Page 8 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

McIntyre family cautioned by police over fenced jewellery scam

The headline held the whole family transfixed as they gathered around the breakfast table a week after the policemen’s visit, chewing toast they had no appetite for.

‘Why did you buy the weekend paper?’ Roz asked her husband. ‘We haven’t taken the papers since you finished at the factory.’

‘Ach, it’ll come in handy for moppin’ up spilt oil,’ McIntyre tried to joke.

‘We weren’t cautioned!’ Ally objected. ‘It was a casual ticking off, if anything.’

‘It’s the online news you’ve got to worry about,’ added Murray from the doorway, where he was scrolling on his phone.

The fact his dad had made the TV news again (and for all the wrong reasons this time) had been enough to bring Ally’s twin brother home from Zurich.

‘Side bars, click bait, comment sections.’

Charlie McIntyre pulled his own phone from the pocket of his overalls.

‘I wouldn’t look if I were you,’ Murray tolled ominously. ‘Why aren’t the police trying to find the burglars?’

‘I’m sure they are, but until they’ve actually caught them, the reporters have to find a local angle for the story, and for now that’s us,’ said Roz, sipping her tea and refusing to read any of this stuff. ‘Anyway, I’m just glad to have the both of you home.’

This drew distracted smiles from the twins as they scrolled.

Roz McIntyre didn’t play favourites. She had always treated her children exactly the same.

If one had got a Beano , the other got The Dandy .

If one had fallen off their bike on the gravel and skint their knee, the other would receive a hug and kisses just as soon as the injured twin was off running and smiling again after being rocked on their mum’s lap.

‘I had a bit of leave saved up,’ said Murray, with a small shrug.

He hadn’t actually sat down since he got in from the airport two hours ago, Ally noticed. He’d stood by the door, leaning on the fridge. Maybe he had a car waiting? He was becoming the sort of eco-business dude who always had an (electric) car waiting.

Ally had no excuse for being a teensy bit envious of her successful, jet-setter, probably-raking-it-in brother, even if they had shared a womb, and every classroom they ever sat in, and a degree course and a graduation ceremony.

She was still hugely proud of him. She didn’t mind too much that he’d outstripped her in the achievement stakes.

And yes, everyone at college had made a big fuss of the fact they were twins. They’d been asked a hundred times, ‘Didn’t you want to study different subjects?’ and ‘Aren’t you a bit sick of each other by now?’

The truth was they were pretty similar, academically, although Ally was more practical, more of a fixer, than her brother, and she’d always enjoyed taking things apart to see how they worked; while Murray had more of a talent for understanding how people worked.

He was popular, cheery and confident in ways Ally mostly only pretended to be.

Even though they’d applied for the same jobs straight out of college, it was Murray whose career had somehow gone interstellar.

She was happy for him, truly, although his promotion to the Switzerland HQ of the Future Proof Planet global charity had come at a hard time for Ally, straight after lockdown when she’d been consigned to spending her weekday mornings at a laptop in her jammies and wearing a headset, asking confused customers if they could turn their computer off and on again, while he’d been flown business class to his own place with a mountain lake view, its own spa and a steam room, chauffeur, cleaning team and free health care.

Not that she grudged him any of those things. Much.

His job meant corporate sponsor schmoozing and celebrity parties on a gobsmacking level, and Ally didn’t really enjoy parties.

It’s amazing, Ally had observed, how some charities have to do so much of that sort of thing if they wanted to keep up their international reputation and bring in the donors.

Though her brother always maintained that their entire spending on fundraising activities, no matter how lavish they appeared, was reaped tenfold in donations which went entirely towards the charity’s mission of bringing communities together to sustain their own small part of the planet.

Fortunately for Murray, he loved parties and schmoozing and celebrities. A bit too much maybe, if his sunken eyes were anything to go by.

Ally had missed her brother when he was suddenly far away. Growing up, he’d been her closest friend and her best advisor, especially later on when it came to men.

Murray only dated the most eligible guys in the European sustainability sector these days, and he’d been incredibly picky through college, barely condescending to notice anyone, in fact, especially if they were keen on him. Keenness gave him the ick.

If Murray had stuck around a little longer, he’d have got the read on Gray way before anyone else. He’d probably have told her to dump him. She wouldn’t have listened, but that’s beside the point.

Still, she was glad for her brother. He worked hard and played harder, and brought in millions in donations for Future Proof Planet and in turn that helped people and communities and ecosystems all over the world.

‘Putting the sus in sustainability,’ came their dad’s voice suddenly. ‘That’s what somebody called ClimateSceptic11329 says about us.’

All eyes turned to McIntyre.

‘I’m reading these comments under our cyber news story.’

‘I don’t think they call it cyber news, it’s just news,’ corrected Roz gently.

‘Outfits like this so-called repair shop are the reason people can’t trust do-gooders, says SusanneF1954.’ McIntyre lowered the phone. ‘This’ll be on the web forever, won’t it?’

No one liked to tell him he was probably right.

‘You could sue the news organisation for reputational damage,’ said Murray unhelpfully.

‘Anonymous keyboard warriors posting comments in their underpants on the other side of the world aren’t the people who matter,’ insisted Ally, giving her brother a stern look. ‘Half of them will be bots, anyway.’

‘Uh…’ Murray got the message. ‘Aye, Ally’s right. And it won’t make any difference here on the ground. Probably.’

‘What will you be wanting for tea tonight?’ Roz interrupted, doing her best to move things on.

‘How about I take you all out, eh?’ Murray was saying, before his phone rang and he carried it into the garden, speaking the broken French he’d picked up in Switzerland.

‘I think I’ll do some nuggets and hoops,’ Roz said decidedly, trying to lighten the atmosphere that had hung heavy since last Saturday and the police visit. ‘He’ll not have had those in a while.’

They all smiled at this, but the truth was they were worried.

Cairn Dhu was a whispering place and neighbours liked to know everyone’s business while pretending they didn’t gossip.

The McIntyres hadn’t ventured out to the hotel bar to face everyone all week, and nor had anybody called round to extend their sympathies and solidarity after the news report.

‘Maybe Morag Füssli’s right, and folks will lose trust in us?’ McIntyre was saying in a low voice to his wife.

Ally’s heart faltered to hear him so worried. Who knew what today would bring at the repair shed?

McIntyre checked his watch with a resigned sigh. ‘Well, it’s time to open up,’ and he was on his feet and out the door.

Ally stood too, stretching in her long, green summer dress with the little white flower sprigs all over; a Y2K vintage bargain from Cairn Dhu’s only charity shop, in aid of mountain rescue.

‘Just try, OK?’ her mum said, catching her off guard.

‘Eh?’

‘I know it’s not easy having Murray home and everything…’

‘Not easy eating our way through the Swiss chocolate he always brings with him?’ Ally tried, not liking that her mum was picking up on the part of her she was most ashamed of.

‘His doing well for himself doesn’t diminish your achievements.’ Roz’s voice was soft, not chiding.

‘What achievements?’ Ally couldn’t help it. She hadn’t even heard back from her brother’s boss about her application. Even twin nepotism wasn’t helping her get ahead.

Her mum cleared the table. ‘Oh come on, you’re doing well in life. Considering.’

‘Considering I was born a girl and Murray has all the added benefits of being a bro in a bros world?’

Roz held Ally in a firm gaze. ‘I cannae argue that he hasn’t had the breaks.’

‘Do you think it’s just luck?’ Ally appealed.

‘I think we make our own luck, but he has put himself out there, and doors have opened for him.’

Ally knew anything she said now would come out in a whine and that was not what she wanted.

She’d put herself out there too. At first. Before it all got so hard and suddenly every place advertising any living wage job was inundated with a thousand qualified applicants.

And it hadn’t only been Ally feeling the hard bite of reality.

It was a generational thing, she’d concluded, especially if you lived in a picturesque tourist spot like this where local houses that had once belonged to families were now snapped up as extortionate second homes and Airbnbs, and the difficulty getting mortgages without a humungous deposit meant loads of people her age had lost out on opportunities that her parents’ generation had.

In an incredible stroke of generosity, Roz McIntyre had inherited the mill house from her grandmother.

Ally often wondered how much it would be worth these days, but since her mum never showed any interest in finding out, Ally wasn’t going to ask.

She was simply glad she had a place to stay, and a lovely historic place at that.

It hadn’t escaped Ally’s notice, however, that recently people her age from Cairn Dhu had been getting promotions or going on holidays, or were organising their hen and stag dos. Some were even moving into homes with proper gardens, starting businesses, and having kids.

Why wasn’t she moving on, she wanted to know? Hadn’t she worked hard enough? Hadn’t she put herself out there with Gray? She’d tried. What did the world want from her before she could level up too?

Murray popped his head around the kitchen door. ‘Mind if I hop online and catch up with some work? Sorry I can’t help in the shed today. You know I’d love to.’

He pulled up a chair at the kitchen table, switching on an expensive-looking black tablet thing that opened like origami and propped itself up as if by magic.

He threw a wink at his sister, out of sight of Roz at the dishwasher, before tapping away soundlessly at the screen.

‘I’ll bet you’re devastated to miss out on checking toddler bikes’ innertubes,’ said their mother knowingly, but nevertheless kissing Murray on the head as she made for the door.

‘Come on then, Ally Cat,’ she said, taking her daughter’s hand.

‘Let’s chalk up some repairs; see if we can’t get to the one thousand mark this weekend. ’

With a fixed smile, Ally left her brother to his work and made her way out into the damp summer Saturday morning.