On the bus, Marcia seemed to have recovered from her headache, for she was back in her seat working needlepoint while Watty dozed in the driver’s seat. “I need my suitcase,” Sherry snapped when he looked up drowsily to answer our knock. “I fell in the water.”
He took one look at us both and swung down with more speed than I’d have suspected he had in him. As soon as he lifted the luggage door, Sherry snatched up a suitcase and set off for the castle at an angry lope. Watty looked at me, shivering in my sweater and holding the soaking cape. “Looks like you need something war-r-rm, as well.”
I spoke through chattering teeth. “If you’ll hand me that black suitcase, I bought some wool blankets this morning. One of them would feel real good right now.” Since Martha was a nurse, I figured she wouldn’t mind hers being used to save my life before I gave it to her.
Warmly wrapped, I climbed onto the bus, plopped Sherry’s cape in her usual seat by the door, and willed my teeth to be still. Watty climbed aboard and started the engine. “Sit near the heater,” he ordered. I maybe should have protested at the waste of gasoline, but I didn’t. Instead, I slid into the seat behind him, since the heater worked better in front than in back. He reached for his thermos and poured strong black tea into the lid. “This’ll warm you.” I drank it greedily and gratefully. Who cared how long it was since that cup was washed?
When I gave it back to him, I tried to slip him another pound note, but he waved it away. “Och, no. You keep it. It was nothing.”
“What happened?” Marcia called.
Encouraged by a sign of interest from her, I turned sideways in my seat and filled them both in.
“So you dinna see the castle?” Watty asked.
“No, but I saw it years ago, so I decided to stay by the water. I watched seals while Dorothy drew.” I hugged myself to get warmer. The heater seemed slow, and in spite of the blanket and my sweater, goose bumps still ran up and down my spine.
“Drew?” Marcia’s needle jabbed the fabric. “I never saw her pick up a pencil except to doodle until we got over here, eh? You don’t think she’s using that pad to hide behind, so she doesn’t have to talk to people, do you?” She peered at me over glasses she wore for close work. “She’s very shy, you know.”
“She seems willing enough to talk the rest of the time,” I said cautiously.
Marcia snipped her thread. “Well, I don’t understand this drawing mania. It’s very new.” She started a new color and and expressed disapproval with every jab of her needle.
Without another word she continued to sew while Watty dozed and I tried to picture myself somewhere warm. All I could see was a boat on a sunny gulf with my husband and son standing on a deck with fishing poles while two little boys ran wild. Then I saw that boat starting to sink while Joe Riddley and the others waved goodbye. I could hardly breathe.
I forced air into my lungs and reminded myself I had chosen not to worry about them. In only—what, four days? I could give them a call. Until then, I’d have to steer my imagination in other directions. So I looked over toward the sea and tried to imagine how I would feel if I were a mother on the Scottish shore looking toward the new world that had swallowed my children.
I turned to Marcia and called back impulsively, “Can you imagine the courage it took to separate your family across an ocean, knowing you would most likely never see each other again? Our ancestors were braver souls than I am—both those who went and those who stayed.”
She gave a queer little gulp and lifted her hands to cover her face. Next thing I knew, tears were dripping between her fingers while her shoulders heaved.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry!” I could have kicked myself to yonder and back. How could I prattle on to a new widow about somebody going away and never coming back?
She shook her head and gasped, “This trip was a dreadful mistake. I just don’t think I can endure it.” When I started to join her, she waved me back. “I need to be alone, eh?”
The next half hour until the others returned were some of the longest minutes of my trip.
As Dorothy climbed aboard, I touched her arm. “I inadvertently said something to upset Marcia a lot,” I said softly. “Could you go back and see if she’s all right?”
“Of course.”
Then I noticed her notebook and decided to be nosy. “May I see what you drew?”
She turned a faint pink, but opened her pad like an obedient child. The page was full of charming sketches of splashing seals, two children on the beach and, on a distant rock, a woman who looked remarkably like Laura, emerging from a seal’s skin. “I’m no artist, but those look real good to me, honey,” I told her.
Kenny, who had paused to talk with Watty, looked over her shoulder and agreed. “Hey, you’re good!”
Dorothy threw me a distressed look. “They’re just sketches.” She grabbed the pad and hurried back to the seat I usually had, behind Marcia, where she sat clutching her drawings to her chest while she spoke softly. I couldn’t tell if Marcia was listening. She had her head back again and her reddened eyelids resolutely closed.
Sherry was the last to return. She’d changed into a warm sweater and slacks and exchanged wet boots for sheepskin slippers lined with fleece. She handed over my damp coat with a curt, “Thanks,” then turned to glare at Kenny, who was sitting behind Laura again. With a huff of disgust, she climbed over her wet cape and slumped against the window.
I decided to stay where I was for the ride to Portree. Since Sherry was just across the aisle, I had a good view of her the whole way. She glared at the narrow road ahead like she was daring the future to arrive.
10
Friday night, we stayed at another Gilroy’s Hotel in Portree. Unlike American chains, where you can travel from city to city and find almost identical facilities, Gilroy’s seemed to have bought up small local hotels and converted them, while retaining their own essential character. This one was cozy and charming, so small that the lobby and a large dining room occupied most of the downstairs, separated by broad double doors.
Before I dressed for the ceilidh, I had time to call our store. My son Ridd answered with good news. “We heard from Daddy and the boys. They’re having a great time. Crick caught the biggest fish today, and Tad says he’s learning to steer the boat. Neither boy wants to come back Sunday. Tad says he’s ready to become a beach bum forever. Oh, and Daddy said when you called, to tell you all three sentinels are on duty, whatever that means.”
I hung up and put on the gladdest rags I had with me—a long black velvet skirt and a frilly white blouse, topped by a warm wool stole in the MacLaren tartan, pinned with a cairngorm brooch. I’d bought the stole and brooch that very afternoon with some of Joe Riddley’s gift money. I fluffed my hair, fixed my face, and headed down feeling real spiffy.
I almost retreated to my room again at the blended odors of hot wool and alcohol welling up to greet me. Like I said, I’m not much on sitting around in bars. The whole place smelled like a bar that evening, and every living soul remaining in the Highlands seemed to have driven to Portree for the ceilidh. I hadn’t realized this was such an event—and wondered if our musicians did.
Before going into the dining room, I stepped outside for a breath of air. In the parking lot I saw three other buses labeled “Gilroy’s Highland Tours.” All were big, shiny and new. Poor Watty, I suspected they were putting him and Jeannie the bus out to pasture together.
I pushed my way into the dining room. A number of musicians—including our four—were tuning up, filling the air with the screeches of fiddles and pipes and the clatter of drums. Once or twice I heard the piercing
tweet
of Dorothy’s flute rise over the din.
The room was so awash in Gaelic that I felt for the first time that I was in a foreign country. I was glad to see Laura at the far side of the room, watching for me. She waved and I inched my way toward her. She, Joyce, and Brandi were at a table for four. Joyce wore a gray sweater that made her seem mousier than usual, but Laura looked pretty in a thick red sweater and black ski pants, and Brandi, of course, outshone us all in her dark green velvet coat and Gordon tartan skirt. An enormous cairngorm pendant hung between her high little breasts, making my brooch seem piddly.
“Finally,” Laura greeted me. “Want me to order you a stout?”
“That’s what I’m gonna be if I keep eating and drinking like this.” I slipped in between her and Joyce. “But I’ll try anything once. What’s another calorie or two?” I’d have changed my tune if I’d realized it came in pint mugs.
I scarcely noticed the four men at the next table until one of them leaned toward us to ask, “Ye’re the Americans, then?” He was obviously most taken with Laura and Brandi, but gallantly included us all in his grin. He was long and lean, with gingery hair and a skimpy ginger beard. It was impossible not to grin back at him, he seemed so delighted to meet us.
A pudgy man who should never have worn an olive-green pullover with that rosy face leaned in front of his companion to have a look at us. “Ye seem to be a few men short. Shall we put our tables togither, then?”
“Och, let’s wait to see if their lot can play.” A third man nodded toward the stage. “We don’t want to be embarrassin’ ourselves by associatin’ wi’ amateurs, noo, do we?” It took me a minute to recognize Watty nursing a pint. His cheeks were shaved, his hair was brushed into shining gray curls, and he wore a creamy Fair Isle sweater over pressed black slacks. He looked ten years younger and downright handsome.
“You clean up real good,” I called over to him. “But I see you’ve chosen to sit with the home team.”
“Chust ’til I see how your lot can play. These twa lads”—he nodded at Ginger Beard and Red Face—“drive for Gilroy’s too”—they snickered, as if embarrassed to be found out—“and they contend that American musicians cannae keep up wi’ Scottish ones. I don’t want to embarrass myself by identifyin’ too closely wi’ ye until we see if they’re right.”
“Their piper was heistin’ a chune out in the car park a leetle airlier,” quavered the fourth man, who looked older than Moses. “He sounded fine.”
“I’ve heard the piper, Dad.” Watty dismissed Kenny with a wave. “It’s t’others I’m worrit about.” He winked at me.
“Ours play just fine,” I informed him, without knowing whether they knew one note from another. “Can yours?”
Their whole table broke out into uproarious but good-natured laughter. The pudgy man laughed so hard, he strangled on his drink and had to be pounded on the back. While the two older men performed that service, Ginger Beard leaned close and confided in a shout to be heard over the din, “Chust you wait to hear them. Davie Kilgour, the piper? He won a medal at the Braemar Royal Games a few years back, in front of the queen. He’s come from Bridge o’ Don for tonight’s event. And the fiddler on the end? He’s won more prizes than I can count.”
Watty set down his empty mug and waved toward a passing waitress with a full tray of mugs. “O’ course, ye cannae count very high.”
“Och, aye, there is that.” Ginger Beard took the mug he was handed and drained half of it in one draft.
The music started at a volume that discouraged conversation. Pipes and fiddles moved through several tunes without a break, and it looked to me like Jim and Dorothy were keeping up fine. As they played medley after medley, I could have sat there all night and listened. Ginger Beard helpfully called out the name of each tune for our benefit. Occasionally the music would stop, leaving our ears ringing. Then someone would climb onto the stage from the audience and give us an a capella solo. Most were in Gaelic and three sang the same song, but the audience didn’t seem to mind. One man sang a very funny song in English about “Donald John,” who went down from the fields to choose a wife to keep him warm but decided to buy an electric blanket instead. From the laughter, applause and stamping, I wondered if it was a song people knew and liked or if they were clapping because he’d made it up himself.
The musicians got at least as much pleasure out of performing as we did from listening. Kenny, of course, was in his element. Sherry was in the shadows, so I couldn’t see her face, but Dorothy’s was pink and glowing like it had been in Glasgow, and although Jim stayed near the back, his eyes were closed in what looked like pleasure as he sawed along.
Waitresses moved among the crowd distributing drinks. I nursed my stout, but didn’t really like the taste, so I finally ordered a Coke with lots of ice. When I tried to pay, the waitress waved me away. “Och, it’s on the house tonight.” I thought that was darned nice of Gilroy’s to provide for its guests that way. Must just be those staying in the hotel, though—waitresses were collecting from other guests, including the bus drivers.
Seemed to me like poor Watty kept getting stuck with most of their bills, too. The others managed to look the other way when each bill arrived. I hoped they weren’t taking advantage of him, but decided Joe Riddley was right. I did not have to worry about the whole world. Watty was old enough to take care of his own business. Besides, I had worries of my own.
Drink was making Brandi friendlier than ever. Several times I practically had to lift her out of my lap. Joyce, on the other hand, was getting maudlin. “Life is a real bitch, you know that?” She spoke so low, only I could hear. “Some folks”—she nodded across me at Brandi—“get everything. The rest of us get dregs. Dregs.” She groped for a nearly empty mug, drained the last few drops, then realized that her own sat beside it, half full. She clenched her fingers around its handle so tightly, I hoped it wouldn’t break and cut her. “There’s no justice at all. Have you found that out yet, Mac? Justice is a myth. Some people get everything and the rest get nothing.”