Yes, yes, he’d gone off his usual standards since Douglas was born. He got that. Why wouldn’t a beautiful, delightful baby be more interesting than his actual job? Joel was feeling guilty in front of the computer, trying to catch up as Douglas napped in his crib in the corner of the room.
And now he was staring at his computer in consternation. How could this be so damn hard?! It was a few Christmas lights. But he couldn’t find a damn thing anywhere.
Every year from time immemorial, the town council had voted that money that would otherwise be spent on Christmas lights would be diverted to provide a lighted path for the children down from school, which was at the very top of the hill, the old redbrick building a happy sight, normally overrun with boys and girls even after the school day was over; the gates were never locked, and in the light summer evenings there would be a game of football or hopscotch, and anyone who wanted to could join in, pretty much.
From the back of the school there was the cobbled road downward. There were few cars on the island, and they mostly knew to go painfully slowly, not just for the children but for the occasional sheep or cow who wandered into the road at will.
But in front of the school was a grassy hill with a winding path, and this was always a much more attractive prospect. You could roll, tumble, or simply tear down the gradient, or if you had a scooter, you could attempt to steer it round the worst of the mud on the path. It was a universal option, and for years the council had lit it up—it was private land, but almost nobody could remember who on earth it belonged to; it was certainly too steep to build on—so that when it got dark at 3:00 or 3:30, there was still a way to get down, although it guaranteed you would be covered in mud and anything covering your knees would probably have a hole in it. The rule about wearing shorts to school (for the boys) had once been abolished some time before, but the mothers of the town, weary from darning the knees of trousers ruined on the wee brae, had revolted and insisted it be brought back for boys and girls. So now the only casualties were a few skinned knees, and the people of Mure were very much of the unfashionable opinion that you couldn’t be a kid without a few skinned knees.
Colton, however, was from California, where you’d sue someone for letting a kid skin their knee, and he found the entire thing incomprehensible. He’d also grown up in Texas, where people started putting lights on their roofs and huge inflatable Santas on their lawns and vast displays in every single window straight after Thanksgiving, and felt it was a basic human right to have a bit of the same in Scotland, particularly when it was so goddamn dark all the time.
So he’d left a provision in his will for a set of lights to be lit up at Christmas—and Joel had overlooked it completely. Joel had known only miserable Christmases in and out of foster homes as a child. Decorating and doing something up would simply never have occurred to him.
Flora, on the other hand, adored Christmas: had her cake all ready, had the gifts ordered—or she normally did. Even with her being busy up at the Rock, they still had the tree up, hung with carefully wrapped ornaments from years gone by, every year supplemented with something new—this year, from Mark and Marsha, a large “D” for Douglas, beautifully carved out of a dark hard wood, covered in leaves that reflected the firelight and gleamed. Dougie put out a pudgy little hand and tried to stick it in his mouth and nearly brought the entire tree down, but it had been saved, and its dark green fragrance lit up the entire room. Underneath it parcels had started to appear, which were being feverishly policed by Agot, who had to be regularly warned off them, as well as to stop pressing the buttons that made the lights on the tree flicker on and off as she was giving everyone a migraine.
But there it was in black and white: a large, very generous budget to decorate the town. What did he mean by “decorate”? How did that even work? Would it need planning? Would it have to pass the council? This was, frankly, a ballache he could absolutely do without. He was a lawyer, not a bitching . . . well, whatever this job was.
He sighed and picked up the phone. Perhaps if he called Malcy, who ran the local council, he would list a stream of objections and there wouldn’t be a meeting before Christmas and it absolutely couldn’t be done in time, and Joel would have to mentally apologize to Colton but it would have to be done next year.
Unfortunately Malcy was on the golf course, teeing off with some equally fat-bottomed friend, and passed the call on to his deputy, Mrs. McGlone, who never got anything fun to do and thought Joel was incredibly handsome.
“Oh, that’s marvelous!” came the tremulous voice on the other end of the telephone. “We always loved Colton.”
This was a big fat lie. They’d tried to block his hotel about four times and dumped a wind farm in the full sight line of his house just because they found him American and annoying. Who Mrs. McGlone did like was Joel.
“Well, I’m guessing it’s too late for planning,” said Joel reluctantly.
“Oh no, there’s retroactive planning for the lights! We just diverted the money instead, but it’s all totally allowed. Oh, this is so wonderful! When are they going up?” Mrs. McGlone cleared her throat. “Will you be needing . . . someone important to turn them on?”
“Oh God, I suppose I’d better book someone,” said Joel.
“Oh,” came the voice. “I see.”
“Or perhaps . . . I don’t know . . . maybe you could do it?”
“Oh, do you really think so?” came the voice in full gush again. “Well, I must say it would be an absolute honor! Let me clear my diary! This is wonderful.”
And she hung up, leaving Joel staring at the computer, fervently pissed off. This was all he needed.
Fortunately for Joel, every company in the world, it seemed, that did lights on the mainland was already booked up and booked out. Except, unfortunately, Mrs. McGlone had rushed straight to the Seaside Kitchen, and the island’s equivalent of Instagram had now announced to absolutely everybody that they were going to get proper Christmas lights! On the promenade! In memory of Colton, and she was going to do the switching on, wasn’t that wonderful? “I know, I can’t believe they asked me, you’d think they’d want a celebrity!!”
Then she would give a little pause so the person would say, “Oh, you are basically a celebrity,” which, to give her credit, most of the time they kindly did, and very soon Joel couldn’t leave the house without Jonny from the fiddle band coming up and offering to play for him, or one of the kids from the school running up wide-eyed and saying, “When are the lights coming? Are the lights coming today? Is it today?”
THE NEXT DAY Joel headed up to the Rock with Flora to grab some paperwork, dodging the Murians who came their way to express gratitude and thanks for something that hadn’t even happened yet.
Flora had contrived to find herself there as usual—this was not surprising, but seeing Fintan there too was—and she beamed with delight when she saw him. “Come eat!” she said, smiling. “There is some good stuff going on here. We’re going to show all those bastards.”
Indeed there was. Instead of the usual shouting and screaming, there was an atmosphere of quiet reverence.
“What’s going on?” whispered Joel.
“Disgusting things,” snapped Gaspard, who was unwrapping something white from a pot with the steamer on.
“It’s lutefisk,” whispered Isla. “He likes it.”
Konstantin was standing there shrugging. “What? It was just a suggestion.”
“Ten days! The fish has been there for ten days,” said Gaspard crossly.
“I didn’t make you make it!”
“You said, ‘Gaspard, you couldn’t make lutefisk,’” growled Gaspard.
“Exactly!” said Konstantin, frustrated. “So, that is the end of it.”
“That is the challenge!” said Gaspard.
“French people,” said Konstantin crossly.
“Exactement,” said Gaspard. “French people will not eat fish that is ten hours old. Thees ees ten days old.”
Joel stared at it.
“This is going to be disgusting,” said Flora. “It was just we had some spare.”
“Oh, it’s nice,” said Joel, completely surprising her.
“What?”
“Oh, I was out in the Midwest for a while. They eat it there.”
“Yes!” said Gaspard. “They eat fish in America when they are thousands of kilometers from any sea. Here, we have the problem. Norwegians and Americans.”
They all looked at it. With a furious snort, Gaspard covered the white inflated fishlike substance in a thick layer of salt, twisted it in paper, and threw it in the steamer.
“Thees ees a bad experiment,” he said grumpily.
Konstantin, on the other hand, was rather excitedly going through drawers and cupboards.
“What are you doing?” asked Isla suspiciously. She was always trying to get him to make less mess, not more.
“We need bacon and peas,” said Konstantin. “And look! I have boiled the potatoes.”
Isla blinked and looked into a pot. He had boiled potatoes—not new potatoes, just ordinary potatoes—with their skins on. There were bits of dirt floating in the water.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone as useless as you,” she said, shaking her head.
Konstantin was crushed. He’d felt he was doing well. She caught his expression.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s solvable. Quick, set the big pot on, there are some local potatoes somewhere and they boil fast. And there are some fresh lardons in the larder.”
Konstantin jumped to what she was saying, and Flora gave Joel a look, as if to say, Look how much better we’re all doing, and found it slightly amusing how excited Joel was suddenly looking about lunch.
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER and, amazingly, there were mashed peas, fresh tiny boiled new potatoes covered in butter and salt, some little bits of crisped-up bacon, and some sour cream on the side of the old washed table, as Gaspard crossly slung down the pan of lutefisk without even putting it on a plate.
“Okay,” he said. “I am finished with thees experiment. I am going to look for snails. Fintan, you come weeth me.”
The others laughed and beckoned him back and made him sit down, as Konstantin divided the fish and Joel smiled cheerfully as the familiar salty scent reached his nostrils.
“This was about the only happy Christmas I ever had,” he said quietly to Flora. “In Minnesota. I had to go out of state; they couldn’t manage to keep us all on. It wasn’t for long. They were good people.”
Flora laid a hand on his arm. “I think that’s the only nice memory I’ve ever heard you mention from your childhood.”
“Meanwhile Douglas already has a model railway set.”
Flora smiled. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”
Joel tucked in. “Oh, it’s better than that.”
Against all odds—and Gaspard refused to touch it, like a grumpy toddler—the lutefisk was a great hit, and Flora immediately made a mental note to put it on the menu. It was complicated to make, but not difficult, and the ingredients were cheap and local and authentic.
“But eet betrays all my culinary principles,” said Gaspard.
“I thought rules were made to be broken,” said Konstantin slyly.
“Oui, yes, your rules! Not my rules!!”
OVER LUNCH, JOEL found himself explaining the lights situation to the newcomers who couldn’t help, but it felt good to talk to them regardless.
Konstantin thought about it. “Oh well, of course you could find someone.”
“There are no lights to be had in the whole of Scottish mainland,” said Joel crossly. “Or London either. They only keep enough for themselves. I cannot even begin to tell you how inefficient it was for Colton’s trust to pay me to ring up all these people.”
Konstantin shrugged. “Oh well, in Norway—”
“Oh yes, in Norway, in Norway you eat things that are rotting and you screw reindeer,” said Gaspard, who had at least managed to drink the eau-de-vie Konstantin had found in the dusty back of the bar and insisted lutefisk could not be enjoyed without a tiny shot of.
“Well, anyway, there are always a lot of lights up north because, you know, twenty-four-hour darkness. They keep a lot of spares. We’re nearer there than London.”
“But I don’t speak any . . . Oh.” Joel took off his glasses. “Seriously, you’d help?”
Nobody had ever asked Konstantin for his help before. It was a strange situation. Konstantin considered it. “Would it get me out of scrubbing lutefisk off the metal tins?”
“Non,” said Gaspard.
But Konstantin offered to help anyway, something of a new sensation, but a pleasing one.
OF COURSE HE’D theoretically done good things. Normally, it had been Konstantin’s job to turn up and stand at his father’s side for anything important and ceremonial. He had absolutely hated it; it had been the most boring thing ever. Endless speeches and people thanking people for other things and congratulating them and wah wah wah, it just went on and on. Normally standing outside in the freezing cold.
Now, as he made the calls to his homeland, he realized why people got thanked for doing this kind of thing for absolutely no money.
Because it was, frankly, a total pain in the arse. Still better than scrubbing—lutefisk, it turned out, was an absolute bastard to get off a pan—but still a massive time suck nonetheless, particularly when trying to get manpower and goods to a remote island nobody had heard of or could pronounce or spell.
Again and again he tried different companies and got the same results. Too late, already booked. On the hotel computer he did, just once, quickly google himself in Norwegian. A picture came up of him looking absurdly drunk with two models draped over him and a gossipy headline in Se og Hør saying “No Sightings of the Playboy Prince . . . Is He in Rehab?” and he winced and turned round quickly in case anyone at the hotel had seen it. Thank God they didn’t read the Norwegian papers. He had been briefly outraged, wanted to say of course he wasn’t in rehab—but the real story, of course, was worse, and oh my goodness, the last thing he needed was everyone to know he’d actually been banished. He’d shut the web page and decided to block everything out from the outside world. It was actually rather easier to do that on Mure than he’d realized.
Finally, at last, he found an old artist who said he could maybe do it. He lived in the north and worked with light and was willing to come in—at great expense, but Konstantin never noticed expense, and fortunately Joel’s budget was generous—and “see if the space worked for him.”
Konstantin had asked if the space often worked for him and didn’t receive much of an answer, but it was the best he could do. The artist insisted on flying in for a morning and out again, by which time apparently his artistic sensibilities would have taken in all they needed to know.
“I need to charm him,” Konstantin announced to the kitchen. “He needs to want to make one of his creations here.”
“I thought it was just hanging lights on a lamppost,” said Isla.
“Me too,” said Konstantin.
Konstantin was much more crestfallen than he would admit. He was used to impressing people fairly easily, something about himself that had somewhat evaporated in the last month. Still, either the artist wouldn’t care or he’d tell the papers, neither of which was ideal.
“I don’t know how to impress him. And he’s only here for breakfast.”
“You could make croissants,” said Isla. She meant it as a joke, but Gaspard came skidding across the kitchen like he was on roller skates.
“You make croissant?” he said, his lip curling.
Isla couldn’t help it, by habit she trembled slightly under his gaze. “Uhm . . . Flora showed me once.”
“You do it?”
“Well, I—”
“Aha! I knew it. Do not lie of croissants!” He turned to stalk away.
“I am not lying of . . . about croissants.”
The only reply was a contemptuous sniff.
“Okay then! We’ll do it!” said Isla, surprised at herself.
“You cannot pronounce the word, how you do it?”
Isla couldn’t believe where she found the courage. “You’ll see,” she said.
“I will see,” said Gaspard, but there was hope as well as disdain in his voice. “Pot boy, he help you.”
“I’m sure I can do it by myself.”
“No. You watch and learn.” He pointed at Konstantin. “Or if ees rubbish, you can forget.”
Which was how they found themselves, the night before the artist, Gunnar, arrived, up at four o’clock in the bloody morning—Isla resigned, Konstantin astounded—Isla having to come in the freezing dark to the warm, still kitchen in the middle of the night.
Gaspard had refused to let her use Flora’s recipe and left his own instead. She didn’t really remember much of Flora’s methods anyway. Spread chilled butter. Then roll it into the dough she’d started the night before. Then fold over the dough. Then chill. Then do it again. And again.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, looking at the enormous mound of butter. “How does anyone ever have the patience to do this? I forgot it was such a pain.”
“No, is croissant,” said Konstantin, trying to figure out the coffee machine and hoping if he did it badly enough that Isla would just take over and do it for him. She didn’t get his joke either. He straightened up. “Don’t people make croissants every day?”
“Yes,” said Isla. “Insane people.”
Outside an owl hooted. It was so late and dark and odd to be in the kitchen, they both half smiled, Isla immediately stopping herself in case it looked like she was smiling at him on purpose.
They parceled out the dough between them and tried to smear the cold butter over.
“If anything gets warm it is . . . ‘poubelle,’” said Isla, reading carefully off the instructions. “What does that mean?”
“It means you put it in the bin,” said Konstantin without thinking.
Isla glanced at him. “You speak French?”
Konstantin shrugged, annoyed he had given himself away. “Ah, hardly any.”
He certainly didn’t mention he also spoke Swedish and German.
“I mean, why are you working here?” said Isla. “You obviously hate it.”
“Well, seeing as you know everything about me, I don’t think I have to answer that question,” he said as they each carried on with the butter, then put the layer to chill for twenty minutes in the fridge. A silence descended.
Isla got up and made coffee. Konstantin was delighted.