Bruar's Rest

waiting for an answer he ran faster than a stalked deer, and soon disappeared into a sea haar that was crawling over the beach with shroud-like stealth. Rain fell from the heavens to douse the funeral pyre, sending curious onlookers scurrying home. Helen took a long corner of the baby’s shawl, covered her head and retraced her steps to where Bruar stood waiting obediently. Rain ran down his red cheeks from a head of curly blond hair. With one hand he pulled a torn jersey closer under a shivering chin, and with the other he waved in the direction where he saw father running.
    The final spiral of dingy smoke that was all there was left of a happy home danced among the now heavy raindrops. A lost boy wondered if Aunt Helen would feed him some of her chunky vegetable soup, he’d liked the taste. The feel of her soft bed, with its wooden headboard, had been great fun when she took him in once after mammy and daddy had been rained out of the tent. She could do anything, could Auntie. Maybe one day she could bring mammy back and daddy too; one day.

     
    From that day, Helen, who once harboured dreams of serving her Jesus as a nun within a high-walled convent, was, for the foreseeable future, a full-time mother. Neighbours, who were few, came by to remind her often that his children were welcome, but they hoped that Rory had disappeared like a sea fog, and he’d better not come back.
    So life along the costal domain of Durness, with peat bog to its rear and the ocean swell to its front, went on without a hair of his head being seen in those parts. Helen knew her brother’s fondness for drink would make any journey he took troublesome. His sons filled her days with responsibility, yet at night when the lamp was extinguished, the boys tucked up safely in their beds, she’d listen for those heavy-booted feet upon her doorstep, and the gentle tap-tapping of his clumsy fist on her cottar door.

     
    It was seven long, happy years later, when thoughts of her brother seldom entered her mind any more, that he did indeed come home.
    It was a lovely spring morning, lambs bleated and gambolled on the nearby braeside. She’d been busy with the annual spring cleaning. The boys wrestled playfully on the green at the back of the house before running towards two hill ponies, grazing amidst heather and rock. Bruar, well-made, big for his ten years, was as strong as any good-sized teenager, and a power of help to her. Jimmy though on the contrary a slip of a lad, could cut the peat alongside his older brother, working a full day.
    Helen sang softly to herself without the slightest inkling that someone was watching her every move.
    Not wishing to disturb her, Rory went round the other side of the house to admire the fine job she’d made of rearing his sons. He rested his back against an old fence-post, rotted by the wind-blown sea spray.
    Bruar held himself well, ‘a lot like me,’ he thought, proudly. The other lad, small like his mother, yet had strength in him, seldom seen in a seven-year-old. He watched and wondered what name she’d given him; no doubt some biblical tag, knowing her.
    His feet were blistered, his back weary with travelling open drove roads for weeks on end, yet it was a journey well spent; it was worth it just to see them—his very own sons. He could have forgotten about them, given up any claim he had to them. But like a wounded deer scoured from the herd, his way was hard. He’d been wandering for years, reasoning and arguing with himself, whether he should go home and be with the boys, or trek aimlessly until his body aged and broke, until it succumbed to the harsh elements of a freezing winter.
    One day, after a night plagued with dreams of his lost lassie and who she’d want to be raising their sons, he rose from under a torn canvas hap and headed northwards. It was as if his late wife had made the decision for him: ‘go back and reunite with our sons’.
    Her mouth parched, Helen stopped to make some tea and check the boys, and then came the shock. She saw him, cap in hand, hair showing an appearance of time-ravaged grey. His rugged looks, with a prominent scar running down his right cheek, told her that her brother would have fared better staying hidden in the fog. Yet there he stood, back from wherever he’d hidden himself, and he was there for only one thing—to collect his sons.
    Her ears filled with heart-beats pounding in her chest like deafening drums. She had poured natural devotion as