‘I didn’t know you were a master body language reader.’ He laughed too. ‘What else is there?’
Beatrice thought for a second, keeping her eyes on Atholl’s. ‘Well, there’s wetting your lips.’
‘Is that so?’
‘And you might unconsciously mirror the person you like, copying their gestures or even their accent, that sort of thing.’
‘I’d never heard of such a thing.’
‘Or you might find yourself instinctively touching them, putting a hand on their arm for a second or something, sort of showing them you’d like to touch them… properly.’
‘Like this?’ Atholl seemed to surprise himself by raising his hand, slowly bringing it into the lightest contact with Beatrice’s, his fingertips grazing her skin before quickly dropping away again.
‘Yes,’ she faltered. ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing. That would send a strong message.’
‘Beatrice?’
‘Hmm?’
They were face to face now, Atholl leaning his head against the rock so they were the same height.
‘What will you do now? Are you staying out the rest of your holiday wi’ us? I… I wish ye would.’ He let his fingertips settle against the back of her hand once more before slipping them inside her curled palm and clasping her hand in his. ‘You’re due to check out on Monday morning after the ceilidh, and that’s only five sleeps away. Will you not stay for the dance?’
This wasn’t a time for thinking, for weighing the pull of her responsibilities and her real life back at home with her newfound delight in her impromptu holiday. There was a handsome man asking her to stay near him and ever so slowly leaning his head towards hers and his shining blue eyes were softly closing.
Beatrice’s words seemed to catch in her throat but they made their way out. ‘I’ll stay. Of course I’ll stay.’ She let her own eyes close and leaned into the solidity of his shoulder, their lips only inches from meeting. Already her breath was hitching and her nerves jolting, sending hot tingling electricity racing to the nape of her neck and the base of her spine. She knew this was a kiss she would feel all the way down.
‘Uncle Atholl! Echo’s up to his oxters in mud! Uncle Atholl!’
‘For the love of God!’ Atholl let his lips brush past hers with a frustrated cry and for the briefest second he pressed his face onto her shoulder, a scrape of lip and tooth grazing her neck as he did so and sending every cell in her body haywire, but he was withdrawing already and watching the children descend upon their hideout behind the rock, screaming in delight as a dripping, muddy Echo caught up to them, wagging his tail at the sight of his master before proceeding to shake mud from his shaggy coat and sending filthy splashes over everything around him. The children screeched once more before running away to wash off in the pools.
Atholl, his face spotted with mud, reached out a hand towards the shell-shocked Beatrice’s hair and attempted to pick away the splashes of grime.
‘Don’t…’ Beatrice began, making Atholl step back again instantly.
He opened his mouth to speak, eyes wide with guilt, but she didn’t let him talk.
‘I was going to say, don’t you dare apologise again.’ Beatrice reached her pinched fingers to the tip of her tongue and removed a drop of muck with a grimace. ‘Pfft!Yuck! And I was going to say, I’m having a perfect day, even if I have been bitten half to death by midges, grilled by your mum and caked in mud by your dog,andI’ll have the shakes for a week after that tablet sugar high.’
Atholl laughed with relief. ‘I’ll have you write that in the inn’s visitors’ book before you leave us. Come on, Sheila’ll have some baby wipes can take care of this mud.’
With that he led her back to the little party, walking a pace ahead and leaving Beatrice’s nerves buzzing like the swooning bees drunk on nectar from the blushing purple clovers at the pool sides.
The rest of their afternoon passed in a blur of gathering wild flowers – delicate ling heather, forget-me-nots and white campion – or searching for pretty rocks in the pools with the children. They all ate bannocks and oatcakes with cheese and Mrs Fergusson’s greenhouse tomatoes. Someone produced a bottle of Highland mead that tasted of honey and summer which they swigged with handfuls of mellow raspberries. The children filled Kilner jars with brown bearded fish from the burn that they caught with their cupped hands, a trick uncle Eugene showed them.
On a few fleeting occasions throughout the afternoon Beatrice was struck by just how much she was being treated as though she was part of something very special: a family. Everyone made sure to fill her in on the decades old in-jokes that circulated amongst them, and she was beginning to think she’d heard the name of every islander and member of the Fergusson clan and had discovered all their ailments, love stories, recipes and secrets.
Mrs Fergusson reminisced about her late husband and how she’d fallen in love with him on a Harvest Home dance floor oh so many summers ago, and how he’d been a dead ringer for Gene Kelly, only with red hair and freckles and at least two feet taller, but in all other regards they were near-identical, and Atholl had smiled and peeled apples for the children never letting on he’d heard this story a hundred times before.
By five o’clock there was a chill in the air and a dampness settling upon the ground that told them the party was almost over. Mrs Fergusson, rocking baby Archibald, saw Atholl and Beatrice gathering their things ready to leave and remarked innocently that Beatrice hadn’t yet held the baby and that if Kitty Wake had managed it earlier without running for the hills then so could Beatrice.
Perhaps everyone mistook Beatrice’s reluctance as nerves and unfamiliarity with babies. She had, after all, held Clara in her arms, rocked and danced her on more occasions than she could count, but the prospect of cradling the newborn boy, still curled like the new fronds of a fern and so small in his white sleepsuit, cotton hat and powder blue woollen blanket, was a different matter entirely.
Kitty, who had been leaning dreamily against Gene and humming a soft tune, was suddenly looking at Beatrice with pinched, quizzical eyes. Mrs Fergusson asked if she’d never held a baby before as she threw a wink at Atholl that made Beatrice’s insides churn and her fists clench in her trouser pockets.
There was nothing else for it but to sit down again and let the soft, warm and surprisingly heavy bundle that was the sleeping Archibald mould himself onto her lap. She spread her fingers out around his small, rounded body with her arms crossed under him for support.
No thoughts whatsoever articulated themselves as Beatrice absorbed the baby boy’s weight. She was no longer aware of the people smiling at her or of Atholl occasionally glancing at her, expressionless, as he packed away the picnic basket. She stared hard at the delicate pattern on his blue blanket, then at the fleshy pink sweetness of his moving mouth as he dreamt of drinking his mother’s milk.
