I could have cried, I should have cried, but I wasn’t in the crying mood. I was in the red-hot temper mood. I didn’t lose it all that often, but my blood was the blood of the Scots and we don’t take prisoners…


Get A Life!

By Susan Brown

Chapter 15

Previously …

There was Pinkie, on her stand, eagerly waiting for me to get on her and go for a little run somewhere, her tail pipe wagging in anticipation. Maybe I was anthropomorphwhatsitting a bit, but I didn’t care…

There was something wrong.

I walked over to Pinkie and gasped. Her seat had been ripped to shreds and on the handlebar was taped a note made with cut out letters from a newspaper.

And, och aye the noo; the story continues…

Stunned, I looked at the note again.

Who would do such a thing; I was a nice person, wasn’t I?

Pinkies seat was ruined. There was no need for that. Why take it out on a poor defenceless pink scooter?

I could have cried, I should have cried, but I wasn’t in the crying mood. I was in the red-hot temper mood. I didn’t lose it all that often, but my blood was the blood of the Scots and we don’t take prisoners.

It wasn’t often that I lose my temper, but my mind had been through a lot of ups and downs and my brain was tripping out and thinking a lot of nasty thoughts about what I would do to the person or persons unknown who had defiled my lovely little scooter and left the poisonous cowardly note for me to read.

With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone form its little pocket in my bag and stabbed a number.

‘Hi Chloe…’

‘Alistair, something has come up, can you come to Auntie’s and I’ll explain.’

‘You sound a bit erm, angry. Nothing I have done, I hope?’

I took three deep breaths.

‘No honey, its not you. Look, I’ll explain when you come. Will you be long?’

‘About ten minutes.’

‘See you soon.’

‘Bye.’

After taking the note off the handlebars, I left Pinkie and went around the front of the house, standing by the corner, out of sight of Auntie’s sitting room window. I just didn’t want to have any sort of weird unworldly, off the wall conversation with Auntie: I just couldn’t cope with that in my present frame of mind.

Soon, I could hear the unmistakable sound of Alistair’s car in the distance. His Porsche hove (if that’s the right word) into view and he screeched to a halt three inches from the little painted toe of my right foot.

I sighed, wishing for once that he drove like a normal person and not one who had just driven off a motor circuit.

The ten minutes (or eleven minutes fifteen seconds, if you are being picky) wait after I spoke to Alistair on the phone had given me the chance to calm down a bit from boiling to simmer mode and I was therefore more receptive to thoughts other than murder, mayhem and other assorted violent actions. I now merely wanted to half-kill or perhaps break a leg or two and maybe crush the occasional arm of the disgusting person who had done the dastardly thing to my Pinkie.

Alistair smiled as he got out of the car, came over and before I could say anything, gathered me up in his arms, hugged me and then gave me a French kiss that I felt right down to my dainty sandals. If I had been capable of an orgasm, I was sure that I would have done something messy in my panties; as it was, I felt a definite tingling down there and a certain dampness…

After coming up for breath, he looked at me quizzically.

‘Well honey, what’s up?’

I, being the strong willed, titled head of the island and Lady of all I surveyed…burst into tears.

Without saying another word, he picked me up as if I was a feather and put in the passenger seat of his Batmobile-cum-Porsche. We roared off and before I knew it, we had driven to the edge of a cliff with drop dead gorgeous views over the sea and in the distance a couple of islands.

By this time, I had stopped crying, as Alistair’s mad driving had erm, driven away the tears. My mind had been on other things like, would I survive his maniac style of throwing his car around, and would I ever be able to get my hair get back in control again.

He switched the throbbing engine off and turned to me.

Pushing the hair away from my eyes, I looked over at the lighthouse, tall and strong and wondered if I would ever get out of the Freudian mind-set that I was in, ever since I got to know Alistair, shall we say, more intimately.

‘Tell me about it.’ he asked.

I took several deep breaths, tore my eyes away from the erect lighthouse and looked into his deep blue eyes.

‘The last twelve hours have been a bit traumatic.’

‘Why, sweetheart?’

I just loved it when he called me honey and sweetheart.

I thought that I should deal with the nasty note first and pulled it out of my bag and handed it to him.

‘What a cowardly thing to do; was it left at Aunties for you?’

‘Sort of, it was sitting on top off Pinkie’s, my scooter that is, handlebar. Also her seat was slashed and ripped.’

‘Whose seat?’

‘Pinkie’s.’

‘Your scooter?’

‘How many other pink scooters are called Pinkie?’

‘Riiight. So let me get this straight, this note was left on erm, Pinkie and erm, her seat has been ripped?’

‘And slashed,’ I corrected him.

‘As you say, and slashed. Look there are silly people everywhere and some are vindictive and nasty. That is the way things are. It will be difficult for us to prove who did this, but we should bide our time and hopefully this might just all go away. We’ll tell the local plod though and ask him to keep an eye on things. We aren’t used to crime on the island, apart from the occasional missing sheep, so he hasn’t much practice in the line of sleuthing; but he might stumble across something or someone might blab. I can’t believe that anyone would have it in for you. Let’s face it Chloe, you are not exactly much of a danger to anyone.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, wondering if I had just been insulted.

‘No… I didn’t mean it like that, its just that you are such a nice, kind and caring person, anyone would have to be ten pence short of a shilling to ever consider you to be a threat to the community.’

‘Aah.’ I said.

‘Aah?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You said aah.’

‘Erm,’

‘Erm?’

‘Stop repeating me like a parrot.’

‘Well stop aahing and erming at me. Tell me what the problem is.’

‘It can’t have anything to do with it. No one knows except a few people who have the secret and they wouldn’t divulge it anyway.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Me.’

‘I gathered that, but you are not making sense.’

‘Nor would you be able to make sense after what I have been through.’

‘What’s that then?’

‘What’s what?’

He seemed to count to ten under his breath for some reason and then spoke to me as if I was ten years old.

‘Chloe, tell me what has been going on to make you so upset?’

The poor lamb looked confused. I was about to add to his confusion.

This was it, the crunch time. Would he accept me or would he go off screaming into the hills, never to be seen again?

I turned to him and looked into his eyes.

‘Do you love me?’ I asked.

‘Yes; God knows why; you are strange sometimes. I know that you have issues but so does everyone. I love the way you smile and look at me. I can see you undressing me with those eyes and it’s both nice and distracting at once. You are fun to be with, you make me smile and laugh and forget myself and I think that you are very beautiful, but you don’t see that in yourself. Now, before I strangle you and throw you off this cliff in frustration, tell me what is going on.’

I took a deep breath, yet another one. I was in danger of hyperventilating if I wasn’t careful…

I turned away and looked out to sea.

‘I…I found out something today that startled me somewhat.’

‘What?’

‘You need to know something about me.’

‘I know all I need to know…’

‘You don’t Alistair; let me finish and tell you without interruption, please. I have told you about my parents and how they didn’t accept me for what I am, a girl. I also told you that they died before we had the chance at reconciliation. Although unlikely, I always hoped that they would come to l…l…love me again.’

I fought back the tears as I continued.

‘I went up to the Manor today. I was being nosy and I wanted to have a look around in my capacity of tourism officer. There was no one about, so I went up to the house and onto the terrace. As I was looking out on the gardens from the terrace, I heard a noise behind me. When I turned around, a woman was there. To cut a long story short, she took one look at me and fainted. I don’t normally have that effect on people and I was a bit puzzled to say the least. After finally coming around, she told me a fantastic story that I found hard to believe…’

I recounted what Claire Templeton had told me, vis-à-vis that I owned the island, several expensive properties abroad, that I was very rich and that I had more titles than I could shake a stick at. All the time, I wasn’t looking at him. I daren’t, as I had no ideas how he was going to take all these revelations. Once I finished I felt drained.

There was silence and I turned to him.

‘Well, don’t sit there like a stuffed duck, say something.’

‘What? Yea, right. Look this isn’t a wind up is it? No, I can see from your face that it isn’t. Then why are you crying?’

‘Because you might not want to know me.’

‘Bloody hell woman, do you think that I’m that shallow?’

‘No, it’s not that…’

He was quiet for a moment.

‘So you are Chloe McKay and your granddad was Andrew Mckay and your grandmum Constance?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it isn’t an April Fools joke.’

‘Its not April.’

He was quiet for a moment more and I wondered what was going through his mind.

He looked at me squarely and smiled.

‘Of course this means that things will have to change between us. There’s the title thing, do I call you Ma’am or just Lady Peploe and how often will I be required to bow and scrape? And then, of course, there are the financial implications. Will I still have to pay for things when we go out for meals?’

‘Did anyone ever tell you that you are a stupid prat?’

‘Well my parents did and my sister does. All my teachers thought that I was beyond the pale and, oh never mind them. Look here you silly arse; I love you because you are you. I couldn’t care less if you are rich, although that’s nice and you have a title and that’s nice too, as one day I might get my hands on some of both, not that I’m shallow or money grabbing or snobbish or anything…

I punched him on the arm…

‘Ouch, I feel like a battered boy friend. I can just imagine one of your grasping ancestors thumping the Sassenachs with a Claymore and his more intimate enemies with a craftily concealed sgian dubh*. I have a feeling, Chloe McKerrell-McKay, or The Lady Peploe, or even the Marchionesses of God Knows What, that you are harder than you look, but as long as you don’t hit me, I think that I can handle it.’

He rubbed his arm in a rather exaggerated manner and winced bravely. I swear had barely touched him…

‘So you aren’t against still being my boy friend?

‘No, I’ll be brave and still keep you on. By the way, can I have a new Porsche? If I can, I will pay for a new seat for your Pinkie; I can’t be fairer than that!’

I did love this silly man.

I laughed through my tears and soon we were embracing and kissing and…well, enough of that.

---

 
To Be Continued...

Sorry for the short chapter, real life was biting me in the leg again!

*The sgian-dubh is a small, single-edged knife (Gaelic sgian) worn as part of traditional Scottish Highland dress along with the kilt. (Thanks Wiki!)

Please leave comments and/or maybe a kudo, cos its nice to hear from you.