Where Have All the Boys Gone? (12 page)

The Laird dunked a slightly musty-looking biscuit in his tea. ‘So, you’re the lassies working with Harry Barr?’ he said.

Iain sniffed disapprovingly.

‘Just me,’ said Katie. ‘He seems all right.’

‘Oh aye, he’s a nice lad,’ said the Laird, casting a sideways glance at Iain. ‘Lost his mother you know.’

‘I know,’ said Katie.

‘About twenty years ago,’ said Iain.

The Laird looked at him again. ‘What happened to that girlfriend he had? She was an absolute stoater.’

‘He had a girlfriend?’ said Louise, eagerly leaning forward. ‘What was she like?’

‘She was a right beauty,’ said the Laird. ‘Brought her back from Edinburgh. Gorgeous she was, wasn’t she?’ he said to Iain.

‘Yes,’ said Iain grudgingly.

‘So, what happened to her?’ asked Louise.

‘Och, she didnae like it up here, did she?’

Iain shook his head.

‘Not a lot for lassies to do.’ He eyed them both closely.

‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘Sometimes it’s nice…’ she looked closely at Iain. ‘Sometimes, it’s just nice,’ she repeated, smiling at him.

‘Hello Olivia!’ Katie said bouncily, answering the office phone the next day to her boss/chum.

‘How goes it?’

Not the grey skies or the falling rain; not the meagre single slice of untoasted bread that appeared for breakfast under a bosom trembling with suppressed tellings off; not the forty-minute traffic jam (traffic jam!) she found was being caused by, of all things, a herd (herd? flock? school?) of Highland coos, funny little stumpy things that looked like dogs done up for fancy dress, could dampen Katie’s spirits that morning as she had turned the car up the track that led to the forest office.

The three of them had walked back into town, Iain’s fingers gradually entwining with hers, and at the entrance to Water Lane, Louise had gone on ahead and they’d stayed behind, snogging outside like teenagers. She was still walking on air.

‘What are you up to?’ Olivia asked, sounding suspicious. ‘Oww!’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, it’s not you, I’ve just got this new Thai masseuse
who’s very thorough. That or I’ve been captured by the secret police. Anyway, what are you so cheerful about?’

‘Nothing. Uh, I just think it’s going really well up here.’

‘Really? How come?’

Katie explained Harry’s golf-course predicament to Olivia, who made various expostulations throughout, though whether in response to the proposed development or particularly intense kneading, it was difficult to say.

‘So, what do you think?’

‘I think you have a funny definition of “going really well”,’ said Olivia. ‘It sounds like you’re doing nothing at all.’

‘I mean about what we should be planning.’ Katie didn’t think telling her boss was breaking a confidence; she had to do it, surely.

‘Darling, of course you’re right – ack! I can sue you, you know. This Harry character doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What does he think will happen – big business goes away if you simply ignore it? That’s not very likely, is it?’

Katie admitted it wasn’t.

‘Of course not. So you have to get out there. You know the drill; the more you annoy them, the quicker you’ll drive them out. What do you think for a USP for Fairlish? What’s its special charm?’

‘Well,’ Katie said hesitantly, ‘they’ve got the highest ratio of men to women in Britain.’

For once, Olivia was speechless.

‘You’re joking,’ she eventually spluttered.

‘Nope.’

‘So I’m here, getting put through torture so I can be nice and bendy for a man who I haven’t even met yet…’

‘And we could eat pies all day here and it wouldn’t
matter!’ exclaimed Katie excitedly. ‘Louise has died and gone to heaven.’

‘Arse. But, still, this could be a killer focus, surely? Get all the women of Britain behind the forest, something like that? The Men Preservation Zone.’

‘Yes, possibly.’ Katie shuddered at what Olivia might come up with.

‘Fantastic! Well done darling – and STOP THAT! OK, on to other business. Have you checked your email?’

Katie looked guiltily at the antediluvian computer Derek had provided. It was covered in dust. ‘Um, not as such, no.’

‘What about your mobile?’

‘I can’t get a signal.’

For the second time in five minutes, Olivia went silent.

‘You’re without your mobile phone?’ she stuttered finally. ‘Darling. I would die…I would actually die.’

‘You wouldn’t
actually
die,’ said Katie. ‘And it’s quite nice when you get used to it. Peaceful.’

Olivia gave an audible shudder. ‘Barbarians,’ she said. ‘Anyway. Uh, check your email.’

Suddenly, the door of the office swung open and Harry barged in, also in an excellent mood by the looks of things.

‘Come on, we hae to go,’ he said, waving his hand in front of the phone for emphasis.

Katie nodded sharply at him.

‘Why?’ she said down the phone.

‘Can’t you just check it?’ said Olivia, sounding more unhappy.

‘I can just check it if you tell me why.’

‘We have to go NOW,’ said Harry. ‘That’s N-O-W – Now.’

Katie looked at him. How on earth did he ever get an utterly gorgeous girlfriend? Very mysterious.

‘Look, Katie, it’s not work stuff…I think your sister’s been trying to get in touch.’

‘Clara? What the hell does she want now?’

‘Please
just check it,’ said Olivia. ‘I really have to go.’

‘We really have to go,’ said Harry, indicating he was going to hang up the phone for her if she wasn’t willing to do the job herself.

‘OK, OK!’ said Katie and banged down the receiver, then instantly felt guilty for doing just that. Clara was her sister after all.

‘Come on, come on,’ said Harry bossily, jumping up and grabbing her jacket.

‘Hang on,’ said Katie. ‘I have to check my email.’

Caught in mid stride, Harry looked at her as if she’d just spoken to him in Mandarin. ‘Your what?’

‘Email. You know, tap tap tap then you press send and your message gets rolled up small enough to be sent down a phone line to foreign countries and stuff.’

‘I know what it is. What do you have to do with it? You’ve got much more important things to do right this moment than gassing with your chums,’ he said, pointing at the phone.

‘For your information, that was my boss. And yours.’

‘Ehm, she’s not my boss.’

‘Oh no, neither she is. Well, mine then. Anyway, it was a business call. But this…this can’t wait.’

Katie looked at him imploringly. Harry sighed in a way that clearly meant ‘women’, and went to gossip with Derek.

It took a while to get the computer set up – time spent blowing off dust, mostly. Katie, used to broadband and ISDN, was shocked to find herself under the desk unplugging the phone and listening to the familiar beee…bdp bdp bdp prrrrr as the connection very slowly came to life.
She signed into Hotmail thinking with a sigh that it had been four days since she’d checked her mail, so there was going to be a new world record number of people who wanted to sell her prescription drugs to excite her gigantically enlarged penis. But the mail she was actually looking for was about halfway down the page. In typical Clara style it was in bold and festooned with smiley faces and flags.

NOOOOZZZZ!! read the subject line.

Still chill out here in the cross your heart and hope to die, India’s fine and so am I state of Goa, an Mark-Clara hav a bit of fun to announce – yes, the stork will be flyin’ halfway around the world this year so better hope he’s got his Lonely Planet Guide!!!!!!
A
true gaia event, full of the joy and spirit of the forces of earth are joining these two people into one baby this year, so send your hope and love to the Mother Goddess for all of us!!! Still not sure if comin back, chums – may grant the elf a birth serene and free from western ‘medicalisation’, no what we mean?!

And that was it. There was no other message; nothing solely from Clara to her sister to explain exactly what the hell was going on, just a group email announcing the imminent arrival of an ‘elf’. Katie scanned the cc list automatically. Just as she’d have thought – Clara hadn’t even bothered to include their mum. It did, however, include Louise. The selfish witch. Clara assumed her doctrine of ‘peace and forgiveness’ meant she was free to behave however she liked, and if other people didn’t like, it was their problem.

Katie sat down heavily. Well, this really was going to set the cat amongst the pigeons. But they’d been together,
what – six months? What on earth was she going to tell Louise? Louise, whose hopes had all been tied up in Max for years; who genuinely thought that when he had babies, they’d be hers?

She thought of her sister, out there where the air was heavy with dust and car fumes; spices and burning incense. How could she even confirm it for sure out there? She doubted it was that easy to find an over-the-counter pregnancy test there. She probably didn’t even know exactly how far gone she was. And how was she going to make sure she ate good food and drank safe water? And what about soft cheese and eggs and all those things you weren’t supposed to eat, and all those toxic emissions? Katie felt her heart speed up.

Still, she couldn’t deny how happy her sister sounded in the email. And then she thought, with sadness, about how happy Louise had seemed recently.

‘Don’t tell me. Jonny’s broken up with Janey and you just wouldn’t
believe
what Jemima said to Jessica?’

Katie eyed Harry. After he’d shown a more vulnerable side in the forest, she’d hoped for, maybe even counted on, a cessation of hostilities, but clearly this was not to be. Refusing to deign his stupid remark with a response, she got up and followed him to the door.

‘What’s the matter then?’ he asked, leading her out to the Land-Rover.

‘Nothing.’

Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m sorry, but I run a no-sulking office.’

‘I’m not sulking, OK? It’s personal.’

Just as she’d hoped, the very words ‘it’s personal’ worked on Harry like a charm. He shrank back from her as if she’d said ‘it’s leprosy’, and put the car in gear.

Ten minutes later and Harry’s constant sidelong glances
were beginning to drive her crazy, as was his furrowed expression. The road was busy, full of cars all going in the same direction.

‘You know where you’re going then?’ said Harry eventually.

‘No I don’t,’ said Katie. ‘I’m toddling along fine in London – well, in post-feminist terms anyway,’ she added, almost to herself, ‘then my idiot sister runs off with my best friend’s man, then I suddenly find myself up here and now my sister is up the stick, and I have to tell my best friend.’

After a ghastly pause, she realised that Harry had been asking if she knew where they were going in the car.

‘Sorry,’ they both spat out at the same time.

‘No, it’s my fault,’ said Harry, quickly. ‘Didn’t grow up knowing lots of girls, you know. Don’t really understand the rules. Sorry about what I said before too.’

‘Sorry, no, it’s me,’ said Katie, touched. ‘I just got a bit of a shock this morning, that’s all.’

‘From your sister?’

She nodded.

‘Is she…ahem, happy and everything?’

‘Seems to be,’ said Katie. ‘She’s in India. Finding herself. And someone else, as it turns out. She’s probably going to have the baby there.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ mused Harry. ‘Bit like the
Jungle Book –
the baby can be brought up by bears and things like that.’

Katie cut him a look.

Harry looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, I haven’t spent that much time around babies either. Or in India, really.’

Katie smiled for the first time that morning. ‘What
have
you done?’

‘I’ve done things,’ said Harry. ‘Once I nursed a sick
badger back to health, even though you’re meant to turn them in.’

Katie nodded. ‘Anything else?’

Harry squinted. ‘Nope. That’s pretty much it.’

They were drawing near to a large field that was covered in tents and stands, with as many cars parked there as Katie had seen in the entire time she had been in Scotland.

As they parked in a muddy corner, Katie made her eighteenth mental note to get Olivia to send her up some of those new pretty wellies with the flowers on them; her boots were downright clumpy.

‘Where are we anyway?’ she asked, getting out of the car. ‘Literally.’

‘We’re at the county show of course,’ said Harry. ‘They’re about to start the judging. That’s why I needed you to hurry up.’

‘Why?’

‘Because everyone’s here. We need to speak to as many people as possible.’ He attempted to take on a wolfish expression, which failed him utterly. ‘Find out – subtly – if anyone’s been approached, you know, about selling off a bit of land for anything…’

‘Anything like a two-thousand-acre golf course, you mean?’

‘Subtlety, remember?’

‘Harry, are you
absolutely
sure you want to keep this a secret? After all, won’t you just start millions of rumours by asking shifty questions like this?’

‘Not if you do your job right.’

‘Surely it’s better if everyone knows what’s being proposed, then rises against it, united?’

‘No,’
said Harry. ‘For the last time, I don’t want a kind of panicky free-for-all, do you understand? Just be subtle,
and see what you can pick up. Ah, Laird Kennedy. How are you?’

Kennedy, more eyebrows than face, eyed Harry sternly. ‘Fine, Barr. When are you going to come and clear out the backwoods of my damn estate, eh? Every other bugger’s got development money pouring out their yazoos, and I want my share, do you hear me?’

‘But those trees have a fully integrated eco system…they’re as old as your family, Laird.’

‘And
they
don’t pay their way either.’ The old man sniffed. ‘You tree-huggers. No idea of the financial problems of real life. Don’t know if I can get through another winter in this perishing cold.’

Harry looked pained. Katie couldn’t quite see how he could continue with the topic of selling land now, without it sounding as though he was making a much appreciated offer.

‘Hello young Katie,’ said Kennedy, in a distinctly less crusty tone.

‘Hello Laird,’ said Katie.

Harry looked at her askance and ushered her off. ‘You know the Laird?’

‘I know lots of people,’ said Katie, just to annoy him. ‘Getting people on our side for when you give up your daft idea of keeping it all a secret.’

‘It’s not a daft idea,’ said Harry, looking cross. ‘It’s pragmatic.’

‘It’s daft,’ said Katie quietly, earning herself a warning look.

In the nearest tent they found, to Katie’s delight, row upon row of home-baked sponges, lemon tarts, jam tarts and large layered cakes, spread out as far as the eye could see, and for a second she forgot the forest, her sister and Louise completely.

‘Wow,’ she said to Harry. ‘If you ate something like this in London, the Atkins Police would come and chase you.’

‘Well, here it’ll be the real police,’ said Harry gravely. ‘Those are for the baking competition. Very competitive event. Michael Craven’s won for his black bun three years in a row now and it’s all getting very tense around here.’

A tall, rather skinny man wandered across. ‘Ah, Barr.’