Face the Wind and Fly by Jenny Harper Page A

thing is to campaign against the planning application for the mast. If that gets turned down, end of story.’
    ‘What’s the importance of the mast?’
    ‘They need to test the suitability of the site, weather-wise.’
    ‘So it mightn’t be suitable at all?’
    ‘It’s a formality in the case of Summerfield Law, I fear.’
    ‘If they get planning permission for the mast, is there anything we can do? Like interfere with the readings, for example?’ This from the hippy woman.
    Frank laughed. ‘Well, at some point we’ll need to decide how far we want to go in terms of direct action, but we’re not at that point yet. No, I’d say we concentrate on lobbying the planners. They’re the ones who’ll give permission for the mast.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘There’s several things we could do. Make a formal objection, laying out our case. Get up a petition, to back up our objection. Maybe have a march through Hailesbank, or stage some sort of protest at the Council offices. Lobby individuals too. Sandy Armstrong, for starters, the farmer who owns the land. He’s key.’
    Ibsen wasn’t used to this at all. He’d only come along at Frank’s insistence and because he objected so viscerally to the plans for the wind farm. He took stock. Most of those present were middle-aged going on elderly and he’d guess that most of them were well heeled. The hippy woman looked as though she’d been at this kind of meeting a dozen times before. There was a teenager with her – her son, by the looks of him – who kept his mouth shut. He looked as though he’d be up for a bit of direct action, though.
    Am I?
    Someone opened the door to the hall, and a cold draught blew in. He was going to sneeze. He fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief, found one, and blew his nose just in time.
    ‘You dropped this.’
    A woman in a tweed skirt and loafers was handing him a scrap of paper.
    ‘Thanks.’ He took it from her. It wasn’t paper, it was a business card.
    Kate Courtenay, Project Manager, AeGen.
    It was the card Kate had given him the other night, at the end of the Council meeting. She was quite something, that woman. He hated what she did, but by Christ, she was sexy. He’d seen her in hiking boots and a rain jacket and he’d thought so then. He’d seen her in a tight black shift dress and high heels, and wow, that was quite something. What would he give to see her in nothing at all?
    Ibsen blinked at the card. It was the first time, he realised with a jolt, that he’d felt this way about any woman since the divorce. Why the hell did he have to pick someone so completely unsuitable? See Kate naked in bed? It’s never going to happen. Especially as your involvement with a protest group will put you and Kate on a collision course.
    He shoved the card back in his pocket and tried to put shiny black eyes and a sweet, heart-shaped face out of his mind.
    Ibsen might be emotionally scarred, but he was no monk. He’d had a succession of girlfriends since he and Lynn had split up, and every time he found a new one he could see hope in his mother’s eyes – hope that he might find love again, hope that he might settle down, hope that he might have another child to help heal the pain of losing Violet. But it hadn’t happened. He wasn’t capable of making it happen. Perhaps he never would be.
    Maybe part of the problem was that he was still close to Lynn – even though they found it impossible to live together, no-one else understood the hurt in his heart the way she did. Sometimes he wondered if they might try again, then he thought maybe this was what was getting in the way of a new relationship.
    So he did try to make a new start. Several times over the past couple of years he’d begun dating. Attracting women wasn’t the problem – they swarmed to him like bees to pollen. And they were nice women, though each had a flaw. Jackie had been pretty, but so clearly desperate, at thirty-eight, to bag a man, that she clung like a leech