Page 24 of The Scottish Island Wedding

‘An envelope? Like, with something in it?’

‘I couldn’t see what was in it. But yeah, it did look weighty. My assumption was that there was money in it.’

‘She threw an envelope of money at a mystery man?’ Blossom repeated. ‘That’s weird.’

‘Well, I don’t know for sure that it did have money in. That’s just a guess.’ Heather sighed. ‘I honestly don’t know what to think about anything at the moment.’

‘Hm. Well, I don’t know about the man in the car, but as far as the wedding stuff goes, she’s just doing this to try and control you.’ Blossom pursed her lips. ‘I do feel for you, honestly, Heather. This whole week has just been one long shitshow. That press conference was… special.’ She let out a long breath. ‘Honestly, I was so happy to have an opportunity to get away from Tom, though. He is doing my head in.’

‘Oh, no. You too?’ Heather followed a curving sweep of the road, enjoying the sensation of freedom that driving gave her. The road was long, stretching out ahead of her. It was good to be out in nature again, even if she was in the car, and driving gave her the feeling of being in control of something. There were so many things she wasn’t in control of, just then, and the anxiety it was causing her was intense. ‘What’s up?’

‘Ohhhh. Where to start?’ Blossom sighed again. ‘Things have been kind of rough between me and Tom for the last year or so. It started when we had Archie, and it’s never really improved.’

‘Rough, in what way?’ Heather glanced worriedly over at her sister, her own troubles suddenly forgotten. Heather had always envied Blossom: Tom had always seemed like a lovely man, they had two beautiful children and ran their own organic farm. Blossom ran a charming social media account about the chickens, ducks and the cows, which had several hundred thousand followers.

‘Well, I thought we were both just tired. You know, having a new baby with a toddler already. Alexander was two when Archie was born. It was definitely intense. We’d managed not to have too bad a time of it the first time around, in retrospect; he didn’t sleep too badly, didn’t have any major illnesses, fed well, was generally cheerful. And then, with Archie… well, you know that Archie hasn’t been so easy.’

‘I know. I thought things had improved, though. With the sleeping, at least.’

Heather hadn’t seen an awful lot of her sister in the past year, but Blossom’s texts on the sisters’ group chat had given an insight into the difficult time she was having with her youngest.

‘Only mildly. He still wakes up several times a night, and Tom’s been in the spare room for over a year. The eczema has improved massively, now that the doctor deigned to prescribe us the hydrocortisone. But now, the problem is that Archie’s got into bad sleeping habits and he wants me all the time.’

‘So, you and Tom aren’t… you don’t have much… quality time?’ Heather asked tactfully.

‘No quality time at all. Not for a long time. He’s gone completely cold and jealous. He keeps saying that I should just let Archie cry at night and that he needs my affection. What am I supposed to do, put on a lacy teddy and do a striptease for him while my baby’s screaming in the next room? He’s being so unreasonable about it.’ Heather could hear the anger in her sister’s voice.

‘Well, yes. You can’t very well feel sexy with all that going on,’ Heather agreed. ‘And, also, you both probably don’t feel sexy or affectionate if you’re both tired and stressed.’

‘No. I just want to sleep through the night. Just once.’ Blossom laughed, a slight maniacal tone to her voice. ‘I thought it would be nice to have a family break away to the castle, for the wedding. I thought I’d be able to get some rest, because Tom’s here. We’ve got some friends looking after the farm. We haven’t been away together as a family since Arch was born. But he’s absolutely refused to take the kids at all since we got here – I don’t need much, but a few lie-ins would be nice, maybe a bit of time on my own here and there. I’m so tired, and I can’t keep having the same conversation any more. I don’t know how to make him understand that I need him to help me.’

‘Oh, no, Bloss. I’m so sorry!’ Heather exclaimed. ‘That’s awful. Why won’t he help out?’

‘He says it’s his holiday, so he’s going to rest. He’s stressed about the farm… It’s not doing so well.’

‘It’s not? I thought you guys were thriving, with being organic and everything. That’s so in demand these days.’

‘No, we’re not. I mean, yes, organic is in demand. But organic farming is pretty hard. Money’s tight. Anyway, the point is that we’re both stressed about that, but we still have two young kids and he doesn’t seem to get that I can’t cope with them on my own. He’s drinking more than he should, too.’ Blossom blinked and looked away; Heather could see she was really upset.

‘That’s rough. I’m sorry, Bloss.’ Heather didn’t know what else to say.

‘And, he said, You wanted the baby to sleep with you, so I’m not taking him. So passive-aggressive. It was almost like I was talking to a stranger. It wasn’t the man I knew. Not the man I fell in love with.’ Blossom’s voice hitched. ‘I’m not saying this to be mean, Heather. I know you’re in love and you want to get married and you believe it’s going to be this romantic dream. But I felt like that too. Tom said all the right things. He talked about how we were going to share everything when it came to parenting. That he was so looking forward to becoming a father. But now, he basically expects me to do everything. Like I’m the hired help.’

‘Damn, Blossom. That is horrible.’ Heather frowned. ‘It’s okay; I’m not taking it personally at all. I’m here for you. I can take the kids. I’ll look after them, for as long as you want. I can have them at night as well. We’ll all help you, Bloss. Mum will help. We love you.’

‘Heather. I am not making you look after a two-year-old and a four-year-old overnight in the days before your wedding.’ Blossom wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘But thank you. I’ll ask Mum if she can take the kids, maybe, or Bluebell. The point is, though, it’s great to have you guys on hand, but Tom should be helping me. I just don’t know how to get him to understand what I need – I would have thought that just saying it clearly would be enough, but it’s like I’m speaking Korean, or he’s underwater and he can’t hear me. And honestly, the longer that he’s so cold, and… unfeeling… the less I want to try.’

‘Oh, Bloss. Wait a minute. Let me just pull off here.’ Heather indicated and guided the Range Rover to a passing place at the side of the road. Many of the roads on Skye were quite narrow, but most of them had been built with regular passing places. This was a particular godsend if there was a number of campervans trying to navigate the roads, but outside of the summer season, the roads were pretty quiet, so it was okay to use one as a layby. Today, the place where she had pulled over was next to a waterfall that ran over green-mossed rocks; the water had frozen, and it looked like an enchanted mirror.

She put on the brake and turned off the engine. ‘There. It’s easier to talk like this.’

‘But we need to go and get the shoes,’ Blossom protested.

‘I know. But I can give you a hug first,’ Heather said. ‘Come on. Get in here.’ She opened her arms and Blossom leaned over, awkwardly. ‘Bloss, I don’t exactly know how to help, apart from to say that I’ll be there for you all I can with the kids. Maybe if you two could get some time away together, that would help? You could leave the kids with us at the Inn, go off for a weekend?’

‘We could try that. Yes. But the thing is, I’m at the stage where I actually dislike him so much that I don’t want to have a lovely romantic break away. He’s shown me this horrible, selfish, uncaring part of himself that I never saw before, and now, I can’t unsee it. I especially don’t want to reward that behaviour by giving him my body, you know?’ Blossom shook her head. ‘I think that, if we were walking down some Parisian boulevard, or whatever, I wouldn’t want to hold his hand. He’s been so mean. He’s just destroyed all the trust I had in him.’

‘Oh dear.’ Heather didn’t know what to say to that; she just held her sister tightly and gazed out of the window. She didn’t know what to think, either; she’d rarely heard Blossom complain about the kids or Tom, and though she knew they’d been having a few difficulties, she had no idea it was this bad. ‘Bloss, I’m sorry. You always post those lovely pictures of the kids on the group chat and on your socials. The funny content you do about the cows and the chickens... I thought… I thought everything was okay.’