Men in Kilts

by Katie MacAlister

  Life shifted into hectic gear immediately following the funeral. Mary made arrangements to stay in a nearby town since Iain’s house was due shortly to be filled with my family. Thankfully Archie returned to Manchester with plans to show up on the wedding day. Bev and Nate were going to arrive a few days early to spend time with Joanna and David. My family was due to roll into town three days before the wedding, after which they would separate and either fly home, or work in a little vacation, depending on their schedules. Ewen and his latest significant other were planning a whirlwind visit.

  In addition to all of the standard wedding chaos going on, I had one other worry on my mind. Shortly after Iain proposed, I had decided to start learning Gaelic. I knew that I wouldn’t have time to become anywhere near proficient in the language what with all of those strange diphthongs and what-have-you, but I had one specific goal in mind: I wanted to recite my wedding vows in Gaelic.

  That may seem an odd thing to do, but I had a reason for it. Iain’s father, Alec, was a very active man in his clan, and had been taught Gaelic at his mother’s knee. He was one of the people who pushed quite hard to bring back Gaelic to schools, and had his hand in a good many schemes to work Gaelic back into the life of Highlanders. Iain and Ewen were both forced to learn Gaelic since Alec refused to speak English when at home. Ewen was less fluent in it than Iain, but he could and did, on rare occasions, speak it. Iain wasn’t the reformer his father was, but he did make sure his boys had a grounding in Gaelic as well, and gave them the opportunity to learn more. Only David did.

  I thought it would be a nice tribute to Iain’s heritage if I could recite my marriage vows in Gaelic, and I wanted to do more than just learn them phonetically. I wanted to understand what it was I was saying.

  Since this was to be a surprise for Iain, I consulted Annie Walker for help.

  There was a Gaelic learner’s class for adults held in town, but it was in the evening, and my night vision was terrible. The thought of driving about at night half blind didn’t appeal to me, so I asked Annie for suggestions, and she recommended a tutor. He told me about a series of Gaelic books and videotapes, and we made arrangements to meet every week for tutorial sessions.

  The tutor, Graeham MacAskill, taught Gaelic on the side to a local grammar school in addition to his job as an insurance agent. I explained to Graeham how much time I had to concentrate on my studies, and went on to discuss my reason for learning Gaelic. He was very supportive of my cause, but it was not until later I learned what price I paid for that support.

  As the time for the wedding drew closer, I grew more worried. I wasn’t making as much progress in Gaelic as I had hoped. I increased the number of my tutoring sessions with Graeham, and spent long hours studying grammar, watching the videotapes, and practicing my Gaelic on the furniture.

  “Madainn mhath,” I would greet the chair in the morning. “Ciamar a tha sibh an-diugh? Tha ifiiar an-diugh, nach eil?”

  The chair never did tell me how it was feeling, nor whether it agreed with me that it was cold out that day, let alone what its name was, where it lived, or what sort of beverage it preferred. Graeham was quite impressed with my ability to order drinks in Gaelic, but that seemed to be the only thing that came naturally to me.

  Six days before our wedding, Mary returned to the home she had, some seventeen years before, abandoned on an appropriately dark and stormy night.

  She had had enough of life on the farm, of motherhood, and of Iain. She ran off with an old beau, a man she had been engaged to secretly when she was sixteen, but whom she left when she was eighteen to marry Iain. She was pregnant at the time, but lost the baby a few months later. Archie was born about a year after that, and David five years later.

  I figured the farm would hold some pretty painful memories for her, so when she called to say she wanted to talk with me, I offered to meet her in town. She declined, and after listening to a twenty-four minute monologue about the price of petrol, the follies of her adult step-daughter, the latest urinary tract problems of one of her pugs, and her disappointment with the length of her late aunt’s funeral services, I managed to hang up. I went down to the barn to warn lain of the impending visit. He thanked me and promptly headed for the farthest hill, leaving me to run back to the house to whip up a batch of Moravian Spice Cookies. Cookies could ease most pains, I’d found. Surely Mary would need lots of them coming back to a place that held few happy memories for her. Anticipating a tearful scene, I made sure the tissue was handy.

  “Well, this house certainly hasn’t changed!” she said brightly an hour later as I helped her off with her coat. “It always was hopeless, and I see that it still is.

  Oh, not that you’re not a perfectly good housekeeper,” she patted my hand.

  “Even if you had a full staff, it wouldn’t make the house any more comfortable.

  Drafty old thing.” She shuddered delicately and pulled her cardigan up closer.

  “Now, dear, I wanted to talk to you about this wedding. Joanna tells me you have nothing planned, nothing at all, and that, dear Kathie, I just cannot allow.

  Iain was my first love, you know, or practically my first love; he would have been my first love if I had met him before Cecil, but I didn’t and so technically Cecil was my first love, but Iain was- definitely one of my first loves, probably number three or four; but still very high on the list and for that reason I owe it to him to make sure he is married in style. So I’m here to help you. Joanna insists that you really do want to be married in a wet, deserted old ruin, but you and I both know she’s young, and the young are always so prone to overdramatizing things, really, and as you’re not young you’re certainly much more levelheaded than Joanna. I’m not criticizing the dear girl, you understand, I couldn’t love her one bit more than I do, and you know how happy David is with her, and that’s quite a change from a few years back when he was the wildest thing you ever saw, always with a new girlfriend on his arm, and never with one more than a few dates in a row.

  “I was in an almost constant worry over him what with the AIDS scare and him running around with all of these loose women and never paying attention to what Arthur—that’s my late husband, have I told you about him? I married him after Cecil impregnated his secretary. Arthur was Cecil’s partner at the time, and was so very understanding and kind, well, I ask you, how was I to refuse when he asked me to make his life complete and marry him?” She paused for a breath, then said suddenly. “Men, you know, are the most unthinking creatures on this earth.”

  “Um…” I didn’t really want to comment on that. She had left Iain with two small sons in order to run off with her old flame, Cecil of the pregnant secretary fame, so I figured we’d best steer the conversation to a topic less likely to combust.

  “I appreciate your offer of help, Mary, truly I do, but you see, Joanna is perfectly right. Iain and I have decided to get married at Loch an Eilein Castle.

  It’s very roman—”

  She started talking again.

  “—tic,” I finished while she went off describing the details of every wedding she’d ever seen or attended, including Princess Diana’s, and sat back to save my strength. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

  Iain poked his head into the kitchen a few hours later. “Her car’s gone so I’m thinking it’s safe to come in. Can you hear, or are your eardrums still ringing?” I smiled wanly at him and lifted a bloodless hand to wave him in. “How on earth did you endure almost ten years of marriage to that woman?” He grinned. “The first few years were the worst. After that I learned to stay out in the parks all of the day.”

  I let him pull me onto his lap, and snuggled against him. He smelled like the outdoors and wool and Iain. “She wants us to have a marquee in case it rains.

  And chairs so everyone can sit. And musicians. And flowery garlands. And a big buffet lunch.”

  Iain looked startled for a moment. “That’s not what we’ve planned, is it, love?”

  “No, it isn’t,
but Iain I’m afraid. I’m very, very afraid. Mary is… is…”

  “A right pain in the arse?”

  “No. Well, yes. But she’s more than that, she’s immovable . I’m just afraid that she’s going to wear me down and I won’t be able to say no anymore and we’ll end up with a big huge wedding that neither of us wants, filled with relatives and friends we don’t particularly want to see, and we’ll be utterly miserable, and oh, god, I’m already starting to talk like her !” Iain laughed, which is the only thing that saved me from bursting into tears at that moment.

  “Oh, you think it’s funny do you? Well just chew on this, Mr. Ha Ha. Once my mother and your ex-wife meet, there’s going to be hell to pay. We’ll have both of them joining forces against us, and then we’ll be toast.” That thought sobered him up.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Things to Do

  February 11: Avoid Mary. Joanna and I to airport to pick up Mom and Mo on 1:15 p.m. flight. Iain to train station to pick up Brother’s family at 2:40 p.m.

  Dinner at Chez Hadji’s for fifteen at 7 p.m.

  I disliked driving to Inverness. I was still uncertain enough driving that I wanted to avoid driving in well-populated areas, so I asked Joanna if she would drive. She was curious about my family, so she left her mother and father with David, and we set off to pick up the female members of my family who had come for the wedding.

  The first words out of Mo’s mouth, bellowed across the airport waiting area, were, “I don’t see any kilts!”

  Joanna looked at me. “That would be your sister?”

  She’d know if I tried to deny it. Mo and I looked quite a bit alike. “Yes, she is, but I’d like to point out right now that I am perfectly able to converse without drawing the attention of everyone in the room, unlike my sister. And there’s my moth— Oh my god.”

  My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She didn’t! She wouldn’t! She couldn't!

  “What’s wrong? That’s your mum, there? The lady in the gray coat? The one with the… oh, my.”

  Oh, my, indeed.

  “Yes, that’s my mother. And that other person is my Aunt Amber, reigning belle of the Sarasota Retirement Village and renown hootchicoo dancer.” We stared at the spectacle that was Aunt Amber. She was actually my mother’s aunt, my great-aunt, and was, by best guess, approximately 150 years old. We didn’t honestly know her age, since she ripped off a few years at each birthday.

  By now, she was probably younger than me.

  “She’s quite… vibrant, isn’t she?”

  I tried to avoid looking at her. Aunt Amber was color blind, and always wore ensembles of the most garish color combinations. Usually her companion, a woman by the name of Alice, steered her toward the less eye-straining outfits, but Alice had taken the opportunity to visit her family while Aunt Amber was under my mother’s care. Mom evidently didn’t see a problem with Aunt Amber wearing a blue and green tasseled shawl covering a pink blazer, orange faux satin blouse with marabou tassels down the front, and blue-and-white polka-dotted pleated skirt with gold metallic tasseled belt. Combined with the knee-high nylons and Nike tennis shoes with little red-and-white tassels tied to the shoelaces, and a black hat that vaguely resembled a tasseled Sydney Opera House, she was indeed a sight to behold.

  I somewhat reluctantly claimed my family and introduced Joanna. Joanna and Mo quickly sized each other up, decided they were kindred spirits despite a twenty-year age difference, and went off to get the luggage while I horded Mom and Aunt Amber toward the parking lot.

  “Yes, Mom, I do have a dress. And yes, I told you the other day when you called that we have the site booked for two hours.”

  “And the caterers? I can’t believe a daughter of mine is doing just a buffet lunch and not a sit down! How am I going to explain that to your aunts?”

  “Just tell them we’re broke and we can’t afford anything else.”

  “Oh, pooh, you know I offered to help you children with the costs.” Yes, but at a great price. I’d have been under obligation to do things her way if we accepted any monetary support.

  “Um, Mom? Does Aunt Amber know that man?”

  “What man?” My mother looked around the seating area next to the doors.

  I pointed her in the right direction. “That one over there. That surprised-looking gentleman upon whose lap she is now sitting. I think she’s tickling his chin with a tassel.”

  My mother uttered a few words I very seldom hear her utter, and went off to remove Aunt Amber from her perch.

  There was a reason Aunt Amber was the belle of the Sarasota Retirement Village. Her years of dancing fan dances, bubble dances, and snake dances in Atlantic City and other venues up and down the East Coast had given her the idea that she was Gypsy Rose Lee, Marilyn Monroe, and Mae West all rolled into one sharp package.

  If she were a hundred or so years younger, I’d have said she “puts out.” I wasn’t sure if she actually did or not, nor did I really want to find out, but she certainly had made the pursuit of the male of the species her raison d’etre .

  And lucky, lucky us, she was there to watch Iain and me get married! I made a mental note to put two watchdogs on her at the wedding. The thought of what she’d do with any man brave enough to show up in a kilt was too hideous to think about.

  Immediately upon returning home, Mom and I had an argument.

  “Now, Iain is picking up Brother and Laura and the kids, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes, Mom, he’s there now.”

  We were in the bedroom that she and Mo and Aunt Amber were sharing. Mo was flat out on the bed moaning about the time change and trying to get up enough energy to call home and let her husband know they’d arrived safely.

  Aunt Amber was in the bathroom adjusting what were sure to be tasseled undergarments. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Good, good. And you’ll be staying at the same hotel as Brother?” I stared at her. Hotel? Me? What was she talking about? “Huh?” My mother stopped unpacking and turned around to look at me. “The hotel.

  The one you’re staying at Sunday night.”

  “Mom, I live here. I don’t have to stay at a hotel.” She put her hands on her hips and gave me that mother look, the one all moms worth their salt save for those special occasions when their children don’t come up to snuff.

  “Well, you certainly may live here the rest of the time, but you cannot stay here Sunday night.”

  Mo moaned.

  “Why not?”

  “Because that will be your wedding eve! You can’t sleep with the groom the night before your wedding, it’s bad luck!”

  “I always thought that was a bunch of hooey, Mom. I mean, what could be steamier than a little illicit we’re not married yet sex?” Mo asked.

  “Maureen, I am speaking to your sister, not you. And besides, you know full well that it’s bad luck. You didn’t spend the night before your wedding with Ned!”

  Mo grinned and winked at me. I rolled my eyes and handed my mother a pair of her shoes.

  “You must have a room on Sunday night, and that’s all there is to it. Or Iain will have to. One of you has to leave.”

  “Iain can’t leave, he’ll have chores to do in the morning.”

  “On his wedding day?” My mother looked aghast at the very thought.

  “Yes, Mom, the goat still needs to be milked, and the animals fed. I can feed the chickens, but I haven’t yet mastered Mabel. She doesn’t like me. Besides, this whole thing is ridiculous. Iain and I have been living together since November, it’s hardly likely that one more night together without being married is going to doom us to eternal hell.”

  She lowered the shoes and squinted her eyes. “Either you stay at a hotel Sunday night, or Iain does. Take your choice.”

  “Mom—”

  “It’s your choice!” She stomped out of the room to find out what Aunt Amber was doing so long in the bathroom.

  “You’ll have to give in to her, you know,�
�� Mo commented without opening her eyes. “You know how she is. She’s given up a lot what with you insisting on a small wedding—not that I think you’re wrong—but you’re going to have to give on this.”

  “Of all the stupid traditions—what?” I yelled the last out the door to my mother. She appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, her face flushed and wearing an unfamiliar expression.

  “It appears Aunt Amber has found some sort of birth control device and is insisting it’s hers. Would you please come and identify it for me, so I can give her her pills and she can take her nap?”

  Mo snorted as I swore and went to claim the object in question. I heard her clearly from the bathroom.

  “If you’ve got any more of those little presents from Iain’s ex-girlfriend, I’d tuck those away as well. Aunt Amber is likely to be enthralled by them, too.” Brother’s hotel was booked, but I managed to find one in town that had a single free. I made the reservation grudgingly, my mother standing next to me at the phone to make sure I’d book it.

  “Happy?” I snapped as I hung up the phone.

  “Always,” she said smugly, and patted my cheek.

  February 12: Avoid Mary. Pick up cake from bakery. Call caterers to make sure everything is OK. Try not to let Mom and Mary talk together without supervision.

  “Where do you keep the olives, Kathie?” Laura, Brother’s wife, asked. I reached over her head for a bowl. “Green or black?” She made a face. “Black in tuna fish? Yuk. My kids would scream. Green.”