Page 31 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

‘Not yet,’ Jamie told him. ‘We’ve a picnic to have first. Up at this open spot with the bothy?’ He showed Finlay on the app. Their destination was greeted with a look of surprise.

‘I’ve heard it’s a beautiful view,’ Ally threw in, wanting to placate this wild man of the mountains who clearly thought them a pair of dunderheads.

‘Beautiful, aye, it is,’ Finlay conceded. ‘But this park can be deadly for the underprepared. Have ye provisions?’

‘Tea and sandwiches,’ Ally said, quick as a flash. ‘And some of Senga Gifford’s drop scones.’

This piqued his interest. ‘Senga fi the repair shop café?’

‘That’s right.’ So the woman’s baking really was famed the whole park over? Wait until she tells the old crow about this; her head will swell even bigger.

Ally was already untying the drawstrings on Jamie’s backpack and pulling out the plastic tub Senga had forced upon her this morning, saying Jamie would need sustenance if he was hillwalking.

She’d been positively starstruck at the thought that the local hero might be saved from starvation and exposure by her baking.

Finlay looked at the pack with furtive interest, like a squirrel sniffing out nuts.

‘Would you like one?’ Ally shoved the tub closer.

‘I couldnae…’ Finlay began, but as Ally stripped the plastic lid off, revealing the golden discs, he weakened.

He reached for one. Immediately biting into it, taking a moment to look at it in his hand as he chewed.

‘Nice, right?’ said Ally.

This was enough to draw him back to his job.

‘Get that back in his backpack,’ he snapped, gesturing to the box of drop scones. ‘If you stumble, you need your hands free to catch yourself. Ever had a broken wrist on a mountainside? Nae fun.’

‘Oh! Right.’ She quickly obeyed and packed their provisions away.

Jamie hoofed the bag higher onto his shoulders and clipped the support straps across his chest. ‘Well, it was nice to meet you. I think we’re ready for our wee daunder now, up to the picnic stop.’

‘A daunder?’ echoed Finlay. ‘A daunder !’ He shook his head at the audacity. ‘Be sure to keep an eye on the weather closing in. I’ll give it an hour before the cloud cover sinks doon upon us.’

‘Got it,’ said Jamie, chastened.

Finlay knew his warning hadn’t landed. ‘If I end up having to leave ma dinner and come oot to find yous pair after dark with one of yur legs snapped in twain, you’ll be mair feared o’ me than any doctor wi’ a stookie!’

‘Um?’ Jamie looked to Ally in confusion.

‘Thanks for the advice,’ Ally told the exasperated ranger. ‘I promise we’ll be safe.’

Yet the man still wasn’t convinced. ‘You’ve your phones charged fully?’

‘Yes,’ Ally and Jamie answered as one.

‘Well, turn one off for now. Nae point draining twa at the same time. There’s no telling when you’ll need to ring rescue services.’

‘Good point.’ Ally dived into her trouser pocket and swiped her phone off.

Observing them with world-weary derision, Finlay tapped at his temple before turning the same finger on the walkers. ‘Stay alert.’

‘Wow,’ Ally whispered as the ranger went on his way. ‘Didn’t know we’d meet the man who owned the actual mountains!’

Jamie laughed as they moved up the path once more and it felt good and conspiratorial, but that deep seed of sympathy planted in him as a kid was still present.

‘I’ll bet he’s seen some awful things out here. He’s probably scared to bits every time he sees a bunch of people messing about on the hills like it’s a day at a theme park.’

They were so close to accessing the mountain pass, Ally felt the air change. She didn’t know if it was the altitude, or the draw of the granite, or this guy always thinking with his heart that was doing it.

‘That’s fair. So many people have got on the mountain and never made it down again.

’ She shivered like she always did when she thought of the stories, impressed in her all her life, about tragic school and scout groups, lone hikers and lost children.

They’d put the fear of the mountains into her and it had never left.

‘But does he have to be quite so dramatic?’

This raised another gentle laugh.

‘Did you grow up scrambling these paths?’ Jamie was growing a little breathless. Ally was glad to know it wasn’t just her finding it harder going the higher they ascended.

‘Not so much as you’d think. Dad was always working, pretty much, and Mum had a lot on her plate with me and Murray, and for a long time she was looking after our granddad too. We’d come out onto the paths now and again…’ she shrugged.

‘But you weren’t bagging Munros every weekend?’

‘Hah! With Murray in tow? Hardly. He’s always preferred a coffee shop or a beach, or a big city.

’ This stopped Ally. ‘In fact,’ she said, turning back to point into the wide vista.

‘Over there somewhere is a loch with a pink sandy beach.’ Jamie stopped and peered too.

‘You can’t see it from here, the mists are obscuring it, but we went there for days out, more often than not. ’

‘Visibility’s not as good as it was,’ Jamie said. ‘Should we have our picnic and head back down?’

‘What? No, we’re almost at the bothy. Just a bit further.’ The truth was she wanted today to last as long as possible, now that she was enjoying herself.

He checked his app once more and they turned and followed the ever-decreasing red dotted line tracking how far they still had to go.

There were a thousand things she wanted to ask him as they walked.

Was he excited at the prospect of returning to Edinburgh?

Would he continue volunteering there until he heard one way or another about whether he’d been selected for the intake of rookie regulars?

She guessed he would. He was born for the street beat.

Other things she wanted to know clamoured in her mind as she placed down her boots, step after step.

Would he miss her? Would he ever come back to visit?

Had he looked at the Edinburgh to Cairn Dhu train timetable any time lately?

Like she had last night, trying not to hope for things.

To shut off these thoughts, she landed on something safe. ‘How’s your dad been?’

‘Uh, well…’ Had she asked the wrong thing? His face was set and serious. ‘He’s gone quiet again.’

‘Again?’

‘Yeah, he doesn’t mean to. It’s something he’s always done. It’s like he loses all his words. Karolyn says he’s shuffling round the house like a sleepwalker. He’s doing all the usual stuff; picking up the newspaper, doing the online shop, loading the dishwasher, but he’s barely talking.’

‘Do you think it’s depression, maybe?’ Ally didn’t want to be too presumptuous, but she’d seen the man with her own eyes and there was a lurking sadness in him that day at the shed, even though he was doing his best to support his son.

‘It comes and goes,’ Jamie said, like there was nothing that could be done.

‘Has he ever had any help? A doctor? What about bereavement counselling?’ She reined it in before she turned into Little Miss Solution Finder. It was in her nature to try and fix things for other people, but she knew hearts were a tricky thing to repair.

‘Those aren’t things he’ll talk about. He’s got that keep calm and carry on thing going on, like loads of dads. Can’t say it’s worked for him so far.’

Ally was imagining Jamie’s childhood, putting together the puzzle pieces from the little she’d gleaned. No wonder he’d been so sad when they first met.

On impulse, she put her hand in his once more. Touching him again was enough to cast a new kind of spell, something bigger than the dizzying mountain mood, something alive and electric, stronger than childhood memories and present worries.

‘You should talk with him,’ she said, and not without some difficulty. She felt herself getting breathless as they fell into a slow, matching stride, their arms rubbing together. ‘Now you’ve got some perspective on home.’

He thought about this.

She caught him plumping his lip pensively.

‘Reckon I could. I need to do something before I head back there.’

The rocky boulder-strewn path was opening up to rough, scrubby walking.

As they stepped inside the wide mountain pass between the great walls of Mount Cairn Dhu, the temperature fell sharply.

The air was damp. What little sunlight was making its way through the white-grey cloud cover suddenly dimmed further.

They were getting deeper now. Getting drawn in.

Their eyes fell upon a low drystone wall sitting oddly alone in the middle of the scrub. Ally recognised its purpose, but allowed Jamie to approach it, wondering if he could work out what it was.

She watched as he stepped around and inside the strange snail-shell curl of stones, some of its top stones had fallen and were strewn on the ground of dry grass and alpine plants so flattened by weather and boots it was like a dense, tough carpet.

‘It’s a storm shelter?’ he said, squatting down inside it so the top of his head disappeared from view.

‘It is.’ Ally approached the wall, following its curve until she found Jamie crouched inside its protective arms. ‘Walkers caught unawares can pitch their bivvy inside and, hopefully, emerge unharmed when the storm passes.’

He looked oddly at home inside the little curve, already stretching his legs out before him. ‘Good spot for a picnic?’

Ally looked deeper into the pass. ‘Hmm, if you aren’t afraid of adders.’

Jamie sprung up. ‘Adders?’

‘I didn’t say there were any. I just mean, you’d have to poke about a bit with a stick in case there are some in there.’

‘Maybe we’ll keep walking,’ he said decidedly, and Ally followed him on up the pass, their laughter getting lost in the dampening air.

Ally wished they were still holding hands as they climbed up towards the bothy, its white walls and grey roof just visible at the top of the curve of the pass, but the walking was getting harder and she had to pick her steps alongside a shallow spring that had come from nowhere and was making the walking soggy underfoot.

‘So…’ Jamie said from a few paces behind her. ‘Any news of Switzerland?’ The question made her heart soar as high as the buzzards.

He’d remembered. She’d not mentioned it since the night at the Ptarmigan, but he was still thinking about the possibility of her leaving. That had to mean something.

‘Well, when you were recuperating, I had a second interview,’ she called over her shoulder, wishing she could see how that news landed. She didn’t dare glance back in case he thought he was being tested, observed for signs of distress.

She told him in a jolly way all about how she’d presented the glamorous Andreas Favre and Barbara Huber, as well as someone from HR, with her plans for growing the repair shop and café as a shared space with the aim of repairing their community, sharing skills at risk of being lost, bringing people together and combatting loneliness.

She told him about how meeting up with her girlfriends had been the deciding factor.

She’d seen how isolated and lonely they were, just like she’d been, and how tough things were, and she’d come up with her strategy.

He’d listened as she outlined all the suggestions the repair café experts had come up with to help her make it a reality too.

‘And I presented all that stuff to Future Proof Planet, along with how you helped me bring people back to the repair shop after the whole stolen jewellery thing.’

There was admiration in Jamie’s voice when he said, ‘I hope you took credit for that yourself and didn’t mention me.’

‘Of course I mentioned you in my presentation.’ It was getting harder to walk and talk.

She gulped for breath. ‘It was a collaboration. Fifty-fifty as far as I remember? You were running around knocking on just as many doors as me. And you got snooty Carenza on side. I couldn’t have done that without you. ’

The bothy was getting bigger and the clouds grew lower. Ally had to swipe droplets of moisture from her face as they walked deeper into the mountain mists.

‘We made a good team,’ he said.

The words hung amidst the suspended rain droplets as they walked the last few yards to the squat little stone cottage, one of many all across the Highlands, left unlocked for walkers needing rest and shelter.

They did make a good team. Ally couldn’t deny it.

Jamie was calm and firm and persistent. He saw the good in everyone.

She’d learned recently how tenacious she really was, and she had an innate appetite for fixing things and a curiosity about the world that had only recently been re-ignited, in part due to the man who was now coming to join her in front of the door of the bothy, his hand reaching for the handle at the same time as hers.

Somehow, he was reading her mind because he said the exact thing she was thinking at that moment.

‘I hope there’s nobody else inside. I want it to ourselves.’

His hand on hers, they turned the handle and pushed the door open.