All the while her older sister was peering back and forth between the husband and wife through narrowed eyes.
‘Aye, that’s the one,’ McIntyre said hurriedly, while making for the shed doors. ‘Cheery-bye.’
Roz didn’t reply, only wondering why Senga’s gaze made her feel like shrinking away entirely.
Shell, however, was still processing the bombshell. ‘What, you and him were the king and queen of Beltane?’
‘Shell!’ Livvie rebuked her child. ‘Manners.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Roz. ‘Yes, we were. I was in my twenties then. I always suspected my granny was one of Walpurga’s elders. She’d never tell me when I asked, but she would sort of… twinkle her eyes, you know?’
Jolyon and Shell nodded that they did know.
‘Anyway, that was the night I met Mr McIntyre. Or at least, the first time we spoke properly. The elders paired us up as king and queen, and we danced together for the rest of the night, and we jumped between the fires’ embers…’
‘The what?’ Shell shifted excitedly in her seat. This just got better and better.
‘You know how there’s the giant bonfire in the middle of the rec?’ Roz asked, and the kids nodded. ‘There’s also two smaller ones, called the need fires, with a gap in between, and the king and queen have to pass between them, to sort of…’ Roz stopped, unsure why they did it.
‘To purify themselves, and ask for a blessing,’ said Senga. ‘Walpurga was an ancient saint of healing. That’s why she’s associated with witches and wise women.’
‘That’s right,’ said Roz, inspecting her finished besom which she’d decorated with green ribbons criss-crossing all down the handle. ‘And then all the other couples in town jump between the need fires together, and… well, that’s it.’
‘By then, the punch bowls are near aboot empty and the music’s birlin’ and the sky’s dark and… ah, it’s braw!’ This came from a starry-eyed Rhona, who seemed to be revelling in her own memories of May Days past.
‘You certainly got your blessings, Roz!’ Senga put in, and Roz couldn’t help but take her meaning.
Within a year of jumping through those flames, she and McIntyre were living together at the mill house with Ally and Murray on the way.
‘I remember that night,’ said Rhona dreamily. ‘You were so bonny in your costume and cloak, and your hair was long then, right down to your waist.’
Roz found that smiling at this took a surprising amount of effort, so she focused on gathering another bundle of gorse for a second besom broom.
‘It was our mother that crowned you both. Do you remember?’ asked Senga.
‘I remember,’ Roz said quietly.
The conversation took another turn as Shell exclaimed about the Gifford women having a mum. ‘How old evenisshe!’ This was followed by some gentle explaining from Rhona that she was no longer around (and a lot of apologising from a mortified Livvie), and in all this chatter Roz was forgotten about, allowing her to sink into a quiet funk (which to everyone at the craft tables looked like her usual industrious focus).
More locals and their kids arrived and everyone shifted up to make room and more craft supplies were shared out. Aamaya Roy had brought her own Beltane cloak to show everyone, though hers wasn’t green but red and orange, and that stole everyone’s focus even further.
No matter how much besom fastening, mask making and gossiping went on around the craft tables, and no matter how much tea was drunk and how many times Senga had to refresh the dish of top hats, Roz’s brain kept insisting on showing her moments from the night she was first paired with the young Charlie Gas, which lived as fresh in her memory as if it had happened yesterday.
That night, there’d been people eating and dancing, others wandering amongst the stalls hand in hand. It was almost impossible to work out who was who as everyone wore masks. The ones with their dogs on leads helped identify their owners, but other than that, when people approached one another they had to lift their coverings to reveal their identities. Roz, however, like some of the younger townsfolk, had worn her mask on top of her head so she could drink her Walpurgisnacht punch.
Charlie had his mask up too. Her first impression of him had been of rosy cheeks (it was the Beltane punch and a few pints at the pub beforehand doing that) and his thick red brush of hair. He’d been there with pals from the tractor factory, flush with their week’s wages and intent on spending all of it.
Roz’s friend from the school, Miss Tierney, an NQT like herself, had quickly paired off with one of Charlie’s pals, Murtagh, still in his factory overalls, and Roz had been left standing by the unlit bonfire listening to Sachin Roy’s band, Down in the Dhol Drums, playing Scottish-Bhangra mashups of pop and rock anthems, all nineties’ keytar and Tumbi string.
As Roz knew very well, in the Highlands, no one needed to be doused in drink before they’d take to the dancefloor. All a Scot needed was a square foot of space around them and a melody of any kind, and they’d be off. It is bred into them as bairns in school Country Dancing lessons, and you can bet your last pound coin that a Scottish child’s first memory of dancing will be standing on their uncle’s feet for a St Bernard’s Waltz at a wedding reception or gripping the clammy hands of another wee lad or lass at the Christmas ceilidh for an Eightsome Reel or a Gay Gordons. Moving to music is irresistible to Scots, and no one’s particularly shy about it.
She’d watched the band, swaying in her long white Beltane dress, the one she and her grandmother had handmade specially. In the spirit of Walpurga’s devotees, they’d sewn real ivy vines around the waist and criss-crossing over the front and back like a leafy bodice. The weather had been dry for days, so she’d worn her ceilidh pumps too, and just as Senga had described, her long hair was hanging loose down her back – not straight, not curly, but a stubborn mix of the two.
Charlie had seen her dancing alone and presented himself to her out of nowhere, bold as brass, lifting his ‘Green Man’ mask.
‘You dancing?’ he’d said, initiating the old script from the Scottish dance halls, for which there was only one answer.
‘You asking?’ she’d replied. She’d recognised him, though only hazily, as that boy who’d been a couple of years above her in primary school.
