Teepee for Two Page 5

  ‘Are you talking about those bull calves I forgot to ring, son?’ Lachlan asked.

  ‘Aye. That’s right, Dad.’ Rocco shot a quick look at Freya to see if she’d react. She decided not to. Too much going on. ‘All right then, Jack. You heard your mother. Let’s get off to the shed, then.’

  They all sat silently while Jack miserably pulled on his immaculate sky blue Arc’teryx jacket and even more miserably agreed to wear the oversized, dun-coloured wellies Rocco told him he should put on so he didn’t ruin his ‘posh kicks’.

  A swell of pride warmed Freya’s chest. It was never nice to see a child punished. And it was extremely rare to see someone sort out another person’s child, but somehow … this seemed right. Charlotte was the one who had made the call in the end. Freya could’ve rushed in. Assured her Rocco wasn’t bringing him out to the barns to beat the boy. That had never been their parents’ way. Freya and Rocco’s parents had always been firm but fair. Children, they’d said, needed discipline and boundaries. Indulgence wasn’t love. Knowing you could make mistakes and hope to be forgiven for them was. Just as you would in a marriage …

  Oh, lordy. She scrubbed her hands through her hair and gave her cheeks a bit of a pat. Was she going to find a way to forgive Monty, or was this ‘break’ the beginning of the end?

  Once Jack and Rocco had left, everyone extra politely asked for jam and could they please have some of the homemade thick cream? They all told Charlotte how lovely the scones were and ate them silently, the sound of her father masticating the living daylights out of Charlotte’s lighter-than-air scones their only soundtrack. As they finished and Charlotte began tidying everything away, the uncomfortable atmosphere became too much for Freya.

  Lounging around didn’t feel right. Her mother would’ve fed them the scones then fully expected everyone to get back to work, not slope off to the television. Freya put down her mug of tea and licked a bit of errant raspberry jam off her little finger then said, ‘Right, you lot. We need a project.’

  Chapter 4

  Izzy triple-blinked at Freya then eyed the ‘wee project’ again.

  No one looked particularly keen apart from Freya, so Izzy started pulling melodramatic ‘Oh, I see!’ faces. She put her hands up like a film director would frame a final, crucial scene. ‘So, the plan is to turn the tower ruins into an outdoor picnic-slash-bonfire-slash cocktail area?’

  ‘For Hogmanay. Yes.’ Freya’s determined expression spoke volumes. She’d do it on her own if she had to.

  Izzy quietly dropped her plan to vote for an indoor adventure, clapped her hands together and whooped. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Freya looked so grateful it almost brought tears to her eyes. Izzy got it. Freya was going through one of the worst of the firsts without her mum. A season laden with ritual. Izzy’s own mother had adored ritual and made loads of them up. Called them her and Izzy’s ‘little secrets’. Three smiles at a stranger per day (Bringing joy never hurts). Eggs before and after but never at Easter (Why kill a beginning when you are mourning an end?). Pudding before starters when eating outside (You never know what the weather is going to throw up, or, as her cancer progressed, if she was going to throw up). Up until the day she’d died, Izzy had thought her mother insisted on the rituals because they’d never had anywhere permanent to live. Ritual, she used to say, is what makes a soul flourish. Ingrains it in your body. Izzy felt the opposite was true. Losing the person she did her rituals with had drained her of the very essence of who she thought she’d been. As such, she and Luna didn’t really have rituals. She knew it meant more eye rolls and sotto voce, ‘There goes Dizzy Izzy’, but Izzy’s detachment from permanency was the only way to keep herself sane.

  Emily pulled her gloved hand out from her armpit long enough to flick it towards the low stone building next to the tower. ‘And you want the hovel to be a shop showcasing the milk?’

  Freya’s eyes lit up just as they had in uni when she described making something like a bodice out of buttercups. ‘No. Better. I think it should be a milk bar. Not like a tuck shop. More …’ She drummed her mittened fingers along her lower lip then abruptly pointed her index finger in the air. ‘A place where milk and booze and Hogmanay all come together for one perfect night.’

  Izzy pressed her own mittened hands to her chest and smiled. She wasn’t up for much hard labour because of her silly cough, but she loved watching crazy ideas gain traction.

  Freya was totally into it now. Nodding, walking round the site with one of those intensely earnest expressions worn by the cash-strapped builders on Grand Designs who were going to give it their absolute best even if it meant crying on national television.

  Emily muttered something about it being too cold to breathe properly. Charlotte wondered aloud about alcohol licences while Izzy tried to remember if she’d packed thermal underwear.

  Freya opened her hands in appeal, her accent thickening with every word. ‘The poor wee barn’s stood empty for nearly five years so Mum could have her shop in it. A shop she never got to have because we were too busy doing other things that were “more pressing”.’ She stomped her foot on the thick layer of snow that had settled overnight. ‘There’s permission from the council. We can sort the other bits and bobs. C’mon, guys. How long are we going to let this shop cry itself to sleep at night wondering if my mum’s hopes and dreams for it will ever come true?’

  Luna made a sad face. She liked hopes and dreams to come true. So did Izzy. Oh, hell. They all did. Except perhaps Emily, who would’ve been perfectly happy watching B-grade movies and drinking hot toddies for the rest of the day.

  Surely Emms could see that this was a daughter trying to make her mother’s dream come true. Izzy answered for everyone. ‘I guess we’d better get to it.’

  Freya did a happy dance. Her hair was sticking out at all sorts of crazy angles from the tweed and lambs-wool headband she was wearing. This atop a surprisingly trendy ensemble of boiler suit, hot pink Dickies gilet and thick leather workboots. With her cheeks all pinked up from the cold and eyes alight with excitement, she looked exactly like she had whenever Monty used to appear, unbidden, at their front door back in the day at uni. A girl who believed dreams really did come true.

  Izzy hoped they worked it out. Monty and Freya were one of those couples who’d been made for each other. Shared causes, hopes and dreams. Raising children with social consciences. Freya making her artistic mark on the world. Monty doing … whatever it was Monty had pictured himself doing, which obviously wasn’t practising law. He would’ve actually been super-handy for a job like this. The man was like a carpentry savant. One of the fruits of being the son of a builder, she supposed. As she watched Freya take stock of what they’d need, Izzy smiled at the memory of Monty’s ‘Jesus phase’, as he’d been fond of calling it. When they’d first moved into their house he’d not only looked after the toddler twins, but had constructed tonnes of built-in bookcases, side tables, and a rather awesome kitchen peninsula.

  ‘C’mon everyone.’ Freya beckoned for them to join her outside the stone barn, its slightly wonky slate shingled roof glinting in the watery winter sun. ‘We can do this. It doesn’t need to be perfect, just in line with the vision. Dad and Rocco will muck in. I’m pretty sure Dad put a load of shelving in before Mum …’

  Izzy’s heart squeezed tight. She’d found it completely impossible to say ‘when my mum died’ for years after the event.

  ‘We obviously can’t get it entirely fancied up to be a proper shop, but what if we prettied it up with some fairy lights and … ermm … there’re some frames up in the attic I can pop something into. Then we can sell the milk and cream.’

  ‘That’d be a real crowd-pleaser,’ Emily deadpanned. She popped on her best Mary Poppins accent, ‘Glass of milk to see in the New Year please, guv’nor!’

  ‘Eggnog?’ Charlotte suggested more helpfully.

  ‘Does anyone actually drink eggnog?’ Emily obviously had yet to harness any dairy-based enthusiasm.


  ‘Americans love eggnog,’ Izzy said pointedly, ignoring Emily’s stink eye. American eggnog was usually non-alcoholic, so she used to spike it with rum. Perhaps … no. Scotland was all about whisky – Izzy held out her hands. ‘I’ve got it! What about “malted milk”? You know. Whisky shots in warm milk with honey?’

  Freya made ‘ding ding ding you’ve won the prize’ sounds. ‘Totally works with the milk-bar theme. And, as we know, there ain’t no party—’

  ‘—like a theme party!’ the rest of the girls joined in. They’d been rather good at theme parties back in the day. The ‘Come As Your Favourite Canadian’ had required quite of lot of research, but they’d done pretty well channelling Avril Lavigne, Celine Dion and Pamela Anderson. The maple-syrup crisps might’ve been a step too far, but …

  ‘What kind of nibbles go with malted milk?’ Izzy asked.

  ‘Cake,’ they all said, then looked at Charlotte.

  ‘Do you want a break from cake baking?’ Freya asked in a voice that made it super-clear she hoped Charlotte wanted the polar opposite.

  Izzy cracked herself up with an idea. ‘We could buy a few packets of ready salteds and call it chips and sips.’

  No one else found it particularly funny. Whatevs.

  Freya chewed on her lip for a second, then, ‘What if we get the other farms between here and St Andrews to come along and set up stalls? There’s a beef farmer on the other side of us with Belted Galloways who’s always doing farmer’s markets. Maybe they’d do some burgers. There’s a sheep guy further along the road. He could make—’

  ‘Posh kebabs?’ Emily mimed eating a tiny kebab, finally making an effort.

  ‘Posh kebabs!’ Freya shouted joyously. ‘And there’s a tattie and turnip farm nearby. Maybe they’d do jacket potatoes and some sort of neeps thing? Neep curly fries? Is that a thing?’

  They all agreed it could definitely be a thing.

  Izzy hopped from one foot to the other. She was absolutely bloody freezing. Once she got properly moving she’d be fine, but wow did the Scottish cold go straight through to her bones.

  Freya’s face went a funny combination of hopeful and anxious. ‘If we could make some money for Dad and Rocco out of it, it’d be brilliant. I’ve been trying to get them to do something niche for ages, but they say it’s easier to supply The Man.’

  ‘Isn’t that a good thing? Supplying The Man?’ Izzy asked.

  Freya looked horrified. ‘Not when The Man doesn’t pay you what your product’s worth. Do you know how many small dairy farms go out of business each year?’

  Emily stepped between Izzy and the inevitable Freya speech. ‘No one’s going to show The Man anything if we stand around talking about it. Can we get moving please? Izzy’s turning blue.’

  ‘All right, ladies? What’s brought you all out here into the elements?’ Rocco appeared behind them with Jack in tow.

  ‘Rocs,’ Freya put her hands on her brother’s shoulders and stared at him in that way a coach might before giving an inspirational speech about commitment and risks and laying everything on the line for just one victory. ‘Whaddya think about letting us use the milk from today?’

  ‘What for?’ He flashed them a sly grin. ‘Are you lot planning on bathing in it for some Wiccan ritual?’

  No one missed the wink he threw a furiously blushing Charlotte.

  Everyone started talking over everyone about The Big Plan.

  Rocco put his fingers in his mouth and made an ear-piercing whistle. ‘Right. Can we go back to the part about you lot needing my milk? Charlotte?’ He made a courtly half-bow to open the floor for her.

  Bless her. You’d have thought he’d just laid his coat over a puddle for her to daintily tread across from the beam of gratitude she braved in his direction. How often had Oli asked her opinion, Izzy wondered. Probably never.

  ‘Freya had the lovely idea of opening up the shop on Hogmanay to remember your mum by. A sort of milk bar.’

  Rocco pulled off his knitted cap and gave his head a scratch. ‘That’s a lovely idea, sis. But you cannae sell raw milk in Scotland.’

  Freya looked absolutely stricken. No one said anything until Rocco got that same glint in his eye Freya did when an idea struck. ‘You know … we do have an old pasteurizer gathering dust somewhere in one of the sheds. It’d do maybe … a hundred litres? We got it from Dougie Stewart when he sold up. What if I dust that off and you do some eggnog, eh?’ He rubbed his tummy. ‘I love a proper eggnog.’

  ‘I suggested eggnog!’ Charlotte beamed.

  The smile the pair of them exchanged was so sweet Izzy nearly caught diabetes. Awwwww.

  And then the chaos began.

  Luna volunteered Bonzer’s services as a stand-in reindeer.

  Regan volunteered to play her violin if she could find sheet music for ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Poppy offered her services to unearth the pasteurizer.

  Emily put her hand up for booze questing at the local distilleries and added holiday bunting to their list of things to do. Wherever Charlotte went, Emily said soberly, bunting must follow.

  Izzy volunteered to do anything so long as it involved moving. Frostbite was settling in. Her lungs actually ached. She really would have to register with a new GP the minute she got back to Sussex, get her regular check-ups back on track.

  Rocco clapped his hands together and cracked that huge, lopsided, sunbeam of a smile of his. ‘A proper project for the hols, eh, Freya? Mum would be very, very proud of you.’

  Freya batted at the air between them and, when he saw her eyes mist over, he pulled her into a bear hug, his chin easily resting atop her curly brown head, then grinned at the rest of them. ‘I guess we’d all better get to work then. Operation Milk Bar is under way!’

  If it weren’t so blinking cold, Emily would have taken her hat off to Charlotte.

  She was the only one of the four of them who could discreetly stage-manage an entire operation and still make everyone else feel as if they were the ones running the show. They were all beavering away like the seven dwarves in the diamond mines. Singing. Clearing things out. Unearthing unexpected treasures (several boxes of mismatched china teacups and jam jars for the drinks which they agreed should be paid for by donation). Laughing. Sneezing.

  Izzy was definitely getting a cold. Emily was just about to break her promise to herself to not nag her again about staying warm when Freya’s dad appeared by her side. ‘Well, hello there, Mr Burns.’

  ‘It’s Lachlan, dearie. I think you’re all old enough to call me by my first name, now.’ He was dressed in work clothes, too. Well-worn work gloves holding a rock in one hand as he deftly scooped up another. For someone who was allegedly heading down Alzheimer’s Alley, he was unbelievably fit and present. ‘Thought I’d lend you girlies a hand.’

  ‘Want to start here?’ The stone she was trying to relocate wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Hey, Dad.’ Freya bounced over to them with a couple of sloshing buckets in each hand. She was in full Tigger mode. ‘What are you doing out here? You all right?’

  His eyes flicked over to Luna who was skipping from the house to the low barn. ‘A wee birdie told me you were going to get your mum’s shop up and running. Thought I’d lend my daughter a hand.’

  Emily didn’t miss Freya’s eyes going all watery as she nodded along. ‘Thanks, Dad. Ummm. Maybe rather than hauling the loose stones out one by one, we should get some of the wheelbarrows over? D’you think Rocco’d mind if we used the big red ones?’

  ‘I’ll do you one better,’ Lachlan deftly dropped the stones into place at the fire pit. ‘We’ll get the mule out.’

  ‘You have a donkey?’ Izzy dropped her rock and clapped. Izzy had always fostered a strange affection for donkeys.

  Lachlan laughed. ‘This one comes with a bit more horsepower.’ He made a vroom-vroom noise then said to Freya, ‘I’ll get the digger in first. We can drop the rocks you don’t need into the mule to haul away, unless you’re wanting the extra stones for something else.’
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  Freya narrowed her eyes. It was a look the Holly House girls had grown used to over the uni years, but had faded out of use. It was like watching a disco ball light up inside someone’s head then morphing into an epic To Do list. The end result was always worth mucking in for.

  ‘Dad, could you scrape all the stones out and then maybe make a path with them. A footpath up from the yard where everyone’ll be parking?’

  Crikey. Emily’s dad was thrilled if he got through his morning t’ai-chi session in one piece. Did Freya know her father was over seventy?

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Ooo-kay. Apparently the Burnses’ idea of what could be done in a few days was very different from the Cheungs’.

  An unfamiliar niggle of guilt wormed into Emily’s conscience. She should spend more time with her parents. Take her mother up on the frequent offers to play mah-jong with her old biddy friends. They wouldn’t last for ever, her parents. Acting like they would rarely made it so.

  Freya wagged her finger at her father. ‘Don’t let the lads drive off with the mule, all right? It’s too icy. And no digger lessons! Remember what happened last time with Monty.’

  Emily followed Freya’s eyes to a patched-up corner of the barn. Ha! She could totally imagine Monty having an absolute field day on a digger. Bless him.

  Lachlan tugged his fingers through his thick shock of white hair. ‘Shame we’ve not got Monty here. He’d make short work of all that shelving I bought for your mother. Remember the year he redid her pantry? Wonderfully patient lad, your Monty. He must’ve changed the design a dozen times before your mother deemed it perfect.’

  Emily didn’t miss the hit of guilt in Freya’s eyes as Lachlan gave a little sigh, then briskly rubbed his hands together and gave them all a broad smile. ‘Right! If we’re going to get this done by Hogmanay, I guess we’d better get cracking.’