Where Have All the Boys Gone? (15 page)

After three hundred and ninety-two hours of hell – or, at about 11.30 – lying awake under the blankets, failing miserably to fall asleep, she heard the door creak open and Louise sneak in.

‘Where have you been?’ Katie whispered. ‘I was worried.’

‘Trying to get pregnant,’ said Louise, grimly.

Katie sat up in bed, and held out her arms, and Louise collapsed into them, crying her eyes out.

‘Shh,’ said Katie. ‘You’ll wake the dragon.’

Spluttering and heaving, the story of where Louise had been for the past few hours came out. Louise wasn’t even aware, hardly, of Katie’s terrible faux pas about the golf course. All she had heard was of the final, horrible extent of Max’s infidelities, and that had blotted everything else out of her head. She had gone for a long walk, which Katie thought might be healthy, until she discovered that she’d walked for as long as it took to
get a mobile signal, then had insisted on the whole grim story from Olivia.

‘Thank goodness there isn’t an internet café,’ she growled. ‘He’d have got a mouthful from me. And he still will. I’m going to make him pay. Well, he’s already going to pay – saddled for life with that bitch’s brats.’

Katie winced, but let it go by. OK, Clara was as daft as a headful of melon, but she wasn’t evil. .. just thoughtless, careless . .. and other family traits. She sighed to herself.

‘Oh sweetie.’ She patted Louise. ‘You were doing so well.’

‘No I wasn’t,’ howled Louise. ‘How? How can I have a job, and a life, and years under my belt, and a credit card and still let a man make me feel like this? HOW?’

‘Because you’re human,’ said Katie. ‘Because you’re a person. And a decent person, not a psycho or something.’

‘No, just a slut,’ said Louise.

‘Could we stop using that word? I wish everyone would stop using that word.’

‘But…’

And it came out. After walking for miles in search of a signal, and feeling incredibly tired, she’d come across a friendly and extremely helpful gamekeeper chappie, and they’d talked for a bit and he’d been very sympathetic and invited her back for a swig of whisky in his office and to cut matters short…

‘I shagged a complete stranger in a bothy!’ howled Louise, dribbling all over the damp nylon sheets. ‘And I was on the road back!’

‘You still are,’ said Katie soothingly. ‘I promise, Louise.’

‘I didn’t even know what a bothy was!’

‘There there’ said Katie.

Louise put her head in her hands. ‘Why? Why would I go back to doing that? Why?’

Katie gave her a huge hug. ‘Was he attractive?’

‘He was all right,’ said Louise in a small voice.

‘Yeah?’

‘OK, gorgeous. Really muscly and everything.’

‘And we’re going to forget all about it,’ said Katie.

Louise’s tears had slightly dried up. ‘Well, it wasn’t that bad.’

‘It was a desperate gesture in a terrible time.’

Louise rubbed her eyes. ‘And bothies are very cosy places really. God, I’m so tired. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how knackered you feel when you’ve had a good cry?’

She settled herself down onto the sheets. ‘Can I sleep here tonight again?’

Katie looked at her warily.

‘I’ve had such a terrible, terrible day…well, mostly terrible beyond belief…’

She drifted off almost immediately, while Katie lay there, on another lonely vigil, awake in a quiet attic in the middle of nowhere, trying to figure out her own way home.

Katie must have fallen asleep eventually, because the first thing she knew, she was being woken by yelling from downstairs, which sounded oddly masculine, but wasn’t. She sat up, rubbing her head. Louise was nowhere to be seen.

There was certainly a commotion occurring. Blearily, she jumped in and out of the shower and threw on some old clothes. She would finish packing after breakfast, she really was absolutely starving, one piece or no pieces. Perhaps if she could distract Mrs McClockerty she could do a quick dive for the Tupperware box of cornflakes and eat them dry.

There would be no avoiding Mrs McClockerty, however, as she was to be found at the bottom of the stairs, the source of all the noise. She was bellowing loudly into an old-fashioned green rotary dial telephone, presumably to someone who was entirely deaf.

‘And if they think they can just walk in here with their little caddie wheel things and start demanding ensuite bathrooms thank you very much! There hasnae been an ensuite bathroom in Water Lane in my lifetime and we won’t be changing the noo!’

Katie wandered into the dining room, rubbing her ears. In the corner was Louise, who was stuffing her face and at the same time beckoning Katie over furiously.

‘Quick, she’s out,’ whispered Louise, slathering marmalade on toast. ‘Eat. EAT!’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Katie, accepting the toast immediately and pouring herself a cup of tea.

‘It’s all kicked off!’ said Louise. ‘You’re famous! Look!’

She thrust over a slightly becrumbed newspaper. Emblazoned across the front of it in huge type was the headline: SAVE OUR TOWN!

Katie grabbed it. Iain had been as good as his word. Every single thing was in there – the threat to the woods, the need for a campaign, the imminent destruction of the local way of life ‘beloved for centuries’. There were lots of references to the idea that almost all the golfers would be English, to a level which Katie privately considered bordered on the racist. But, Katie was touched to see, there was also a reference to how the whole town would stand behind Harry Barr, as he fought to win the campaign. She was mentioned as the girl who had discovered the whole thing, as if she were a secret spy on a topsecret mission. He’d made it all look terribly exciting.

‘Mrs McClockerty’s been on the phone all morning,’ said Louise. ‘I think we should store some of this toast in our pockets for later. There’s four pieces out.’

‘You’re very perky,’ said Katie suspiciously.

‘Can’t talk. Eating.’

‘Look…you know, I was thinking of maybe getting a move on today.’

Louise’s face contorted. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, I’ve lost my job and I’ve nothing to do and nothing to show for it and we have to go back to London so we might as well start today seeing as there appears
to be a fifteen-minute interval while it isn’t pissing it down with rain.’

Louise put down the toast. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I didn’t…I forgot you lost your job.’

‘C’mon, Louise, you couldn’t have stayed here anyhow! You’ve got to get back to work and stuff…you’ve got to continue with your life.’

‘I wasn’t enjoying my life very much,’ said Louise thoughtfully.

‘Well, at least you still have a job, but I don’t, so that’s that, OK?’

‘Hmm,’ said Louise. ‘Up until yesterday, it was feeling quite therapeutic up here.’

‘Maybe because we’re running away from all our problems.’

‘Well, maybe “running away from your problems” is the new “facing up to your problems”,’ said Louise. ‘Look at Olivia. She talks everything out with her therapist all day all the time and never gets any better.’

That much was indisputable.

Louise stared down at the table. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just…I think I might take a bit more leave. I’m not sure…I don’t really want to go home yet. And I’m amazed you do.’

‘I don’t!’ said Katie. ‘Haven’t you been listening to me? I’ve been sacked! I have no job, no money, and a car held together with pieces of string and pies!’

The tears stung at her eyes again.

They had only noticed peripherally that the bellowing noise from the hall had ceased, when the door was flung open. They smelt it first. Louise lifted up her nose like the Bisto kid.

‘Is that…is that…a
sausage?’

Mrs McClockerty was standing silhouetted in the doorframe,
her beefy arms supporting a laden tray. She looked as though she’d had a stroke down one side of her face, until Katie worked out it was her attempt at smiling.

She put two full plates in front of them. There was indeed sausage – and square; fried eggs, something which looked like fried fruit cake, crispy potato scones, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and black pudding, which Katie found a bit frightening.

‘Full Scottish,’ grunted Mrs McClockerty. ‘And if you stop those interfering, Rangerover-driving, golfing English bloody bastards, there’ll be a lot more where this came from.’

Louise and Katie looked at each other, dumbfounded. Then, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, both piled in.

‘This,’ said Louise, a muffled ten minutes later, ‘is the best bloody breakfast I’ve ever eaten in my entire bloody life.’

Katie nodded too. God, but she was ravenous. It must be all the fresh air she’d had sitting down on the docks and crying her eyes out.

‘See,’ said Louise, eventually. ‘You can’t leave now. Even that old witchbag is coming around. Is it just me or is black pudding absolutely delicious?’

‘It’s that old witchbag’s nephew I’m worried about,’ said Katie. ‘Well, I don’t need to worry about him, because he’s sacked me, so I don’t really have to worry about a thing.’

‘It’s this fruit pie thing that’s got me,’ said Louise. ‘I can’t believe people don’t fry more cakes.’

They piled in. Katie was thinking, ruefully, of all the money she would save at hideous motorway service stations, of which she had approximately nine hundred to pass that very day.

There was a ring at the bell and Mrs McClockerty tore
herself away from brewing them a fresh pot of tea to answer it. Louise craned her neck to hear who it was. Katie tried her best to ignore it.

‘It’s Craig the Vet,’ said Louise excitedly. ‘I’m going to see what he wants. And offer him a sausage.’

‘Or accept one,’ said Katie, but she followed Louise to the door.

‘Just wanted to join the fighting fund,’ Craig was saying to Mrs McClockerty. He was holding a copy of the paper. ‘Do you think we’re going to need armed resistance, or will just money be enough?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ said Mrs McClockerty in a grave voice which suggested they might need to stockpile Uzis in the attic. ‘Whatever it takes.’

Craig the Vet nodded grimly. ‘Aye, whatever it takes.’

‘Hello Craig!’ said Louise happily.

Craig popped his head around the door.

‘I believe you’re still in your nightgown,’ said Mrs McClockerty disapprovingly to Louise.

‘I believe you are too,’ said Craig, smiling happily.

‘I’m having an emotional crisis,’ said Louise.

‘Oh,’ said Craig. ‘I don’t know much about those. Kind of womanly things aren’t they? With, like, crying and stuff.’

Louise nodded.

‘Huh. Do you want to come lambing with me?’

‘Absolutely!’

‘You
can’t,’
said Katie. ‘We’re going home.’

‘You don’t even need to get dressed,’ said Craig hopefully.

‘I’ll get dressed,’ said Louise.

‘You
won’t,’
said Katie. But Louise had already gone, pausing only to pick up two pieces of toast, a sausage, a half-fried tomato and a piece of fruit pudding.

‘Hello Katie,’ said Craig. ‘I see you’re quite the folk
hero. Well done, by the way. Now we’ve got a chance to stop the bastards. There’s developers trying to move in here every five minutes. Bastards.’

‘I hope so,’ said Katie. ‘But I don’t think…’

Mrs McClockerty’s stroke face suddenly took a turn for the worse. ‘Hal!’ she said, in a clucking tone Katie had never heard. She craned her neck for a better look through the door.

Harry was coming up the driveway, with an expression on his face that suggested he was en route for a root canal.

‘Hello Auntie Senga,’ he said, as Katie’s eyebrows rose. ‘Hello Craig.’

‘Hey,’ said Craig, patting him hard on the back. ‘Lots of work to do, eh? Great to get started early in the morning. Fighting the good fight and all that. Listen, you know the Farmers’ Union has already got together and started a fund? They’ve said if you like they’ll park their tractors in front of all the bulldozers. Apparently, it’s a pretty even match, but they’ve got more tractors. And the sewage dispersal unit and that.’

‘Yes, I heard,’ said Harry. ‘And Mr MacKenzie has offered to poison the lot of them for me too. By shepherd’s pie, I think.’

‘Great,’ said Craig. ‘I’ve got some horse drugs that’ll work very well.’ He turned to Katie. ‘Tell your friend I’ll see her at the surgery at 9.30. I’m extracting a snake’s tonsils, and then we’re good to go.’

He vanished down the garden path.

Harry couldn’t meet Katie’s eyes.

‘I’ll just go put on the tea for my wee Hal,’ said Mrs McClockerty. Then she put out her hand and pinched his cheek.

‘Um,’ said Harry when they were finally alone. He
stood on the doorstep, unwilling to commit himself to stepping inside.

Katie tried not to look in the least bit interested; to give off vibes of being able to turn around and go back to London, any time she liked. OK, she wouldn’t have a job, or a possible new boyfriend, or, for certain, a car, but she would have…um…well, maybe the satisfaction of being right. That didn’t sound brilliant now, but maybe it would keep her warm at night. When she was sleeping under Waterloo Bridge, or being a nanny to Clara’s almost inevitably hippy-spoilt child.

‘Um,’ she ventured in return.

‘Can I smell sausages?’ he asked incredulously. ‘My God, now I know you’ve done something right.’

‘Would Francis like one?’ asked Katie.

‘Um, no…he’s off them since an unpleasant…butcher…never mind. It was very expensive, but I think it worked as aversion therapy.’

‘How terribly fascinating,’ said Katie. ‘You should always come around with any badly-behaved dog stories you happen to have.’

‘OK, OK.’ He looked terribly unhappy. ‘I’m sorry. I’m very very sorry. You were right and I was wrong. How’s that?’

‘Not bad,’ said Katie.

‘Except I told you something in confidence and you told the entire Highlands region and some of the Grampians, in which case, you were wrong.’

‘Can I direct you back to the previous “you were right and I was wrong” statement?’

Harry said nothing.

‘OK,’ said Katie finally. ‘I’m sorry about that. It was an emotional day. I am really really sorry.’

‘I mean, I know you don’t know him or anything, but
that bastard Iain…this is just the kind of thing he’s always looking for. Just to have a go at me.’

‘Well,’ said Katie, thinking fast. ‘If that’s the plan, it’ll backfire, won’t it? Now everybody’s behind you and wants to be on your team.’

‘There is that,’ said Harry, momentarily brightening.

‘Exactly,’ said Katie. ‘It’ll all work out for the best…if, you know…’

‘What?’

‘Well, you know…if I’ve still got a job or not.’

Harry looked anxious. ‘Well, of course you have. I mean, if you’ll still do it. Why else would I be here?’

‘Jeering?’

He looked at her, hurt.

‘Of course, I wouldn’t think that,’ said Katie. ‘Come in and have a sausage.’

‘Absolutely not. I need you to come to the office. You got us into this unholy mess, you’d bloody better start getting us out of it. All those things you said before.’ His face turned serious. ‘You really think you can get us out of this?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘But I know how to try.’

Derek was dashing about with coffee and papers everywhere, all of a flutter with excitement.

‘The
Mirror
called!’ he shouted excitedly as soon as Katie and Harry walked through the door.

‘The who?’ said Harry, but Katie had already shot forward immediately.

‘Really?’

‘Aye! They’re calling it the Braveheart Barricade. They want to know if we’re going to show them our arses and paint our faces blue. Apparently if we do, they’ll send a photographer.’

‘This is good,’ said Katie. ‘This is
very
good.’

‘Really? Arses and things?’

‘I don’t mean it like that! No, it’s good that we’ve got a national paper interested already.’

‘And the
Herald
and the
Scotsman,’
said Derek.
‘Mirror’s
more of a foreign paper really. And the
Scotsman
didn’t ask us to take our pants off.’

‘Standards aren’t slipping as much as I’d thought,’ said Katie. ‘This is exactly what we need. If we get enough attention, they’ll back down.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘It’s just one strategy,’ said Katie. ‘Really, we’re fighting to the death.’

She picked up a notepad and a pen.

‘OK,’ she said. She felt good, at last, she felt in control; that she had a mandate, she had something to do and, best of all, she had a clipboard.

‘First, here’s a quick plan A. Harry, what do you think the chances are of you just phoning up the guys who want to build this stupid golf course, tell them we’re going to spend the next six months giving them hell so they should do it in Surrey instead, and hoping they leave us alone?’

‘Absolutely none.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Katie. ‘You never know. Tell them about the arses and stuff.’

‘No,’ said Harry. ‘It won’t work.’

‘Why not? Are you going to be really pig-headed about everything?’

‘I’m not the pig-headed one,’ said Harry.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. You should ask
Iain.’

‘Why?’ asked Katie.

‘Because it’s his dad who wants to build the fucking thing.’

Katie’s horrid instant coffee had gone cold as she digested this bombshell.

Unfortunately Derek noticed right away and dashed off to make her another one. He really was an incredibly good non-secretary.

‘His
dad?’