Where Have All the Boys Gone?(50)

“We can’t help that,” said Katie. “Our goal is Fairlish, not declaring golf jihad on the entire world.”

Harry nodded. “OK. Yes. I see. Right. Well, where shall we have a big party?”

Katie thought about the Laird’s house. “What about asking Kennedy?”

“His house is falling down!”

“Well, we’ll just have to have the party on a night it doesn’t rain.”

Harry snorted. “Good luck with that.”

“Think positive! We can hire a marquee and stick it in his garden!”

“What with? We’d be better off getting Willie to build a big bothy.”

“We sell tickets for the party, hire the marquee, and use the rest of the money left over.”

“How much were you thinking of charging for tickets? What is this filthy coffee by the way?”

“It’s called proper coffee, as opposed to the gravy granules you drink.”

“Well, it tastes weird and bitter and horrible.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it. Why should I want to drink something I have to get used to? Apart from beer, I mean.”

Harry poured away an entire cafetiere full of Katie’s precious stockpile down the sink.

“Don’t do that!” she screamed, too late.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve got plenty here,” he said, brandishing the catering tub of Nescafé that was all stuck together with sugar grounds and smelled of sawdust and Francis.

“Anyway, I was thinking one hundred pounds,” said Katie.

“To hire a marquee? Christ,” said Harry.

“No. Per ticket. Hiring the marquee will cost about a thousand.”

Harry nearly dropped his new coffee. “You are kidding.”

“No.”

“One hundred pounds per person?”

“Yes. Francis can come for free.”

“I don’t think people will pay that.”

“Of course they will,” said Katie cheerfully. “It’s for a good cause. And we’ll get sponsors in, and auction prizes and try and get celebrities—do you know anyone who lives in the area?”

“The Queen,” said Harry. “But I don’t know if she’d do it.”

“No, probably not. Anyway, we’ll think of something, ask all the posh nobs in Scotland. As soon as people find out they’re going to be in the newspaper they’ll pay anything. We’ll get Hello magazine to come and things.”

Katie was conscious she was talking faster and faster to try and make it all sound possible, but meanwhile, on top of dealing with Harry’s frankly disbelieving expression, her heart was racing, thinking about how she was going to organise everything, pull in a lot of favours, get everything sorted, convince the town, find some bloody attractive women to show up to get the local men to come, and, most of all, how to handle Iain. Without him onside, she would never get this thing off the ground. But if she were friendly with Iain, Harry would have a shit fit of gargantuan proportions. Things were about to get tricky.





Chapter Twelve


Katie slipped up the spiral staircase towards the newspaper office as unobtrusively as she could. It was a wet and windy morning a few days later, and the damp cobbled streets were deserted. She and Louise had been laying low—Katie making plans all day at work, then the two of them whispering into the night in the television lounge which, thankfully, had finally been vacated by the cadaver. Mrs. McClockerty had continued her positive campaign of feeding them up to fight the good fight, and as a result of that and no longer being able to go into the bakery for fear of being bullied, the two of them had adopted the Atkins diet and were eating nothing but sausages and eggs. They both felt faintly nauseous all of the time, but oddly thinner.

Katie hadn’t heard from Iain at all. She wondered if she should have called him, to thank him for the articles in the newspaper—which was keeping up a daily barrage of vitriol and mustering dissent. No, that would look weird.

She realised as she read the pieces that the name of the person responsible for developing the golf course was never mentioned—it was always a “corral of shadowy businessmen” or a “sinister group of faceless suits,” never personalised. No doubt this was deliberate, but there seemed to be a real depth of outrage to the writing.

As a result, Katie couldn’t walk down the street without people coming up to her and asking what they could do, and whatever it was, they had four pitchforks and an air rifle on standby. At first she’d try to explain about the benefit, which didn’t go across quite as well as the blue arse and total war idea had. Finally, she started telling people that they had to give her a hundred quid for the fighting fund, but they’d get invited to a really good party, and that seemed to do the trick.

In London, Olivia had promised faithfully to hike up every single one of her clients with even the tiniest Scottish connection, pester the life out of Sharleen Spiteri, Kevin McKidd, and Ewans Bremner and McGregor (“but not Sean, darling, he’s the biggest golf fiend you could possibly imagine”), and was anxiously enquiring after Louise.

“She’s gone native,” said Katie. “Honestly, she’s like those police officers that go after drug dealers and get addicted to heroin. She’s romancing half the town and kind of living out this James Herriot thing.”