‘Mm-hmm,’ the woman agreed, nodding contemplatively and looking at Beatrice through large spectacles which were perched near the end of her nose. Beatrice entertained the idea that Mrs Fergusson had flesh as smooth and pale as unbaked pastry before dismissing the thought as unkind.
‘And why are you here alone, dearie?’
‘Mother!’ Atholl was paying attention now.
‘It’s awfy unusual for a young lassie to travel alone, even here in the Highlands where they’re safe.’
Beatrice simply nodded and hoped the moment would pass, but she found Kitty, Gene and Mrs Fergusson wereallwatching her and waiting for an answer.
‘Well,um, I,um…’
Suddenly a mewing sound drew everyone’s attention away at once. It was the cry of a baby carried to them on the breeze. A young woman in a long blue sundress was approaching with a baby tied to her chest inside a colourful shawl.
Beatrice’s shoulders slumped in relief and she sighed as the weight of everyone’s scrutiny lifted, everyone’s except Atholl’s – he was watching her through narrowed, penetrating eyes. Beatrice feared what he might have seen in her moment of surprise at hearing the cries and masked her face in a delighted smile.
‘Sheila, you got my message,’ Mrs Fergusson called to her, and Beatrice realised this was Atholl’s sister and the famous baby Archibald.
Soon everyone was properly introduced and huddled round eating the bannocks. Sheila produced a bundle of something sweet and beige wrapped in foil that looked like fudge but was crumbly and firm.
‘Scottish tablet,’ Atholl’s sister said with a smile as Beatrice bit into her first piece.
It was delicious but as the sweetness hit her she winced and immediately imagined her teeth dissolving. ‘Goodness!’ She swallowed the melting goop. ‘How is it made?’
‘A whole bag of sugar, large can o’ condensed milk, wee scrape o’ vanilla and a splash of whole milk. Then you boil it up until it looks like a raging furnace in the pan.’
Beatrice laughed, before Sheila censured her with a dramatic frown. ‘You may laugh but it’s no’ for the fainthearted. You only know the stuff’s ready when the bubbles have risen to the top o’ the pan, your eyebrows are singed clean awf and you truly fear for your life. Then you turn off the heat and stir it ’til it’s calmed itself and pour it into a tray to set. I’ve known folk lose fingers making the stuff. Melted, they were!’ Sheila concluded her recipe with a wicked grin and a wink thrown to the children who had gathered behind Beatrice waiting for the bundle of tablet to make its way round to them. Her voice and mannerisms were so like Atholl’s it was uncanny.
They were alike in other ways too, Beatrice observed. Beautiful red hair, a hint of wickedness in their temperaments, but kind with it; both were pale with dark patches of freckles under their eyes and a summer tan that seemed only to linger around their hairlines, cheekbones and the bridges of their fine noses, and she had the same blue eyes like Isle of Skye fairy pools reflecting the heavens.
‘I’m wondering how old ye are, Beatrice?’ Mrs Fergusson said between bites of tablet.
Kitty immediately began loudly remarking about there not being a cloud in the sky and how she and Gene had seen a black grouse dancing for his mate on their way from her car, and Beatrice detected Kitty’s subtle dig at the oblivious Gene’s ribs, which he mistook entirely.
‘Are you wanting to go for a walk, Kitty?’ he asked.
Beatrice watched helplessly as Kitty shrugged a silent apology and she and Gene wandered off towards the pools.
‘Grouse? Was she talking about grouse, Beatrice? So are ye Kitty’s age? How old can that lassie be now, Sheila? Isn’t Kitty Wake approachin’ forty?’
Sheila, in a move which Beatrice would remember from that day onwards as the most generous act any stranger had ever performed for her, deftly handed baby Archibald to her mother with a quietly spoken, ‘He’s wanting his granny, poor thing.’
And with that Mrs Fergusson was struck into adoring silence, cooing to the sleeping boy.
‘I saw a braw patch of wild flowers beyond the Gowk Heid Rock, Atholl,’ Sheila added triumphantly, before helping herself to a bannock and Atholl’s coffee cup.
‘Aye, good idea.’ Atholl frowned drolly as he helped Beatrice to her feet, and within moments they were walking again.
‘I have to apologise for Mum, she’ll no’ be happy ’til you’ve given her your life story and shown her your passport and driving licence. Oh, and whit’s your blood type?’
‘Don’t apologise, I thought she was lots of fun,’ Beatrice said, stretching the truth more than a little. ‘She seems harmless enough, looking out for her children.’ That part was true, there was no malice, only nosiness in Mrs Fergusson.
‘I really am sorry. I thought we’d get a wee bit of time to ourselves today and enjoy the island. Can we at least try to reclaim a part of our day out?’ said Atholl, as they approached a rock apparently dropped into the landscape from above, standing on end and taller than Atholl.
As he passed behind the rock out of view of the clan at the fairy pools in the near distance he produced the bundle of tablet and offered Beatrice another piece. ‘A bit of sleight of hand. Sheila will think Gene has it; he’s a devil for tablet.’
The rock was warm when Beatrice leaned her back against it and took another piece of the sweet stuff.
‘So,’ Atholl began. ‘I won’t be asking your age or why you’re here, unlikesomepeople, but there must be something you can share with me? I know next to nothing about you and you’ve met almost all my family now and youareliving in my home, are you no’?’
