Chapter 6
Two vexatious things were about to shake up Finlay’s peace.
The first came in the shape of a note found on his doormat when he let himself inside his cottage cruive after his encounter down in the town.
It was handwritten, and signed by Jemmy, his boss, the rangers’ station manager for this part of the region, the one who’d given him the job in the first place almost four years ago, when he’d said he could see Finlay wanted to be in the mountains and how impressed he was with his knowledge about wild Scotland and that he had every hope the work would ‘bring him out of himself a wee bit more’.
Jemmy had held onto that hope ever since, no matter how patently Finlay had failed in that regard.
Finlay glowered over the note as he read, stomping his way to the fireplace with its grate already set for a fresh evening blaze. He’d switched on the one overhead bulb to better see the words, powered from his cruive’s solar panel.
SORRY TO MISS YOU. HOPE YOU DON’T MIND, WE VOLUNTEERED YOU TO HELP OUT WITH THE SOCIAL PRESCRIBING GARDEN.
A PITY YOU DIDN’T MANAGE TO ATTEND THE INITIAL MEETINGS ABOUT THE SCHEME, IN SPITE OF ALL THE EMAILS, BUT YOU ARE SURELY THE EXPERT IN CAIRNGORMS FLORA AND FAUNA OUT OF ALL OF US.
I TOOK YOU OFF THE ROTA FOR SUNDAYS SO YOU’RE FREE TO HELP OUT.
REPORT TO THE SURGERY FOR FIVE-THIRTY ON MONDAY AFTERNOON FOR MORE DETAILS.
BEST OF LUCK,
JEMMY
There’d been a deal of mumping and moaning after reading this (which is an especially Scottish kind of grumbling, and a good deal more sweary than the English sort), ending only in the crumpling of the note and the striking of a match.
There’d be no peace though, he knew, as he watched the note catch light amongst the kindling and balled-up newspaper sheets. There was no way out of it. What Jemmy said went, and not because his boss was a tyrant, but because Finlay owed him big time.
‘Dammit!’
A white curl of smoke rose as the kindling caught. Sundays in the town, helping make a new garden? And at the repair shed, of all places.
Though why this one place was any worse than any other, Finlay’s brain wouldn’t enquire more deeply. Yet there was no forgetting the feeling of what had happened down there earlier this afternoon.
Adding the smallest of the dry logs from the hearth pile to the fire and swinging the black kettle on its metal hook over the flames, he mulled it over now.
He’d almost gone and done it again; lost his rag with a stranger. As his mum always reminded him, he wasn’t properly cut out for dealing with people. He got folks’ backs up.
Only, Murray McIntyre hadn’t looked at him like he’d encountered a mountain yeti, a faerie-dog or forest bogle that had accidentally stumbled into Cairn Dhu, the way that townsfolk sometimes regarded him.
On the contrary, his lips had curled up at the corners.
A sparkle had lit his green eyes. He’d seemed – Finlay tried hard to fathom what that reaction had been – impressed, somehow? Delighted, even?
Mulling over recent altercations like this was nothing new for Finlay.
He could spend hours decrypting exchanges after a visit to town: like that GP’s receptionist who wanted to know what exactly was wrong with him before she’d give him an appointment (‘That’ll be nane o’ your business,’ he’d told her, while the whole waiting room’s ears were flapping, before he’d stalked out of the surgery), or that ditsy woman, Laura Mercer, from the bicycle delivery deli who he’d meet every Tuesday at noon down at the rangers’ station to hand over his loaves, salad stuff and fresh fruit and to refill his tea caddy and his canisters of rice, pasta, and scotch broth mix.
She’d say suggestive things to him about how she was still single and ‘just waiting for the right fella to come along and sweep her off her feet’, and she’d simper in ways that made him wonder how she could possibly think he liked her in that way, or in any way, really, when in fact he’d be happy to buy his messages (that’s ‘groceries’ for those outside of Scotland) from literally anyone else if there was a more convenient way.
Mind you, Laura didn’t bring everything wrapped in polythene like the big shops would.
That was one big point in her favour, he supposed, and he always made sure to tip her on top of her delivery charge because, goodness knows, the rangers’ station carpark was a fair bike ride out of town for her and she never once missed a meeting.
As much as he’d muse over town conversations when he was alone again (before letting himself forget all about them) he couldn’t quite forget Murray’s voice, not that the man had said anything particularly noteworthy.
Maybe it was how Murray’s voice had felt that he was having difficulty shrugging off?
That hand upon his as he’d steadied himself after their clash had also left a sensation inside Finlay’s bones that had made him check and recheck his fingers ever since, flexing his hand, peering closely at his skin. No damage. So why the burning feeling?
It was true, no one had touched Finlay for a long time.
The last had been that pharmacist giving him his booster shot right in the middle of the chemist shop and telling him not to be ‘such a big bairn and kindly mind your language’.
All he’d said was ‘dammit’ at the scratch, and there’d been nobody but a few families in the queue waiting for their jabs.
Granted, one of the wee kids had burst into tears and he’d thought he heard their mother muttering something about ‘the Grinch’, but she could have been talking about anyone.
‘No,’ he told himself now, pouring the steaming water from the kettle into his chipped old teapot, watching the tea leaves drown in the dark chamber. He had to put Murray McIntyre, and all the rest of them, far from his mind.
He sat back, cross-legged on the rug, pulling his woollen blanket around his shoulders and reaching for his textbook.
A bit of Gaelic was what was needed. He’d been teaching himself for well over a year, fancying that it was the language these mountains spoke and that they would understand him all the better when he wanted to tell them things if he said them in the old tongue.
He had never mentioned these self-directed lessons to his recently departed mother.
The Gaelic was probably another of his ‘notions’, the likes of which she used to tut about, like the time long ago he’d learned the name of every British native tree and made a notebook with their leaves and buds drawn in pencil, instead of doing the chemistry or maths revision for his exams. Maybe the Gaelic was just a notion, but he knew full well the mountains didn’t whisper anything to him in English.
He flipped to the correct page, poured his tea into his mug, lifted the chocolate and cherry bauble from his tin, and settled in to revise his colours and shapes vocabulary – he was still just a beginner.
Rich, glossy chocolate gave way to smooth deep pink mousse as he bit. There was cherry syrup and a satisfyingly soft biscuit base, so good he momentarily closed his eyes to chew.
Another bite. The warmth, the solitude, the sweetness.
It was enough to make him think generously of good old Senga Gifford.
Another bite. A slurp of hot black tea stirred with sugar.
The fire crackled and he turned a page. The steam from his chipped mug may as well have spelled out There’s No Place Like Home Alone in the air as he tried to relax into his evening.
‘Red. Dearg or ruadh. Green. Uaine. Pink. Ban-dhearg or simply pinc.’ He rehearsed the vocabulary, while his slippery, troublesome brain conjured up Murray’s ruddy hair, shining green eyes, rosy cheeks.
‘Dammit!’
He licked his fingers clean now the bauble cake had disappeared, then downed the last of his tea in a gulp.
His hand strayed to his chest. The hand that still bore the residual sensation of Murray’s touch where he’d crushed against him. There was only the faintest white graze over his knuckles where the metallic thing Murray had been holding had scuffed him. It hadn’t hurt at all. On the contrary…
Finlay’s hand happened to settle on the compass in his breast pocket. He pulled it free now and stared down at it. Its familiar dial might help orientate him, drag him out of this strange brain fog he was in danger of getting lost in since bumping into Murray McIntyre.
‘Whit? Aw, naw!’
He shook the compass, then turned it over, briefly sighting the engraving on the nickel casing, his grandfather’s name, Fredrick Morlich. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’
He shook the compass again. The dial, a slender Cupid’s arrow of aluminium, jumped a few degrees before smoothly pinging back to the wrong cardinal point once more.
Finlay knew his cruive and its fireplace wall faced due south. The compass arrow now directed itself right at his chest and the north. The dial was lying to him.
North had become south and south had become north.
‘Broken!’ he said, giving the device another little jolt.
He ran through how it was possible the poles had switched places.
Then it hit him. It happened when Murray ran into him with that sleek brushed-metal thing in his hand.
Now he knew it had to have been a phone case.
He was the very type of man who was chronically online, never separated from the internet and would own a magnetised phone case which had grazed Finlay as he shielded his compass.
That metal had demagnetised the sensitive compass, turning Finlay’s world on its head.
‘Dammit!’ he yelled again, throwing off the blanket from his shoulders, leaving the warmth of the fire and his books and tea.
He crossed the cold stones and well-worn rugs, grabbing a box from a shadowy alcove.
The room was chilly even this short distance from the hearth.
He rummaged among the odds and ends, confirming what he already knew.
He didn’t have a strong magnet with which to repolarise the compass; the only way he knew of fixing the thing and getting his life realigned once more.
The awful, irritating realisation seeped in. He’d have to go back down to the town on Monday and ask for help.
Even through the thick stone walls of the croft, even through the heavy droplets in the damp night air, Finlay’s friend the mountain stag flinched at the sound of the shout that echoed along the pass.
‘Dammit to hell!’