Scrap Metal (7 page)

I shivered in the wind, folding my arms over my chest. Often as I wished Harry at the devil, the place was bleak without him. If he didn’t return—if, as seemed likely, Cameron was gone…

I pulled myself together. At least such fancies around here didn’t have to be idle ones. Taking time off for afternoon sex had bulldozed my workload into an intimidating heap. I was cold and depressed in the wake of my endorphin rush, that was all. I’d find my jumper, wherever the hell I’d left that, and get on with things.

Shadows flickered in the yard behind me. I spun round, almost sure I’d seen someone. But the sunny space was empty, the only movement the dance of the coltsfoots that lined the grassy verges round the barn. They must have sprung up overnight, or maybe in the last five minutes, or maybe I’d only been too busy to notice them before. My ma had loved them. She’d taught Al and me to watch out for them as the first signs of spring—that and blackthorn blossom, which now I came to look was also lacing the hedgerows. She’d taught me the fascination of flowers that came before leaves, appearing out of nothing on the earth and on bare twigs. In autumn she made gin from the blackthorns, which by then were called sloes and yielded dark berries with a velvety blue-grey bloom.

My jumper was folded on the arm of the bench by the door. My jacket too, and I could have sworn I’d left that crumpled somewhere in one of the sheep pens. My head spun a little. She’d never been what you’d call a fussy parent, my ma, and if we shed our clothes around the place, she wouldn’t pursue us with them. She would, though, pick them up if she came across them on her own trips round the sheds and barns, and return them to that bench so we could find them.

I must have caught the habit without realising. I wasn’t alone in being influenced. As far as Harry had been concerned, wildflowers had no place in his barnyards, and he and Ma had fought like tigers over his weedkiller spray. He hadn’t touched them last year or this. He hadn’t laid a hand on any of her favoured herbs or blossoms, not even the patch of nettles she liked to keep for the red admiral butterflies.

Something shifted in my chest. It felt too big and awkward to be grief. Damn Archie anyway, coming here and stirring me up with his lousy effort at a pass and his kindness. Damn Cameron too, while I was at it, for cracking my ice enough to let Archie in.

I went and picked up the jumper. I felt its sun-warmed fabric for a moment. It smelled of home, of my ma, but that wasn’t wonderful—Harry and I were still working through the mountain of washing powder she’d scored off a wholesaler in Glasgow. In her way she’d loved a bargain as much as Alistair. There were no miracles going on here, no messages. Just my own sleep deprivation, a too-bright sunlight and a wind full of voices from the sea. I’d be hearing mermaids next.

I shrugged into the jumper and my jacket and went back to work.

Chapter Four

The time for the last eastbound bus came and went. I didn’t notice. I thought I heard the distant roar of its engine, but I couldn’t look up—a ewe I hadn’t even been sure was pregnant had decided to deliver triplets more or less on my feet when I went down to the south paddock with the evening feed. She managed it without complications, though she looked as surprised as I felt. I watched in relief as each bloodstained little bundle appeared, dropped to the turf and showed signs of vigorous life. Thank God for that. When it came to sheep obstetrics, I could deal with the basics, but that was all. There was no mobile signal down here to summon the vet and little chance that I could pay him anyway. Like most triplets, the lambs were tiny, and I hoisted them and their startled dam into the trailer to take them to the shelter of the barns overnight.

I drove carefully. The trip back to the farm took ten minutes, about the same length of time as the walk from the bus stop on the main road. Harry’s Toyota was parked on the drive. I forced myself not to hurry the task of settling the ewe and her sudden family into the pens, despite the horrible visions I was having of Cameron pinned down under one of Harry’s efforts to be friendly. These, with someone new, took the form of half an hour’s intense interrogation.
Which village did ye say ye came from? Do you know the Maguires? The Fitzherberts? The McAndrews? What does your father farm—dairy? Beef? Sheep?
I shivered in apprehension and quickly checked the gender of the new arrivals, knowing it was the first thing he would ask me. I’d better get inside.

I needn’t have worried. The old man was sitting in solitary state by the Aga, one collie to each side of him and one across his feet. He looked like some ancient god of the forest and hearth, wreathed in his lung-clutching pipe smoke, accompanied by his totem beasts.

I entered cautiously, trying to stay out of his miasma. “All right, Granda?”

“Aye.”

I went to turn the oven up. At some point between mucking out the pens and getting a blow job off Archie Drummond, I’d put together and set a casserole to heat. It had been ticking over all day. The kitchen smelled good for once, less desolate. I’d made more than enough for three. “How was Campbeltown? Did you meet Will McLeish?”

“Aye.”

I rolled my eyes. The monosyllabic answers didn’t mean things had gone badly for him at the mart. Probably the opposite—he just wanted me to come over, sit within his fallout zone and give my full attention to his news. He wouldn’t have been indulging himself with the pipe or the fireside idleness on a bad day.

I washed my hands clear of mud and afterbirth and took the hot seat opposite him. From there I could see down the hall to the open back-porch door and into the yard, though I was losing hope. I set aside the stupid, dull ache in my chest. “What did McLeish have to say, then?”

“The Leodhas agent’s making deals with all the Arran farmers for next season’s wool. He’s no’ dealt with a Seacliff before. We came to terms.”

I could imagine. The family talent for business had skipped past me, but Harry drove a bargain like he rode his quad bike.

“That’s good,” I ventured. I wondered if he’d forgotten we only had one Leodhas ram, and that newborn tup would need a year’s growth before he got interested in providing us with more. That his lambs in turn would need a season or more to come into their fleece. I didn’t want to throw cold water, though. Harry’s satisfactions over the last year had been few. My instinct was to add to them if I could. “That last ewe in the south pasture—one of the ones we thought was barren—dropped triplets this afternoon. Two tups and a female, all healthy.”

“Two males? What number ewe was it?”

“Seventeen.” I’d sprayed it in matching purple on her lambs before leaving the pen.

“Seventeen? Nichol, you idiot, that was the last one we put to the Leodhas stud. That’s three males we’ve got now.”

I tried to smile. When he was this pleased, being called an idiot was almost a caress. And it was a good thing—three rams could start us off a flock with this desirable weaver’s wool. We would still have to wait at least two years for it. I tried to imagine two more years struggling here. Two more winters.

I looked out into the empty yard then back at the old man. Life had felt brighter to me for a few hours today, but who was I trying to kid? If Harry was building air castles, we were in a bad way.

“Granda,” I began, lowering my head into my hands. “I’m not sure we can—”

“Hello?”

I sat up. Gyp, Floss and Vixen sprang to attention too. Before I could move to stop them they were running, a black-and-white torrent, in the direction of that uncertain greeting. I darted after them. They weren’t vicious dogs, but they could overreact in defence of their lord and master, and the sight of them bearing down in a pack would scare the daylights out of a stranger…

Out of Cameron. He was standing by the gate, one hand still on its latch. In the other he held several carrier bags from the Blackwater farm-supply store. His face was a picture. The dogs had surrounded him and dropped to the ground, muzzles low, haunches tensed to spring.

“Hi,” he said with fragile calm when he saw me. “Any thoughts or advice?”

“Yes. Just keep still.”

“Is this normal?”

“No, actually. I can’t think what they’re playing at.” I glanced behind me. Harry had appeared in the doorway. His shoulders were quivering oddly. God, I hoped I hadn’t upset him. “Granda, do you want to call off your hounds?”

“Aye, in a minute.”

“Now would be better, if you could. What the hell are they doing?”

“They’re…” He lapsed to wheezing silence. I swung to face him. Slowly it dawned on me that the old sod was shaking with laughter. “They’re after rounding yon lad up.”

I had another look. He was right. This was what the dogs did when a sheep had detached itself from the flock. Apparently it was the funniest thing Harry had seen in some time. I couldn’t remember when he’d last laughed like this. It was quiet, and he was almost expressionless, but tears were beginning to run down his cheeks.

“Well,” I said, as repressively as I could, “there’s no need. He’ll come quietly. Won’t you, Cameron?”

“Given the chance, I’d be happy to.”

Harry pulled himself together. He uttered one of his weird, coded whistles, the ones I could imitate but never make work for me, and the collies leapt up as if pulled by invisible strings and loped back to his side. He jerked his head curtly at Cameron. “Where’s yon lad been?”

He seemed to be having trouble with the name. I knew that was how some forms of senility started. Then, he also just sounded like his curmudgeonly self.

“
Cameron
,” I said patiently, “has been to Blackwaterfoot to get some things he needed. Is that all right with you?”

“Aye, today. Work shifts start tomorrow, though. Bring him in to dinner, Nichol. He’ll want some meat glued on those runt-pup bones if he means to survive around here.”

He turned and trudged into the house. I was alone in the sunshine, the coppery westering light, with Cameron. I didn’t quite know what to do. Left to impulse only, I’d have gone up and hugged him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sublimating the urge into an awkward folding of my arms. “He’s so blisteringly bloody rude.”

“I think I quite like him.”

“You came back.”

“Yes. I’d have been here sooner, but I got off at the wrong stop. Had to walk a mile or so down the road.”

“Oh.” I overcame my paralysis enough to go and take some of the bags out of his hands. “The driver would’ve told you where to get off if you’d asked.”

“I didn’t want to look like a stranger.”

We set off together across the yard. We were shoulder to shoulder. I didn’t know why that seemed to take the edge off the twilight wind and drive to far distance my conviction that I couldn’t live on or work this land anymore. “Did you get kitted up, then?”

“I think so. I bought the things you said. Can I pull this off, though? He’s already seen I don’t know one end of a sheep from the other.”

“So he won’t have high expectations. And remember, you’re free, so he’ll get what he’s paying for.”

Cameron chuckled. “Aye. He’ll certainly get that much.”

“And I’ll be around. I’ll keep you straight.”

He gave me a sidelong look. The wind was blowing his black hair across his eyes. I wanted to brush it back, to get a better view of the burnished lights the sunset was calling from their violet.

“Thanks,” he said softly. “But I think
straight
is the last thing you’ll be…” He winced and came to a halt. “Ouch.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Think I burst a blister.”

I looked at his feet. He’d dispensed with his trainers and was wearing a pair of new green wellingtons.

“Did you walk down from the bus in those?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I didn’t want to stand out. So I took off my city-boy shoes, and I put on these. I thought they’d be comfortable.”

“So they are, with two layers of thick socks.”

“Oh. No, I’m barefoot.”

I hissed in sympathy. “You’ll be cut to shreds. Come on in. We’ll get some plasters on you and some antiseptic, and—”

“Nichol, no. At least…not while your granddad’s around.”

“He’s all right. He won’t eat you.”

“Okay, but I just don’t want to look like an arse in front of him. Any worse of an arse, anyway. I’ll patch myself up later.”

I nodded. I let go the steadying grasp I hadn’t realised I’d fastened on his arm, and he hobbled on, visibly swallowing the pain to make a decent stride of it. I didn’t quite get his anxiety about the old man, though Harry was enough to make anyone nervous. Then I could only think about the sight of him from behind, skinny but head held high, nice firm backside making the borrowed sweatpants look good.

I ran to get the door for him. “Well, you know two agricultural secrets now,” I said, ushering him in. “Where to find the Quick Start for the lambs, and not to go commando in your wellies.”

He gave me a luminous smile, and I thought about adding a third—that Harry’s sheepdogs only cornered a beast like that if they wanted to bring it safe home—then decided not to push my luck.

We had a peaceful meal. Harry confined himself to extracting a short genealogy from Cameron, who responded with what I thought might be mostly the truth—that he was town born and bred, and a Beale of the Larkhall Beales, who’d never distinguished themselves in any way he knew of. To my surprise, the old man at that point gave him a look of something near approval—I barely recognised it—and told him he could be the first, if he carried on his studies and settled himself on a farm.
Something better for your own bairns, laddie.
I bit back a groan, but Cameron didn’t seem fazed by him. We sat around the rickety table even after the casserole was eaten and the remains of it wiped up with bread. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d hung around for one second longer than we had to.

Cameron thanked me nicely for the food, and I shot him a smiling glance. He’d certainly done a quietly passionate justice to it. Already he looked a bit more solid.

“Can I get you any more?”

“Better not. I’m meant to work for my keep, remember?”