Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
JANE
‘You see?’ Moira says smugly. ‘I told you a wing and a prayer would be fine. My prayers are powerful things, and you provided the wings!’
I can’t help but agree as I take in the scene at the bookshop.
Three local pensioners, Bruce, Davy and Robert, are gathered around the big round table by the fireplace.
Angus’s photos are spread across the surface, as are three large mugs that contain as much Glenfiddich as tea.
As Moira had said, they are outliers, choosing to live their lives in splendid isolation, up in the hills and in secluded nooks of the coastline.
But to Moira, they matter to this community just as much as those around the village. I know she worries about them.
She’d charmed them into coming to the bookshop, and her friend Ginny had been dispatched to collect them in her jeep. The prints of Angus’s beautiful shots have broken the ice, and the whisky probably hasn’t hurt.
The oldest is Davy. Ninety-nine and still living independently on his smallholding.
He points at a picture Angus took and cackles, the deep lines and creases of his face almost making his eyes disappear as he laughs.
‘I remember that day! He helped me mend one of the fences, and I paid him with a chicken!’
‘Aye,’ Moira chimes in, walking over. ‘I remember that too. He was so drunk he lost the chicken on the way home, Davy – I always suspected you’d trained her to come back to your place. How are you managing, out there all alone?’
‘Och, woman, I’m fine. Keeps me fit. Though I leave the pig-wrangling to my grandson these days. He comes once a week, when he can. Still, nice to be here, in such civilised company…’
He winks and raises his mug. The other men clink against it, the amber liquid sloshing, and I wonder how civilised it’s going to stay. Between these three men, their history goes back as far as the 1920s, and I’m curious about all of it.
‘Gentlemen, would you mind telling me a bit more about your lives?’ I ask. ‘You’ve known Moira for years, but I’m new here.’
Robert – who has long silver hair and looks a little like a wizard – replies. ‘Aye, hen, we don’t mind at all – but don’t be getting your hopes up, now, will you? My Lizzy will have my guts for garters if I so much as look at a pretty woman!’
‘She’s the jealous type is she?’
‘Aye. She’s also been dead for the last eight years, but she’d come back if she thought I was messing around on her.’
The other two men nod seriously. ‘Aye,’ Davy says. ‘I wouldnae put it past her…’
With a little gentle prompting, they start to talk.
They spin tales as rich as the landscape, casting their nets over decades spent on the fishing trawlers, running a potato farm, and in Bruce’s case, making creels, the wicker baskets the lobster are caught in.
All three of them are complete characters, and have me in stitches while they barely crack a smile themselves, so deadpan it’s like they had comic training.
It’s heartwarming to see them here, so happy and engaged – I know from Moira that some of them can go weeks without speaking to another human being.
They also look as interesting as they sound, and I feel even more convinced that the portraits plan is something that needs to happen.
Their faces tell the stories of their lives and struggles and experiences, each one of them completely unique.
They carry their age and wisdom in their features, their gnarled hands, their laughter lines.
With the best will in the world, these men will be gone soon, and the world will be a better place for having captured them.
While Moira continues to chat to them about the photos and about her idea for the paintings, I sit off to one side, doing a few sketches myself.
I don’t intend to draw, but as I sit and listen, notepad and pencil on my lap, my hands seem to take on a life of their own.
I shove the pad into my bag when we’re wrapping up, embarrassed and not wanting anyone to see them.
I know Rory left a while ago, but I don’t want anyone to mention my doodling.
It would just fuel his misguided vision of me as a frustrated artist.
Now we are all in the pub, and the men are having a ball. Their guard has been well and truly dropped, and they’re thoroughly enjoying themselves. Moira grasps my hand, and I see a tear shining in her eye as she looks on. ‘See, Jane? We’ve made a difference!’
I nod, and gulp back my own emotions. She’s right, and it feels…
well, it feels like a lot, all at once. Just then, Bruce the creel maker stands to his feet, and opens up the violin case that he brought with him.
I’d been surprised when he walked in with it, but Moira told me he used to be a legend in these parts, and she’d specifically asked him to consider giving us a song.
‘Now,’ he announces, tuning up, ‘I’ve no been doing this in public for a good many years. Not since I lost Morag. And truth be told, I probably shouldnae be doing it now…’
We all shout him down and cry out encouragingly, and with a smile he begins.
He plays a fast jig-style tune first, one that has everyone clapping along and tapping on the table tops.
He then begins to sing, leading the crowd along with him.
These are not songs that I am familiar with, but I enjoy them anyway.
Some of them are ribald and bawdy, with lots of call and response, and others are obviously songs of the sea, ranging from haunting and melodic to fast-paced and frenetic.
It’s when he begins one called ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ that I start to crack – his pride shines out in his voice, and as everyone joins in, I am flooded with unruly emotions.
It’s a beautiful song, based on the words of Robert Burns, and looking out at the small sea of faces all singing with such joy and passion…
well, it breaks the dam I’ve been keeping up inside myself all day long.
The dam I started to build as Rory and I walked into the village, watching the dolphins and holding hands as we strolled through the glorious hills towards the sea.
The dam that seeing these amazing people brought together now completely demolishes.
Last night was miraculous, perfect, a dream.
Rory is the only man who has ever been able to make my body sing, the only man who sweeps away all my inhibitions.
As ever, it went way beyond good sex, transporting me to some weird otherworldly realm where anything was possible.
Where multiple orgasms were possible, where knee-melting kisses were possible, where the most amazing mutual pleasure was possible. Where love was possible.
It’s that last one that’s causing the problem, I realise, as I bite my lip and try not to cry as Bruce sings his heart out.
I don’t think this is casual for Rory, no matter how much he was trying to play it down earlier.
I still know him, it seems. I still know that he has feelings for me – and even if I didn’t, finding that pencil portrait of the younger me in his room might have tipped me off.
That, and the way he said he’d see me ‘at home’.
I know he probably didn’t mean anything by it, but this isn’t my home, and I can’t allow myself to think it is.
Last night, before the naked part, I’d told him I couldn’t promise him anything. But then we slept together, and it was amazing, and this morning we accidentally did it all over again. That changes things, no matter how much I protest. What does he want from me? What does he expect?
I can’t go back to being his Juliet, I just can’t.
She was too sweet, too vulnerable. She was broken by the power of this love, and no matter how logically I tell myself it wasn’t his fault, I am still afraid.
I have Beth to consider, and my work, and my real life.
The one that doesn’t involve a beautiful bookshop and a pub full of eccentric locals and a man from a mountain kingdom who rocks my world, blows my mind, makes me scream in sheer pleasure.
I flee from the pub. It’s all too much. I feel the tears coming, and dart away, across the quiet cobbled street, away from the singing and the old men with their moving stories, away from Moira and Kate and all of them. This is not my life. I only have it on loan.
Right on cue, my phone beeps, and I see an email land from the office.
I don’t open it. I might well sling the phone into the sea, or resign.
I walk down to the beach, taking deep breaths to calm myself.
I sit on one of the giant red boulders, and stare out at the ever-changing water.
It’s a calm evening, and that helps. The swell rolls gently in to land, white-topped waves curling onto the golden sand.
Birds are calling, and two dogs are chasing each other around on the shoreline.
All is as it should be, I tell myself. There is nothing to feel anxious about, nothing to feel sad about.
Beth messaged earlier and has arrived safely, the day went well, the grant presentation has been updated and submitted, and even if I left right now, I’ve managed to make a difference to this place – both individually in the case of Bruce, Davy and Robert, and hopefully longer-term for the future of the gallery.
I might not have done it all, but I’ve done all that I can.
I’ve achieved something I’m proud of and which I’ve enjoyed immensely, and as for Rory…
well. We’ve lived without each other for all this time, and I’m sure we’ll continue to live without each other perfectly happily in the future.
He will go back to his Catrina and his friends with benefits, and I will go back to, well, goodness knows what.
Definitely not my shades of grey though, I decide – I will make changes, positive ones.
Once I’ve uncurled from my foetal position and stopped crying that is.