Chapter 7 #4
These were not like the oatcakes I was expecting, the sort that you have after a nice dinner party with cheese and grapes. These you could have carpeted a floor with, but they were fresh and hot and not vegetables, therefore delicious.
‘They were milking a couple of cows up there,’ David observed.
‘Anyone want to grab us some milk?’ There was a resounding lack of volunteers and he sighed.
‘Look, you lot, I feel I’m being forced into domestication here.
Just because I know my way around food prep doesn’t mean I want to be typecast.’
The silence went on. There was a tone to it, an echo of words unsaid and when I looked up the others were all staring at the table and trying not to meet each other’s eye.
‘They were going to be roasting something too,’ Kaylinn said at last. ‘I don’t really understand the accent, so I don’t know what they said. I expect I’ll pick it up real soon though, I’m part Scottish.’ She added this proudly.
As she looked entirely Chinese American, this surprised me somewhat. All the men concentrated fiercely on eating their oatcakes but the atmosphere lifted.
‘Really?’ I asked weakly.
‘Oh, yeah. My great-great-great-grandmother came from In Furnace.’
‘Inverness,’ the others all chorused. They’d clearly heard this bit before.
She gave them cat’s bum face. ‘Yeah. It’s why I wanted to come over here for my year working overseas.
I wanted to see the old homeland,’ she finished defiantly, and everyone else chewed ferociously and paid far too much attention to their oatcakes.
‘Scotland’s great.’ She pulled another oatcake from the bag and heroically started on it.
‘I’d love to stay. Meet a cute guy and live over here. ’
David kept his head very firmly down, despite her glances his way. Oh dear, I thought. That’s all we need, romantic entanglements. I wondered if this had anything to do with everyone’s awkwardness about his complaint regarding cooking, but couldn’t work it out.
The dog had backed into a corner and was standing rigid, watching us with its hackles raised.
I threw a corner of oatcake in its direction, which bounced off the dog’s forehead and landed on the ground.
The dog ignored it and just growled slightly.
It was about the size of a large spaniel, white and deep chested with a pointed muzzle, like a cross between a foxhound and a gundog.
It did not seem happy about being in here with us.
‘Why doesn’t he just go back up the steps?’ I asked.
‘Probably too nervous. They do shake a bit.’ Mal whistled and the dog gave him evils.
‘We ought to try chasing him up the stone stairs into the hall. And someone might come looking for him, so we’d better make sure we keep the oatcakes in the bag unless we’re eating.
We don’t want some poor bugger frightened out of his kilt by randomly moving food. ’
‘Feileadh Mòr,’ Lachlan said, unexpectedly. ‘It means Big Kilt, it’s not what we think of as a kilt, not yet.’
‘Well, I’m a prehistorian,’ Mal retorted waspishly. ‘I’m right up with the symbolic language and the interaction with the Roman culture, but you can count me out on the kilt front.’
‘I think we should get back into the castle,’ Lachlan interrupted. ‘After all, we’re wasting what could be valuable research time otherwise. We could be the only people in the world to get first-hand knowledge of eighteenth-century practices.’
And, I thought, watching him organise, it might give us some idea as to why we’re here, if there is a reason.
‘If we ever get back to use it,’ David said, darkly.
‘Thank you, supposing that.’ Lachlan’s tone was even, but he clearly hadn’t needed the reminder. ‘Pax, you and I can suss out the earl. After all—’ he turned to me ‘—if he’s a relation of yours then it should be interesting. Kay, you wanted to study the domestic arrangements?’
‘I want to follow the women,’ she said. ‘A feminist approach.’
‘Mal, Davey? What about you?’
‘Oh, we’ll just wander about being floating objects and going “woo”, I thought.’
‘Shut up, Mal,’ David said easily. ‘If no one else is going to offer, I’m going to grab some milk and some other food.
I’ll borrow Kay’s bag and hide it in there.
Fill the flask with milk, maybe find out if there’s any cheese around – there must be preserved food too. I’ll see what’s up for stealing.’
‘Right, you two are on provisions.’ Lachlan finished his oatcake. ‘We’re on family history duty and Kay’s following the women. We’ll meet back here, okay?’
Everyone seemed very glad to be given a task, as though they deferred to Lachlan to save themselves from shrieking hysterics about what was actually happening to them.
I ate the remains of my oatcake and followed him up the stone steps that led to the hall, leaving the dog standing at the bottom staring dubiously after us.
I clicked my fingers at him once or twice, but he just raised a lip and gave me a half-hearted snarl and stayed put.
‘Be like that,’ I said, and Lachlan and I went towards the doorway that led up inside the castle.