Whirligig (34 page)

For a time, while his bankruptcy was going through, Gordon would slip into the crib of a bed in the caravan, turn out the lights and
then
get drunk, three swift bolts of supermarket whisky to catapult him into the land of nod. But he soon realised that the hangovers weren't
worth it. Of his new friends, who generally worked outdoors, only the very young ones could work on a hangover, and they didn't tend to drink because they were all saving up for something. Surfing in Cornwall, New Year in Goa, or just to buy mojitos and caipiriñhas at the weekend for Fiona or Keira or Mairi. Gordon quickly realised that he could not be a gardener knocking on the door of forty years old and be hung over. When the last of the bankruptcy hearings was over and he had made his last coach trip to London, he gave up drinking altogether.

Gradually – at a tectonic pace, it sometimes seemed – the estate under the new chatelaine and her manager began to transform. In the Peregrine Era, the place had become ossified, immune or allergic to change. Peregrine had somehow contrived to repel the world. No longer was this the case. In what remained of the autumn, it was seriously a-buzz. There was no greater symbol of this than the selling of the wrought-iron gates to the main drive, allowing unfettered access to the estate from the public road. Things were being fixed; plans being put into action; and people coming to check things and make assessments and give quotations. Every morning there was Gordon or Coky, and sometimes both of them, on the front lawn or the gravel, shaking hands and initiating action or further planning.

Then winter drew in, and there were fewer people. Only Lachlan remained, gradually making the upper floors of the old house safe. Next year he would make them habitable, the year after that comfortable. (Coky's insistence on using only the most environmentally friendly materials and methods might have frustrated another builder, but Lachlan only approved.) During
the dark and glowering mornings, Gordon worked on the wind farm. The plans, Coky and Gordon had privately agreed, needed to be revised in the light of the revelations about the bird surveys. The wind farm's planning application would be resubmitted, this time stripped of the three controversial turbines, and there was a heap of financial work to do, not least to express the community's increased share of the profits. This paperwork was not simple, even with Harry Lightfoot available on the phone for consultation. Gordon spent his afternoons working in the garden, Beyoncé the Labrador always nearby. Dorcas would drop by periodically, and he absorbed horticultural knowledge from her by osmosis rather than actively learning. He reserved his mental energy for his ‘grand plan' for the estate, about which he would think as he worked away at the burgeoning veg patch, or turning the compost, or doing whatever was required, losing weight and gaining muscle by the week.

In the evenings, he would chew over some idea or other with Coky, and they would show each other budgets, research and plans. Dorcas would very often join them, usually bringing supper from her house. They didn't discuss plans for the estate or the wind farm when Bonnie came to dinner, but those occasions were polite enough – and when they weren't, they were usually funny. Gordon had developed a good line in teasing Bonnie when she became pompous or daft, and this kept Coky in the cheery mood she might not have otherwise been in when in the presence of her mother.

It was on a December afternoon with the rain sweeping from the west in drowning horizontal drifts that Gordon found himself playing snooker with
Lachlan. The pink and three reds were missing, and there was a large tear in the baize, but this did not reduce their enjoyment. They hadn't been talking about anything very much, until Lachlan raised the topic of his new living arrangements. Coky had told Lachlan that Peregrine had made an amendment to his will to give Lachlan and Jade the flat above the stables, and the couple had just sold the camper van and moved in. Lachlan was pleased to be away from the beach before winter, and Jade had certainly been relieved now that the birth of her child was imminent. But something was making Lachlan uneasy. As Gordon lined up a difficult blue to the corner pocket, Lachlan unburdened himself.

‘D'you think Peregrine really…?' Lachlan inhaled deeply. ‘Did he really give me the flat, or has Coky…? Is she just being… well, sisterly?'

‘She knows about the whole half-brother thing, then?'

‘Mm-hm. Said she'd suspected it for years.'

Gordon thought before answering. ‘Brr. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if she was just being nice. Sort of thing she does. If you ask me, there shouldn't be any more secrets. There's been enough truth buried around this place – facts and feelings – and, it's not healthy to…' He trailed off.

‘Aye,' said Lachlan, and silence descended for a moment. Then he said with sudden gravity, ‘Some things should always be a secret, though, eh?'

Gordon looked at Lachlan, and the two men's eyes met sincerely. ‘Oh, that's definitely true,' said Gordon.

‘Just between us, aye?'

Gordon nodded, chalking his cue.

‘The
whole
truth can hurt,' added Lachlan. ‘But… I've
been meaning to thank you.'

‘Yeah?' Gordon played the blue, and missed by a foot and a half.

‘In the old churchyard that night… you made everything… fit. Told us what to say to the police and how it would all work out, after you'd, you know, got yourself together and stopped screaming. God knows I wasn't thinking straight. Milky was even more of a mess.'

Gordon shrugged modestly. ‘Years of watching crap telly,' he said. ‘Everything's got to tie up.'

‘But, you know, Gordon,' Lachlan began, making no effort to take his next shot. ‘You're right about secrets. And if there's anything you need to tell somebody… Coky, for instance… Anything you might
feel
… you should tell her.'

A worried expression played on Gordon's face.

‘Brr,' he said, and the two men played the rest of the frame in silence.

It was only the following morning that Gordon and Coky were next alone together, walking down to the walled garden. The rain had stayed away long enough for him to have planted the beech whips that would form a hedge going all the way down one side of the drive, as they had discussed. They had stood and stared at the wobbly line of new plants for a moment before moving off down the Old Walk.

As the wind whipped his uncut ginger curls about his frayed collar, he said, ‘Why do you keep me around?'

‘Well, you're such an ace gardener,' she said, and they both sniggered.

They were walking now on the soaked and mossy
lawn through the yew trees, a limping Beyoncé their only company.

‘Hm,' she said, her lips turned up in a smile. ‘Honestly, I think it's because you're the only man I've ever known who actually gets nicer when he's drunk.'

He gave a hollow snort. ‘Oh. Well … you may not have noticed, but I'm not actually drinking at the moment.'

Then she looked at him with wide, serious eyes. ‘Yeah, and that's OK too.'

They walked on a short way. The wind was getting up, and she shivered.

‘Shall we start the lessons tonight?' she said with the uncertain smile.

‘Oh. Yes.' He too was nervous. ‘You mean… the dancing?'

‘Aye.' She smiled her fangy smile.

The wind suddenly dropped as they entered a clearing, and he turned to her. ‘There's something I need to confess,' he said.

She was still smiling as she looked at him. But seeing how serious he was, she said, ‘OK. What's up?'

They sat down on a stone bench and he told her. He told of his memory, jogged by degrees over that dreadful first week in Loch Garvach, and reassembled since, of what had happened in the gardens at MacGilp House all those years ago. He told of his shame at having lied so unpleasantly, and the horrible guilt he felt, not just that he had hurt an innocent Coky and a blameless Harry, but that he had unwittingly begun the breakdown of his parents' marriage. He told her too that for years he had blamed an unknown woman for splitting up what his mother had thought was a happy home, and that he had colluded unquestioningly with that
convenient half-truth, little knowing that he would eventually find this woman to be Bonnie Straughan, and to find that she had probably been as unhappy as his father had been. He told her of his dread fear that this knowledge might have saved his mother from the long horror of never understanding the truth, and from the imprisonment of tortuous self-sacrifice with Gordon himself as the ironic beneficiary. It might have made her life more bearable, if not longer.

What Gordon did not say was that, while he felt he must tell her these feelings, his biggest fear was that Coky's opinion of him would almost certainly be reduced if not destroyed as a result.

Coky listened in still silence. When Gordon had finished, he looked at her, his eyes pink and moist, and prepared for the worst.

And so it was there, in the windless clearing, that the future changed so utterly. The girl took the boy's hand, and softly kissed it.

For encouragement and critical eyes I owe my readers Jez Butterworth, Tom Butterworth, Mary Bowers, Ben Macintyre, Kate Macintyre and Daniel Toledano. Other advisers were Dr Jan Toledano on medicine, Sir John Becher on shooting, Andy Wightman on land ownership, and Mike Davies and other colleagues provided wind industry background. I hope I do not embarrass any of them by having bent or ignored reality in favour of story. My agent Jon Elek at AP Watt, my editor David Isaacs and publisher Rebecca Nicolson at Short Books all need to be thanked for their faith and congratulated on their expertise. Minnie and Wilf, the occupants of ‘the pram in the hall', have been nothing but a hindrance and distraction in this context, but might be pleased, when they learn to read, to know that I wouldn't have had it any other way. My greatest thanks, though, go to my wife Lucie Donahue, provider of patience, fine editorial advice and love, with whom I jointly do almost everything except this.

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