Page 28 of Summer in the Scottish Highlands (The Scottish Highlands #5)

After a very entertaining and informativetour led by Angus, who was patient and didn’t pressure the small group of visitors on the tour into moving on to the next room, despite almost everyone lingering to take some photos of the many fascinating items of furniture, art and kitchenware, they reached the castle’s historic rooms. Angus regaled them with stories of Jacobite rebellions, which captivated Natty’s imagination.

Angus suggested that to keep things fun for Natty, they might like to join a family-friendly treasure hunt, following clues around the castle grounds.

Natty loved exploring the hidden corners of the castle’s walled garden and stopped to take photos.

‘I’m going to keep a journal of my holiday in Scotland,’ Natty said to Faye and Jake, who were following her along one of the nearby woodland trails with the sun warming their faces.

‘That’s a great idea,’ Jake said. ‘You could collect some wildflowers from our walk and press them for your journal as a keepsake.’

Natty came to a halt. She turned around and looked at Jake. ‘What does that mean?’

Jake said, ‘Pressed flowers?’

Natty nodded.

Faye turned to Jake. ‘I’m afraid we just don’t get around to doing things like that – hobbies and arts and crafts together, although I’d love to.’

Jake could hear the disappointment in her voice.

He understood. She was too busy with work and her headship course.

He knew all too well, because of the increasing amount of time he’d been spending looking after Natty at the weekends while she did coursework and caught up on the never-ending paperwork from her school.

It didn’t sound to him as though she’d had a proper holiday with Natty for years, let alone spent time together doing things other than work and homework.

Jake had an idea. ‘Let’s all collect some wildflowers, and we can press them this evening.’

‘But I don’t know how,’ said Natty.

Jake smiled down at her. ‘It’s easy. All we need is some heavy books – thick books with lots of pages …’

‘Gayle has lots of big books,’ said Natty, slipping her hand in Jake’s as they walked together.

‘Great. And we need some absorbent paper. I’m sure I saw some in Gaye’s kitchen drawer. Then you fold the paper, put the flowers inside, and then put the sheet in the pages of a thick book, and leave them to press flat as they dry. Then you have some nice dried flowers to put in your journal.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked Faye.

Jake paused for a moment. ‘You know, it’s all coming back to me.’

‘What is?’

‘My childhood in Scotland.’

‘Is that when you were living in The Lake House before …’ Fa ye trailed off, glancing at Natty.

Jake knew what she meant – before his parents died and his life changed forever.

He nodded. ‘Yes, my childhood was vastly different here. Later, London was private schools, and chauffeurs, and jetting off to foreign climes in the holidays, and visiting museums, art galleries, and London theatres, and all the cultural things Grace, William Ross’s wife, loves to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I did love London, and all those things too, but—’

‘But …?’ Faye prompted.

‘My childhood here was …’ Jake was trying to put into words how he felt. ‘Slow.’

‘Slow?’ Faye creased her brow. ‘I don’t really understand.’

Jake hoped in time she would, but one week wasn’t enough to understand.

He tried to explain. ‘We were always busy in London. When we weren’t in school, or doing extra-curricular activities, then there were all the cultural things to do in London, not to mention jetting off to other countries.

There was never time just to … well … do nothing. ’

The look on Faye’s face said she still didn’t get it.

‘What I mean is, here, after school, and at the weekends, we’d just do what took our fancy.

Dad was away a lot on tour with the RAF, so it was just Mum and me, and when he returned on leave, it was just the same; we’d wake up and just do what took our fancy – simple stuff, like some baking or crabbing, or going on a bear hunt … ’

Faye smiled.

‘Like the book!’ Natty asked.

‘That’s right!’ Although the book had been written years after he was born, it summed up his early years living in Scotland.

‘It was a simple life. We’d do things like go and pick berries and make a wild berry pie.

It’s been years since I thought about that.

’ Jake cast his gaze down at Natty. Being there with Natty and Faye, doing simple things like riding bikes through the forest, and having a picnic by the loch had, for the first time in decades, brought back memories of the wonderful childhood he’d had with his parents there – memories he’d suppressed.

He’d never wanted to revisit his early childhood because of the emotions – hurt, anger, grief – that he’d never really confronted.

He’d been afraid to open the lid on it all.

But with Faye and Natty there, all he felt was grateful that even though that life with his parents had been short, the time he’d had with them had been quite wonderful.

Rather than trying to suppress his memories, he knew he should treasure them.

His parents still lived on in his memories – and in his house.

In that moment, he realised he could never sell his childhood home.

‘Is that how you know about pressing flowers – because you did that with your mother?’

‘Actually, it was my father.’ Jake remembered now.

His father had been away a lot, but when he had returned on leave, they’d had the most wonderful time.

His father had been a man of contradictions – his career was in the military, and yet his passion couldn’t have been more different – horticulture.

He had been great friends with Marty’s father, the gardener who’d worked in the grounds of The Lake House back then.

He’d often join the gardener. It made Jake wonder whether, in another life, his father might have been a gardener instead.

Jake knew that his paternal grandfather had been in the military, and his great-grandfather too, and he had heard talk of being sent to boarding school when he was eight, like his father had been, although he suspected that it would never have happened.

He did recall asking his mother once what boarding school was.

He didn’t remember her reply verbatim, but she’d basically told him it was nothing to worry about because he was staying right there in Aviemore and remaining in his local primary school.

How wrong she’d been, Jake thought sadly.

He perked up when he thought of those trips he’d gone on with his father, just the two of them, when his father was home from leave.

Jake had loved those trips. Because he saw his mum every day, it had obviously been decided that every time his father returned, Jake would spend time with him, just the two of them.

And he remembered what was so special about those trips.

‘You know, sometimes we’d go camping.’

‘On a campsite?’ Faye asked.

Jake shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. Wild camping.’

‘You mean like in the middle of a forest or by a loch?’ The look on Faye’s face said that was the last thing she’d want to do.

‘Weren’t you scared?’ Natty asked. ‘Sleeping in a tent in the middle of a forest – what if a bear had come and eaten you up?’

Jake laughed. ‘There aren’t any bears in Scotland – unless you count the ones in zoos.

Highland Wildlife Park near Aviemore has polar bears.

’ The zoo was up there on Jake’s list of things to do, but unless they really did intend to stay on for three weeks, or even longer, until the end of August, he really didn’t see how he’d fit it all in.

‘How come?’

‘How come – what?’ Jake asked Natty. He’d rather lost the thread of the conversation.

‘How come you can only see bears in the zoo?’

‘They became extinct, sweetheart,’ said Faye.

Jake nodded. ‘That’s right. There used to be a lot of brown bears roaming Scotland – for thousands of years, actually.

’ Now it was all coming back to him, the conversations he’d had with his dad during their camping trips.

Of course, he must have asked if there would be any bears.

He remembered being very afraid as a child, like Natty, that one would come for him in the night and gobble him up.

‘Where did they all go?’ Natty asked.

‘They may have been hunted and killed, perhaps for their skins, thousands of years ago, as people tended to wear bear skins in the winter.’

Natty grimaced. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘Yes, but I will tell you a nicer story that my father told me about a special bear called Hercules.’ Jake couldn’t help but be amazed as the memories of his childhood came flooding back.

He did briefly get out his phone and google to check he wasn’t imagining the conversation with his father.

Sure enough, there were several articles about the famous bear.

‘Hercules …?’

Every now and then, as they were chatting, they all paused to pick some wildflowers. Soon, they were each carrying a small bunch.

‘Yes, I forgot all about Hercules. You know, for a brief time there was a grizzly bear in the wild in Scotland.’

Faye looked at him sharply. ‘What?’

‘He wasn’t a danger to the public, or, as it happens, any animal. He didn’t like raw meat, so he wouldn’t feed on the wildlife. Lost almost half his body weight.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Faye. ‘I thought bears liked raw meat. What on earth was the zoo feeding him? ’

‘Ah, he didn’t escape from a zoo. He escaped while he was filming a Kleenex television advert.’

Natty and Faye had paused to pick some more flowers. They both stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Jake. Faye burst out laughing. ‘You had me there for a minute. What really happened, Jake? How did he escape from the zoo?’

‘No, he was honestly filming a TV commercial for toilet roll.’

Natty said matter-of-factly, ‘I like the Andrex puppy.’