Surely we can survive it?
* * *
My God, his father looks like him...or rather Ash looks like his father.
And they’re cracking me up. They’re like a double act, with Ash the unwilling participant, and it’s priceless.
Peter is whizzing us cross-country in his Land Rover, which looks older than me and smells fresh of wet Border collie. And he’s using the trip to point out several of Ash’s firsts. That’s where he did his first stand-up wee; that’s where he learned to ride a bike; that’s where he face-planted in a cowpat... It’s a brilliant tour, steeped in Livingston history. And made all the more entertaining by the colour creeping so high in Ash’s cheeks that he looks sunburned.
I smile at him, sitting there in the front passenger seat, while I grip the grab handle for dear life and take a face licking from Dotty, the youngest and most boisterous of three collies.
‘You okay back there with them?’ Ash asks, stroking the head of Dolly, the eldest collie, deemed sensible enough to sit upfront.
‘Absolutely.’
My jeans have taken a beating, muddy paw prints galore, but my raincoat has protected my baby pink cashmere jumper from the worst. Not that I’d care if it hadn’t. This is fun. Real fun. Even with his father’s daredevil driving.
‘How far is the house?’ I ask, feeling in part to blame for Ash’s heightened colour and thinking it might spare him any further embarrassing commentary if we discuss something else.
I look at those endearing streaks in his cheeks and my stomach flips, failing to land right when we’re propelled over a mini swell in the rugged terrain.
‘Just over the crest of this hill,’ his father pipes up.
I lean forward to gaze through the windscreen at the sharp incline ahead and laugh. ‘You call this a hill?’
Both men grin as they look at one another.
Clearly what constitutes a hill in Scotland is not the same as for London. But, seriously, it’s essentially a mountain—and naturally beautiful with it. All green and rocky crags, with the occasional track carved out.
‘Have you been to the Highlands before?’ his father asks.
‘No.’ It’s a squeak, and my grip is tightening even more as we hit a particularly bumpy patch. I fear being catapulted to the other side of the Land Rover, regardless of the seat harness.
‘Ah, then you’re in for a treat. You should come back in the summer, when the heather is in bloom and it’s a blanket of purple out there.’
‘She’s not even stayed once yet, Pop.’
Ash’s eyes flit to me, and the hope in his eyes chimes with my own.
‘I can imagine I’d like that a lot.’
‘My mother was from up here, and although she married an Englishman, her heart never left,’ his father says, his voice unaffected by the rattling around us, although my insides feel like they’re about to clamber up and out of my body. ‘She would bring us here holidaying when I was a boy, and I bought this place not long before Ash was born. It was a bargain back then.’
We reach the crest as he says it, the car finally hitting an actual road and going quiet, smooth. I relax—only to have my lips part in surprise at the enchanting view ahead.
‘It was our country retreat until I’d had enough of the city life altogether. Then it became my home.’
‘But is it...? Is it meant to look like a castle?’ My words are almost a whisper, as if speaking any louder will break the spell of what I can see.
‘I think the wealthy trader who built it in the nineteenth century fancied himself a bit royal...’ His father gives a hearty chuckle. ‘And, considering the moat he fashioned around it, I’d say he was none too popular either.’
He turns to look at me briefly.
‘Just don’t expect much on the inside, though. It’s only me and the dogs now, so I stick to the west wing. Easier to keep clean that way.’
‘West wing—got it.’
Ash raises his brow at me. ‘He’s not kidding either, the place needs a lot of work in parts, so don’t expect anything too grand.’