by Kiley Dunbar
Could she sneak out and along the front without being seen? Everyone would be up and about by now. The aroma of bacon and toast was wafting in through the open window and the calm music of receding waves gently churning pebbles accompanied her thoughts. Could she really leave without saying goodbye, especially to Kitty, and more especially, to Atholl?
The gentle tap at her door that turned to insistent knocking sent her shoulders flying up to her ears as she looked accusingly at its source.
‘Beatrice? Are you in there? Beatrice?’
She held her breath, registering the concern in Atholl’s voice, before exhaling with a sharp blow. She opened the door only to witness his eyes crease as he spotted the gaping suitcase on the floor behind her.
‘I came to apologise for prying…’ he began.
‘No, don’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just I came here to get away from… everything, and I’m not ready to talk about it. I can’t see how I ever will be. OK?’
Atholl’s gaze passed over the suitcase again before scanning over her body and flicking back up to her eyes. Could he tell she’d dressed comfortably for the train journey back down south, in her jeans and white trainers and a thin navy jumper? If he could tell, he wasn’t going to let that stop him talking.
‘I, umm, I’ve come to issue an invitation, actually. To Skye, with me, if you’d like? I guessed you might have had your fill o’ weaving and Kitty told me the other day you hadnae pressed her for any Gaelic lessons so… I have one of Seth’s boats for the day… and a picnic.’
She caught Atholl’s look of hope and then embarrassment. Now he was taking an interest in the door jamb, absentmindedly fingering the hinges. She couldn’t help smiling, even though it was accompanied by a creeping sense of defeat.
‘You want to spend the day with me?’
‘Aye, why would I no’?’
Despite everything within her telling her to retreat and that it was time to leave, she found herself agreeing to go. Skye sounded intriguing and she could avoid talking about herself for a few hours if it meant going to one of the places that her mum had always wanted to see but never had the chance, and, of course, it would be nice to spend a little more time in the presence of Atholl Fergusson with all his kindness and those blue eyes she never seemed to tire of seeing.
‘Really?’ When he smiled back, his lips pursed closed over his teeth and his cheeks flushed.
‘You did say I should see more of the place and everyone else seems to think I should stay and have a proper holiday. One more day can’t hurt?’ This came out as a genuine question but she doubted Atholl could understand her reservations.
‘Well, then. I’ll see to the last of the arrangements and meet ye by the jetty after you’ve had your breakfast. Come prepared for all weathers,’ he said, turning to go.
‘Actually, I’ll follow you down.’ Beatrice grabbed her keys and made after Atholl. ‘Have you spoken with Gene since last night? How did it go?’ she asked as they reached the turn in the staircase, the kitchen sounds and the low murmur of the diners’ chatter growing louder… and was that someone singing?
‘See for yourself,’ Atholl threw her another smile as he turned for the back door of the inn, pointing Beatrice’s way into the breakfast room before disappearing out of sight into the morning sunshine, Echo joining him with delighted bounds.
Sure enough, a woman with a beautiful voice was quietly singing and mixed in with her sweet melody was a low, booming hum. Beatrice sneaked a peek in the kitchen door and there, side by side in matching white aprons, were Kitty and Gene.
‘Green grow the rushes-o.’ Kitty trilled, as Gene scraped butter over a triangle of toast before offering it to Kitty who smilingly took a bite before he too bit into it, all the while gazing at each other’s faces.
So, thought Beatrice, Atholl isn’t the only Fergusson brother whose pale cheeks are prone to flushing pink.
Two other crafters, older ladies who Beatrice recognised as some of the wool dyers who had also arrived on Saturday and who were taking lessons at the tartan mill in the next village, bustled past tutting and shaking their heads as they left. Their table was still pristinely set with fresh linen, their cutlery untouched and napkins still folded. Had they been served at all? Their grumbling as they left told her Gene hadn’t even emerged from the kitchen to take their orders.
‘If you’re hoping for breakfast, you’ll be lucky,’ a voice piped up from the corner of the breakfast room. Turning round, Beatrice was delighted to see Cheryl and Jillian sitting with empty, sauce-streaked plates in front of them. ‘We’ve been waiting for more toast and coffee for twenty minutes but those two love birds are still working their way through the entire Robert Burns songbook,’ said Cheryl.
‘So, it worked then!’ Beatrice was already pulling up a chair at their table.
‘According to Seth, Gene walked Kitty through the bar last night, taking a bottle of bubbly from the fridge before disappearing to her room, so draw your own conclusions about that,’ said Jillian, not even bothering to whisper; there was no way they’d hear her over the singing.
‘Amazing what a difference a makeover and a bit of encouragement can make,’ Beatrice grinned, giving Jillian’s hand an excited squeeze. ‘I think we’ve done well there.’
‘I’d say so,’ she smiled back. ‘I’ll be expecting an invite to their wedding at this rate. We’d better get going anyway, we’re moving on from oils to watercolours today, and we’ve got no chance of getting another brew here, have we?’
The singers had fallen markedly quiet all of a sudden. Cheryl leaned backwards on her chair and peered around the kitchen door before adding, knowingly, ‘Now that kind of behaviour is definitely not going to get your sausages cooked.’
The three women tiptoed from the breakfast room together, only stopping to silently close the kitchen door on the couple who were wrapped in each other’s arms, Kitty raised up on her tiptoes, kissing Eugene tenderly while the haggis slices burned in the pan.
Chapter Fifteen
The Skye Boat
It didn’t matter that Beatrice was hungry, in fact she was glad to give the fried food a miss this morning as she realised her stomach was churning not because it was empty but because it was full of nerves – even though she most definitely wasn’t going on a date.
No. Categorically this wasn’t a date. On dates, you have to talk about yourself and answer awkward questions and she had no intention of doing that. This was just two people celebrating a bit of successful matchmaking with some sightseeing and tomorrow she was going back to Warwickshire to help Angela and Vic with their wedding plans and to see what her house looked like now the removal men had been and done Rich’s dirty work.
She was going to Skye with Atholl to be nice and to prove she wasn’t a moody cow, and maybe also because he was pleasant to be with. But that was all.
Back in her room she grabbed her bag, stuffed in her umbrella, sun lotion and shades, before stopping in front of her mirror to smooth her hair and brush on some mascara. Then, thinking again, she rushed back to the bathroom to brush her teeth for a second time that morning and slick on pale lipstick and dab perfume at her wrists.
Holding onto the sink she fixed a hard stare in the mirror. ‘Get a grip, Bea. He’s just another person who’s taken pity on you. This is nothing more than a day’s sightseeing on Skye, never mind it’s with Atholl.’ The words faltered and she shook her head in exasperation.
Was this how she was going to greet Atholl outside the inn, red-faced and flustered? ‘Ridiculous!’ She gripped her bag and headed downstairs. Ready or not, she’d agreed to go and no amount of awkwardness and inconvenient tummy butterflies was going to hold her back now.
* * *
He was waiting by the jetty, just as he’d said, a wicker picnic basket by his walking-booted feet. He was in black outdoorsy trousers and the same brown and orange checked shirt she’d seen him in the first time they’d met. Today it was worn ope
n over a grey t-shirt like some Celtic model in a Barbour advert.
Echo sat obediently by his master’s side on the boardwalk, watching her and panting wide-mouthed as though he were smiling at her.
She gave herself another quick assessing glance down her body as she approached them along the sea wall, glad she’d worn her trainers thinking how muddy the walking in Skye might be, less glad they were white.
Coming to a stop in front of Atholl and Echo she found she was grinning but having trouble looking Atholl in the eyes. Why was she the one feeling this new kind of awkwardness when Atholl looked somehow cool and self-contained? As she was searching for her sunglasses in her bag, a good distraction from her awkwardness, she spotted the boat, already loaded with Atholl’s jacket and woollen blankets.
‘We’re rowing? I thought when you said we had one of Seth’s boats we’d be in something with an engine!’
‘You’ll see more if we’re cutting through the water in silence.’ Atholl stepped one foot into the little rustic-looking boat and steadied it enough for Echo to jump in and crawl the length of the hull beneath the two wooden benches before curling up in the stern ready for a snooze at sea.
Atholl’s hand was reaching out for her own. Was he thinking she was going to make her excuses and run?
She didn’t remember stepping into the bobbing craft, but she was sure the sensation of Atholl’s strong hand clasping her own was indelibly imprinted on her nervous system.
He passed her the picnic basket which she stowed under the little bench she’d perched on and she watched as Atholl stepped into the boat, making it rock. Beatrice was relieved to catch a glimpse of a warmer Atholl when he laughed and grimaced all at once, finding his balance, deftly slipping the rope and pushing the boat off from the jetty.
‘There’s only one set of oars, Atholl, that doesn’t seem very fair.’
He’d already grasped them and was adjusting them in the handles. ‘You enjoy the journey. I don’t mind rowing.’
And so she settled on the bench as best she could, holding the sides of the rocking boat until Atholl had it turned and facing out towards the mouth of the bay. When he made the first stroke she just happened to be making a remark about the blue skies and wondering if the weather would hold but found herself stopping mid-sentence, dry-mouthed and staring at the muscles moving in his forearms and at the broad expanse of his chest as the oars met the deep resistance of the water, his shoulders and biceps straining against the soft, washed-out fabric of his shirt.
‘It’s set to be warm all day,’ he replied.
He was smiling. Had he noticed? How embarrassing. She vowed to be more sensible and turned her head to watch the gulls swooping over the water and the little fishing boats crisscrossing the harbour mouth. By the time the silence was beginning to feel crushing they were nearing the open water. Atholl steered them close to the rocks but the waves grew choppier.
She wanted to simply listen to the slap of water on the prow and the sounds of the gentle wind that was lifting her hair but felt she couldn’t. She wittered something about wishing she had a camera to photograph the scene and Atholl greeted her chatter with silence, his eyes occasionally passing over her face before quickly flitting to where the oars met the water.
Eventually, when she spoke again, Atholl talked over her. His voice was unusually quiet and she could just make out something along the lines of, ‘On the subject of bonny views, you, uh…’ But her own overlapping words erased the sounds.
‘Go ahead, you first,’ he insisted, with what looked like relief.
‘I was going to say, Gene seems happy.’
‘That he does. And he’s given me his word he’ll help with the evening food service again.’
‘No way!’
‘No’ bad, eh? Aye, he said Patrick and Mrs Mair did a good job wi’ the seafood last night but if he’d made it he’d have served it wi’ samphire and no’ green beans, and he’d have gone easier on the garlic, and I said, well, there’s only one way to see wha’s recipes are better, and that was it, hook and line.’
‘Amazing! So it all worked?’
‘We’ll see. Anyway, he’s rustled up some bannock cakes for you, so you must be in his good books.’
‘It certainly looked like all was forgiven when I saw him and Kitty kissing in the kitchen this morning.’
Atholl smiled and pulled another long stroke at the oars, his thighs tensing and his feet planted firm and wide.
‘What were you going to say?’ Beatrice asked.
‘Umm, I forget.’
She filled the silence that followed. ‘Bannocks, you say? What’s a bannock?’
‘A bit like a wee scone. They’re good for breakfast.’
‘No heart-shaped honey buns today then?’ Beatrice remarked, finding she wanted to provoke him again. He was being altogether too serious and gentle, and a part of her missed his sparky wickedness. Kindness is all very well but not if it’s provoked by sympathy. She wanted him to be nice to her for other, harder to admit, reasons. The boat fell silent again until the rocks at the harbour mouth came into closer view.
‘Look! Seals!’ Beatrice exclaimed. ‘Actual seals.’
Atholl suppressed a delighted laugh at her surprise and let the oars settle, dripping in their holders.
The great rock jutting from the water was populated with seals of many colours and sizes basking in the sun, some raising their tails and their whiskers to the sky, others slumped sleepily, eyeing them as they drifted past. Even Echo raised his head to look.
‘Good boy, Echo. You sit still, leave them be,’ Atholl murmured under his breath.
The rest of their journey took them around a rocky promontory, the rowing visibly harder. Atholl leaned back into his exertions, pulling hard, filling his lungs then blowing through puffed cheeks and pursed lips. Beatrice sneaked surreptitious looks every so often, not knowing which was the more attractive view: Atholl’s freckled porcelain skin, flushing cheeks and blue eyes narrowed fiercely with the work of steering their vessel, sweat beading at his hairline and turning his loose red waves into glistening tight curls; or the emerging views of the impressive new bridge they were passing under and the smart pleasure boats and ferries crossing the steely blue strait with the great green wild peaks of the Isle of Skye before them.
She found herself closing her eyes, listening not to the gentle waves and the cutting splash of the oars but zoning in on the increasingly deep breathing of her captain.
The crossing seemed to last only moments but after Atholl had steered the boat to ground on a pebbly bay that led to a private garden and a small carpark beyond, he took a long time to slake his thirst, drinking from a bottle of water from the picnic basket. Beatrice refused to indulge her longing to watch him so she simply imagined his moving throat and his head thrown back as he drank with one foot on the boat, the other onshore, asking herself all the while what exactly had gotten into her today.
‘Echo!’
The whoops and screams of approaching children made her turn her head. ‘Uncle Atholl, can we keep Echo here for the day again?’ the littlest of a gang of five or six ecstatic kids cried.
‘Go on then, but no jumping off the quayside with him this time; he’s an old dug now.’ Atholl registered Beatrice’s surprise. ‘Some of these are my cousin’s bairns, and this is her garden. Most of my family are from the isle originally and live here now, Mum included. I moor here when I visit. This lot are happier to see Echo than they are to see me!’
Echo, his tail wagging, ears pricked up in delight, ran off with the children along the little beach.
‘That’s the last we’ll see of him until we return. He’d rather help them eat their lunch and chase skimming stones than come with us,’ Atholl said with a shrug.
Again, he was offering her his outstretched hand, again she held her breath at the all too brief sensation of his strength as he helped her onto dry land.
Together they dragged the boat up the beach until it rested
on grass. That’s when Beatrice made out the faded word on its side.
‘Mary? Isn’t that Seth’s wife’s name? You said this was his boat?’
‘It is. All of Seth’s boats are called Mary, you’ll notice. But he’s too old to row it, and it’s no good for tourist trips anymore. So, any of the Port Willow residents can borrow it when they like.’
‘Hmm,’ Beatrice contemplated this as they walked through the garden and past great mallow bushes, the pink blooms alive with hornets and bees, the picnic basket swinging between them, each holding a side of the handle and Beatrice aware she wasn’t pulling her weight in its carrying. She thought of what Kitty had told her of Seth’s unusual love story. ‘They lived apart for most of their marriage, didn’t they?’
‘That’s right. They made it work.’
‘I’m not sure I get it. Why stay together if you can’t stand actually living together?’
‘There’s a lid for every pot and that’s the way those two fitted.’ Atholl shrugged as though this made perfect sense, and Beatrice found herself beginning to think it did.
They stepped off the mossy lawn onto a tarmacked driveway with a ramshackle garage by the roadside. Beatrice found herself looking up at the towering trees lining the road.
Atholl observed her for a moment before turning his own eyes to the treetops. ‘Do ye see that nest up there at the top of yonder tree?’
It took her a moment to follow the line of his gaze and focus on the wide platform of twigs precariously built into the uppermost crook of a spindly, ancient pine.
‘You cannae see from here but there’s a female osprey on that nest. Were we to stand here all day you’d see her mate flying to her, bringing food for her and their chick.’
‘I wish we could stay here all day then!’
‘Ospreys are bonny creatures and special in so many ways – and rare too, only two hunder pairs of them in the Highlands. Ospreys mate for life, ye ken? But they spend half the year away from their mate too.’