Page 4 of The Moon Sister
‘God, Tiggy! Get a grip,’ I muttered to myself. Maybe it was simply that – living such an isolated life – attractive, intelligent men were not exactly streaming through the door. Besides, Charlie Kinnaird must be ten years my senior at least . . .
Still, I thought, as I closed my eyes, I was really looking forward to visiting the Kinnaird estate.
*
Three days later, I stepped off the little two-carriage train at Tain and walked towards a battered Land Rover – the only vehicle I could see outside the front entrance to the tiny station. A man in the driver’s seat rolled down the window.
‘You Tiggy?’ he asked me in a broad Scottish accent.
‘Yes. Are you Cal MacKenzie?’
‘I am that. Climb aboard.’
I did so, but struggled to close the heavy passenger door behind me.
‘Lift it up, then slam it,’ Cal advised me. ‘This tin can has seen better days, like most things at Kinnaird.’
There was a sudden bark from behind me, and I twisted round to see a gigantic Scottish deerhound sitting in the back seat. The dog edged forward to sniff my hair before giving my face a rough-tongued lick.
‘Och, Thistle, down with you, boy!’ Cal ordered.
‘I don’t mind,’ I said, reaching back to scratch Thistle behind the ears, ‘I love dogs.’
‘Aye, but don’t start pampering him, he’s a workin’ dog. Right, we’re off.’
After a few false starts, Cal got the engine going and we drove through Tain – a small town fashioned out of dour grey slate – which served a large rural community and housed the only decent supermarket in the area. The urban sprawl soon disappeared and we drove along a winding road with gentle, sloping hills covered in clumps of heather and dotted with Caledonian pines. The tops of the hills were shrouded in thick grey mist, and on turning a corner, a loch appeared to our right. In the drizzle, it reminded me of a vast grey puddle.
I shivered, despite Thistle – who had decided to rest his shaggy grey head on my shoulder – warming my cheek with his hot breath, and remembered the first day I’d arrived at Inverness airport almost a year ago. I’d left a clear blue Swiss sky and a light dusting of the first snow of the season on top of the mountains opposite Atlantis, only to find myself in a dreary facsimile of it. As the taxi had driven me to Margaret’s cottage, I’d truly wondered what on earth I had done. A year on, having lived in the Highlands throughout all four seasons, I knew that when the spring came, the heather would bring the hillsides alive with the softest purple, and the loch would shine a tranquil blue under a benevolent Scottish sun.
I glanced surreptitiously at my driver: a stocky, well-built man with ruddy cheeks and a head of thinning red hair. The large hands that clutched the wheel were those of a man who used them as his tools: fingernails engrained with dirt, skin covered in scratches and the knuckles red from exposure. Given the physically punishing job that Cal did, I decided he must be younger than he looked and put him somewhere between thirty and thirty-five.
Like most people I’d met around here, who were used to living and working on the land and being isolated from the rest of the world, Cal didn’t speak much.
But he is a kind man. . . my inner voice told me.
‘How long have you worked at Kinnaird?’ I broke the silence.
‘Since I was a wee one. My father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather afore me did the same. I was out with my pa as soon as I could walk. Times have changed since then and that’s for sure. Changes bring their own set o’ problems, mind. Beryl isnae pleased tae have her territory invaded by a bunch o’ Sassenachs.’
‘Beryl?’ I questioned.
‘The housekeeper at Kinnaird Lodge. She’s been workin’ there o’er forty years.’
‘And “Sassenachs”?’
‘The English; we have a load of poncey rich folk from across the border arriving tae spend Hogmanay at the Lodge. An’ Beryl’s nae happy. You’re the first guest since it’s been renovated. The Laird’s wife was put in charge and she didnae skimp on anything. The curtain bill alone must ha’ run intae thousands.’
‘Well, I hope she hasn’t gone to any trouble for me. I’m used to roughing it,’ I said, not wanting Cal to think I was in any way a spoilt princess. ‘You should see Margaret’s cottage.’
‘Aye, I have, many a time. She’s the cousin o’ my cousin, so we’re distantly related. Most folk are around these parts.’
We lapsed into silence again as Cal turned a sharp left by a tiny run-down chapel with a weathered ‘For Sale’ sign nailed lopsidedly to one of its walls. The road had narrowed and we were now driving through open countryside, with drystone walls on either side keeping the sheep and cattle safely corralled behind them.
In the distance, I could see grey clouds hanging atop further mountainous terrain. The odd stone homestead appeared sporadically on either side of us, plumes of smoke belching from the chimneys. Dusk was fast descending as we drove on and the road became pitted with potholes. The old Land Rover’s suspension was seemingly non-existent as Cal navigated a number of narrow hump-back bridges that straddled swirling streams, the tumble of rocks producing a froth of white bubbles as the water roared downwards over them, indicative of the fact that we were climbing upwards.
‘How much further?’ I asked, glancing at my watch and realising it was an hour since we had left Tain.
‘No’ far now,’ Cal said as we took a sharp right and the road became little more than a gravel track, the treacherous potholes so deep that the mud within them splashed upwards and splattered the windows. ‘You can see the entrance tae the estate just ahead.’
