Page 8 of The Moon Sister
‘Aye, and I’ll need serious advice from you on that, Tig, but it’s great news you’re comin’. Are you sure you can cope with the isolation?’ he said as we bumped along the road that led out of the estate. ‘It’s no’ for everyone.’
At that moment, the sun chose to emerge from behind a cloud, lighting up the glen below us, which was swathed in an ethereal mist.
‘Oh yes, Cal.’ I smiled, feeling a bubble of excitement rise up inside me. ‘I know I can.’
3
The following month passed in a flash; a month that contained a lot of sad farewells as Margaret and I said painful goodbyes to our beloved animals. The deer, two red squirrels, hedgehogs, owls and our one remaining donkey were all seen off to their new homes. Margaret was far calmer about it than I was – I wept buckets after each one left.
‘’Tis the circle of life, Tiggy, it’s full of hellos and goodbyes and yae’d do well to understand that as soon as you can,’ she’d advised me.
Numerous emails and phone consultations concerning the wildcat enclosure ensued with Cal, who then engaged a company to construct it.
‘I’m tae spare no expense, apparently,’ Cal told me. ‘The Laird’s applied for a grant and is determined the cats should breed.’
From the photos he sent me, I could see it was state-of-the-art – a series of pavilion-like cages linked by narrow tunnels and surrounded by trees, vegetation and man-made hidey-holes for the cats to explore. There would be four pavilions in total so they could all claim their own territory and the females could be kept away from the males if and when they became pregnant.
I showed Margaret the photos as we had a glass of sherry on our final evening together. ‘Lord! They could house a couple o’ giraffes comfortably in there, let alone a few scrawny cats,’ she chuckled.
‘Charlie’s obviously dead serious about his breeding programme.’
‘Aye, well, he’s a perfectionist, our Charlie. Shame he had his dream snatched away when he was so young. I don’t think he’s fully recovered since.’
My ears pricked up. ‘From what?’
‘I shouldn’t ha’ mentioned it, but that sherry loosened my tongue. Let’s just say, he’s been unlucky in love. Lost a girl to another, then married that wife o’ his on the rebound.’
‘Have you met his wife?’
‘Only once in person, which was at their wedding over sixteen years back now. We exchanged a few words but I didn’t like the cut of her. She’s very beautiful, mind, but just like in the fairy tales, physical beauty doesn’t always translate intae inner beauty and Charlie always was naive when it came tae women. He was wed at twenty-one, in the third year of his medical degree at Edinburgh,’ Margaret sighed. ‘She was already pregnant with Zara, their daughter, y’see. I’d reckon Charlie’s whole life before that had been a reaction to his father’s behaviour. Medicine and marriage gave him an escape. Mebbe this is Charlie’s time now,’ said Margaret, taking a final swig of her sherry. ‘He’s certainly due it.’
*
The following morning, I fussed around in the back of Beryl the Land Rover, which currently contained Molly, Igor, Posy and Polson, who were yowling and screeching in protest from within their cat boxes. It had been a job and a half to get them loaded, and despite my thick jumper and heavy-duty gloves, my wrists and arms sported several deep scratches. Although Scottish wildcats are roughly the same size and colouring as domestic tabby cats, that is where the similarity ended. They weren’t known as ‘Highland tigers’ for nothing. Polson, in particular, had a tendency to bite first and ask questions later.
Yet despite their grumpy and often vicious natures, I loved them all. They were a small flicker of hope in a world where so many native species had given up the ghost. Margaret had told me that to prevent them from mating with domestic cats, several breeding programmes around Scotland aimed to produce purebred kittens in order to re-wild them at a later date. As I closed the doors on the cats’ growls of indignation, I felt the weight of responsibility as one of the guardians of their future.
Alice, my pet hedgehog – named so because she had fallen down a rabbit hole as a baby and I’d rescued her from Guinness the dog’s jaws as he pulled her out – was in her cardboard box on the front seat, along with my rucksack containing the few clothes I owned.
‘Ready to go?’ asked Cal, who was already sitting behind the wheel, eager to get off.
‘Yes,’ I gulped, knowing that I had to walk back into the house and say goodbye to Margaret, which would be the most heartbreaking moment of all. ‘Can you give me five minutes?’
Cal nodded in silent understanding as I ran back into the cottage.
‘Margaret? Where are you? Hello?’
She was nowhere to be seen, so I went in search of her outside and found her sitting on the ground in the centre of the empty wildcat enclosure, with Guinness and Button standing guard on either side of her. Her head was in her hands and her shoulders were shaking.
‘Margaret?’ I walked over to her, knelt down and put my arms around her. ‘Please don’t cry, or I know I will.’
‘I cannae help it, lassie. I’ve tried tae be brave, but today . . .’ She took her hands from her face and I saw her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘Well, today really is the end o’ an era, what with the cats and you leavin’.’
She reached out a gnarled, arthritic hand, the type one associates with evil witches in fairy tales, yet it conveyed the opposite: kindness itself.
‘You’ve been like a granddaughter tae me, Tiggy. I can never repay you for keeping my animals alive and well when I didn’t have the physical strength tae do it alone.’
‘I’ll come and see you in your new bungalow soon, promise. We’re not that far apart, after all.’ I took her in my arms and gave her a last hug. ‘It’s been a pleasure and I’ve learnt so much. Thank you, Margaret.’
