Page 13 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

‘And what were you doing in Reading?’ Anna was still asking the questions.

‘I was working in a…’ Gemma seemed to start and then stop herself. ‘I was in marketing for a restaurant chain.’

Anna nodded. ‘Marketing. That’s what this place needs. Get some more people in.’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Good. Lots of people coming to see the Christmas lights.’ Anna nodded approvingly.

Gemma’s face was blank.

Anna’s expression was pointed. She shot a look at Pavel’s mum. ‘Even if they won’t be a patch on last year’s.’

‘The whole committee agreed on white lights,’ Nina huffed.

‘Not the whole committee,’ Anna muttered.

Pavel thought it might be time to step in. ‘I don’t think Gemma’s here to talk about the Christmas lights.’

Netty turned the conversation back to the newcomer. ‘So what are you planning?’

‘Erm… well…’

Bella jumped in. ‘We were talking about Hogmanay.’

‘What about it?’

‘Gemma is helping us plan a big event for New Year. Hopefully put this place on the map for functions and overnight stays.’

Flinty moved around the kitchen island to join the other three women of Lowbridge village. ‘What sort of event? All Americans wanting to tell you about their heritage?’

Bella sighed. ‘If they’re Americans who can pay then absolutely. And I’m sure you’ll all be delighted to share that great sense of Highland community with them. Right?’

‘Course we will, pet,’ Pavel’s mum agreed.

Anna shrugged. ‘I suppose I can get some shaggy-cow postcards and tins of shortbread in at the shop.’

‘Have you told Veronica about this?’ Flinty asked.

‘She knows we want to do events.’

‘Aye, but Hogmanay. I mean, it was before your time but Hogmanay at the castle used to be a big thing.’

Pavel didn’t remember that. ‘Was it?’

‘It used to be a big party for the great and good but the village as well. When did it stop?’ Flinty frowned. ‘It was long before Covid, wasn’t it?’

‘After Adam’s mother went,’ Anna muttered. ‘The old laird lost himself for a bit, I think.’

Flinty nodded. ‘Aye. It would have fallen back on Veronica to host and she…’ She paused. ‘I think she always struggled with that a bit.’ She looked up at Bella and Gemma. ‘She’s still the dowager lady though. She ought to be involved.’

Pavel caught Gemma’s frown. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

‘I thought Darcy was the dowager lady?’

Too late. She’d said it.

‘It’s complicated. The dowager is the laird’s mother,’ Bella explained.

‘Or the old laird’s widow,’ Anna added.

‘So Veronica was the dowager when the old laird was alive, but now he’s died everyone moves up a step. So two dowagers.’ Bella nudged Gemma on the arm. ‘And part of your job is very much keeping them both on side. Darcy’s easy.’

‘And Veronica?’ Gemma asked.

A short silence fell over the group.

‘Well, Darcy’s easy,’ Bella repeated.

‘So tell us about this Hogmanay thing?’ Pavel’s mum dragged them back to the previous topic.

‘I thought you wanted to talk about the parents and toddlers?’ Bella asked.

Nina patted a hand to her forehead. ‘Completely slipped my mind. Yes. I hope Pav paid you for storing the play stuff, but we still need to talk about parking and…’

‘Shall we go in the yellow room?’ Bella led Nina away. ‘I’ll let Gemma bring the rest of you up to date.’

Fantastic. Jodie watched her boss disappear into the heart of the castle and lifted her head to meet the three pairs of eyes opposite her.

To her side, Pavel was leaning on a cupboard.

He didn’t seem so keen to pepper her with questions but his presence was still front and centre of her mind.

There was something about the way he looked at her, something far more unnerving than the constant questions about Richmond and Reading and her past career.

She smiled as brightly as she could manage. Gemma would be great at this. Gemma was charming. Gemma didn’t fluster. What would Gemma do?

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Oh, don’t bother yourself. I can do that.’

Jodie was pushed back onto her stool as Flinty started filling the kettle.

‘You tell us about your big plans.’

‘OK. Well, New Year’s Eve.’

‘Hogmanay.’ All four of them corrected her.

‘Quite. Yeah. Well then, anyway.’ She peered at her notes.

She’d tried to write down all the things Bella was saying but her only plan at the moment was to try to read the plan she was claiming to have written to get the job and somehow hope the real Gemma had made it sufficiently detailed that fake Gemma could learn how to stage a gala event from one read-through.

That obviously hadn’t happened quite yet though.

‘The plan is for an event, which will be here, at the castle, on Hogmanay, for…’ For what?

‘For people to come to and to be at and…’

‘What people?’

‘People who buy tickets?’ Jodie tried.

‘So long as they’re not a hundred quid a pop like that McKenzie place,’ Flinty muttered.

‘Do they have a Hogmanay party there?’

‘Not like this,’ Flinty conceded. ‘Theirs is more the great and the good for McKenzie to schmooze up to. MPs and MSPs and all that. But if they did sell tickets you can bet they’d cost a pretty penny.’

Jodie wrote price? on her notepad.

‘Give us the chapter and verse then, love.’ Flinty, still the only one of the three women in front of her she actually knew, folded her arms.

‘Give her a break.’ That was Pavel. He was looking straight at her. Jodie looked back and caught his gaze. She found she was smiling.

Three other heads also swivelled towards Pavel, all offering much harder stares.

‘It’s only her first day.’

Flinty stepped back from the table and started pouring boiling water into the teapot.

‘Have you even introduced yourselves?’ Pavel added.

‘We met last night,’ Flinty replied.

‘And I’m Anna. I run the village shop.’ The older of the two strangers nodded a greeting. ‘And this is Netty. Nina’s through with Bella.’ She shot a look at Pavel. ‘All friends now.’

Flinty was pouring the tea. Anna was talking again. Netty was joining in too. From the hallway she could hear Dipper barking.

‘So how many people at this thing?’

Jodie barely registered the question.

‘And food? You’ll be doing food?’

‘Aye. Neeps and tatties.’

The voices were starting to swirl around her.

‘And haggis.’

‘No. That’s Burns Night.’

‘Well, obviously, but Hogmanay as well. My dad always did haggis at midnight.’

‘You can’t just give them haggis. They’ll need something before that.’

‘Especially if they’re going to be dancing.’

‘And drinks. Do you need a licence to do drinks?’

‘Only if you’re selling them, I think. Not if it’s in the ticket price.’

The voices kept talking. Talking, talking, talking. So many ideas and suggestions and questions. And it was all noise. Too much noise sometimes made Jodie feel like she was being pressed on from every side.

‘There’s your tea, pet.’ Flinty put the mug down at Jodie’s side, brushing her arm.

The brief touch jolted her into life. ‘Sorry. I have to go and…’

And she ran. Out of the kitchen and across the courtyard to escape towards the Dower House.

As she got nearer though she changed her mind.

She didn’t want to be back inside those walls with the images of Lowbridge’s history looking down at her.

She needed to be away somewhere she could breathe.

She carried on past the door to Adam’s walled garden and along the wall, and then up a small winding path that climbed up the hillside.

She didn’t stop until her lungs were burning and the breath was rushing from her body.

She squatted down. Her heart was drumming too fast still and her breath remained jagged.

She breathed as deep as she could, like her mum used to tell her to, and counted in her head.

Breathe in for four, three, two, one and hold.

And now breathe out for six, five, four, three, two, one.

And in… Forcing herself to slow and control her exhale was supposed to bring the feeling of pressure down.

She could see the grass, and her hand, and the knees of her trousers and… she looked up.

Oh.

She was on the top of the headland above the castle.

The water in front of her was deep blue-grey, and vast clouds rolled across the sky above her.

Across the water was a lush green island rising from the sea.

It was astonishing. So much beauty it was almost overwhelming, but the sense of overwhelm was spectacular rather than horrifying.

She inhaled the new feeling of comfort. Jodie was tiny.

That felt good. Whatever was freaking her out didn’t matter.

Next to the vast sky and the deep water everything in her head was too small to matter.

Jodie breathed in, long and slow and deep, without having to count.

Pavel started towards the door to check if Gemma was all right, just as his mother reappeared in the kitchen. ‘All sorted for parents and tots.’ She looked around. ‘Did you scare the new girl off?’

‘No!’

‘No.’ Anna and Flinty were in agreement.

‘Maybe,’ Netty conceded.

‘If we did she scares very easily. We were simply trying to help,’ Anna insisted.

She reached across the kitchen island and pulled Gemma’s pad towards her.

‘Let’s see what she’s got down then.’ She frowned as she read the first line.

‘“No cheese”. Well, you’ve got to have cheese if you’re doing a dinner. ’

Netty nodded. ‘Gotta have a cheeseboard.’

‘Even on a buffet,’ Nina added. ‘Everyone loves a bit of cheese. Except vegans.’

‘That’s true.’ Flinty sipped her tea thoughtfully.

‘Well, they won’t all be vegans.’

‘Some might,’ Pavel suggested. What was he doing? How did they manage to suck him in like this?

Anna turned to Netty. ‘Didn’t your lad go out with a vegan for a while?’

‘Tanya,’ Netty confirmed. ‘It was fine though. You can get special cheese.’

Anna neatly crossed out No on Jodie’s pad and wrote Vegan in its place. ‘See. They don’t know what they’re about without us keeping an eye.’

‘I’m going to go and make sure she’s all right,’ Pavel told them.

His mother looked up. ‘Who?’

‘Gemma. She ran out a bit suddenly.’

‘She did,’ Anna confirmed. ‘I wondered if it was her bowels.’

‘She won’t want anyone coming after her if it was her bowels.’

‘I don’t think…’ The women were back to poring over Gemma’s notebook. He left them to it.

Gemma Bryant wasn’t in the courtyard. She was staying, Pavel remembered, in the Dower House.

She’d probably have headed back there, and his mother was right – it was entirely possible that she’d rather be on her own, but she’d been upset.

He’d felt it when she’d spun out during the drive over on that very first day.

Pavel couldn’t put his finger on why, but he really didn’t like seeing Gemma upset.

There were no lights on at the Dower House.

He knocked once, and then twice, but there was no answer and no sign of movement inside. He carried on up the hill instead.

Gemma was sitting on her heels at the top of the cliff, fingers twisting into the grass, staring out across the loch towards Raasay and Skye.

For a second he thought he might be intruding and wondered about turning back, but he’d set out to check if she was all right.

And the need to make sure pulled at him. ‘Gemma,’ he called softly.

She didn’t turn.

‘Gemma!’ He raised his voice slightly. No response. He took a step closer. ‘Gemma!’

Finally she jolted alert and turned towards him. ‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realise…’ She shook her head. ‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘Are you OK?’

She pulled herself up to her feet, wiping the knees of her trousers with her palms. ‘Yes. Absolutely fine. I just needed…’

‘It’s OK. They can be a bit overwhelming if you’re not used to them.’ He grinned. ‘Or if you are.’

‘It’s not them.’ Gemma was still staring out across the sea. ‘I get a bit…’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘A bit what?’ If he knew what it was, maybe he could help.

‘Nothing.’ She nodded towards the view before them. ‘It’s beautiful here.’

‘It’s my favourite place.’

‘I can see why. I’d forgotten how much better I always feel by the sea. I grew up on the coast.’

‘I thought you were from Richmond?’

Of course she was. ‘Yeah. My grandparents were on the coast. I spent a lot of time there.’ The best lies started from the truth.

Her grandparents had lived on the coast. In the same house as her and her parents.

So Jodie had, indeed, spent a lot of time there.

‘Near Hastings. I don’t go back much now. ’

‘Are they still…’ He winced slightly. ‘I mean, are your grandparents still with us?’

‘My nan’s in a home. My grandpa died a while ago.’ That was true.

Pavel took a step towards her and turned to look out at the view. ‘My granddad died a few years back. My dad wasn’t around when I was little so Granddad was more like a dad. I miss him.’

It was easier to talk like this, both staring out to sea, not looking directly at each other.

‘I miss mine too. He was fun.’ She knew that was true, but it was hard now to grab hold of a specific memory.

The images that ran through her head were jumbled.

She could remember the house full of people and noise and animals.

She could remember walking on the pebbled beach with her granddad and him pointing out the waders and the seabirds, and he never got cross when Jodie got excited and shouted too loud and made the birds scatter.

‘He was kind when I found things hard.’ What was she saying?

Gemma wouldn’t be the type to stand on clifftops and get all melancholy staring out to sea.

Gemma was calm and sensible. Gemma wouldn’t drag all the attention on to herself.

‘I’m sorry about your granddad,’ she offered.

‘Thanks. He was a hard act to follow.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that he did a lot for people.’

‘Like you.’ She’d only been here five minutes but it was already crystal clear that Pavel was the guy the village came to if they needed something sorted out.

‘No.’ Pavel frowned. ‘I mean I try, but…’

Jodie told herself not to get dragged in. She wasn’t part of this. She was only passing through Lowbridge. ‘But what?’

‘It’s not enough. I just never quite live up to him, you know?’

Jodie couldn’t reply. She did know. She knew exactly what it was like to know you were letting everyone around you down, and she also knew that someone like Pavel Stone who was so clearly adored and fit right into this village couldn’t possibly feel that way at all.