Face the Wind and Fly (18 page)

‘Here.’

She cut the engine and sat for a second, tense with anxiety. She desperately wanted Ibsen to see this through her eyes, as she had seen his cottage garden before Melanie’s tantrum.

A blade of a wind turbine, as beautiful and symmetrical as a petal on a dahlia. Her wind-flower.

She opened the door. ‘Come on.’

They walked ten yards to the brow of the hill and just as they reached it, the cloud moved away and the moon shone silver. Below them, as far as they could see, a small army of turbines arced skywards. Some of the blades were rotating slowly, others stood still. They were miles from any road, there were no houses or farms on this wild bit of moorland. The silence was absolute.

She pursed her lips together and found she was trembling.
Speak
, she willed him.
Say something. Anything.

‘It’s really quiet.’

Her heart lifted. ‘Yes.’

‘I thought they were noisy.’

She tried not to smile, or to lead his thoughts.

‘They must get much noisier when they’re really turning.’

‘New turbines are both effective and quiet. Anyway—’ She swept an expansive arm from left to right across the landscape, ‘—there’s no-one to hear.’

They stood in silence. Something flew across the moon. A buzzard, out hunting. She touched Ibsen’s arm and whispered, ‘Look.’

He’d already seen it. They watched in silence as it hovered in the indigo sky to locate its prey, then plummeted, like a stone, towards its kill. As it rose, she could see the shape of some small creature in its beak. Nature is cruel.

‘
Christ
.’ It was barely a whisper. ‘Look there.’

She felt his arms come around her as he turned her thirty degrees to where a ghostly white shape was swooping across the dark heather. ‘What is it?’

‘A barn owl.’

The bird passed like a phantom, soundless, mysterious, and eerily beautiful, but Ibsen still held her tight. She could feel the warmth of his body seeping into hers and was grateful for it because the night had grown chilly. She scanned the landscape in front of them. Where the last fold of rock gave way to an infinity beyond, there was a small ruin, the remains of an ancient watchtower, its crumbled masonry like jagged teeth against the sky. The sky was darker now, and the moon brighter. Its clear, luminous light picked out the dull gray of the turbine towers and the elegant sweep of the blades so that they gleamed and shone. They stood like sentinels guarding this lonely landscape.

‘Still, Kate, they’re not natural, are they?’

‘Natural? No.’ She pointed at the ruin. ‘Nor is that. It was built to safeguard this land when it was under threat from raiders. These turbines have been built because our world is under threat from carbon emissions.’

‘I can’t win, can I?’

She snuggled back against his warmth. ‘I hate fights,’ she said. ‘I just want to do my job. Sadly, it seems I have battles every day. Did you know that someone has been calling me at home, all the time. A heavy breather.’

‘Really? Don’t you find that threatening?’

‘You have no idea. I’ve been prodded in the chest, spat at—’

‘
Spat
at?’

‘Not in Forgie, not this time, but yes, there has been aggressive behaviour. Someone sits outside the house in a car. They’re watching me.’

‘I hope you don’t think I – Kate, I’m opposed to Summerfield Wind Farm, but I would never—’

‘I know.’ He’d eased back from her and she hated the space between them. ‘Listen, I have a rug in the car. Shall we sit for a little?’

They found a spot under a tree and spread the rug. The grass was springy and soft below their feet. She could feel the bark of the tree rough against her back and hear the gentle rustle of its leaves above their heads.

They sat in silence until Ibsen hooked an arm round her and tucked her in close. ‘Cold?’

‘Not now.’

‘It’s—’ She could feel him hesitate, ‘—better than I thought.’

‘When Melanie trashed your dahlias,’ she said tentatively, ‘how did you feel?’

‘Do you need to ask?’

‘When people tell me they hate my turbines—’ She let it hang. The silence was profound. Nothing stirred except the leaves above their heads, gently moving.

At last Ibsen said, ‘Is that really how you feel about them, Kate?’

She nodded. A hand curled round her cheek and gently turned her head towards his. In the darkness, his eyes were no longer blue, but inky. His lips came down on hers, so softly that she thought at first that she had imagined the touch. Then she felt his breath, warm, on her face, and all thoughts of propriety were swept away in the need to touch him, to join her mouth to his, to feel the urgency of his desire fuse to hers in an incandescent blaze.

‘I want you, Kate.’ The confession was barely more than a breath. ‘I’ve wanted you for ages.’

It seemed a very long time since someone had truly desired her. Years of child rearing and homemaking and career building had bundled ardour into a damp wad and tied it with a yarn made of habit. Even so, a deeply ingrained sense of loyalty and her marriage vows should stop this. Andrew’s face insinuated itself into her desire, a reminder and a remonstrance. She had never strayed before. She had never even questioned her love, in her mind it had remained as strong and as steadfast as the day she had fallen in love with him. But now all the anger that had been smouldering inside her ever since Ninian had burst out with his accusation reached the end of the slow fuse and ignited.
I have the right to do this,
she argued silently in her head,
he has given me the right.

‘Kate.’ It was a whisper. ‘Are you sure you’re okay with this?’

She loved him for asking, she loved that he had the self-control to think of her at that moment. ‘I want you too, Ibsen Brown.’ It was impossible not to thrill to the urgency of his desire and set it in the scale against the slick, unemotional action that her lovemaking with Andrew had become.

In the still of the night, their panting was the only sound, and when they climaxed, together, it felt as though they were joined to the universe.

‘You know I’m divorced,’ Ibsen said.

They were huddled together, wrapped in the big rug. Kate felt suffused with warmth and peace, so his words spun out of the dark like an arrow, right into the soft part of her head.

‘I didn’t know.’

He hunched closer and rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘Lynn was a teacher – at Summerfield Primary, as it happens. She was a pretty girl and I’d have done anything for her.’

‘How long were you married? What happened?’

For a few minutes he didn’t reply and the night seemed more silent than ever. Kate waited as patiently as she could.

‘We had a baby. Violet. She died.’

‘Oh, Ibsen. How?’ Kate tried to turn so that she could look at his face, but he kept his arms like a vice around her, keeping his expression private.

‘I went in to get her one morning, and she was dead. There in the cot, looking so sweet and so—’ His voice caught and he stopped speaking. Kate clung to his hands. ‘—so perfect. But she’d stopped breathing.’

‘What was wrong?’

She felt him shrug. ‘They couldn’t find any reason. We’d done everything right. Neither of us smoked or took drugs. She wasn’t too hot, she was on her back. We don’t know.’

‘I can’t think of anything more terrible.’

‘No.’

Somewhere below them, a deer crashed out of the woods and bounded across the heather and out of sight.

‘I don’t talk about it. I just wanted you to know.’

She said, ‘And Lynn?’

‘We staggered on for a couple of years, but being together was too painful and in the end we decided we’d be better apart.’

‘Do you still see her?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through.’

‘It hasn’t made me a better person. I wish it had. I’d like to have another serious relationship but I can’t face what it might lead to.’ He gave a self-deprecating snort. ‘I’m a shit, really. I do tell them, no strings, no commitment, but they all think they can change me.’

Kate shifted away. She said, ‘It’s all right, Ibsen, you have nothing to fear from me.’

‘I didn’t mean— God, Kate, not you! I didn’t tell you this because— Christ! I’ve never told anyone before.’

But the spell had been broken. Whatever form of lust had overtaken them under the trees and lifted them to the stars, it had been dumped back on earth with a thud. They drove back to Summerfield in silence.

Chapter Nineteen

Andrew was still asleep when Lisa Tranter called a week or so later, his graying hair visible above the duvet, his skin more aged than she had realised. Now she compared everything about her husband and her guilty secret, at least subconsciously. Ibsen was broader shouldered and more powerful. Andrew’s hands were slender and graceful, but showed signs of liver spots. Ibsen’s skin glowed with outdoor energy, Andrew’s had an indoor pallor. She was not used to viewing her husband in this way and it was not wise. It diminished him and made her uncomfortable.

‘Lisa?’ Kate snatched the mobile before it could waken Andrew. ‘Is something up?’

‘You could say. I just drove along that road through Bonny Brae Woods.’

Kate knew what she was going to say before she even said it. ‘Don’t tell me.’

‘They’re setting up a protest camp there.’

‘I
knew
it. I
told
Jack!’

‘There’s a couple of guys slinging ropes up the trees, I think they’re going to hoist some kind of shelter up in the branches. There’s tents going up too. It looks serious, Kate.’

‘It is serious.’

‘But that isn’t all. I’m sorry.’

‘What? There’s worse?’

‘Kate, I’m sure I saw your son there.’

‘Ninian?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he’s here. In bed.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then.’ Lisa sounded thankful. ‘Must be someone else. What do we do about the camp?’

‘I’ll get in to work, then we can decide. I’ll be in shortly. I’ll just nip up and take a look for myself. Thanks for phoning.’

‘Okay. See you soon, then.’

Kate glanced at her watch. It was exactly eight o’clock.

She checked on Ninian. The death notice was still on the door. She grimaced at it and knocked, but there was no response, not even the anticipated growl. She knocked again. Silence.

‘Ninian?’ She opened the door and poked her head round it. The floor was the familiar obstacle course of discarded clothing, dropped biscuit wrappers and abandoned shoes, but the room felt uninhabited. There was no warmth, no slight odour of ready-to-be-showered body, no quiet snuffling. The bed was flat – there was no familiar Ninian hump under the duvet either.

She didn’t stop to think, she was white-hot with anger. Ninian must have sneaked off after they were asleep. If her son wanted to punish her for all the days she’d come home late, all the weekends she had worked instead of watching him play football for the school, all the times she’d sent him down to Devon instead of going on holiday with him, he had certainly calculated the most effective way to do it. The eco protest camp at Bonny Brae was going to damage her reputation at AeGen: her son participating in the protest made matters even worse.

Bonny Brae Woods was bisected by a single-track road. The larger part of the wood comprised several acres of mixed deciduous forest, the smaller was little more than a couple of dozen trees. A burn tumbled through the woods, just a trickle in high summer, a torrent after heavy rain or snow melt. Mosses and ferns thrived in the moist spray on its banks and there was a network of paths in and around the trees that offered pretty walks. In the spring, snowdrops heralded the season of growth. Later, the woods were a carpet of bluebells. Now, though, autumn was nearing, and the forest would be thick with velvety carpet moss, mushrooms like golden chanterelles or tawny milk-caps, and pretty lady ferns. Dog-lovers adored Bonny Brae Woods. Human lovers liked them too, because of the secluded glades and private clearings.

Kate had always known that hell would be unleashed if AeGen tried to fell any of the trees and if they used this route for access they’d have to double its width. Construction traffic was heavy enough, but they’d have to bring the huge turbine towers and blades this way too. Frank would find it unthinkable. Karen Cousins would certainly be up in arms. Kate could picture the scene already.

She rounded the bend in the road and for a moment it felt as though she’d stumbled into a film set. A tentative sun was just emerging from behind the hill to commence its work of burning off the early morning mist. Trees loomed spookily out of the swirling vapour and she could just make out the shapes of figures scurrying through the haze.

‘What the—?’ She lurched to a stop as a black Labrador dashed out in front of her car so that she was forced to pull it onto the grassy shoulder. She jumped out, shaken by the near miss, and called angrily at whoever might be listening behind the vapour screen, ‘Can’t you control your dog?’

The operation had clearly been meticulously planned. Overnight, this peaceful spot had been transformed into something resembling an army base. Dozens of people, mostly dressed in combat gear, swarmed around busily. Some were pitching tents, others lashing ropes around trees to secure platforms and shelters higher in the branches. Women passed provisions along a line from a beaten-up old Land Rover to what seemed to be a kitchen tent. Three men, one shaven-headed and two with lank, shoulder-length hair, clustered together smoking and gesticulating. The Labrador she’d almost clipped trotted up unconcerned and dropped at their feet. A few yards further on, two Alsatians struck up an argument and started to circle round and bark at each other. Two youths braved the cold bare-chested, protected only by an astonishing tangle of tattoos. They were wiring crudely painted signs to some of the trees:

Save Bonny Brae Woods

No to Summerfield Wind Farm

Trees are Sacred

She couldn’t see Ninian. She drew a deep breath. However angry she was, nothing would be served by losing her temper at this point. She marched up to the group of men who were smoking and said cheerfully, ‘Good morning! I see you’ve been busy.’

One of them responded to her smile. ‘Morning missus. Come to join us?’

Before she could reply, the shaven-headed one glowered at her, ‘Jesus, Mickey, look at her, does she look like one of us?’

‘I’m interested in what you’re doing here.’

‘You a cop?’ The third peered at her suspiciously.

‘I’m not a cop.’

‘So if you’re not a cop and you’re not here for the cause, what in the name are you doing snooping—’

‘It’s all right, Seth.’ Frank Griffiths emerged from the mist. ‘Morning Kate. I didn’t expect you quite yet.’

‘I suppose not. It would have been courteous to have talked to me though, before setting all this in motion.’ She waved her hand at the activity.

‘Not my doing, actually. I only found out myself yesterday.’

‘Oh, really?’ She found this hard to believe.

Frank took her elbow and eased her away from the circle of men. ‘You’d be best clearing off, Kate, to be honest. Some of these guys mean business.’

‘By “business” you’re implying—?’

‘Kate, you know I’m opposed to this wind farm, but this isn’t my scene. I find it a little alarming, in fact.’

‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, planting her feet squarely on the turf and her hands on her hips, ‘is why they’re here at all. The road isn’t going to come this way. I made that abundantly clear to you.’

‘The newspaper said—’

‘Frank, you were there. I briefed the reporter very clearly. Her report was pure mischief-making.’

‘I did suggest that, but this lot is convinced that there’s no smoke without fire, so to speak. And anyway,’ he paused, then said with an apologetic smile, ‘it
is
good publicity for our campaign, Kate. It’s regrettable that you’re in the sniping sights, but there you go.’

She looked around. ‘Are you going to be staying here?’

‘At my age? I need to be in a warm bed at night. But I’ll be spending quite a lot of time here, yes. No-one wants these trees cut down.’

‘Including AeGen,’ she reminded him.

The gloom brightened suddenly. A shaft of sunlight had found a hole in the blanket of mist and was spotlighting a mossy green clearing beside the main encampment. The tiny rise in temperature brought with it a whiff of dank autumn, earthy and musty. Two men, deep in conversation, wandered out of the trees and into her consciousness. Men? One man, rather, and a boy.
Her son
, his sandy hair familiarly tousled and his gangly limbs clad in joggers and a hooded sports top,

‘Ninian!’ she shouted, moving towards him, fast.

He glanced up, startled. Even at this distance, she could see the look of guilt that flashed across his face before his chin set defiantly.

Then she saw who he was with. Ibsen.

She stopped dead, assaulted by the memory of soft lips and strong arms and overpowering desire.

‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ he said, clearly reading her face.

‘What is it then?’ The anger she’d felt when she’d realised that Ninian had gone to the protest surged back. ‘What is it, Ibsen? A tribute to my beliefs and expertise?’

‘Mum—’

‘As for you—’ she rounded on Ninian, ‘this is completely out of order. For a start, you should be in school. And besides, it’s not only inappropriate and unnecessary, it’s just bloody
stupid
. You’re being stupid! Can’t you see?’ She waved a furious arm at the encampment, ‘You’re all idiots! Misinformed, misguided, gullible, bigoted, sodding delinquents!’

Diplomacy and negotiation flew to the skies and beyond reach. She was doubly betrayed, by Ibsen and by Ninian, and she didn’t know which disloyalty hurt her more.

‘Kate—’

‘Mum—’

‘Hey, missus!’

Suddenly she was in the middle of a mêlée. Everyone was shouting, arms were grabbing at her, something tripped her up and she sprawled to the ground. She grazed her face on the root of a tree and could feel blood on her forehead, warm and sticky. Her anger turned to alarm as the brawl above her turned into a full-scale skirmish.

‘This way!’ Strong arms hauled her to her feet and she half stumbled, was half carried out of the scrap and into the cover of the mist. ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Kate, do you know that?’ Ibsen hissed at her, his normal amusement replaced by exasperation.

She tried to shake herself free. ‘I didn’t—’

‘You didn’t think, you fool, you jumped to conclusions and now look what you’ve—’

‘Don’t you
dare
criticise me! I had every right to say what I did, this protest is entirely unwarranted and—’

‘And now it will be on the front page of every newspaper in Scotland.’

She stopped dead and stared at Ibsen. ‘What?’

‘You don’t think this won’t get reported, do you? Kate, can’t you see that this is meat and drink to these people? As soon as they know who you are, which will take approximately ten seconds because Karen Cousins and Stephen are both here, they’ll be onto the press. I wouldn’t be surprised if some bright spark didn’t film the whole thing on a mobile.’

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, appalled. Her head was throbbing and she put a hand up to her face and looked at the mess on her fingers.

‘Go home, Kate. Clean up. Stop worrying about Ninian, or at least, find another way of persuading him this is a bad idea.’

Someone had realised that the cause of the punch-up was no longer at the scene and they could hear shouts through the mist, coming closer.

‘Where’s the bitch?’

‘Corporate fucking greed—’

‘Snooping around—’

‘Let’s get her!’

‘Go!’ Ibsen bundled her into her car and she skidded away, wheels spinning on the grass, just as the pack burst out of the wood and into view.

She was trembling from head to toe and it was all she could do to keep the car on the road. There was obviously no way she could turn and go the direct route back to Willow Corner, so she drove the five miles through Hailesbank and back along the coast road.

It seemed like an eternity, but in fact she’d been away less than an hour. By the time she got home, Andrew was enjoying a leisurely coffee in the kitchen with the morning paper for company. She stood shakily in the doorway and could see that he had filled in about half the crossword. It felt like a parallel universe.

‘Back already?’ he said, without looking up. ‘Wish my working days were as short as that.’

She ignored the sarcasm. ‘Seen Ninian this morning?’

‘Nope.’

‘Still in bed, is he?’

‘Yup.’

‘You sure about that?’

He looked up and Kate experienced a brief moment of pleasure at the expression on his face as the sight of her bruised and bleeding face registered. Andrew had taunted her with her alleged failures of motherhood too often recently. On this occasion, he was not even aware of his son’s whereabouts, whereas she had been hurt in an attempt to rescue him from the clutches of maniacs.

‘Kate?’ There was a harsh scraping noise as he shoved back his chair and half stood, gawping. ‘Are you all right?’

The pleasure was over. Her legs felt desperately weak and she thought for a moment that she was going to faint. Andrew caught her and pulled out a chair. ‘Sit down. Put your head between your knees.’

Through the swaying half-darkness, she was dimly aware that she rather liked his concern. Recently, her feelings had been of little interest to Andrew Courtenay.

‘Here. Drink this.’

A glass of water was held to her lips and she raised her head a fraction and sipped it cautiously. Her hands were trembling with delayed shock.

‘What happened?’ Andrew perched on a chair in front of her and she allowed him to capture her hands in his. ‘You’re shaking.’

‘There’s a protest up at the Woods. Ninian’s there.’

‘
What?
’

‘I think he’s been egged on by Karen Cousins and Stephen.’ She couldn’t bring herself to mention Ibsen.

‘What kind of protest?’

‘Oh, full-scale. Tree houses, rope webs, an encampment, banners and slogans, eco warriors, the lot.’

‘What the hell does Ninian think he’s playing at? What about school?’

Kate took a deep breath to steady herself because the room was still spinning. ‘I’m afraid I rather lost the rag.’
Goaded by Ibsen’s presence
, the whisper in her head reminded her. ‘I shouted at him, then some men got a bit aggressive and I fell.’ She freed a hand and touched her forehead gingerly. ‘There was a real punch-up, I think they’re spoiling for some kind of fight. I was lucky to get away.’