strenuous waving almost causing him to topple.
Murdo waved back. Smiling still, he bent to scratch the wee dog’s ears. ‘He’s a fine lad, that,’ he told Gallus. ‘A fine lad.’
Gallus rolled on his back and waved his stubby paws in the air. It was his highest form of compliment.
Barra hadn’t intended to stop at the Pascoes’ house, but Jennifer was working in the flower-beds and her husband was sitting in a chair by the doorway, enjoying the day. It would have been rude to pass without a greeting.
‘Yir flowers are bonny,’ Barra remarked, cycling up to the fence and resting against it. ‘Hi, Mr Pascoe,’ he called.
‘Aren’t they?’ Jennifer Pascoe replied, while her husband nodded a smile in Barra’s direction. ‘Would you like some lemonade?’ she asked, straightening from her labours.
‘No, thanks. I’d better get home.’ Barra grimaced at having to refuse. He loved getting into the Pascoes’ house. Everything was so modern and new-looking. He especially admired their green Mini, and had greatly enjoyed getting the occasional lift to Craigourie and back in it.
Of course, Mr Pascoe had been well enough to drive then.
‘He’s looking fine,’ Barra said, quietly enough, he thought.
‘And I’m feeling fine,’ Jim Pascoe called out, making his wife smile. ‘Sorry, Mr Pascoe.’
‘You’re an awful boy for “sorry”,’ Jim said. ‘What’ve you got to be sorry about?’
‘Nothing really, I suppose. It’s a habit.’
‘Aye, well, it’s a bad habit, young feller-me-lad.’ Jim leaned forward in an effort to look fierce, but the movement pained him and he groaned.
Jennifer was up like a shot and by his side. He held up a hand to let her know it had passed, and she took a deep breath and stroked his head.
‘He’s like an Easter chick,’ Jennifer said, looking at Barra. ‘Don’t you think so, Barra?’
‘Aye.’ Barra grinned. ‘It’s good his hair’s coming back though, isn’t it?’
‘Fluff.’ Jim smiled. ‘I wouldn’t call it hair exactly.’
‘It’s what he wants for his birthday, Barra,’ Jennifer said. ‘A good crop of hair.’
‘When is it, your birthday?’ Barra asked.
‘Easter Sunday this year. Eighteenth of April.’
‘And how old will you be?’
‘Were you always this nosy?’ Jim asked, as though he didn’t know.
‘Aye. Always.’
‘That’s good then. I’ll be twenty-five, in answer to your question. What next?’
‘What next?’
‘What next do you want to know?’
Barra grinned. ‘That’ll do,’ he said, pushing off from the fence. ‘See you.’
He hadn’t gone far when he shouted back at them, ‘You’ll have some hair for Easter. What ’yis bet?’
Jim looked up at his wife, grudging the sadness he knew he would find in her eyes. ‘I may have to refuse that wager.’
‘No,’ she answered, taking his hand. ‘I won’t let you.’
The road was clear all the way to the Whig. Barra was singing at the top of his voice – ‘Always something there to remind me. Da-dah-da-dah-da’ - when Olive Tolmie stuck her head out of the shop door to see who was making all the racket.
Had Drumdarg ever needed a town crier, Olive would surely have been first choice. There was little that passed in the village, or indeed in Craigourie itself that Olive wasn’t aware of. Indeed, it was regularly said of her that what she didn’t already know, she would soon find out.
‘Och, it’s you,’ she muttered.
Barra placed his bike against the wall and followed her inside, hypnotised by the slap-slap of her sandals. Olive’s feet overlapped the sandals in every direction.
‘It’s a grand day,’ he remarked, lifting his eyes.
Olive didn’t agree. ‘I’m fair trachled wi’ the heat,’ she grumbled. ‘My feet’s like potted heid already. God knows what they’ll be like by July.’
Barra hadn’t eaten potted heid. He reminded himself never to try it.
‘Are yis quiet the day?’
‘Off an’ on. Off an’ on,’ Olive replied, busying herself with polishing the counter. ‘I’m in the wrong job, of course. Worst thing I could be doing, standing all day, with this feet. I’ll be glad when Isla gets here.’
‘Isla’s coming back?’ This was the best news Barra had heard all day.
‘Aye. Maisie got a letter from her sister. Seems the wee trollop got caught wi’ a boy again. Still, she’s a good help round here.’
‘Caught wi’ a boy?’
‘That’s all I’m saying,’ Olive stated, pausing in her endeavours to give Barra a knowing stare.
Barra was unsure what the stare was meant to convey. Certainly, there had been no mention of boys when Isla had arrived in Drumdarg last summer. She had told Barra that she simply wanted to stay with her Aunt Maisie for a while as she hadn’t been getting along with her stepfather. Not that Isla had told Barra very much of anything. She was, after all, two and a half years older than he, and could therefore be considered a young woman.
‘Less of the “young”!’ Isla had reprimanded him when he’d sought to please her by mentioning the fact.
From that point on she had been scathingly dismissive of his presence, but it was to be expected from a woman of her years, and it didn’t alter the fact that she was really, really beautiful.
Plus, she had an enormous chest. Barra couldn’t wait to see what she looked like now.
‘When’s she coming?’
‘Well, Maisie says she left school at Christmas, and she doesn’t seem able to hold down a job, so I think her mother’ll have her on the bus as soon as Maisie gives her the OK.’
‘She left school? And she wants to come here?’
‘It’s no’ a matter of “wants”,’ Olive replied with another knowing stare. She was becoming more mysterious by the minute.
‘Where is Maisie?’ Barra asked, in the hope of getting some reliable information as to the date of Isla’s arrival.
‘Ben the back,’ Olive replied, casting a sturdy thumb over her shoulder.
Barra ran outside and grabbed his bike, racing around the building. He pushed on the side entrance door to the café, but it was locked. He carried on around the back and entered through the kitchen door but, seeing no sign of Maisie, he rushed on into the café. Then he stopped dead in his tracks.
‘Wow!’ was all he could manage.
Maisie Henderson’s bulk was contained in a flowing purple kaftan, patterned haphazardly with large yellow sunflowers. Her grey hair reached almost to her waist, and today was festooned with purple streamers woven along its length. Barra knew that, even though his mam and Maisie were the best of friends, Maisie was much, much older than Rose. Still, Maisie’s laughing eyes and generous mouth gave her a youthful appearance which belied the grey hair.
It wasn’t only her mouth that was generous, though. Maisie Henderson was the largest woman Barra had ever seen. At the moment she was tearing into a steaming bowl of soup and, by the looks of it, had demolished the best part of a sliced loaf