‘What do you do with your finished pieces? Is there demand for willow sculptures?’
‘It’s never occurred to me to sell them. I mean, a few visitors have asked for prices and I have done one or two commissions for private gardens in recent years but your average shopper down South will buy things like this from fancy online shops with their warehouses in China, not from a one-man maker in the Highlands. It’s all upside-down to my mind.’ Atholl’s eyes remained fixed on his work.
‘Do you have an online store?’
‘Well, no. I’ve wanted to set one up for a while but helping Gene with the inn takes all my time. What I’d really like is a real shop here by my wee bit o’ land and workshop, and, uh…’ His eyes were alive in the afternoon sun as he stopped to check his enthusiasm before continuing more slowly. ‘I’d like to run a true school here to teach other folk the craft, and no’ just one-to-ones either, but whole classes full.’
‘That sounds easy enough. You’ve got the willows growing, you’ve got the classroom, all it needs is a bit of renovation and you could have a proper shop, and a little kitchen too for refreshments, and you could update the inn’s website to include a storefront for your willow products.’ Beatrice swallowed, considering her next words, before going on. ‘You know, I could help you apply for funding for some Crafts Council or Heritage Fund money to get it off the ground, and it would be easy to connect you up to guilds across the country, maybe form some partnerships, and we could link it all up to the inn’s website. You said yourself the crafting holidays have taken off, so you could reach people all over the world, and I bet you could get featured in some lifestyle mags and on travel blogs. The Boden catalogue sometimes features real artisan blokes as models these days – total hunks they are – and it does little stories about their craft products; you could be in one of them easily, and it wouldn’t be long before you could entice some reviewers here, and…what?’ She paused. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
Atholl was grinning. ‘Enjoying yourself?’
‘What? It’s what I do. Well, it’s what Idid. I used to run an arts network.’ A feeling she hadn’t had for a long time was kicking in, a kind of intellectual muscle memory made up of her competence, expertise and enthusiasm. ‘I was good at it,’ she said with a decisive nod, but letting her eyes drop to her wreath.
‘I can tell.’
She heard his quick intake of breath that told her he was about to ask questions and she felt her shoulders stiffen. Maybe he noticed, because instead of probing he exhaled and reached for the sandwiches. ‘Hungry?’
They ate in silence, working at their wreaths in between delicious savoury bites, accompanied by the shushing sounds of the waves on the coral beach behind the cottage. A heron watched them unseen from one of the ancient Scots pines at the far end of the coppice marking the boundary between the land that enclosed the But and Ben and the rolling fields beyond that stretched inland all the way to the foothills in an uninterrupted patchwork of green and yellow.
As the sun reached its summit in the cloudless blue sky, Beatrice felt her focus return. Concentration and diversion settled upon her, things she missed most from her old life. Her hands seemed to find the rhythm of the task.
The willow in her grasp glowed like copper in the intense summer light. She felt, rather than thought, how she and the man beside her were recreating a scene that could have played out here by the door of the But and Ben at any time in the last three centuries. Finding she was smiling, she looked up at Atholl, and there he was, deep in concentration, his brows smooth with relaxation, absorbed and intense.
‘You’re happy,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Aye.’ His voice cracked as he spoke. He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t get enough time to do this, but it’s where I’m happiest. Are you enjoying it too?’
Beatrice nodded. Atholl hefted the bundle of willow across his thighs again, his tongue loosened and eloquent with the focus of his work. ‘There’s no machines can do what we’re doing now. See how this whip is shorter, and that, thinner? And here the buds were spaced wide apart but on this one they were close together? You make allowances for each individual willow; you incorporate it differently depending on its strengths.’
Beatrice peered at the willows as he spread them in his hands.
‘No, there’s no machine can do this,’ he repeated.
‘So you resist the modern world, one willow sculpture at a time.’
He laughed, a hearty rattle at his throat. ‘You could say that.’
‘Damn the man!’
‘Aye, damn him.’
They both laughed this time and Beatrice felt herself swept along in his enthusiasm. Atholl was soon weaving again, cutting short some splayed ends of willows so they stuck out from his wreath like the flames on a Catherine wheel.
‘It really is beautiful,’ she said. ‘No matter how modern and mechanised the world gets or how uniform production methods make things, people will always want beautifully crafted, unique things that connect them to nature and remind them they’re human.’
‘Aye,’ he stopped to observe her at work for a moment, his lips parted and eyes narrowing. ‘Exactly that.’
‘How did you learn to do this?’ Beatrice asked.
He took his time answering, rotating the wreath between his thighs and cutting the decorative edges of the willows to the desired lengths.
‘There was a willow grower lived at the But n’ Ben, Hector his name is, and I was apprenticed to him when I left school. I was with him a good few years but I never got the chance to involve myself in the business properly. We lost our father for a long time to dementia – bloody awful thing it is – and then when he passed away we found my mother didn’t want to run the inn on her own anymore and the inn passed to Gene. For a time, my two younger sisters helped us out and we did well enough, but when Mum moved back to Skye my sisters went with her, and they’re married now and living with their partners over the water, so Gene and I have been running the inn alone, and well… you see how that’s worked out. I lease the But n’ Ben and the willow fields from Hector – he retired across to Fort William. I expect when he passes away I’ll be turned out and the school sold.’
‘Not unless you buy it,’ Beatrice cut in.
‘Ach, I’ve often thought of it, but how can I? I have Gene to babysit and the inn to manage now he’s given up the cooking and can’t work the computer systems to save himself. Christ, some days I think he’s given up on being a human being altogether. Having the occasional guest, like yourself, here at the workshop is, realistically, all I can see myself managing in the future.’
‘Well, bring in a chef. Let Gene continue with the breakfasts and have the new person do the dinners. Easy!’
