Face The Wind And Fly by Jenny Harper

Author:Jenny Harper [Harper, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781783752645
Publisher: Accent Press (UK)
Published: 2014-01-17T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Kate started helping out in the community garden on a regular basis. It was dull, heavy work but she began to like the unthinkingness of it. After a day at AeGen, her head filled with figures and contracts, environmental reports, soil tests, wind measurements, consultant reports and deadlines, nothing seemed so appealing as the idea of picking up a spade and turning over soil. She found the primitive connection with the land thoroughly – and unexpectedly – restorative.

Even more to her surprise, she discovered that her initial reservations about Ibsen Brown were changing into genuine admiration. For a start, he was in the community garden most evenings too – and, unlike her, he must have been labouring hard all day already.

She got to know many of the volunteers. One evening as she struggled to sift stones from the heavy soil she asked a hard-faced woman with nicotine-stained fingers, ‘What started you coming down here, Maisie?’

‘That Ibsen Brown,’ Maisie said, stabbing her fork into the ground and reaching into her pocket for a cigarette. ‘He’s got a mighty persuasive tongue on him.’ Her grin revealed nicotine-stained teeth, but had genuine warmth. ‘It’s good, though, int it? Gets you oot.’

‘Aye,’ said the woman on the other side of her, ‘Tho’ you’d tak ony excuse tae get awa’ frae that man o’ yours.’

Everyone laughed. An atmosphere was developing here that was unlike anything Kate had come across before. This was a warm-hearted, funny, and genuine community, in which she sensed none of the subtle complexities and underhand scheming she knew abounded in Forgie. People here knew who she was, and of her connection with the wind farm, but they accepted her without comment. Most evenings there were anything from three to ten people at the site, digging, chatting, joking and teasing each other with an easy camaraderie.

‘Hard work, though,’ a young woman called Jodie grumbled, examining a blister on her hand.

‘Aye. He has tae crack the whip sometimes.’

‘You wish, Maisie,’ cackled someone else. ‘Dream on.’

‘Fifty Shades of Brown,’ came a shout, and there was more laughter.

Kate grinned as she bent again to her task. The mood was certainly very different to her office, where everyone was driven because deadlines pressed. There, all was reaction rather than action. The stress levels were high and most people dealt with them by plundering their reserves of energy until they were utterly depleted. Small successes buoyed them up enough to carry on, errors and failures dragged them down. She was beginning to discover that gardening was not like that at all. It was impossible to hurry nature and preparation was everything – though that, at least, she understood.

A couple of weeks after the debacle at Forgie House, she found herself alone with Ibsen for the first time. It was a windy evening, and decidedly cold, which might have been the reason no-one else had shown up. When she arrived at the garden, her geometric black and ivory Missoni wool scarf wound round and round her neck

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