I gaze around now, seeing the layers of its various lives, its history and now thankfully its future. It’s still cosy, still snug, still a place where locals and visitors alike come to settle in for a read, a chat, a respite from whatever ails them. But since it was rescued from a damp-filled death by Kate and Brody, there are new touches too – nothing that’s altered the character of the place, more of an evolution than a revolution, and all of it good.
There are plush chairs to sink into, little tables with their own reading lamps. Fairy lights dangle from the shelves, flickers of colour against the dark wood. There’s a room at the back that’s just for children, colourful and fun, and a doggy station for the many four-legged visitors. A door has been knocked through into the gallery space, and a courtyard has been created at the back – plus the upstairs rooms are now fully kitted out for events, workshops, poetry readings and the like. It really is amazing what’s been achieved.
Some things, though, never change – Moira emerges from the kitchen bearing a tray to prove it. Two mugs of tea, and the familiar green bottle of the Glenfiddich. She places them down on the big table by the fireplace, and I join her there. She pours us both a generous glug, and we raise our mugs.
‘Sláinte!’ I say.
‘Cheers!’ she responds, adding: ‘Lang may yer lum reek!’ I learned on my first Hogmanay here that means ‘long may your chimney smoke’, and I’ve always loved it. I sip my drink, whichseems to be mainly whisky, and savour the slow spread of its warmth on my throat.
‘Did you see the pictures Kate sent to the village group chat?’ Moira asks. ‘Of her and Brody and the baby with all his brothers?’
I nod, and grin. They’re all monsters, his entire family, a group of massive men all crowded around Kate, who was laughing as she cradled little Alice in her arms. Brody looked proud as punch, and only had eyes for his lady and his daughter. The way he is with them… well, woe betide anybody who so much as looks at either of them funny at any stage in their lives. It’s sweet, in a brutal way.
‘I did. They’re lucky they found each other. And it was all your fault, really, Moira – you invited them. Alice wouldn’t exist without you.’
She turns it over in her mind, and nods slowly. ‘Aye. At least partly to blame, aren’t I? And I couldn’t be happier about it. Angus would be beaming. It was all his idea you know, the cards? He said he wanted topay it forward.’
Angus was a force of nature, just like Moira. Calmer, gentler, but just as strong. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that it was his plan all along.
‘He would. But it was you who made it happen, Moira. You always were a grand team.’
‘We were that. I was lucky too – over fifty years, we were married. What about you, though, Rory? Don’t you ever yearn for marriage? For what Kate and Brody have? For someone to share it all with?’
Her words are eerily close to my own thoughts as I sat by the bay, and I try not to react.
‘Not really, Moira. I think that ship has sailed for me. I’m happy enough with my work, with my life here.’
‘Your work is a wonderful thing, Rory – creating things of beauty as you do from rusty old chunks of scrap. It’s like magic it is. But you can’t sculpt yourself a partner in life, now, can you, someone to keep you warm at night?’
‘I probably could, but it’d be weird, and possibly illegal. Moira… it’s not for everyone, you know? The dream of everlasting love? Not everybody is cut out for it. Not everybody is that lucky.’
She acknowledges this with a slight nod of her head. ‘Aye. Maybe so. You do have… friends with benefits, I think they call it, though, don’t you? I know that Catrina one from Edinburgh visits sometimes, and last year there was a rumour you flew all the way to Spain for a booty call…’
I laugh out loud at hearing the words ‘booty call’ on her lips, and roll my eyes. I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows all of this. Spain was actually a few years ago, a painter called Sofia. Catrina is the only one I’d class as an actual relationship, but it’s not serious on either side. She’s happily divorced, and has actually spent the last six months working in Prague – I visited when she first moved there, and haven’t seen her since. She’s threatening to visit me soon, and that’s a pleasant thought – but it’s not love.
‘I do have friends with benefits, yes. I might not be the settling-down type, but I’m not a monk.’
I like women. I like their company, and I like the physical aspect of these respectful but casual relationships. But to me it’s completely different than what Kate and Brody have, than what Moira and Angus had. There’s love and there’s sex, and for me only one of them is real.
‘I should hope not, that’d be a terrible waste now, gorgeous big fella like you – those twinkling green eyes of yours, that accent! You could charm birds from trees you could!’
I give her a wink and she pretends to swoon, fanning her face with gnarled fingers. ‘But seriously, now, Rory – have you ever been in love?’
Against my will, her face appears in my mind: her smile, the shine of her big brown eyes. The way my heart skipped a beat the very first time I saw her. The way her hand felt in mine, like she made me whole. I stay silent, and Moira immediately notices. ‘Oh – you have! I see the signs! What happened?’
I shake my head. I don’t want to think about this, never mind talk about it. ‘Nothing good,’ I reply firmly.
Moira looks at me intently, studying my expression. ‘Aye. I see that. She hurt you then, did she? Badly, I’d guess.’
‘Nothing I’m going to bleat on about now, Moira. It’s all in the past.’
‘Is it, though? Are those things ever really in the past, I wonder?’
She has a point, but I will not be sucked in. ‘Yes. Very much so.’ That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. She moves on, for the time being at least.
‘Did I tell you that I’ve joined a dating app?’ Moira asks then, unexpectedly. I stare at her, desperately trying to keep my face straight. Moira is eighty-four and lives in a remote nook of the Scottish coast. How big can the potential dating pool be?
‘Really?’ I ask, noncommittally.
