Page 35 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

‘Secret, and casual. Except we weren’t casual any time we were alone together.

It felt serious enough then! We even stayed with his sister in Lucerne for a week.

I babysat her kids, for Pete’s sake! Anyways, Andreas would leave the apartment half an hour before I left in the mornings; he’d take his car and I’d cycle to work, and he didn’t acknowledge me once I got there, acted like he barely knew me, when the night before he’d have been promising me the stars. ’

‘I get it.’ She knew great big red flag behaviour when she heard about it these days, now that she was wiser.

She wasn’t, however, used to counselling her sophisticated, cool-hearted brother about these things. How had this role reversal happened?

‘So you couldn’t help catching feelings for the boss man?’ she asked.

‘You’ve seen Andreas, right?’

Ally had to admit he was beyond handsome. She couldn’t blame Murray for falling headlong into a messy situation with the guy.

‘He promised he’d make it official once my probationary period was up, like it might ruin my chances with the charity if it got out beforehand.

But that time came and went, and still nothing.

Things carried on the same, and I’d sneak into his building round the back, and the next day he’d ignore me in the coffee line but then grab my arse at the back of a packed elevator, straight-faced and bold as brass. ’

Ally could see how that might be kind of exciting for a while, but the sugar glaze on Murray’s face told a different story.

‘He was running hot and cold on you,’ she said.

A solemn nod from her brother. ‘After a while that kind of thing gets to you. When I was last in Zurich, he had to attend a fancy evening event for work, a big do for all our corporate and philanthropic donors, and I happened to be invited too, and… there he was, with David on his arm.’

‘Who’s David?’

‘Some old billionaire tax-dodging hunk with, like, three yachts and fingers in multiple aerospace programmes. He’s one of the charity’s biggest private benefactors – big as in there’s a whole wing of our building named after him.

Everyone loves him. He’s always hosting parties and he flies colleagues out to his homes all over the place for holidays, you know, as perks? ’

‘Sounds like a good person to be friendly with! And he and Andreas were…’ Ally didn’t know how to put it. ‘Involved?’

‘Yep. And they were out together in broad daylight, in their tuxes, adjusting each other’s ties, and all our colleagues were smarming over them like they were the cutest thing they’d ever seen. Ugh! And I knew I shouldn’t say anything…’

‘Oh no!’ This couldn’t be good. ‘What did you do?’

‘I couldn’t stop myself. I marched right over there and asked Andreas what the hell he was playing at. He tried to laugh me off and be all charming and blond and smiley. He even tried introducing David to me, like I didn’t already know who he was.’

‘Ugh!’

‘Exactly! And I told him to cut it out. That’s when Andreas excused us both and walked me outside.

Man, he was furious! He said I was making a scene, which I barely was, honestly!

He reminded me we were only ever a casual thing, whereas he and David went way back and he thought I, of all people, should understand that. ’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘As his side piece, is what he meant.’

‘What a creep.’

‘Yeah.’ Murray’s enthusiasm for telling the story waned. ‘When I went back to his apartment my key card had been de-activated and my bags were waiting for me by the dumpster.’

Ally held a hand to his arm as Murray dropped his half eaten donut into the box and shut the lid, sick of himself.

‘What did you do after that?’

He shrugged. ‘I went back to the bro pad for a while, watched them high-fiving each other over bench presses and mixing their kale and protein powder smoothies, but I couldn’t show my face at work. I had to get away. So now I’m here.’

‘So, you didn’t quit?’

‘Not as such.’

‘And you didn’t get picked to go to Mali?’

‘Would you pick the guy everybody now thinks had some kind of embarrassing, jealous crush on his senior colleague and made a twat of himself at a work event in front of all the rich donors?’ Murray’s voice cracked.

‘The thing that hurts most is that David is actually a really sweet man, and Andreas probably does like him a lot.’ His voice dropped an octave.

‘Liked him more than me. And he wasn’t ashamed to be seen out with him, unlike me, the lowly employee. ’

‘What? Lowly ?’ Ally wasn’t letting that slide. ‘You have no idea how much I admire what you do.’

‘You really don’t have to say that, sis.’

‘I’m not kidding. You do such important work.

You change lives. And so what? Maybe you weren’t getting paid the mega bucks, and you didn’t have a lake view penthouse and live in the lap of luxury…

but I’d still have killed for a job like that.

’ She was riled now, couldn’t help herself.

‘You’ve seriously no idea how hard it is to have a walking talking double of yourself out there in the world doing all of this amazing, planet-changing stuff when you’re stuck at home and can’t seem to get moving. ’

Murray turned in his seat to watch her, like he was learning something for the first time.

‘And I know I was lucky to have a job at all,’ she conceded, ‘but I can’t tell you how bored I was with it all.

The same customer service script every day.

The same clocking in and clocking out and scheduled bathroom breaks and those customers who really, really should just write their logins down somewhere and maybe they wouldn’t keep getting locked out of their own systems! God, I was so sick of the whole thing.’

‘Wow!’ Murray’s eyes had turned very big and round.

Ally didn’t mind that she was scaring him a little. She had to share what she’d been going through all alone while he was living his phoney Insta-perfect life in Switzerland.

‘I was left wondering why I was stuck. Why me? I kept thinking. And if I couldn’t blame good old-fashioned sexism, then maybe I had to face the truth. The problem was me, not being good enough.’

‘Och! That’s some nonsense, right there,’ Murray interjected.

‘It didn’t stop me getting all in my head about it. For a while I felt like everyone else had moved on and forgotten me. All my friends, you, everybody.’

‘We were all just busy, doing our own things. Having our own problems, some might say disasters .’ Murray offered a wry smile.

‘I know that now. I saw it when I met the girls. They’re all struggling too, in their own ways. Life is just hard for people our age. We have to do it all, and maybe without the same support structures or as many chances of success as some older folk had. And in this economy!’

Murray nodded like he’d never heard a truer word spoken. ‘So you figured out for yourself that you weren’t actually behind. You’re exactly where you ought to be.’

Ally settled back into the driver’s seat, uncurling her legs and slipping her feet back into her shoes before taking another donut and giving it a pensive bite. ‘I suppose I did.’

She chewed, and for a moment things felt like they used to, Ally and Murray, a little like chalk and cheese, but still undeniably twinned forever.

‘Jamie helped too. I think I’d have gotten there on my own eventually, but there’s something about him that brings out the best in me, fast-tracking me towards wanting to try new things and see things from a new perspective.’

‘Huh.’ Her brother was looking at her, thinking. ‘And you spent the other day with him, trapped in a bothy?’

Ally took another bite, hoping if she chewed hard enough he’d miss her reddening face. Not likely, the way he was examining her, a salacious smile dawning.

‘And you’re planning on seeing him again?’ he said.

This made her pause. The uneasy feeling she’d had saying goodbye to him on Friday came flooding back now.

‘What does he think about you going off to Switzerland?’

Ally was the one in the hot seat now, but there was no getting away from the fact that she hadn’t a clue where she stood.

‘When I told him I’d got the job, he was delighted for me.’

‘Okay? You say that like it’s a bad thing.’

‘You don’t get it, he was so happy for me; there wasn’t even the slightest hint of realisation that it meant I’d be nine hundred miles away from him with a full-time job for twelve whole months.’

‘Longer if they like you.’

Ally’s heart made a pained little jump.

‘Oh yeah,’ Murray went on. ‘If they’re impressed with you, they’ll probably offer to extend your contract at the end of it. That’s what happened to me, remember? I was only supposed to be there to oversee one project.’

‘Right.’ Just what she didn’t need, even more bombshell surprises to process.

She’d barely known how to respond to Jamie’s voice note on Saturday morning. She played it for her brother now, since all hope of retaining any dignity was gone and they may as well both wallow in the misery together.

‘Listen to this,’ she said, clicking play.

‘Hey, Ally, it’s me. Jamie. Jamie Beaton.

I mean obviously it is. How many Jamies do you know?

Actually, scrub that, you might know a few.

Who am I to say? It is a common name. Oh God, let me start over.

Hi! I had a great time yesterday. I’m here till the ninth, it turns out, umm…

Of course, you’ll be busy, preparing for your new job.

Which is great, by the way. In case you think I don’t think it’s great.

It is, really great. I’m, uh, not very good at these messages.

OK, I should go. Umm… OK. Cheerio. And congratulations again. Bye… OK bye.’

‘Someone needs to tell that man how to handle the Day After Phone Call, jeez!’

‘I’m glad you think it’s funny,’ winced Ally.

‘So what are you going to do?’

Ally exhaled hard. ‘He’s leaving soon, you heard him. A couple of days before I head to Zurich, as it happens. What can we do? Other than go our separate ways and be glad we knew each other for a while.’

‘You’re not going to be happy with that.’

Murray was right, of course, but what choice did she have?

‘Our timings were just off,’ she said, injecting as much maturity into it as she could. ‘Right person, wrong time. It’s a mismatch.’

Just like Jamie had explained. There was nothing wrong with either of them, nothing she’d change about him, nothing she needed to change about herself to make them a better couple. Only they were on different paths. A mismatch.

‘We really should have bought some tea,’ Murray said, inspecting his sugar-coated teeth in the sun visor mirror.

‘Totally should have,’ Ally agreed, trying to pack away the sorry feeling in her chest. ‘So, what happens now for you? Don’t you still have a job to go to?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Murray.

‘There’s only one way to find out.’ She buckled her seatbelt and turned the engine over, before tapping his phone through his shirt pocket.

He looked down at it like she’d pulled the pin from a grenade. ‘What?’

‘Call Barbara Huber, our boss. She’s in charge, remember? Not Andreas bloody Favre.’

‘I can’t. What if she knows about us? I’ve no idea what Andreas told her.’

‘You don’t have to tell her anything. Assume she’s got some idea what her office workers are up to in their private time.

And you know, maybe a secret affair reflects badly on him, and not you, the innocent party in all this?

You didn’t do anything wrong, as far as I can tell.

’ She let the handbrake off and pulled out of the parking space.

‘Can’t I just drown myself in donuts for the rest of my life?’

‘Talk with her. If not for you, do it for me.’ They made it out of the multi-storey and onto the ramp for the main road.

‘I’m flying out there in a week. You don’t want me answering awkward questions about your whereabouts when you’ve not had the chance to explain your side.

’ She hazarded a side glance at her brother.

He thought for a moment before dialling. As the ringtone sounded he hissed out of the side of his mouth, begrudgingly impressed, ‘Since when did you have all the answers figured out?’

Ally’s smile withered away as Murray spoke with Barbara, the uncomfortable reality sinking in fully; there was still one great big glaring aspect of her life that was far from figured out and she had no idea what the answer was.

Following her feelings for Jamie was impossible, what with her European escape on the horizon, and Jamie was only too thrilled that she was leaving, or at least he wasn’t upset that she was.

Besides, he had his all-important transition into the regular police service to focus on, and his family to deal with.

She told herself again that theirs was, unfortunately, a mismatch.

Only, every time she remembered the heat of the bothy fireside and the way Jamie had said her name in staggered gasping breaths, his back arching, the silvering scar on his brow flashing in the flames, she couldn’t help thinking how they’d seemed, briefly, absolutely perfect for one another.