a colour she couldn’t describe. The closest she could come was baby-poop green. There was a double bed wedged in the corner under the sloping roof, an old wooden wardrobe, a desk covered with fishing gear and a laptop sitting on a chair. The place was surprisingly clean and tidy.
“Sit down,” he said.
She looked around but didn’t know where to sit. The bed seemed like the wrong place.
“Ah, okay, wait a minute,” Alastair told her.
He disappeared. She heard pounding on the stairs, then he reappeared with a large beanbag. He plopped it in the middle of the poop-coloured carpet.
“Sit, I’ll get soup. Stephen made potato.”
Then he was gone again.
Rainne lowered herself onto the beanbag and instantly felt better. No matter where they’d lived growing up, she’d always had a beanbag. It felt comforting and familiar. Brushing a tear from her cheek, she studied the room. The posters on the walls were science-fiction-based, mainly Star Trek, and from her position close to the floor she could see that the space under the bed was stuffed with books. It made her smile. Alastair was a geek.
“Here,” he said as he entered the room. “This will make you feel better.”
He handed her a large mug filled with steaming potato soup. Then put a plate with bread and a spoon beside her. She picked up the spoon and stirred the soup. Alastair crouched in front of her. He reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, but he didn’t say anything. More silent tears slid down Rainne’s cheeks. She was so incredibly lost.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” she said in a small voice she didn’t recognise.
“You came to the right place.” His voice was so strong and soothing.
“I don’t always cry,” she said to her soup.
“Good to know.”
It sounded like a smile in his voice. Rainne felt herself relax for the first time in weeks. She looked up into her boy’s eyes and nothing else mattered. Somehow she knew, in those few seconds, that Alastair would make everything better.
CHAPTER SEVEN