The Sister Surprise Page 9

  My engine growls as I manoeuvre round a protruding rock, the back wheel spinning in thick mud. The path I was following is no longer visible beneath dead pine needles, and going by the sudden disappearance of trees to my right, it looks like Kian’s land comes to an abrupt stop at the point where it cuts into the North Sea.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Miranda’s shaggy rump hop over a felled trunk, but when I twist the throttle to make ground on the outside, she speeds up, her matted tail bobbing like a rabbit as her hollow footsteps sink into the ground.

  ‘Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,’ I say, losing sight of Miranda as she bounds round the corner behind a stack of fence posts, their stakes rusting from sea mist that hisses up the cliff sides. Panic sets in. I speed up, ducking just before a low-hanging branch hits me at chest height. A branch snags my hat and yanks it off my head like a playground bully. I lunge behind me to grab it, but my reach is clumsy and I flail, my gaze broken as the handlebars twist towards the cliff edge. Just like that, the quad bike jerks, the seat shunting to one side. I’m holding on by an arse cheek, the engine groaning as it bombs over rough terrain, and like the total idiot I am, I manage to twist the throttle as I attempt to pull myself upright again.

  Everything slows down, like the moment in a Bond film where 007 dives out of harm’s way, a super-bike exploding below him, a gun in one hand, and an anorexic supermodel in the other. OK, it’s not quite like that, but if you swap in an incompetent sort-of journalist from south London and replace the love interest with a rotund ewe, you wouldn’t be far off. In quick succession, three things happen. One: the quad bike skids to the side, pinning itself partway through a gap between two trees as the back wheels churn skid marks into the bark. Two: My coat catches on a branch, the elastics of my hood pulled so tight that I now peep through a tiny gap. Three: Miranda jumps out in front of me, crimped wool forming a moppy fringe over eyes set so wide apart it’s a wonder she’s able to see at all. The little sod.

  I don’t move. Not through choice, but because the tangled hood situation is reminiscent of the time Big Philippa strung me up from a peg in the cloakrooms and stole my Tudor Day money in year five; I can’t move, it only makes it worse. From behind me, I hear footsteps.

  ‘Shhhh! Shh! She’s here! Don’t freak her out, she’s completely rogue,’ I hiss under my breath.

  ‘I think you’ve done enough damage yourself, lass. Get on, back you go, eh! Eh!’

  Oh God, it’s not Kian. Miranda darts off again, clearly having the time of her life. ‘Go on, Jess. Way, way!’ A flash of black and white nips past me. A border collie, grizzled and grey, rounds in, stalking. ‘Adda’ girl, walk by. Hold. Hold, Jess!’

  From my half-squat, tangled in my own clothing, I can’t see the woman who completely ignores my plight, her bare legs on show beneath an unseasonal chemise skirt and cut-down wellie boots. She leans over to the quad bike, still whirring between the trees, and twists the key. The engine putters out. Her hood is pulled low, but as she bends towards me, I see her eyes; so blue they’re marble-like, as though she pops them out and keeps them in a jar every night. The woman pushes my head to one side and I wince as she tugs the elastic free from the mess of branches. They snap back and twang against my face, stinging my already cold cheeks. I stumble to my feet and tug my hood down.

  ‘Thanks, I don’t know what happened, I—’

  The woman picks up a staff propped against a lichen-covered stump and holds it aloft, looking at me through narrowed eyes. I feel exposed. Her eyes dart across my face as though she’s matching me up to a Crimestoppers e-fit. Her mouth is pencil-thin, curtailing my reconciliatory smile.

  ‘You the English girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  At that, she turns her back to me and strides into the trees, her petrol-coloured coat slick with rain. I look to the quad, pinned in place by a wishbone branch. I don’t know whether to follow the woman or to try and yank it out. I hear her whistle to the dog, who works around her, pushing Miranda away from the edge and back towards the farm. An animal like that makes Pickles look completely incompetent as a pet. He’s so lazy that sometimes he can’t be bothered to wee outside, so climbs into a planter and relieves himself there. We’ve had three monsteras and he’s killed off the lot.

  I leave the quad where it is (it’s not like there’s anyone around to nick it) and head inland, away from the cliffside that I was terrifyingly close to hurtling over in a low-budget homage to Thelma and Louise. My trainers are completely saturated with rain and I’m convinced I have the beginnings of trench foot by the time I emerge from the woods. When I reach a gap in the dry-stone wall, the border collie is waiting, head tilted with curiosity, her mismatched eyes locked on me from afar. When I approach, she nudges up and down my leg with her nose. Am I being frisked by a dog? Is that what’s happening?

  ‘She wouldn’t leave until she saw you catch up. It’s strange, because Jess only herds animals that can’t think for themselves. Don’t take it personally.’

  ‘Thanks?’

  ‘Not my fault, it’s the way she was trained,’ says the woman, frowning.

  Now that my turbo adrenaline surge has subsided, I realise just how cold I am. I tuck my hands inside my sleeves and try to hold my body still, but I’m shaking so violently I can barely stand. The woman sighs.

  ‘Come on, lass. Can’t stand there quivering all day. Kian’s got enough to be getting on with without running about after you and all.’

  Chapter 13

  Date: Tuesday 8th October

  Location: Farmhouse kitchen

  Cups of tea: Two

  Sleep: 7 hours and 13 minutes

  How much peril can you experience within a forty-eight-hour window? No, this isn’t a new quiz for Snooper, I’m talking about actual, real-life peril. Sure, careering down an escalator whilst trying to text is a fairly common occurrence in London, but I’ve faced my mortality far more frequently since arriving in Kilroch.

  My vision of wandering in and out of a wisteria-woven barn with happy pigs and a jolly farmer for company faded within seconds of arriving. For starters, the farmhouse is held together by a combination of mildew and sheer willpower, the yard is patrolled by geese who hiss and bite like feral cats, and I haven’t seen a single health and safety notice on display, which is unsettling when you consider that the farmer keeps petrol in a barn full of highly combustible hay bales.

  I’ll be amazed if I make it back to London without needing first aid.

  The next stage of my plan involves finding a reason to leave the farm. Unless my sister is squatting behind the chicken coop, I’m not going to find her by wandering the same field in Kilroch day in, day out – that’s for sure.

  ***

  ‘Honestly, it’s no bother,’ says Kian. He digs out chicken feed using a milk carton trimmed down to form a scoop.

  ‘It is, though.’ I duck and step out of his way, my eyes watering. I sweep the next load of soiled straw into a pile, which is pointless as the wind immediately whips it into a tiny, mucky tornado. I take shallow breaths. The smell of ammonia is so strong it burns my nose, as though I’ve inhaled swimming pool water.

  ‘We got Miranda back, that’s what’s important,’ says Kian. He screws a plastic lid on the container and wipes his hands on his trousers as a brood of hens burr around his feet. The sound is comforting and homely, like elderly women gossiping over tea and pink wafer biscuits.

  ‘Will it be hard to replace? The quad?’ I ask, turning my hand over in a sunbeam that appears through a break in the cloud.

  ‘I might need to source a few parts, but it’ll be fine. The folk round here trade scrap with each other most of the time. Unless you’re a McCulloch. They’ll buy anything that makes farming more efficient, even if it compromises animal welfare. It works for us. Our farm is barely keeping its head above water so we need to save as much money as we can, even if it means more tinkering in my spare time. It’s something to do when the evenings
are long,’ he says.

  Kian flicks through the clipboard’s wrinkled pages, a furrow deep set in his brow as he taps a pencil on the page. ‘Ah, it’s the hotel in Cumnaird that needs another tray of eggs this week,’ he says, scribbling down a figure.

  ‘That sounds far too productive for anything I’d consider evening down-time, but somehow I get the sense that Netflix and Domino’s Pizza isn’t your thing?’

  ‘It might be if we had the bandwidth,’ says Kian. ‘The wi-fi is too patchy for streaming videos unless you go down to the car park behind The Wailing Banshee. The landlady had a new router installed thinking it would encourage a younger crowd, but there aren’t enough of us here to pack it out at the best of times.’

  I nod, mentally fist-pumping at this news. Prehistoric internet means less chance of Kian seeing my live stream meltdown, or the numerous GIFs and edits that have cropped up since.

  ‘I see you met Jacqui,’ says Kian, breaking my reverie. We walk around the coop to where a rectangular nesting box sticks out at the back, dusty paint flaking off its wooden slats. Kian unlatches the lid and opens it to reveal three plump hens, who blink up at him in annoyance. He carefully tips the hen nearest to him to one side. Underneath her honeyed feathers are two porcelain white eggs. I can see why she looks a bit miffed; I’d be fuming if I had to push one of these out every day.

  ‘Is that who my surly saviour was? Jacqui?’

  I copy Kian’s delicate actions with the hens. He is my chicken sensei.

  ‘Yep. I’ve known her for years. She’s always been a bit—’

  ‘Terrifying?’

  ‘Nah, I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘I’m grateful for the whole “rescuing me from a cliff edge” thing, but she’s quite, err …’

  ‘Quite …?’

  ‘Intense? Like, I might be wrong but I sort of feel like she hates me with the fire of a thousand suns and wishes I’d get sucked away by a tornado somewhere past the Scottish border?’

  Kian scoffs and leans over to the basket, somehow managing to transport one egg between each of his fingers. ‘She’s just practical, is all.’

  ‘Does she live round here?’

  ‘About a mile over, closer into the village. She manages the tearoom.’

  ‘Does she?’ I say with ill-feigned credulity.

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘I just can’t imagine her reading the specials menu to anyone without sighing.’

  ‘I’ll tell her that when I see her,’ says Kian, closing one lid and opening another with a sideways smile, where a frilled hen blinks at him, perturbed. ‘You might rethink your words when you’ve had a slice of her shortbread.’

  I slide my hand inside the nesting box. ‘Well, I guess not everyone makes the best first impression,’ I say, thinking back to my live stream.

  ‘Jacqui has looked out for me a lot since I took over the farm. There were a few weeks in summer when Granddad was in hospital and I was seeing out my notice period in Edinburgh. Jacqui was working double days making sure the animals were all right and the sheds locked up. She’s one of the good ones, just … takes a while to warm up.’

  Kian sounds sincere, but I’m not convinced. Stick Jacqui next to a fire and I’m sure the last polar ice caps would melt before she did.

  I jostle three eggs in one hand and try to move a chicken with the other, but I get the impression that I’ve met the flock’s resident matriarch because she’s an absolute unit and resists my lame attempts to shift her.

  ‘Come on, move your arse—’

  ‘Be careful, she –’

  ‘Ouch! Little fucker!’

  ‘– nips.’

  I yank my hand away, scraping my wrist against the lid and dropping an egg in the process. It cracks on the floor, the yoke popped like burst sunshine.

  ‘Oh, fucking hell. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t tell me, tell Babs,’ says Kian, pointing at the hen. Can chickens glare? Because that’s exactly what it looks like; her eyes are beady and so full of malice that I half expect her to draw a taloned claw along her throat to signal that my human days are numbered.

  ‘I promise I’ll stop destroying your farm soon,’ I say, a sulky undertone slipping into my voice.

  ‘It’s only a broken egg. If this is your path of de-escalation and we started with the destruction of a quad bike, we’re heading in the right direction. You might make a bad cup of tea before you level out again. I’ll try and prepare myself for it,’ says Kian with a wink.

  I kick some dirt over the egg goop and place the other two carefully in the basket, following Kian as he heads back towards the shed.

  ‘Oh! Hang on, I think it might be a … yes, it is!’ I say.

  Kian reaches the shed, props the door open with a brick, and flicks on a naked bulb.

  ‘Quick, take these off me. My phone’s buzzing,’ I say. Kian stretches his sweatshirt to form a pouch and I carefully drop my eggs inside, unzipping one, two, three layers until I reach the pocket that contains my phone.

  ‘Wind must be in the right direction. Make the most of it, it’ll disappear any second,’ says Kian, as he pulls open a cupboard stacked with egg trays.

  I answer the call and march across the yard, wellie boots flopping against my shins. Inside the barn, I lean against a hay bale. I’ve got two bars of reception. We’re in.

  ‘Mum! Are you OK? How’s everything?’

  ‘Ah, there you are. You sound a bit crackly, is that normal?’

  ‘Oh, probably. Might be something to do with the distance,’ I lie.

  ‘What do you think of Edinburgh, then?’

  ‘It’s, err … yeah, it’s nice,’ I say, looking to the puddle on the floor, an iridescent sheen of leaked petrol glazing its surface. On the roof, a loosely tacked strip of corrugated iron rattles in the wind.

  ‘Lots of hills, aren’t there? You’ll get a good bum marching up and down the stairs, they’re endless. Did you know you’ve been there before?’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yeah, when I was pregnant with you. We took it in turns to pitch up outside the Pleasance Theatre during the festival. Pointless really, to try and attract attention when every other person was trying to flog flyers like their lives depended on it. The only positive was that we rarely got moved on because I was pregnant with you. Boy, did I let people know about it. Pregnancy made me incredibly bossy. It took a while to shake off.’

  Pfff, that’s giving herself a little too much credit. I stalk across the yard, paranoid that one of the chickens will start shrieking, and thus out me.

  ‘That’s cool, Mum.’

  ‘You all right? You sound a bit off.’ Mum lowers her voice to a stage whisper, which is louder than her actual talking voice. ‘What are they like? The Scottish contingent?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Really nice. My manager is great, but the coffee is terrible.’

  ‘You know what I say: don’t skimp money on the things that perk you up and bring you down.’

  ‘Caffeine and periods.’

  ‘That’s my girl. What about your colleagues?’

  I cup my hand over the mouthpiece, turning on the spot to escape the wind in an uncoordinated pirouette.

  ‘They’re quite loud. Much more so than in London. Massive sticklers for timekeeping, especially when it concerns mealtimes.’

  As if on cue, the sheep spot me and slip behind one another as they jostle downhill. They pick out a route with dainty toe-taps like a boisterous ballet troupe, all wide-eyes and crossed knees.

  ‘There is one – Miranda – she’s a nightmare. Never where you expect her to be, and when you do find her, she’ll use any excuse to do the exact opposite of what you need. She’s the ringleader, from what I’ve seen.’

  ‘Really? That sort of behaviour isn’t overlooked for long,’ says Mum.

  ‘Oh, the boss is aware. Problem is, he lets her get away with all sorts.’

  ‘Best to keep out of her way,’ says Mum. ‘You don’t want more drama, especially w
hen you’re not there for long.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ I say. ‘But it’s only a matter of time before something kicks off. I’ve got a feeling.’

  ***

  The next day, I set my alarm two hours earlier and think I’ve beaten Kian to it, but by the time I pull my second fleece on and shuffle downstairs, he’s already tapping his foot by the back door, a Thermos in each hand. Out in the shed, I rearrange eggs by size whilst Kian lines every possible surface with empty boxes. I turn over an almost spherical egg in my hand and wonder if there’s a category for ‘monstrously large’. This one is so big I’m surprised Kian didn’t have to intervene with forceps.

  I stretch and yawn, my arms heavy. God, I’d do anything for a nap. I only got up an hour ago, but still.

  ‘You’re like my mum, Kian. She never bloody sits down. Between coffee mornings and bake sales, she has a busier social life than I do. In fact, she arranges most of my social life too,’ I say.

  ‘Bit of a handful, is she?’

  ‘Not half.’

  ‘I can see why you wanted to escape for a wee while.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say. It comes out like an accusation that I try to counteract by casually leaning against the door frame, one ankle crossed over the other. In my head, I have the air of a sweater-clad catalogue model, but inside my stomach flutters like a jam-jar full of anxious butterflies until I’m sure one’s going to plop out of my mouth like an ill-timed burp.