The Wedding Cake Tree (9 page)

H
e strapped on a head-torch and took out the orange plastic sack I had ribbed him about earlier. He removed a large circular nylon sheet from the sack that was also bright orange.

‘
Come and sit by my feet,’ he shouted, ‘quickly!’

He
lifted the sheet above his head and tried to control it by holding the edges as it flapped wildly in the gale. He squinted away from the fierceness of the wind. Water dripped from every crevice of his face.

‘
It’s a survival sheet. We need to shelter and get you dry.’

We
crouched together and Alasdair pulled the sheet over us. He pushed the edge of the nylon under me so that I was sitting on the sheet rather than on the saturated ground. Our bodies made the framework of the makeshift tent, our heads the tent poles. He grabbed a telescopic walking pole that was strapped to his rucksack, lengthened it and, sticking it firmly into the ground, created another apex. His rucksack made up the fourth corner and also had the sheet tucked underneath it. He rifled through his rucksack and pulled out an entire set of dry clothes – his clothes – and took care they didn’t also become wet.

‘
Get that lot off and put these on,’ he ordered.

I
pulled the soaked fleece over my head while Alasdair unfastened and removed my boots. My feet were dry but my fingers were stiff from the biting wind, which made unbuttoning my blouse difficult to the extreme. Alasdair turned away while I struggled to pull his T-shirt over my head. He then gave me my own coat.

‘
Get your bum up. I need to pull your trousers off.’

Under normal circumstances I would
have either laughed at such a comment or slapped him, but I was in too much pain, wrestling my injured wrist into a sleeve, to offer any comment. And anyway, Alasdair looked far from pleased.

‘
What’s wrong? Why are you wincing?’ he asked.

‘
I fell on my wrist.’

Alasdair
took hold of my wrist and manipulated it to assess the damage.

‘
Is it broken?’ I tried not to cry.

‘
No.’

Within minutes I was dressed and dry, but still shivering a little from a mixture of cold, shock and the injury.

‘
You’ll start to warm up in a minute,’ he said. Taking in my crestfallen expression, he added, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll live.’

I m
anaged a smile. Alasdair delved into his rucksack once more.

‘
Ah, here it is, I thought I’d got it with me.’ He unfolded a large green and black scarf.

‘
What is it?’

‘
A shemagh. It’s from the Middle East, useful piece of kit this. Let’s get it on your head and stop all the heat from escaping.’

He leant
behind me, stretching the survival sheet upwards as he did so, and wound the shemagh around my head just as an Arabian salesman might have done in a Middle-Eastern souk.

‘
Let’s get you warm and then we’ll get back to the hotel once the storm has passed. Put your hands under your armpits.’

He
positioned his body so my back was cupped into his chest, and opened his coat so I could benefit from the full warmth of his body. It was like cuddling up to a radiator. The intimacy of our closeness should have been either sexy or embarrassing, but the dankness of the survival tent, combined with the condensation from our breath, the raging closeness of the storm and the fact that I was shaking like a jelly put paid to any possible notion of romance.

‘
I will never tease you about that rucksack ever again,’ I joked. Although I couldn’t see his face, I could feel his smile and was relieved he hadn’t remained angry at me for my naivety on the hill.

‘
You know what? It’s nothing short of amazing,’ I said, turning my head slightly towards him.

‘
What? That you stumbled across a ram in the Yorkshire Dales?’ He knew what I meant.

‘
No, that you just happened to stumble across me in the middle of nowhere. Were you out for a walk yourself or were you actually looking for me?’ Similarly, I knew what the answer would be.

‘
June came to see me when the rain came in. She’d noticed a nasty squall passing through, had seen you leave the hotel and noticed your boots were gone. I remembered I still had your waterproofs in my rucksack and realised you would be drenched. So I came to look for you, just in case.’

‘
But I could have been anywhere.’ I turned my torso so that I could face him. ‘I can see how logic made you assume I had gone back up the hill – Mum’s letter, sunset and all that –but how did you know I would veer off the track?’

‘
Because I knew.’

Our conversation
came to an abrupt halt when a perilously close flash of lightning illuminated the nylon of the makeshift tent; our faces glowed bright orange for a second, and then darkness. The only chatter between us afterwards was to count the seconds between thunder and flash.

After about half an hour
the storm abated, my bones no longer shook and my wrist throbbed less aggressively. Alasdair took the executive decision to lift the sheet from our heads. I blew into my hands and danced on the spot whilst Alasdair packed the sheet away. It was completely dark and I wondered what would have happened if Alasdair hadn’t found me. I shuddered at the thought.

‘
Still cold, Grace?’

‘
No, not too bad now. I was just thinking about what that ram might have done if you hadn’t turned up.’

‘
Probably nothing,’ he said, hurling his rucksack onto his back. ‘Their
baas
are worse than their bites.’

Hi
s head torch illuminated a wink and I chuckled all the way back to the village – the long way that time.

Chapter Twelve

It was around
ten by the time we reached the hotel, and I had never been so happy to reach a destination in my life. June fluttered around me like an anxious mother hen, got the local vet who was drinking in the bar to look at my wrist and, satisfied I had survived without any broken bones, ordered me upstairs to take a soak in the bath. I looked back towards Alasdair as I mooched up the stairs.

‘
I’ll wait for you in the snug, if you’re not too tired.’

Looking
down at his amiable face, I couldn’t believe how patient he had been. I must have looked worn out, standing as I was, like a scarecrow in Alasdair’s over-sized clothes, because he changed tack suddenly.

‘
Actually, maybe the next letter can wait till tomorrow.’

‘
No way, I need a drink!’’

‘
What about your wrist though? You should take some ibuprofen or that sprain is going to hurt like hell in the morning.’

I gave his advice precisely one
second of thought. ‘Mine’s a brandy and ginger. Give me precisely ten minutes.’

I
started up the stairs but heard his voice shout out after me.

‘
Grace!’

‘Yes?’

‘Although it really suits you, maybe Yorkshire isn’t quite ready for the shemagh look just yet.’

I
turned around to see Alasdair pointing at my head. My hand instinctively rose to touch the fabric of the scarf. I laughed – I had forgotten I was wearing it. I removed the shemagh in one fluid movement and threw it down the stairs for him to catch.

‘
You’re right, Alasdair. A shemagh
is
a good piece of kit.’

After my bath I sauntered back downstairs to meet up with Alasdair, but I noticed someone who caused my eyes to pop out on stalks. I needed to grab my camera, and quick.

Ten minutes later
– looking particularly pleased with myself – I stepped into the snug and found Alasdair sitting alone by the fire; my brandy was waiting on the table.

‘
No June?’ I asked.

‘
She’s shut up shop for the evening. We’re to help ourselves at the bar, write down what we’ve had and she’ll tot it up in the morning.’

I sat down
on a high-backed chair at the other side of the fireplace to Alasdair and smiled a contented smile.

‘What’s up?
’ he said. ‘You look like your lottery numbers have just come up.’

I took a swig of my brandy.
‘And so they have, Alasdair. So they have! You will never in your life guess who I’ve just seen in the bistro!’

‘Who?’ he asked, smiling,
clearly intrigued.

‘
I just saw – and you’re never going to believe it – the wife of a
very
prominent politician,’ I winked, ‘and she wasn’t alone. She was all dewy-eyed, holding hands across the table with someone who was definitely
not
her husband. And I would know, I did a photo shoot of the two of them at their house last year.’

Alasdair was
nonplussed.

‘So
…’

‘So?
So
,
I
shot upstairs for my camera. I just need to find some way of downloading the picture.’ I hoped Alasdair would offer me the use of his.

‘
Maybe you’ll be able to send it at the next place.’

Not the response I was hoping
for.

‘Maybe, but it’s hot news right now, not tomorrow.
You don’t seem at all interested.’

He took a swig of his brandy.

‘I’m not. The fact that some random woman is staying at a hotel with a man that isn’t her husband is not something I would ever be interested in, hotel staff must see it all the time.’

I was gobsmacked
, he didn’t care a hoot. ‘But her husband is a politician—’

‘Her husband, yes.
Not her.’

‘But what
she
does reflects on him, surely.’

Alasdair sighed.

‘Does it? You don’t know their background. You might not judge her if you were looking at her apparent affair through her eyes. In fact, if you knew the whole story you might just decide to leave her alone. Anyway, I thought you had given up the pap business?’

‘I have
, but there’s no point throwing good money away. A photo like that is worth quite a bit.’

A
lasdair tapped a drink map on the table. He looked disappointed.

‘
Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I would offer the use of my laptop but it’s a military one, sorry.’ I decided to change the subject. I planned on phoning Paul from my room later to give him the scoop.

‘
Well, day two complete. Quite a day, eh?’ I said, settling further into my chair.

Alasdair visibly relaxed.

‘
It certainly was. You’ve had an aunt thrust upon you out of the blue. I liked her, by the way – fantastic farm. Also, let’s not forget the revelation that your mum was in the RAF. And finally – and in
my
book the most important part of today’s adventure – you were nearly garrotted by a bloody great ram.’

We
laughed again at the thought of it all. Alasdair jumped up.

‘
Now then, what can I tempt you with, young Grace? A cocktail? Champagne perhaps?’

I
rose from my chair with a purposeful jolt and stood to face him across the bar. Beaming my broadest smile, I decided to probe a little. The letter from Mum had revealed just enough to make me want to know more.

‘
How old are you, Alasdair?’

He
laughed out loud, amused by my direct question as he poured the brandy. ‘Thirty-eight.’

‘
And you’re a Royal Marine.’ I decided not to push the special forces bit. I had spent enough time at St Christopher’s to know what questions could – and couldn’t – be asked.

He
rested his back against the optics, took his wallet from his trouser pocket and removed a small plastic card out of one of the flaps. He handed it to me and returned to his seat.

‘
Terrible photo!’ I joked. I read his name aloud and returned to my chair. ‘Major Alasdair Finn. I’ve never seen Alasdair spelt with a ‘D’ before, I like it.’

‘
Mum was Scottish,’ he said blandly. Remembering Mum’s letter I would have liked to have pressed him for more, but his tone and expression said some things were best left alone.

He returned the card
to the transparent sleeve of his wallet.

‘S
peaking of work, I’m afraid my sabbatical has been cut short,’ he said. ‘That was the message. I’ll still be able to complete this trip with you, but then I have to get back.’