Page 72 of One for the Road
“What?” I started, flicking out of the text exchange to find Heather blocking the entrance into the whisky distillery dunnage.
“I said, are you going to help me with this?”
“Right. Yeah, sorry.” I picked up the boxes of empty whisky bottles, ready to be filled. “Where do you want them?”
It was late Friday afternoon, and I’d left the surgery early to help Heather and Mal unload a delivery. They were a little short-staffed without April able to help.
The warehouse door stood open, and inside, well over a hundred whisky barrels were stacked four high in neat rows. The smell of earth mixed with yeast took me back to the single summer I’d worked here as a lad, when April’s late grandfather had run the distillery.
I’d bemoaned every second of it.
I’d been a pretentious wee shit back then – resenting the hours spent on manual labour, convinced they’d be better spent memorising metabolic pathways, or shadowing my dad at the surgery. In hindsight, the real issue was less philosophical. I wasn’t very good at it, and I liked to be good at everything.
“Bottling room,” Heather replied. She turned on her heel, leading the way around the side of the stone building to the stairwell around the back. I’d been surprised when I’d first heard that April and Mal employed Heather as general manager. She’d been such a scrappy wee girl, forever switching directions with her life, veering from one hastily imagined future to the next, until the twins were born and motherhood temporarily closed the door on her indecision.
I’d always imagined her working outdoors, as a hiking instructor or something, calloused hands and boots worn from miles of rugged terrain. Maybe becoming an artist, like our mother. Not many people knew it, but Heather was talented with a paintbrush. The distillery role seemed to fit her like a glove, though. She was a natural at being calm in chaos.
“You seem distracted,” she called over her shoulder. “Imean . . . you’re always distracted, but more distracted than usual today.”
I fought the urge to shut down that unfair assessment because, well, I was fucking distracted. “Just busy at work,” I said, shifting the boxes to rest higher on my chest as we headed up the stairs.
“Things are starting to pick up?”
“Aye.” Not exactly a lie.
For the first time since taking over, I finally felt like the surgery was running smoothly. After making a fool of myself at the committee meeting, a handful of the villagers had moved on from their grievances, not because they’d forgiven and forgotten, but because the next closest surgery was an hour’s drive to Portree. Convenience trumped principles, it seemed.
Honestly, I’d take it at this point.
Amy and I had fallen into an easier rhythm. I mean, she still thought I was the devil who was out to steal her job, but it felt closer to being frenemies than to outright hostility.
Or that’s what Isla had called it when I’d explained the situation to her last weekend when we’d taken Teddy for ice cream at the harbour.
“Everything’s going well with Isla?” Heather asked, fully committing to this Spanish inquisition.
I set the boxes down beside a large copper still. “Everything’s great,” I said, unable to contain my frown as I ran the back of my hand over my forehead. “Why? Did she say something?”
It had been over a week since that night in the garden.
Things weren’t exactly strained between us, but it was like . . . we were more aware of each other. That night had stripped a layer back. Pretence or not, we knew intimate details of each other’s lives. That couldn’t be undone.
She’d kept using my shower – always while I was at work, but I’d come home to find her shampoo bottle left behind in my shower caddy. Or a long blonde hair she’d missed stuck to the tiles. It irritated me far less than it should have.
It didn’t irritate me at all.
Thankfully, Teddy hadn’t seemed to notice the change. After our harbour outing last week, ice cream had turned into pizza back at their place. Once she’d finished demolishing an amount of food that should have required a small ceremony, Teddy laid out on the sofa, watching a musical that hit harder than caffeine.
“This is my favourite, Ali. You have to watch it.” One film had turned into two. Teddy on my right, Isla on my left.
My entire body had buzzed with electricity. We hadn’t laid a single finger on each other, and yet I’d felt more aware – my heart thundering faster – than when I’d had her pinned to that toilet door. I refused to rationalise it.
From there, I’d tried to push us back on track, keeping all of our interactions public. Risk-free walks on the beach. Hot drinks at Brown’s: Jess’s distrustful glare free of charge. I’d even taken them to the small pop-up cinema where we’d run into Juniper and Callum in the confectionery line.
Callum had grinned like a maniac while eagerly recounting the time we’d kayaked out to the Isle of Raasay as teenagers and I’d been forced to inflate my life jacket after falling overboard.
I’d paid for all our food, including Juniper’s two separate bags of popcorn, then we’d all sat together to watch the film. It had felt nice. Normal. The way hanging out with Callum used to feel.
“Don’t worry,” Heather laughed, the sound echoing off the walls as we made our way back down the stairs. “I hungout with Isla yesterday; she was suitably starry-eyed. But I think I like this side of you.”
