Bruar's Rest

father-in-law, therefore it was only right that she knew as much of the man as she could.
    ‘I remember like it was only yesterday,’ he said, running his hands once more through his thick hair. ‘Spring was bursting from a long cold winter. We were but bairns, yet felt so grown up, ready to take on the world together. We were wed that very day in a tiny church on the shore of Loch Eribol by a small priest who told us everybody belonged to God, and never to forget that. Then my lassie and I thought, if it was all right with God, we’d go on a hike round Scotland. Leaving Durness, we set upon the road, filling our teenage lungs with the fragrance of yellowed gorse and pink-white hawthorn blossoms. Not one part of that beautiful long summer did we miss a chance to thrill at nature’s wondrous sights and sounds. We went swimming in the waters of the blue-green Atlantic, soaked in sunshine upon deserted beaches of golden sands without a stitch of clothes on. Oh, she was a bonny lassie, was Bruar’s mother. I wish you’d known her.’ Suddenly although it was a warm, pleasant day, he pulled the collar of his shirt up around his chin and hunched his shoulders. He folded his arms and lowered his face into his chest.
    She watched as her storyteller flinched, and wondered if she’d opened old wounds. ‘Do you want to continue, big Rory?’ she asked. ‘Look, if you don’t want to tell me, I’ll understand.’
    But it was only that a sudden vision of his lassie had filled his thoughts, and for a moment he didn’t want to share her with anyone. Megan gently wrapped an arm around his bowed shoulders, ‘If you’d much rather not speak o’ her, I’ll understand.’
    ‘No, lassie, of course I’ll tell you. It’s just that as I went back in my mind I could see how much I missed her. But look, sit down, and I’ll tell you how we came by the laddie’s name. When we found the purse was empty we went down to Blair Atholl. A landowner from Glen Tilt had postered notices on a village wall. I asked my lassie what they said. She turned on me then, and hit me hard with her fist. I couldn’t understand, because I’d never seen her show one tiny spark of temper. At first I thought the notice was one saying ‘no tinkers’, and that’s why she saw red, because we came across so many of them on our travels. Then when I read it I found that it said “Workers to cut bracken apply to factor at the castle.” I asked her what had caused the outburst of anger? And that’s when she broke down in tears, saying she couldn’t read at all, and she was so ashamed. It made me feel more drawn to her that she relied on me from then on, but having said that, I wasn’t that good a reader myself.
    Well, we got the job, and with it keys to a small cottage, high up on the braeside. It was a melancholy wee place, with eyeless windows and a ruined, gaping chimney breast. Part of it was roofless, ravaged by the winds and rain from the heavens. There were traces of fastening on a wall where once hung a cupboard, and doors long since replaced by openings leading from one room to the next. We stood alone, gazing at what once had housed families, probably happy people, and wondered what they’d think of the bleak place now? We sat on a sill and wondered if it had ever held a vase with flowers. My sister Helen never put an empty vase on a sill, even in winter she’d put some plant or other in her blue vase. Every tiny low roofed cottage in Durness had them, little, rounded, glazed sea-blue they were, always filled with a few flowers.
    Long grasses grew from a hole in the floor behind the front door, as if searching for some light. I told the factor we weren’t too happy with the state of the place, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “What do you expect, a mansion? You’re bloody tinkers, for God’s sake, nothing more! I’ve scraped cleaner stuff off my boot.”’
    Megan stopped him then and said, ‘You’re not a tinker, Rory, I know, because sometimes I speak to Rachel in our tongue, and Bruar hasn’t a clue what we’re saying.’
    ‘No, but my lassie taught me some words. And anyway, what difference does it make? I’m not a tinker, but the boys are half-bred, so I suppose they’re as near as can be. Anyway, do you want to hear this tale of why Bruar is so called, or not?’
    She apologised, folded her arms, and asked him to continue.
    ‘For the remainder of the summer we lived in the cottage with its partly