Chapter Text
Ben lets it go to voicemail, as a matter of course.
First of all, he’s driving, and he hates distractions while navigating unfamiliar roads. Second, he’s already hit at least one prolonged patch of bad signal, and he can’t imagine anything more annoyingly distracting than trying to parse the meaning of a presumably human being on the other end of the line when they don’t sound even remotely human.
Thirdly, he suspects it’s Paul, and he lets Paul go to voicemail on general principle.
The phone beeps, and he turns down the volume knob on the car stereo in the nick of time.
“Ben! Paul here!” A long pause. “Yep, this is me hoping you’re in the mood to pick up.” A longer pause. Ben grins. If he weren’t driving, he might be tempted to put the poor man out of his misery, mostly because it sounds like he lucked out today. Always a consideration with Paul Kuhntz, beating heart and pockmarked jowl of the Joined Forces Talent Agency. Some days, he’s all sweetness and light, bringer of pastries and doting adoptive father to a growing pack of assorted mutts. Others… let’s just say he wouldn’t be miscast in a vintage war movie, refusing to cede a single grain of Sahara sand to the Panzerkorps’ enemies.
They wouldn’t even have to change the accent.
A staticky sigh, and Paul’s voice picks up again, definitely more on the doggie end of the spectrum today. “Listen,” he says, “I have no idea when you’ll get this but I want you to know, again if necessary, that this is big.” A sad chuckle. “Not often that I talk the team into this kind of outlay. Time and money. You’re getting a free vacation out of this, kid. I hope you know that.”
Right, Ben thinks. I sincerely doubt the Inner Hebrides are that expensive at this time of year.
“Anyway,” the voicemail continues, “I’ve been touting your genius to everyone with ears around here, so I expect gold, okay? The kind you hang on a Christmas tree.” Another hopeful pause that Ben considers filling with a soft snort. I don’t do Christmas had been his first response, and it had gotten exactly zero millimeters through Paul’s thick skin.
“And yes, it has central heating. Better have, because the cost of getting that guy from Inverness all the way out there to install and tune the piano was astronomical. But we suffer for our art, don’t we, yes we do. Well, some of us suffer for amazing songwriters who won’t stoop to electronic equipment like the rest of us these days. Modern times, eh, but not for our golden boy Ben.” An undefinable sound that could be the shuffling of papers on what Ben knows to be Kuhntz’ irredeemably messy desk.
“Tell you what,” Paul continues, “I bet you’ll like your collaborator. Quite a bit older than you, so probably a fellow Luddite.”
Ben bites back a grin at the audible disgust in Paul’s voice, and also at the obvious unfamiliarity with the word itself. He’s had to learn that one specifically to describe me, Ben thinks.
He has a point though. There is a road atlas sitting on the passenger seat, and a Post-It with turn-by-turn directions stuck to the steering wheel. Meanwhile, Paul carries on unperturbed.
“Great lyricist, poet really, has a bit of a reputation for being… well, unconventional. I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.” The phone beeps, threatening the end of Ben’s virtual patience, and this time it’s Paul who bites back a reaction (though, most likely, a curse in a language foreign even to Paul) before hastily adding, “Anyway, don’t kill each other, okay? Just killer songs, please. Thanks!”
The phone beeps again and hangs up on Paul, and blissful quiet descends once again, underscored only by the thrum of the engine and the soft rumble of the tires on the worn asphalt of what looks like a very old road.
They’ve got eight months till Christmas, Ben thinks. Which sounds like a lot of time, but goodness knows how long it’ll take him, this time, to hit the seam of gold that Paul is looking for. And then there’s shopping it, and recording it, and production, and marketing, and greasing the right ears at the radio stations and the TV channels and ugh, he’s glad he’s only making the songs and not tasked with actually whoring himself in front of the cameras and the microphones.
Once this leaves the demo stage, his voice is most definitely out of the picture.
And Paul has rented the cottage for the whole month, which feels like an insult, but hey. Ben is certainly capable of taking it slow. Might be good for him to decompress a little after what Paul unironically called their last campaign, which had resulted in an album’s worth of music that’s already mostly sold, and to actual names this time, as well as a serious case of sleep deprivation for Ben.
He hadn’t slept much better after finally making the cut and throwing Buck out for good, but at least he had slept.
And he has Paul’s promise, and, more importantly, Paul’s secretary’s confirmation, that the place he is going to spend the next month writing in has separate bedrooms. With doors that closed.
Even if Paul’s poet is an unruly sleeper, Ben is reasonably certain he can throw the windows wide open and let himself drown in the utter lack of city noises.
***
“Shit.”
No, not terribly creative, but right now he’s about as far from being a professional creator as one can get. Right now, he’s a driver stuck on a road barely wider than his car. Or barely wider than the hulking pile of immobile metal that his car has turned into. Shit sums it up quite concisely.
Quinn fumbles for his phone, and of course there’s no signal here. Of course. He gazes balefully along the narrow ribbon of pitted asphalt, at least as far as the next hill, then resigns himself to walking. The last house, if he remembers correctly, was at least a mile back. Which means it’s probably a good idea to at least try and clear the… well, he supposes it’s a roadway, after all, he’s been driving on it until recently.
He’s managed to push the car most of the way towards the hill and most of the way into the next passing place when something small and teal zooms by, slams on the brakes, then reverses directly into the dirt on the side of the road, narrowly avoiding an actual ditch.
The driver’s side door opens, and out pops a brutally dyed-black mop of hair barely contained by a bandanna, followed by a cute nose and a quizzical frown.
“Garage or junkyard, d’ya think?”
Quinn opens his mouth, then closes it. “Uh, garage,” he finally manages, “I mean, if you’re offering.”
The young woman grins at him. “Always worth asking when the car looks older than me,” she says matter-of-factly, then shuts off her engine and gets out, all maybe four-and-a-half feet of her, clad in paint-spattered dark blue coveralls and a surprisingly unscathed black tank top peeking through the unzipped front. “Hi,” she says. “I’m Mo. Short for Morag.” She gestures at her own height. “Obviously.”
“Quinn,” he replies, essaying a smile. “Quinn Jennings. And… I suppose he is. Older than you, I mean.”
Mo raises an eyebrow, then turns to rummage in her trunk. “That thing is a ‘he’?,” she says, elbow-deep in tarps and tools.
“Indeed,” Quinn replies. “Not that I had anything to do with that. Blonk Plinkerton III, would you believe it.” He snorts. “My son named him. When he was about four years old, actually.”
“The kid or the car?”
“Oh, the kid. Blonk’s a bit older than that.”
Mo nods, then slams the trunk shut and hands Quinn a compact steel hook at the end of a thick orange rope. “Fasten that to whatever you think won’t fall off. Good luck.” Her grin eases the sting a little, but it still takes Quinn a stunned moment of watching Mo not pay any attention to him to realize that he’s been asked to do his part.
Also, he can’t help noticing how her tiny boxy hatchback has a tow hitch, and how she slings her end of the rope around it in something that doesn’t even look like a knot until she puts one boot against the hitch and throws her whole weight into the rope, nodding in satisfaction when it doesn’t give. Boats, Quinn thinks, they probably all tow boats here. This is an island, after all, for all that it was a bridge that took me here.
“You ready?” Mo asks, taking off her bandanna and shoving it into her pocket. “Or do you need help?”
Quinn shakes his head. He knows there’s a thing specifically for towing underneath, he’s had to use it before, and it takes him a not-too-embarrassing amount of crouching and fumbling to catch the hook in it and give it a few experimental tugs to make sure it’s caught.
“Okay,” Mo says. “Your brakes still working?”
Quinn nods. “No power steering to worry about either,” he offers helpfully.
Mo laughs. “Thought not. All right, get behind the wheel, big man. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to Maz’s before Maz buggers off to the pub for the night.”
“Civilization?,” he hazards. “And thank you, by the way.”
“Well, back to Broadford,” she replies, making a face that makes it obvious that she doesn’t agree with Quinn’s assessment of their destination. “And you’re welcome.”
Maz is, at least, reassuringly sober but also making the kind of noises that, in Quinn’s experience, are international auto mechanic for ‘I’m not even looking at that today’.
“No worries,” he says, writing his phone number on a notepad on Maz’s surprisingly empty workbench. “I’m almost where I need to go anyway, and I’m sure I can get by without a car for a little while.”
“How’re you getting to where you’re going?,” Mo pipes up from the back of the shop where she’s been using the facilities.
“Uber?,” Quinn hazards. “Or a taxi, I suppose.”
Mo guffaws, and the mechanic’s eyes explode in laugh lines because he’s clearly seen this one before. “No such thing here,” he stage-whispers. “Uber, I mean.”
“If you’re hellbent on not asking me,” she continues smugly, “you’d better head over to the pub and make friends with Mick the postie. He’s English too, but he’s been here long enough to know his way around. And he has to go everywhere.” She chuckles as if at a private joke. “Where you going anyway?”
“A cottage on Talisker Bay,” Quinn replies slowly. “Though I’m told the lady with the key is in… hold on.” He fishes a piece of paper out of his wallet. “Fis…cavaig?”
“Close enough,” Mo opines. “But yeah, it’s me or the postie, mate. Nobody else goes there who doesn’t live there. You looking for some real peace and quiet, huh?”
“Yeah,” Quinn says. “Just me and one partner in crime. Who has probably retrieved the keys already, actually. Or possibly sent out a search party.”
Mo grins, then cajoles Maz into helping them shove Quinn’s baggage into the back seat of her tiny vehicle before jovially sending him back to the garage, or more likely the pub. Quinn pats the hood of the ancient gray Volvo before gratefully folding himself into the passenger seat of Mo’s car.
“I take it you don’t need directions?,” he asks softly.
“Nah,” she confirms. “Not a lot of houses down there. I expect I can’t miss it.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” Quinn replies. “How can I thank you?”
Mo shrugs. “I know where you live now,” she says with a smirk. “Give me a ring when you get too bored and we’ll negotiate.”
Quinn chuckles. “You might never hear from me at that rate.”
“Oh?” Her grin widens. “Lovers’ retreat?”
Quinn hopes she’s focused on the road enough to not notice his expression. “Far from it,” he says, finally. “Work, actually. We’re supposed to be writing songs.”
“Oh,” Mo replies, her voice oddly hushed. “Yeah, you picked a good place for that. The island’s full of ‘em.”
***
It doesn’t smell bad; that’s a bonus.
Of course, he’s expected to at least have had a measure of fresh air wend its way in with the piano tuner, but given how close the place is to the sea, he’s honestly imagined far worse. It’s old, true, nothing in the house except perhaps for the TV looking more recent than the 1990s at best, but it’s been kept up well by the look of it, and actually lived in as opposed to being left to molder in the damp sea air.
Yeah, he could be persuaded to consider it home for a few weeks.
It’s tiny, but he’s not a big guy, and it’s not like he brought a family of five or a rowdy gang of mates. Not that he has any rowdy mates as such, but it’s the thought that counts.
There are two bedrooms, as advertised, and he claims the bigger one, the one with the double bed. If his mystery partner has an issue with that, they will negotiate, and the negotiations will be short, because Ben is not an unreasonable man, and not one to leave matters unresolved.
The kitchen is minute and more than a little cramped, but thankfully the stove is electric, so at least he doesn't have to mess around with kindling an actual fire. He takes a few minutes to rummage through the cupboards for supplies and thanks himself for having done a grocery run before driving out here, because while he now has too much pasta and tea, he also has all the perishables needed to keep himself fed in a reasonably healthy manner, and probably far better tea than the bagged stuff that’s been sitting in the cottage’s kitchen cupboard for however long.
He drags the box of supplies in from the car and sets the fridge up to his liking before unearthing the tea (yes, bags, a concession to convenience and the unfamiliar kitchen) at the bottom of the folding crate and considering his next move.
The kettle, unlike the stove, is not electric, and so he fills it with tap water (only faintly golden in color and not reeking of iron as much as he’d expected this far into the Highlands, so he skips the filtration until he’s had an opportunity to reach a verdict on the water’s viability for tea) and sets it on the stove, then uses the time to put away most of the contents of his suitcase in the bedroom.
He evicts a hideously pink but pleasantly lightweight down comforter from the wardrobe and spreads it on the bed, on top of the pitiful blanket that’s already there, then proceeds to methodically fill the shelves and hangers with his assortment of unassuming but well-made and well-loved clothes; a single layer where he can get away with it, everything within easy reach and nothing liable to get rumpled or musty.
The kitchen is pleasantly warm and steamy when he returns; furnished with a fresh mug of tea, Ben sits down at the piano, frowning at how he can see his tired-looking face in the high polish of its exterior.
He’s pleasantly surprised when he uncovers the keyboard - this one appears to be enthusiastically restored rather than brand new - and even more pleasantly surprised when he drops his free hand on to the keys, playing a few random chords and flourishes.
It sounds nice and dark, a warm woody alto that loosens something inside him and makes him smile as he carefully places the tea mug on the floor beside him and lets his gaze wander out the window, for inspiration.
What comes to him, almost naturally and without prompting, is a soft piece full of longing that fits the space perfectly with its warm purple-gray colors and flowing minor chord progressions. Not one of his, of course, but Beethoven has been known to get the juices flowing without imposing himself too much, and it’s not a bad idea to have a snippet or two jotted down already by the time that vaunted lyricist arrives.
They’re late as it is, but that’s never stopped Ben from starting work when work needs to be done. And so, he lets the haunting lilt and throb of the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata spool out from his fingers like a liquid ribbon, filling the cracks in the floorboards and the spaces between the ting of the heater and the whistling of the wind outside, and he has reached almost the perfect state of peaceful anticipation when the front door of the cottage swings open with a bang and he hears a pair of heavy booted feet shuffle inside, stopping in their tracks at his unperturbed continuation of the sonata to the final, glorious repetition of its main theme.
“Ah, yes,” a deep voice remarks. “Billy Joel. One of the greats.”