Page 9 of Fixing a Broken Heart at the Highland Repair Shop

‘Nobody?’ asked McIntyre, incredulous.

‘Not a soul,’ confirmed Sachin, looking out onto the repair shop’s driveway where the drizzle was turning into heather-and-ozone-scented rain.

Cary Anderson, in a dark slouchy linen suit and braces over a buttoned-up summer shirt, glanced from the McIntyres to the Gifford sisters stationed behind their piled cairn of unsold rock cakes. ‘The news’s put them off comin’,’ he whispered, and for once everyone caught his words.

Ally organised her screwdrivers on her workbench. The neon sign had been aglow for three quarters of an hour and the doors propped open, but not one client had come in. This was all deeply unusual, even on a drizzly Saturday.

‘And no Willie and Peaches either,’ said Roz, all by herself at the sewing station.

‘Ah! Here we go!’ Sachin announced chirpily, and everyone watched as a lone figure stepped inside clutching a carrier bag rolled tightly at the top with both hands. It was the young Special Constable, moisture caught in his dark hair.

The sight set off an odd instinct in Ally. Her nervous system sent a burst of chemicals through her, fizzling like a firework upon seeing the appealing shape of him and the placid expression on his face. Before she even knew it had happened, she heard her voice gasping sharply, ‘Jamie.’

It seemed to reverberate round the shed, startling a pigeon who’d been sleeping amongst the dusty beams. It made her parents, the Gifford sisters and Sachin all snap their heads towards her in surprise, then their eyes flitted between one another.

She caught their smirks, followed by expressions hastily re-arranged into neutrality.

Even Jamie must have noticed them suddenly pretending to be far too busy to deal with him themselves.

‘Uh…’ Ally tried to recover herself, pulling her eyes away from the sheen of light summer rain on tanned cheekbones. ‘Do you need something?’

He crossed the shed floor, stopping just before her workbench. She was only now realising that at some point in the last few seconds she’d automatically got to her feet too. Why were all her systems going haywire?

They observed one another.

She flatly refused to speak again until he’d spat out some words. Any words. But he was oddly starry-eyed. She held firm.

After a gulp, he blurted, ‘You look nice in green.’

‘Oh!’ Bewilderment mixed with delight.

‘Sorry, I mean… good morning.’ He scrunched his face, seemingly scolding himself.

‘Morning.’ Ally clutched at her elbow, knowing how the others would be listening in to every utterance.

‘You’re, uh, drinking coffee?’ Jamie said, a hand rubbing the back of his neck like he’d sprained it. ‘Good, good, uh, do you… like coffee?’

Her eyes fixed on her as-yet untouched café cappuccino on her bench. Was Jamie Beaton asking her out for coffee?

His eyes shot wide open in intuition. ‘Uh, no, I mean… I’m just making conversation. Or trying to.’ He ventured a nervy laugh.

She couldn’t help but be put in mind of that time in first year at high school when Davie Hood was shoved in her direction in the lunchroom by his annoying pals daring him to ask if she was planning on going to the end-of-year disco and, anticipating that she’d (meltingly) say ‘yes’, he’d been dared to retort, ‘well tough, I’m no’ goin’,’ or something similar, and he’d return to his laughing pals as the hilarious hero.

Except, she and Davie Hood were the only kids in the lunchroom that knew he really did want to ask her, and now he couldn’t.

She’d have said yes if he’d asked in earnest, but he had to save face with his daft wee gang, who still thought girls were only things to ridicule.

So she’d gone along with the whole awful rigmarole of waiting for him to say something as he approached her.

In the end he’d fished in his pocket and handed her the fifty pence he owed her for chewing gum and she’d pocketed it in silent relief.

He’d returned to the lads to a chorus of clucking chicken sounds.

In the end, neither of them had gone to the disco.

It was the story of her love life. Near misses and awkwardness.

She looked back at Jamie, not knowing how to act. If he was planning on asking her anywhere it was going to be a great big nope from her.

He was in his uniform again, only this time with a black body armour thing over a tight black T-shirt, with lots of harness-style black straps around his chest and hugging the waist of black utility trousers.

Good arms , she heard her traitorous brain whisper, and she worked hard to fix her eyes on his face.

‘Quiet today, no?’ he said, innocently looking around and rocking on his heels.

This was helpful. It felt like bait and she was only too glad to bite; anything to distract from the awkwardness.

‘I wonder why?’ she answered, accusingly.

Jamie tipped his head before pointing a thumb to the spot between his pecs. ‘It’s somehow my fault, I take it?’

‘Well, isn’t it?’ she continued, knowing it was unreasonable but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘You didn’t have to tell Morag Füssli about the jewellery.’

‘As a potential key witness, we really did.’ A line had formed between his dark brows.

Good. Any amount of grumpiness was better than not knowing how to act around this guy.

‘You could have done some damage limitation, or something?’ she went on. ‘Made sure reporters don’t go around using words like police caution ?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve no control over the news.’

Why did he have to be so calm and reasonable under fire? She was being ridiculous.

‘Besides, I’m only a volunteer,’ he threw in. ‘I don’t talk to the press.’

‘So are we,’ she appealed, indicating the nonchalant (but obviously earwigging) fixers. ‘None of us are getting paid for any of this. It’s all for the community.’

‘Same here,’ he said. ‘I keep you safe; you keep us in good repair.’ He seemed pleased with this, like it was an end to the discussion.

‘ Safe ? Have you caught those jewellery thieves yet, or found the woman they were using to get rid of the evidence?’

‘Well, no, but we’re working on it.’

She had him there. A tiny triumph. ‘So why are you here and not out dusting for prints or whatever it is that you do?’

‘I mostly just type up reports and make the tea…’

She wasn’t laughing along with him.

His face fell once more. ‘Chances are, they’re long gone by now, moved on to another small town, but I give you my word, we’ll keep looking.’

He was so sincere, Ally felt her cheeks burn with shame at her behaviour.

How come he managed to provoke her like this? He wasn’t even trying to. Was it the uniform doing it to her? Yet, she’d seen traffic cops and fire officers stopping in for their tattie scones and lattes on repair café Saturdays a hundred times before and, nothing. So why this guy?

He was just some lad with a lilting Edinburgh accent and brown eyes like the cold water of the Nithy burn when it ran slow and languorous in summer. Nothing special. And since The Thing with Gray she wasn’t looking for anything else, special or otherwise.

‘I actually have a repair job for you,’ he was saying, cutting through her thoughts, none of which she hoped were showing on her face.

She watched him open the bag and look inside. He was hesitating like he might change his mind. He lifted his eyes to hers as he reached a hand in.

Sadness , she thought. There was only a tiny flash of it in his eyes, but she caught it. She could feel something in him aching too, could picture him with tears on his cheeks instead of raindrops.

Why was she frightened all of a sudden? Not of him, but of catching these feelings coming off him.

‘It’s not tech, is it?’ she managed to ask, pleased she’d made it sound so casual.

‘No, it’s…’

To her surprise, he pulled out a hairy coo, small in his hands, strangely sweet held against his broad chest. The contrast sent her nerves into a grand fireworks finale and she grabbed her bag off the floor to avoid him noticing.

‘Then that’s definitely not for me. Repairs go to Sachin for triaging first, anyway. Mum ,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I’m off to do some work at the library.’

If she left now she could smarten up her CV and do a job search before lunch. That was her big plan for abandoning her workbench and Jamie Beaton and his plushie, and all this… weirdness. Yes, she told herself decidedly. That would be a good use of her time.

‘It’s not like anyone’s coming in…’

The crunch of footsteps on the gravel contradicted her. Still her feet didn’t stop conveying her towards the door. She didn’t make it far, pushed back inside by the woman stepping in.

‘Ah! It’s just yourselves? No customers?’ she was saying in a well-to-do voice. The woman was fastening up a golf umbrella. ‘I’m Peaches’s mother, Carenza.’

Ally recognised the woman from the letting agency signs that were popping up across the region. Carenza McDowell’s face, framed with poker-straight white-blonde hair, smirked out from all of them.

Roz had crossed the floor in seconds and shaken the woman’s hand and introduced herself before asking if Peaches was poorly today.

The woman straightened her neck and stood tall. ‘I’m afraid her father and I took the decision to discourage Peaches from attending today.’

Ally steadied herself. She was staying to hear this, for sure.

‘Willie won’t be coming either. His mother and I were of one mind. We’re members of the same Women in Business association. We talk.’

‘And what mind is that?’ asked Ally, making Carenza turn to face her.

Still the woman wouldn’t be flustered. She set her head at an angle, looking down her fine nose at Ally. ‘We wouldn’t want them getting side-tracked from their studies, volunteering here.’

Roz made her way to Ally’s side and stayed her from saying anything further by gently taking her hand.

‘I see,’ Roz said. ‘We thought they were happy here? And getting valuable work experience.’

‘So did we,’ Carenza replied. ‘Until it became clear there was a… criminal element at work.’

‘Oh, now!’ Senga huffed from across the shed, coming out from behind her counter.

‘News reports, photographs online,’ Carenza went on.

‘These are things that can tarnish a young person’s reputation before they’ve even completed their studies.

Imagine if their names had been printed in the reports.

That could follow them around for a long time, and those two are destined for the very top. ’

Roz squeezed Ally’s hand once more, cutting off the indignant things her daughter wanted to blurt in this woman’s face.

‘We understand,’ Roz said. ‘Young people today have enough standing in their way of success without being tarnished with… guilt by association, but you should know we were absolutely absolved of any wrongdoing. It was a case of the repair shop being used by opportunistic thieves. We really had no idea.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Peaches’s mother went on. ‘But for now, it’s best they concentrate on their summer design showcases, I’m sure you’ll agree. Anyway, I’d best be off. Lots to do.’

Roz moved to let the woman leave, gently tugging Ally aside too.

‘Tell them we’ll miss them very much, especially me,’ Roz said as Carenza went. ‘They were such wonderful helpers, and they’ll leave a big gap at the repair shop.’

‘Thank you for understanding,’ Carenza said through tight lips, as she opened her brolly to the rain, which was falling even more heavily now.

Ally shut the door. ‘Could they not have told us themselves? They’re actual adults,’ she said to her mum, before turning to face Jamie conveying his toy to Sachin at the triage desk.

‘You see? We’re two repairers down now and we’ve an empty shed!

You could have done something to protect our reputation.

Could have told Füssli to go gentle on us, or given a statement to the press to confirm we were innocent. ’

‘O-kay,’ Jamie said slowly. ‘But, with respect, not checking for ownership of that obviously nicked jewellery was a silly thing to do.’

Ally’s annoyance swelled once more.

‘It’s no’ the laddie’s fault,’ Senga put in, only to be completely ignored.

‘Ally, listen…’ Jamie began.

She turned on her heel and walked out into the downpour, her thoughts barely coherent. She knew it was wrong to blame him. It was wrong to be sullen and storming, but it had to be this way if she was going to shake the peculiar feelings he set off inside her.

After a while spent dodging puddles, wondering why on earth she hadn’t grabbed one of the many municipal brollies from the stand by the repair shed door for anyone’s use, she reached the library, not registering how the two women at the issue desk hastily stopped whispering at the sight of her.

Calming herself with work, Ally spent the rest of the morning tinkering with her CV and scanning the jobs listings online, taking notes and filling in online applications.

She didn’t stop until she was starving for lunch.

She even let herself look at an online travel profile of Zurich, though she wasn’t sure why she’d torture herself like that.

Anyone looking at her would have seen a woman focused on her job search, someone not at all perturbed by sparks of curious feeling still racing in circuits through her body, no matter how hard she tried to switch them off.

‘I keep you safe,’ he’d said.

He hadn’t meant her specifically, but the community generally, she knew that.

Yet hearing him say it had set off this strange spark of warmth in her belly, a warmth she’d only ever felt with Gray, right at the beginning, before she’d fallen heart first into catastrophe and learned a hard lesson about how these feelings of excitement and overwhelm (red flags in disguise) could not be trusted.

She worked on, obeying her fears while ignoring her hunger and her deeper instincts and curiosity about the Special Constable who, ever since he’d walked into her life, had heralded nothing but trouble for her family.