Page 53 of Highland Games
Zoe jerked her mouth away from his. She stared out of the front windscreen to the glass wall of the forecourt shop. The cashier was using the tannoy to address them, as well as anyone else within a five-mile radius.
‘Aha! So yer not deaf then? Jolly good. Hows about yous take yer little love-in somewhere more private, eh?’
They looked with dawning horror at the punters standing around laughing. Zoe scrambled off him and sank down to hide in the footwell as Rory started the engine.
‘Don’t forget your seatbelt, lassie!’ boomed the cashier.
Zoe’s arm snaked up from the floor to pull it down, and Rory drove out to a chorus of claps, cheers and whistles. Zoe sat back in her seat, head in her hands. ‘That was mortifying,’ she mumbled.
Rory chuckled. ‘Not from my perspective. It was insanely hot, and now everyone is wondering what I did to deserve you.’ He smiled at her. ‘We’re nearly there. Can you direct me the rest of the way? The satnav lady sounds like she’s channelling my old drill sergeant and I’d rather listen to you.’
Five minutes later, they drove into an industrial estate to the end where a security guard opened a gate to a yard holding shipping containers of various sizes. Zoe handed him her paperwork and he unlocked her container as Rory backed up the van. They both got out and stood looking at her life in objects.
‘Is that a sun parasol?’ Rory asked. ‘You’re a little optimistic. Have you got a bikini to match?’
‘I downsized!’ Zoe wailed. ‘And now it looks like I’m a hoarder. We’re never going to get it in the van. We’ll have to come back,’ she said glumly.
Rory was undaunted. He was used to thinking spatially, working in three dimensions. Here was a problem he knew he could solve. After an hour, the storage unit was empty and the van was full. He’d performed the miracle of the loaves and the fishes in reverse.
‘I can’t believe you got it all in,’ said Zoe, shaking her head.
‘I knew the hours playing Tetris as a kid were worth it. Shall we get going?’
Anticipation crackled in the air between them. Zoe nodded, blushing. They got into the van in silence and drove off, the security guard shutting the gate behind them.
By the timethey rounded the bend in the track to see the cabin once more, neither of them had uttered a word for nearly an hour. All Rory could think about was getting the bed made and her in it, preferably naked. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing, as she was out the van as soon as he cut the engine, dashing to the front door of the cabin to prop it open.
He jumped out and opened the back of the van, grabbing the first few boxes, stacking them high, then jogging to the cabin. As he hefted furniture and her other belongings, he thought back to the obstacle courses he did in the army. Pulling himself and others over high walls, crawling through mud under netting, swimming through pipes of black water, bursting to breathe, trying to better the time he had set before. He approached unpacking the van in the same way: focused intensity, efficiency of movement, controlled power and speed.
In twenty minutes everything that was staying in the cabin was in, and her tent was packed away. She asked to keep the chairs and the commode, so he kept the ones she had brought from London in the van to store in the workshop, along with the sun parasol and other things she had no room or use for. He then carried in the pieces of the bed and began unwrapping them.
As soon as the first one was on the floor in the far corner of the cabin, Zoe knelt down and ran her fingers over the intricate carvings. ‘It’s so beautiful. Are you sure I can have it?’
He held her gaze. ‘Yes. It’s yours.’
She blushed. ‘I’ve never owned anything so special in my whole life. The rest of my furniture is from IKEA.’
‘Would it make you feel better if I gave it an unpronounceable Scandinavian name?’
‘Definitely.’
He paused in the middle of unwrapping the long side pieces. ‘How about Sloplard? Or Murkburgerslappen?’ Zoe giggled. ‘Or Pantsplatnurfle? If they’re no good then give Basil some random consonants and see what he comes up with.’
‘Pantsplatnurfle is my favourite,’ said Zoe. ‘And if you ever decide you’ve had enough of wood then I’m sure the marketing department at IKEA would have you in a heartbeat.’
He grinned at her and snapped on his tool belt. ‘Can you lift the footboard for me and I’ll start putting it together?’
It was the first time he had ever assembled it. He had wanted it to be a surprise for Lucy on their wedding night. However, Lucy only liked surprises if she had planned them out in advance. She told him which ring she wanted him to propose with, and when, where and how the proposal should take place. When he’d let it slip he was making a bed for her, she didn’t stop badgering him until she’d seen it. At which point her face said it all. It was never going to go with the modern aesthetic she was after.
He’d made it in the basement of the family townhouse in Edinburgh, which he’d turned into a workshop after his father had died. Looking back, he realised how pivotal that moment had been. Caught up in the chaos, disorder and earthiness of the room, Lucy must have known there was always going to be a limit to how much she could mould him into the man she wanted him to be.
As he fitted the pieces together, with Zoe helping, he noticed how perfectly he had made it. Every joint was exact. It was the opposite of his relationship with Lucy, where each crack and gaping hole had been covered with designer wallpaper. He was glad Zoe was having it. It was meant for the cabin and it was meant for her.
‘This is going to be even stronger than the front door,’ she marvelled.
Her voice snapped him out of his daydreams. ‘I like to make things that can last generations.’
‘I’ll have to make sure I leave it to Basil in my will when I’m gone.’
