Summer at the Highland Coral Beach (The Port Willow Bay series Port Willow Bay)

by Kiley Dunbar

  Now that Beatrice could see the whole room, her lips parted and her jaw fell. Atholl watched her expression from by her side.

  She’d seen it all earlier, of course. She and Kitty had pushed the chairs to the outside of the room and hefted most of the tables out into the street in order to clear a makeshift dancefloor. The decorations she and Kitty had strung across the ceiling still looked festive and bright but now the room was swirling with dancing spotlights from the low stage the ceilidh band had rigged up earlier, and the room was packed, a patchwork of swishing tartan in every colour. Standing here and there were local women in white frocks and visitors wearing the smartest clothes in their suitcases, some looking underdressed in jeans and jumpers but everyone smiling and excited. Mrs Mair stood at the bar, her sleeves rolled up.

  ‘No’ bad, eh?’ Atholl said, proudly, and Beatrice had to agree. ‘Wait here,’ he said, close to her ear, and he was gone, pushing through the crowd.

  Over the sounds of the crowd and the chinking of glasses Beatrice heard the crackle of a microphone and Atholl’s voice running smooth like water in a burn.

  ‘Welcome, friends, to The Princess and the Pea and another Harvest Home.’

  The cheer startled Beatrice. This crowd were ready to party.

  ‘Tonight I must thank the Garleton Band who’ll have you dizzy and puffin’ by midnight if previous years are anything to go by.’ Another cheer. The drummer raised his sticks in approval. ‘I have other folk to thank, too. Two special guests. Kitty Wake, who returns to us from her university in the north. Thank you for finding your way back to us. We’ve all missed you.’

  Beatrice had to stand on tiptoe to peer over the heads to see Kitty, ladle in hand over the punch bowl, shyly accepting the applause, looking desolate as the crowd clapped and hooted.

  A quick scan around the room revealed no sign of Gene who, if he were here, would tower head and shoulders above the crowd. Beatrice felt herself shrink inwardly. She’d been responsible for hurting this kind, generous woman and she had to fix it somehow but how could she do that without meddling even more?

  Her attention was called back to Atholl’s voice at the sound of her own name being spoken and she found a break in the crowd where she could see his face.

  ‘And I must thank the bonny and brave Beatrice Halliday, who came to us from far away and has found a home here, warmed our hearts and made us wonder how we ever lived without her.’ He was looking straight at her and the crowd parted. She stared back.

  Atholl spoke on, his lips close to the microphone and neck lowered as though he were talking only to her. ‘You and Kitty are responsible for helping us host the biggest Harvest Home celebration Port Willow has seen this half century. So please join me in a toast of our gratitude to Kitty and Beatrice, thank you, and haste ye back.’

  ‘Haste ye back,’ the crowd called as glasses swung and whisky splashed and a hundred pairs of eyes fell upon Beatrice approvingly.

  Atholl surrendered his microphone and walked through the crowd towards Beatrice who glanced around her, wondering if anyone else had the sensation that time was somehow slowing down and he was moving towards her as if through water, his kilt swishing and eyes sparkling.

  She heard the slow tap of a cymbal and a broad Scottish accent declaring, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your partners for a St Bernard’s Waltz,’ and she was in Atholl’s arms and being spun to the outer edge of the dancefloor as the crowd divided into a circle of paired dancers and the whisky-supping spectators on the periphery.

  She caught the eye of Cheryl at the bar. She was dressed from cleavage to knee in gold sequins and surely the most glamorous being the patrons of The Princess and the Pea Inn had ever encountered. Jillian was beside her in a glittering black dress that hugged her contours. She was accepting two glasses of punch from Kitty. Behind them in the queue stood a row of fishermen with scrubbed faces, uncomfortable in their shirt sleeves, every one of them gaping at Cheryl and Jillian and thanking their lucky stars for their arrival in the village, all of which the Bobby Dazzlers pretended not to notice, not until later in the evening anyway. Cheryl was winking at Beatrice and nodding her head towards an oblivious Atholl, making Beatrice grin back in response.

  There was no point protesting. She and Atholl were the talk of The Princess and the Pea, obviously, and to be fair, it was probably for good reason. They all knew Atholl had carried her home from the coral beach on Friday afternoon and they’d both walked in late yesterday evening from the But and Ben, and they’d drawn their own conclusions. The silversmithing ladies from Sussex had seen it all too and it had fuelled a whole evening’s slightly jealous gossiping.

  While the Bobby Dazzlers had set about her hair and make-up earlier that afternoon Beatrice had tried to explain that Atholl thought she’d be better off with her husband and that he’d made his position perfectly clear, she was a holidaymaker here and nothing else, they had laughed and raised their perfect HD brows and told her not to be so soft. Oh well, they’d all finally see tomorrow morning when she checked out and her holiday was over. There was nothing going on between her and Atholl.

  She found her voice as the musical introduction ended, ‘Atholl, I don’t know how to do this dance!’

  ‘It’s easy. Look me in the eyes, stay in my arms, and let me lead you,’ he said, low and sure, as the circle began to move in unison.

  And she found he was right. It was easy: easy to hold his gaze as he led her in sweeping turns around the room, the caller telling her when to click her heels on the floor. It was easy to let him push her into the middle of the floor so all the women were back to back in a smaller circle before being pulled towards him again to the outer edge of the dancefloor and swept almost off her feet in a sudden waltz of dizzying spins. All the while their bodies stayed connected as though magnetised.

  When the waltzing chorus ended and the verse returned along with a repeat of the slow promenading steps she felt she’d already mastered, she said, ‘This is quite a gentle dance. I thought I’d be horribly lost and thrown around.’

  Atholl’s eyes stayed locked on her own and his grin spread making his eyes crinkle and shine. ‘Oh aye, there’ll be plenty of that, this is just the beginning.’

  ‘Well, I like it.’

  ‘Me too.’

  He danced her backwards towards the centre of the floor again.

  ‘And I must say you look very handsome,’ she added, shyly.

  Atholl smiled as he expertly steered her back out to the edge of the circle. ‘Thank you. I think we look braw together.’

  ‘Braw,’ Beatrice said with a smile. ‘I didn’t know I liked a man in a kilt, but I don’t think I’ll ever want to see a bloke in jeans and a t-shirt again.’ Her imagination threw out an image of Atholl in blue Levis and white cotton, soft and tight in all the right places, and she found herself stumbling over Atholl’s feet. ‘Oops, sorry!’

  He steadied her again, and they kept spinning to the music.

  ‘Umm,’ she fought for something sensible to say. ‘What kind of tartan are you wearing?’

  ‘Fergusson, of course. Do you like it?’ He slid his arms further around her waist, pulling her closer so their hips touched before waltzing her again.

  When the slower steps came around she scanned his body, loving the heavy swishing tartan folds and the leather sporran with silver buckles. ‘I certainly do. And what’s that?’ She directed her eyes to the gleaming pewter clasp at his chest which held his sash in place over his shoulder. ‘It says something on it?’

  ‘It’s the clan motto. Dulcius Ex Asperis.’

  She enjoyed the sound of his tongue and teeth rounding out the words so much she asked him to say it again. This time he leant his face close enough for her to feel his breath on her cheek and she was sure he slowly nuzzled the few loose wisps of her hair aside with the tip of his nose, putting his lips to her ear and whispering the words, all the while guiding her in a slow spin.

  She gulped and looked into his eyes
just as the music culminated in a loud flourish and Atholl slowed her to a stop.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It means Sweeter After Difficulties. That’s the literal translation. It tells us that rewards come to us after our hardships, and they’re all the sweeter for it.’

  The dancers froze in their circle and the men bowed simultaneously to their partners. As Atholl took his own slow bow in front of Beatrice his eyes stayed fixed on her astonished gaze and he smiled knowingly.

  ‘A good motto, is it no’?’ he said as he straightened up, taking Beatrice’s hand in his own again so she could curtsey.

  It felt curiously old-fashioned and her movements clumsy and yet she found herself wanting to do it well, to thank him, to show how much she appreciated his sweetness. So she bobbed down before him, crossing one leg shakily behind her other, letting her eyes fall to the ground, and when she raised them she thought how she never wanted this man to be out of her sight again.

  ‘Stay on the floor for a Galliard,’ the caller announced, and Beatrice was relieved to find Atholl adjusting his hold on her shoulders, turning her body so she was in the correct position, his strong hands shifting her waist, and everything about that feeling right and natural.

  The noise in the room grew and Beatrice noticed people were spilling out onto the twilit street to drink and talk and dance but the bar room still jostled with people and Mrs Mair was doing a roaring trade in beer and drams. The singing and laughter from the street outside suggested to Beatrice that it was just as crowded along the waterfront as it was in the bar.

  Beatrice was relieved to watch Seth make his way over to Kitty and take the ladle from her hands with unheard words. Kitty let him lead her onto the dancefloor with tears sparkling in her eyes. How kind he was and how gentle. He really was the all-seeing Seth, just as Kitty had said, and right now he saw nothing but a sorry young woman with a broken heart pining for a man whose affection she couldn’t rely on for sure; a man who wasn’t even here to see her looking so beautiful in her white dress and dancing shoes even redder than her hair.

  The music struck up with a cheerful accordion and pipes and the room moved again. Even Cheryl and Jillian were joining in, having taken their pick from the handsome farm lads and rugged fishermen lining up to dance with them. There was much stumbling over the steps as the caller spoke over the music telling everyone what to do, and peals of laughter rang out.

  Occasionally Atholl took over at the bar and Beatrice, being one of the few women vastly outnumbered by men, was required to dance all night.

  She found herself in the tweedy arms of Seth dancing a simple waltz. The frenetic energy of the evening seemed to have calmed a little when the doors burst open and men and women poured inside from their tables out on the street all shaking great plashes of rain from their jackets.

  Seth looked sagely at them, shrugging off the cold draught they’d brought in with them and said, ‘There’s an ill wind blowing in. We’re in for a wild night.’ And Beatrice had smiled and let him lead her around the floor.

  The dances began to blur into one another; dances for groups of fours and for sixes, dances that required the men to take their partners in their arms and lift them off the floor, waltzes that called for heart to heart closeness, and wild spinning reels that Beatrice could barely comprehend the rules of. But she laughed and she danced and passed underneath the clasped hands held up for her, and she found that if someone offered her a hand it probably meant they intended to spin her, and everyone pointed her and the other novices in the right direction when they were lost. The entire thing felt joyful and exhilarating and hilarious.

  At one point, the women, seemingly without any cue that Beatrice was aware of, called out a loud ‘Hee-yeuch!’ in unison and she found herself joining in. By the time she felt sure she’d been passed around the entire company of dancers at least fifty times, and do-si-doed, pas de basqued and curtseyed to every one of them she was dry-mouthed and hot. Mrs Mair had sold all the raffle tickets and the caller had drawn the winners to much applause and cajoling when one of the young farmworkers had won the silver ring and looked hungrily round the room for a lassie to present it to.

  The clock above the bar told Beatrice it was eleven o’clock and yet the night was only just getting going; this she could tell from the determined, concerted expressions of the elderly Port Willow men waiting their turn to cut in and claim one of the few women as a dance partner.

  Atholl saw that she was tired and led her to the booth table to sit down.

  ‘Mum, you’ll look after her, will you no’,’ he said as he walked off to fetch both women a drink.

  ‘Hello, dearie,’ the white-haired woman said, her cheeks flushed and her eyes, Beatrice noticed for the first time, shockingly blue like her sons’. ‘I’m glad you stayed out the whole of your holiday, I wanted to talk with you.’

  Beatrice sat with the little flutter of panic that welled in her chest.

  ‘Oh, about that day at Skye—’

  Mrs Fergusson cut her off. ‘Yes, about that. You like my son, do you no’?’

  Beatrice looked around for him. Couldn’t he come to her rescue right this second? Was the queue for drinks really so long? She was all alone and had to style out this grilling, so she resolved to be polite and smile.

  ‘I do,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, it’s him you need to tell that to, no’ me. And I’m glad, but that’s no why I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you about your baby.’

  ‘Oh, Atholl told you about that, huh?’

  ‘No. You did that yourself, when your heart broke in your chest holding wee Archibald. I’m no’ so short-sighted as folk think I am.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It will get easier. I promise.’

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘Yes. Take it from one who knows. It never stops hurtin’ but the pain will stop stinging so much if you share your burden. But I think you might be learnin’ that already?’

  Beatrice followed the woman’s gaze over to the bar where Atholl waited patiently and smiled back with a look that conveyed that he knew what his mother was doing but he trusted her judgement.

  ‘I think you might be right,’ Beatrice said, unable to stop herself smiling back at Atholl.

  Mrs Fergusson’s eyes sparkled as she revelled in the silent exchange between them.

  ‘Have you ever seen Brigadoon, my dear? The musical? With Gene Kelly?’

  ‘I haven’t. Kitty mentioned it too, is it big round here, or something?’

  ‘No, it’s as old as the hills and almost as forgotten as the Harvest Home ceilidhs of the past but it’s got a message I always reminded my husband of when he was heartsore for the loss of our wee Ida. It says, it is not loneliness to have loved in vain, but not to have loved at all. Even when our darlings are lost to time, we’ve had the blessing of loving them, and that is everything.’

  Mrs Fergusson peered at Beatrice’s face and took her hand in her own paper-smooth grip. ‘It will get easier, Beatrice.’

  ‘Eilidh, may I have this dance?’ Seth was by the booth, giving off whisky vapour and a hazy smile.

  ‘Och, Seth, I cannae see tae dance, you ken that,’ Mrs Fergusson chided.

  ‘All the easier for you to imagine you’re dancing with Gene Kelly then. You can stand on my feet?’

  Mrs Fergusson chuckled. ‘Oh, all right. One waltz, Seth.’ Mrs Fergusson pointed a bony finger. ‘And no trying to dip me backwards this year!’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  An Ill Wind

  ‘Three? No four. I’ve lost count.’ Beatrice had no idea how many of the curiously strong but easily gluggable cups of Highland punch she’d drunk. She blanched when Kitty told her the ingredients.

  ‘Rum, ginger ale, gin, honey, oranges and lemons. The stuff’s lethal, but perfect for a ceilidh. Highland folks would visit friends for a party and pour their own bottle – whatever it might be – into the shared punch bowl, so it would vary in strength and
taste over the evening. There’s isn’t one definitive recipe. I made this one following Gene’s instructions.’

  Kitty and Beatrice were talking behind the bar during a lull in the music. Mrs Mair had only moments ago carried out trays of sandwiches, black bun and shortbread to the sounds of cheering and everyone had set upon the food. It was only seconds until midnight and sure enough the crowds looked as though they were refuelling for another wild bout of dancing.

  Beatrice had been introduced to an army of red-headed Fergussons over the course of the evening, including Atholl’s littlest sister, Kelly, but the names of the children, all now playing on the dancefloor in a noisy rabble, had escaped her.

  ‘Things seem to be going better with Atholl, then?’ Kitty whispered loudly.

  ‘We’re being friendly. It’s nice.’

  ‘Flirty, you mean?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Beatrice glanced across at Atholl behind the bar where he was trying to regain order and tidy up as people ate. He caught her looking and smiled. ‘You think he’s flirting?’

  Kitty rolled her eyes. Their conversation was interrupted by tapping at the microphone and Seth, a little worse for wear and giggling to himself like a school boy, addressed the audience, trying not to slur.

  ‘And now for shhum poetry.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Atholl hissed.

  Seth cleared his throat, holding up his splashing whisky glass. All eyes were upon him as he began his rhyme.

  ‘There was a keen cyclist from Port Willow,

  Whose heart was aflame for his bride…’

  Atholl slapped a palm to his face, shaking his head. The same silversmithing women who’d whispered about Beatrice and Atholl over breakfast that morning were loudly wondering what was happening.

  ‘What’s he saying, Philippa? Is it a traditional Highland poem?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s Robert Burns, Georgina?’

  Atholl was hastily making for the stage as Seth pressed on, thoroughly enjoying himself, while the young farmers at the bar made bawdy calls and whistles.