Smokeheads (3 page)

Adam drifted through the tour in a haze. He knew the workings of the distillery inside out, and found himself staring at Molly’s left hand, gazing at her beautiful eyes and sneaking glances at the contours of her body.

Molly had the tour spiel polished and slick as sea glass. She led them round the malthouse where tonnes of green barley were steeped in water then laid out to germinate on the floor. They saw the kilns where the malted barley was smoked over a huge peat fire, each of them chucking a lump of the stuff in. The cloggy smell and fierce heat from the furnace were remarkable. At the mill they tasted the malt, little seeds that burst with smoky flavour in their mouths. Adam watched as Molly chewed along with the rest of them. They saw the grist mixed with water and turned to wort in the mash tun then combined with yeast in the washbacks. They all had a glug of the liquid, a warm, yeasty eight per cent beer that had the Swedes making surprised faces. Ethan got his phone out and snapped the rest of them necking the stuff.

Then the wash was fired into the stills, seven huge bulbous copper constructions with swan necks, surrounded by gangways and pipes in the large stillhouse. The double distillation made low wines in the wash still which were pumped into the spirit still then boiled off into the spirit safe, a Victorian brass box with levers where the stillman had to siphon off the drinkable middle cut between the foreshots and the feints.

Adam smiled as Molly rolled the terminology around her tongue. He loved the unique language of the whisky-maker, the depths of ancient knowledge about the craft that those words contained. Molly mentioned in passing that only nine people were employed in the actual whisky-making at Laphroaig, producing two million litres of pure spirit a year, a fact Adam found astonishing every time he heard it. How could such a hugely lucrative operation rely on just a few experienced souls?

From the stillhouse they visited the filling store to see new spirit pumped into casks, air-dried American oak, first-fill Maker’s Mark bourbon casks which lent the whisky its vanilla and caramel nuances. They each got a sip of new spirit, sixty-eight per cent by volume making their eyes water. It was raw and rough but discernibly Laphroaig already, even before maturation.

At the warehouse on the edge of the seaweed-strewn bay Molly fielded questions from the Swedes about phenolic ppm in the barley, tannins and lignins from the barrels, the percentage of taste that came from the terroir compared to wine. The Swedes knew their stuff but Molly wasn’t flustered. Even though they all knew, she told them about the angel’s share, the two per cent lost per year from the barrels due to evaporation, adding up to a shitload of whisky vanishing into the atmosphere and contributing to the pungent air around them.

Adam felt light-headed for a moment. The burn of the new spirit was still in his nostrils as he watched Roddy joke with Molly about rolling a barrel out of the warehouse and into his car. He ran a hand over a nearby cask. The date on it was 1995, already past the ten-year bottling stage and heading for something richer and more complex. He thought about the to and fro inside, the spirit and the oak from different sides of the world blending and lending flavours to each other, mingling to create something utterly unique. That was partly why he loved whisky: for all the science involved there were completely unpredictable factors, influences that made two adjacent casks of the same spirit turn into whiskies with different characters. Even the location by the sea made a difference – if the whisky inside could evaporate, surely some of this briny air could seep into the casks? Much was made of the subtleties of winemaking, but to his mind whisky distilling was infinitely more complex, with a wider variety of influencing factors and a far greater range of tastes in the end product.

His finger snagged on the rough wood of the cask. He lifted it and saw a dark skelf lodged under the skin. He tried to pick it out but couldn’t get any purchase.

‘Looks like Roddy’s moving in on your turf.’ It was Ethan next to him. Adam followed his gaze to see Roddy still flirting with Molly. He felt a twinge in his finger, a soft throb beneath the surface.

‘She’s not my turf,’ he said. ‘She’s not anyone’s turf, she’s married.’

He thought about the lack of a ring on her finger and found himself walking towards her. She looked up and he thought he saw something in her eyes, something meaningful.

‘I was just telling your friend here it’s time for a tasting,’ she said.

‘Perfect,’ said Adam.

Molly corralled them out of the warehouse and across the courtyard back to the visitor centre. She brought out a tray of nosing glasses and lifted bottles of ten-year-old and quarter cask down from the shelf. She poured out healthy measures and they all went through the rigmarole, checking the colour and legs, taking a noseful then a sip. The Swedes monopolised her with more questions about tasting notes, expressions and rare bottlings.

Roddy sidled up to Adam as he drank. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘You gonna make a move, Loverboy?’

Adam shook his head. ‘You’re like a dog with a bone, Roddy.’

‘A boner, more like.’ Roddy looked down at his own crotch, Adam following his gaze.

‘Made you look,’ Roddy laughed. ‘Fucking hellfire, you think I’d be walking about a distillery with a hard-on?’

‘Nothing would surprise me.’

‘You crack me up, Tiger.’ Roddy slapped his back.

‘What do you think?’ said Ethan coming over.

‘About what?’ said Adam.

Ethan raised his glass. ‘The quarter cask. It’s pretty special, isn’t it?’

‘Too sweet for me,’ said Adam. ‘Laphroaig doesn’t need bloody citrus overtones.’

Roddy snorted and shook his head. ‘Never mind all that shit, what about the cute girl?’

‘What about her?’

‘Just go talk to her.’

‘What about?’

‘What do you fucking think? Whisky, you dolt.’

‘She’s busy with the Swedes.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Roddy raised his head. ‘Hey, Molly.’

She looked thankful for the interruption, made her excuses and headed over. ‘Yes?’

Adam pressed the button on his watch. Ninety-nine bpm. Shit.

‘We’re looking to party tonight,’ said Roddy. ‘Any idea where four guys might find a bit of action on this island?’

Molly smiled. ‘It’s not exactly party central. Where are you staying?’

‘B&B in Port Ellen.’

‘The Ardview is your best bet on a Friday night. You know it?’

‘Sure, we’ve been in already. What are you up to this evening? Fancy joining us for a wee snifter?’

Molly looked from Roddy to Adam, then back again. Adam felt the skelf in his finger ache. ‘Actually I’ve already got plans to meet my sister in there tonight. Maybe I’ll see you at the bar.’

‘It’s a date,’ said Roddy. ‘Looking forward to it.’

Molly began tidying as they finished their drams, the Swedes cornering her for more information.

‘There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?’ said Roddy.

‘It’s not a date.’

‘We’re meeting her and her no doubt equally cute sister in the pub, it doesn’t matter what you fucking call it. It’s a gold-plated snatch opportunity is what it is.’

Adam looked at Molly, who smiled at him. He looked at her hand on the Laphroaig bottle, definitely no ring. He looked at his own finger and noticed the skelf had worked its way a little deeper under the skin. He was never going to get it out now.

Adam lifted an embossed leather dog collar from a shelf. The Ardbeg gift shop took branded tat to a whole new level. Cufflinks, memory sticks, rucksacks and little tins of peat cones, there was nothing they couldn’t stamp their wee Celtic logo on. He threw the collar down and walked back to the table where Luke was slouched, drumming his fingers on a menu.

The other two had gone on the tour, but Adam and Luke had stopped in the Old Kiln Cafe to grab something to eat. Ethan had been keen to see round the distillery, Roddy joining him when he saw the tall, perky redhead taking the tour. Adam had been round the place before, of course, and besides, he wanted a bit of time to think about Molly.

Roddy had been a total dick back at Laphroaig, but you couldn’t argue with his results. They were on for joining Molly and her sister in the pub tonight, and the absence of a wedding ring made Adam reassess his chances from zero to almost zero.

His lack of success with women was legendary amongst the gang, Roddy never missing an opportunity to rub it in. He’d never had a relationship lasting more than a few months, which for someone with one eye on forty was pretty worrying. He was plenty interested, but always overcome by a crippling lack of confidence, his psyche riddled with self-doubt. Not the most appealing trait in a boyfriend, he had to admit. In contrast, Roddy was all cock and balls, ploughing his way through the female population of Scotland, it seemed. Ethan had been like Adam at uni, never getting anywhere, but that changed when Debs took him on and quickly moulded him into typical husband material. As for Luke, he never mentioned women, and there was something in that silence which meant the rest of them never asked. Adam couldn’t remember him with a girlfriend since uni, but then he spent all his time these days at his remote farmhouse-cum-studio, doing soundtrack work for television and film, or creating that strange chilled-out electronica of his.

He was the enigma of the group, the one who never really talked about his life. Once or twice Adam had spotted the name Luke Young in the end credits of television shows, original score or sound editor, and wondered how he’d made the leap into that from his maths degree. They’d all wound up doing something pretty removed from their official qualification, but Luke’s career as musician and composer was the furthest out there.

Adam had only ever been to his house a few times, a secluded sprawl of old buildings along a farm track outside Pencaitland. Luke had bought the place, gutted it and transformed it into a studio, using the insurance money he received when his mum and dad died. His parents had been poor and his childhood was much more deprived than the other three, brought up in a poky flat in Tranent as opposed to their smarter houses in Gullane, Haddington and North Berwick – all the more affluent enclaves of East Lothian. But when Mr and Mrs Young were hit by a drunk driver and killed on the way back from the social club one night not long after Luke’s graduation, it emerged they’d had a healthy life-insurance policy stashed away, enough to pay off their mortgage and leave Luke with a big lump sum.

After the painful process of clearing out and selling his folks’ house, he went travelling on his own for a year, trekking round the snowy expanses of the Arctic countries, across Greenland and the northern reaches of Canada, long visits to Iceland and the Faroes, even spending some time on the Svalbard archipelago. Not that Adam and the rest got much out of him about his travels except for the odd postcard. He returned with a noticeable sense of peace over what had happened to his family and a metal plate in the back of his skull thanks to a snowmobile accident in a Swedish blizzard. That’s when the beanie hats started, to cover the extensive scarring to his crown, along with a steady grass habit to combat the occasional migraines. He was quieter and more reserved than he’d been before, but also more comfortable with his new place in the world.

He’d thrown himself into the studio project, transforming it from derelict outhouses to high-tech operation in eighteen months, and had split the time since then between making his own music and building up a reputation for atmospheric soundscapes perfect for edgy dramas and documentaries.

Adam envied the way Luke never got worked up about anything, the way he seemed so assured, confident and happy about everything in his life. He looked at him now, content to sit there tapping along to a song in his head. He noticed the lazy left eye, and underneath the scruffy beard he could make out the pale curve of scar tissue on his chin, the result of a drunken accident with a pint glass years ago that none of them could remember properly.

Luke was his own boss and earned a living doing something he loved. That was what Adam wanted. Luke had partly been the inspiration for Adam’s big idea, the real reason they were on Islay this weekend. He’d planned to spring it on the rest of them tomorrow, but he was suddenly itching to talk about it now.

‘Luke, you know when you built your studio?’

Luke nodded, though maybe he was just nodding to the sounds in his head.

‘Was it a nightmare? I mean logistically?’

Luke played with a leather bracelet on his wrist.

‘Not easy, man. Planning and managing, that’s not my bag. Best thing I ever did, though. Changed my life.’

Adam nodded and smiled. ‘How about being your own boss? Doesn’t that take a lot of organisation?’

Luke gazed into the distance for a while. ‘Worth it, if you love what you do.’

Adam wanted Luke to ask why he was asking, to draw his plans out of him, but Luke was silent. Maybe it could wait till tomorrow. Tonight he had Molly to think about. He felt a trill in his chest at the thought of seeing her later and resisted the urge to check his heart rate.

‘What do you think of Molly?’ he said.

Luke was back to fiddling with the thing on his wrist. ‘Seems cool.’

‘Do you think I should go for it?’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s pretty cute, eh?’

‘Yeah.’

Adam examined Luke for a moment. ‘You know, you don’t talk about your love life at all.’

Luke smiled and shrugged.

‘You got a lady tucked away somewhere we don’t know about?’

‘Not as such.’

‘What does that mean?’

Luke just shrugged again and picked up a menu. ‘Can we eat? I’m starving.’

Adam smiled then shook his head.

‘Fucking lezzer.’ It was Roddy and Ethan approaching the table and laughing.

Ethan nodded towards the redhead tour guide, tidying away tasting glasses across the hall. ‘Roddy struck out and he’s taking it badly.’

‘I’m telling you, I know a carpetmuncher when I see one.’

Ethan shook his head. ‘Maybe she just didn’t fancy you.’

Roddy looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. ‘Don’t ever fucking say that to me again.’

Adam and Luke joined in the laughter as Ethan sat down, making an ‘L’ for ‘loser’ with his thumb and index finger on his forehead.

‘Fuck the lot of you,’ said Roddy, laughing as well now. ‘Shower of cunts.’

He looked around the cafe. ‘What do you have to do to get a fucking drink around here?’