by Kiley Dunbar
‘There was someone serious, well I thought we were getting serious,’ he said. ‘Maggie arrived as a holidaymaker taking a long let in the loft rental above Mr Shirlaw’s general store. She’d come into the inn every now and again and we’d get chatting at the bar, then she started coming in for dinner most nights. Anyway…’Atholl blew a deep breath through puffed cheeks and ran an index fingertip over his hairline pushing back a curl. ‘I thought we’d talked about every subject under the sun and we knew each other pretty well. She’d, uh, stay the night too and didnae seem to mind me spending evenings in the kitchens or pulling pints. But, then one day, out of the blue, her husband arrived in the village.’
‘Her husband?’
‘Aye. He was news to me as well. She even had the nerve tae introduce us. He worked away on the rigs most of the year, apparently, and she’d spend her summer holidays alone. He’d gotten leave and decided to join her on her trip as a surprise. I don’t know, maybe I was the first fellow she cheated on her man with. Who knows? But he took one look at me and the shock must have been written all over my face. Aye, and the guilt too. Even though I’d cuckolded him without knowing, he twigged what we’d been up to in an instant. I got a black eye for my devotion and Maggie packed her bags and left with him, back to wherever they came from. I never really understood what the appeal was for her. I suppose I was nothing but a Highland fling.’
‘You wished it was more?’
‘Maybe at first, but that was cured by the sight of a fist flying at my nose attached to a very angry husband.’ He bit into the bannock with a wry smile.
She understood. He was making light of this affair but it must have caused him pain at the time, and embarrassment too. He must have been thanking his lucky stars when this Maggie arrived in Port Willow, seeming to be single and available, wanting to warm his bed. How many times had Beatrice been reminded of the scarcity of women here in the village since her own arrival? Seth had told her it was a decades-long imbalance.
‘Poor you,’ she said. ‘That’s rubbish, I’m sorry. Was there nobody else after Maggie?’
‘Not a one. Not with Gene to mother and…’ His words faltered at the sight of Beatrice’s eyes narrowing as she peered into the distance over his shoulder.
‘It can’t be?’ she said in lowered tones. Somehow, thinking of Eugene Fergusson had conjured up a powerful image of him emerging from over the brow of the hill and marching towards them.
Then she heard the voices.
A quick glance at Atholl who hadn’t turned around to see the apparition told her he could hear them too.
‘Aww, for the love of…’ He flicked the half eaten bannock back into the box and drew a knee up to his chest. ‘He’s behind me, isn’t he?’
‘Yep. And he’s not alone.’
Down the hill danced at least six redheaded children with Echo bounding and scurrying between them. Gene’s shaved head towered above them all. On one arm he grasped a smiling Kitty, and on the other an elderly, white-haired woman.
Atholl kept his back to the invaders. ‘He’s told the whole family we’re here, hasn’t he.’ It wasn’t a question, but Beatrice nodded in response.
He had time to offer her a wary look before murmuring a deep, ‘I’m sorry, Beatrice. I wanted you to have peace and quiet today…’ before the marauders joined them.
‘Well, if it isn’t another courtin’ couple hiding in the heathers,’ the frail white-haired woman called out.
Atholl rose to greet her with a straight-lipped smile before offering her a kiss on her cheek, flushed red from her walk.
‘I suppose this is your doing?’ Atholl said to his brother as Eugene offered an outstretched hand which he shook – warmly, Beatrice noticed. Those two may bicker but there was love beneath it all.
‘Mrs Mair’s in charge at the inn. You can’t sneak Beatrice to the island without telling yur family,’ Gene said, highly amused, before adding with a provoking innocence, ‘Why would you no’ want her to meet our mother?’
Kitty threw herself down on the rug beside Beatrice and whispered near her ear. ‘Sorry about all this. Gene had rung round the family before I knew what was happening, so I joined in for damage limitation.’
‘It’s fine, honestly.’ Beatrice waved Kitty’s remark away, but Kitty drew closer to her.
‘They’re harmless, just a bit batty. I’ve known them since I was a bairn.’
The children were already stripping out of their clothes and making for the pools, not seeming to mind the cold water and screaming and splashing one another in delight. Beatrice shielded the bannocks from the flying water and shifted over on the rug to allow Atholl’s mother to sit down.
‘Well, dear. You’re the Beatrice I have to thank for making my laddie smile again,’ she said.
Beatrice watched Gene lowering himself onto his own picnic blanket spread on the bank and holding out an arm for Kitty to slide in beneath, which she did, leaving Beatrice alone on the rug beside Atholl’s mum.
‘I was only too glad to help Eugene and Kitty out,’ Beatrice remarked, watching the new lovers snuggling up together.
‘I wasnae talking about Gene,’ the old woman said with a sly smile and a glance towards Atholl who was standing up watching the children and Echo bounding in the water and pretending not to hear. ‘And here he is gallivanting on Skye! I thought he was wedded to that inn. So tell me, Beatrice, are you enjoying your stay?’
‘I am, thank you. Port Willow is beautiful.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ the woman agreed, nodding contemplatively and looking at Beatrice through large spectacles which were perched near the end of her nose. Beatrice entertained the idea that Mrs Fergusson had flesh as smooth and pale as unbaked pastry before dismissing the thought as unkind.
‘And why are you here alone, dearie?’
‘Mother!’ Atholl was paying attention now.
‘It’s awfy unusual for a young lassie to travel alone, even here in the Highlands where they’re safe.’
Beatrice simply nodded and hoped the moment would pass, but she found Kitty, Gene and Mrs Fergusson were all watching her and waiting for an answer.
‘Well, um, I, um…’
Suddenly a mewing sound drew everyone’s attention away at once. It was the cry of a baby carried to them on the breeze. A young woman in a long blue sundress was approaching with a baby tied to her chest inside a colourful shawl.
Beatrice’s shoulders slumped in relief and she sighed as the weight of everyone’s scrutiny lifted, everyone’s except Atholl’s – he was watching her through narrowed, penetrating eyes. Beatrice feared what he might have seen in her moment of surprise at hearing the cries and masked her face in a delighted smile.
‘Sheila, you got my message,’ Mrs Fergusson called to her, and Beatrice realised this was Atholl’s sister and the famous baby Archibald.
Soon everyone was properly introduced and huddled round eating the bannocks. Sheila produced a bundle of something sweet and beige wrapped in foil that looked like fudge but was crumbly and firm.
‘Scottish tablet,’ Atholl’s sister said with a smile as Beatrice bit into her first piece.
It was delicious but as the sweetness hit her she winced and immediately imagined her teeth dissolving. ‘Goodness!’ She swallowed the melting goop. ‘How is it made?’
‘A whole bag of sugar, large can o’ condensed milk, wee scrape o’ vanilla and a splash of whole milk. Then you boil it up until it looks like a raging furnace in the pan.’
Beatrice laughed, before Sheila censured her with a dramatic frown. ‘You may laugh but it’s no’ for the fainthearted. You only know the stuff’s ready when the bubbles have risen to the top o’ the pan, your eyebrows are singed clean awf and you truly fear for your life. Then you turn off the heat and stir it ’til it’s calmed itself and pour it into a tray to set. I’ve known folk lose fingers making the stuff. Melted, they were!’ Sheila concluded her recipe with a wicked grin and a wink thrown to the children who had gathered behi
nd Beatrice waiting for the bundle of tablet to make its way round to them. Her voice and mannerisms were so like Atholl’s it was uncanny.
They were alike in other ways too, Beatrice observed. Beautiful red hair, a hint of wickedness in their temperaments, but kind with it; both were pale with dark patches of freckles under their eyes and a summer tan that seemed only to linger around their hairlines, cheekbones and the bridges of their fine noses, and she had the same blue eyes like Isle of Skye fairy pools reflecting the heavens.
‘I’m wondering how old ye are, Beatrice?’ Mrs Fergusson said between bites of tablet.
Kitty immediately began loudly remarking about there not being a cloud in the sky and how she and Gene had seen a black grouse dancing for his mate on their way from her car, and Beatrice detected Kitty’s subtle dig at the oblivious Gene’s ribs, which he mistook entirely.
‘Are you wanting to go for a walk, Kitty?’ he asked.
Beatrice watched helplessly as Kitty shrugged a silent apology and she and Gene wandered off towards the pools.
‘Grouse? Was she talking about grouse, Beatrice? So are ye Kitty’s age? How old can that lassie be now, Sheila? Isn’t Kitty Wake approachin’ forty?’
Sheila, in a move which Beatrice would remember from that day onwards as the most generous act any stranger had ever performed for her, deftly handed baby Archibald to her mother with a quietly spoken, ‘He’s wanting his granny, poor thing.’
And with that Mrs Fergusson was struck into adoring silence, cooing to the sleeping boy.
‘I saw a braw patch of wild flowers beyond the Gowk Heid Rock, Atholl,’ Sheila added triumphantly, before helping herself to a bannock and Atholl’s coffee cup.
‘Aye, good idea.’ Atholl frowned drolly as he helped Beatrice to her feet, and within moments they were walking again.
‘I have to apologise for Mum, she’ll no’ be happy ’til you’ve given her your life story and shown her your passport and driving licence. Oh, and whit’s your blood type?’
‘Don’t apologise, I thought she was lots of fun,’ Beatrice said, stretching the truth more than a little. ‘She seems harmless enough, looking out for her children.’ That part was true, there was no malice, only nosiness in Mrs Fergusson.
‘I really am sorry. I thought we’d get a wee bit of time to ourselves today and enjoy the island. Can we at least try to reclaim a part of our day out?’ said Atholl, as they approached a rock apparently dropped into the landscape from above, standing on end and taller than Atholl.
As he passed behind the rock out of view of the clan at the fairy pools in the near distance he produced the bundle of tablet and offered Beatrice another piece. ‘A bit of sleight of hand. Sheila will think Gene has it; he’s a devil for tablet.’
The rock was warm when Beatrice leaned her back against it and took another piece of the sweet stuff.
‘So,’ Atholl began. ‘I won’t be asking your age or why you’re here, unlike some people, but there must be something you can share with me? I know next to nothing about you and you’ve met almost all my family now and you are living in my home, are you no’?’
‘Temporarily, yes,’ she smiled. ‘OK, I’m Beatrice Halliday, but you already know that. I’ll be forty pretty soon, and that’s… all right, I guess. I recently lost my job, and pretty soon I’ll be put out of my house too, so technically I should be at home looking for a new place.’ She felt her fists tighten as she gave away the information, skirting dangerously close to the secrets she’d promised herself never to reveal.
Atholl received the information without any outward sign of surprise or sympathy but he did move closer beside her so he too could lean on the rock. He crossed one ankle over the other, leaning his head back casually before seeming not to know what to do with his arms and standing up straight again, all of which made Beatrice smile. For the first time it struck her that his self-consciousness could be a sign that he might be beginning to like her a little. She tried to pack that thought away, alarmed and hopeful in equal measure.
Knowing she’d have to talk again to stave off the awkwardness, she pressed on. ‘What else…? I like arty stuff. I’m trying to get back into community enterprise work, bringing people together and creating things: performances, clubs, that sort of thing. My work’s always been about community cohesion. And… I like dogs, don’t have one though, and I have a baby niece called Clara who I adore. And… that’s me,’ she shrugged.
‘OK,’ Atholl said in a dry tone, clearly unsatisfied.
‘And I like dating shows,’ Beatrice blurted in desperation. ‘I like a glass of wine with a cheesy dating programme where there are cameras right up in the faces of a couple going on an awkward dinner date.’ She laughed lightly. ‘I like when it all goes perfectly, and they leave the date together at the end, and over the credits it says, “Katie spent the evening with Craig in the Soho nightclubs. Since then, they’ve been on a date to London Zoo and are planning a weekend away in Margate”; that sort of thing.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Yep. Love them.’
‘Like you loved sending Kitty on a date with Gene?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I thought he was hard work before, he’ll be even more hopeless now he’s falling head over heels for Kitty. I’ll never get away from that inn now. And it was pretty bad timing to have your matchmaking coincide with the Port Willow ceilidh. I mean, it’s good he’s promised to start cooking again in the evenings and now he’ll have someone to birl at the dance but the moonbeams in his eyes’ll make it difficult for him to make the Cullen Skink and run the bar these coming days.’
Beatrice laughed again. ‘My matchmaking? You thought it was a brilliant idea. “A stroke of genius,” you said.’
‘Maybe I hadnae thought it through properly or considered its impact on me getting my workshop up and runnin’. It seems even less likely now. I don’t know what’s worse, Gene heartbroken or Gene in love.’
Beatrice’s laughter ended with a sudden realisation. ‘Hold on. Did you say there’s going to be a ceilidh?’
‘Aye, it’s almost Harvest Home.’
‘Nope, none the wiser.’ Beatrice squinted.
‘It’s the end of the harvest and the start of the ceilidhs. We host it. Long ago, every pub and hostelry in the area held its own dance, and the farm workers would celebrate the end of their toilin’ and the fisherfolk would celebrate the start of the autumn tides, but it’s a small affair now, almost forgotten, apart from at The Princess. My mother loves the ceilidh so I do it for her, really.’
‘I’ve never been to a ceilidh before, it sounds good.’
‘Och, it is, but it’s no’ been the same without Gene.’
‘He doesn’t turn up for it?’
‘In recent years he’s taken to his bed at the ceilidh. In the run up he’ll help organise it a wee bit, but I host the night by myself.’
‘He takes to his bed?’
‘You see, he and Lana married at Harvest Home. Their wedding reception was the ceilidh – a braw night that was. Seth got carried away on the elderflower wine and danced himself right off the end o’ the jetty. Aye, it was some night! But Gene can’t stomach it now. Maybe things’ll be different now he’s found Kitty.’
‘I hope so too. I just knew they were right for each other.’
‘But how did you know she liked him still?’
Beatrice turned her face to meet Atholl’s and realised they’d somehow, perhaps unconsciously, shifted closer as they’d talked. ‘It was obvious from the first moment I saw them together. Had you really no idea?’
‘None at all. It was obvious? How?’
‘Oh, I don’t know; the way her eyes lit up when she saw him, and she was putting her hand on her neck, like this.’ Beatrice raised her fingertips to her throat, lightly touching her skin. Atholl’s eyes followed them.
‘And that means something?’
‘God, yes! Have you never seen Love Island? It’s an unconscious sign that you l
ike someone, touching your own skin somewhere you’d like to be kissed.’
Atholl’s throat moved and Beatrice was aware of him balling his fists where they hung down by his sides. ‘Made you self-conscious, have I?’ she laughed.
‘I didn’t know you were a master body language reader.’ He laughed too. ‘What else is there?’
Beatrice thought for a second, keeping her eyes on Atholl’s. ‘Well, there’s wetting your lips.’
‘Is that so?’
‘And you might unconsciously mirror the person you like, copying their gestures or even their accent, that sort of thing.’
‘I’d never heard of such a thing.’
‘Or you might find yourself instinctively touching them, putting a hand on their arm for a second or something, sort of showing them you’d like to touch them… properly.’
‘Like this?’ Atholl seemed to surprise himself by raising his hand, slowly bringing it into the lightest contact with Beatrice’s, his fingertips grazing her skin before quickly dropping away again.
‘Yes,’ she faltered. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing. That would send a strong message.’
‘Beatrice?’
‘Hmm?’
They were face to face now, Atholl leaning his head against the rock so they were the same height.
‘What will you do now? Are you staying out the rest of your holiday wi’ us? I… I wish ye would.’ He let his fingertips settle against the back of her hand once more before slipping them inside her curled palm and clasping her hand in his. ‘You’re due to check out on Monday morning after the ceilidh, and that’s only five sleeps away. Will you not stay for the dance?’
This wasn’t a time for thinking, for weighing the pull of her responsibilities and her real life back at home with her newfound delight in her impromptu holiday. There was a handsome man asking her to stay near him and ever so slowly leaning his head towards hers and his shining blue eyes were softly closing.