on his paper, and trying to watch the telly and the cat at the same time was getting on his nerves.
What was Rose thinking about, keeping the boy cooped up like this? Barra was at his happiest out in the woods, enjoying the long spring evenings. Still, he had been relieved to learn that Barra had accompanied Rose into Craigourie. If his wife had intended any kind of confrontation with Sheena (Chalmers shivered at the thought), Barra’s presence would have prevented her from making a scene. Not that Rose was the type for ‘scenes’, Chalmers consoled himself.
So what was going on? Rose was making a poor pretence of reading her book; she hadn’t turned a page for ages. And what was all that at supper? Barra saying his mother had pushed him down the stairs in Boots, and Rose denying it, till the two of them got into an argument. That really was puzzling.
Half the time, Rose and Barra didn’t even have to talk to each other, they were so attuned to what the other was thinking. Wasn’t it himself that felt the outsider when those two got together? He could never remember them arguing like that. Never.
‘Everything’s going t’hell around here,’ he said, thinking aloud.
‘No argument from me,’ Rose quipped.
Barra turned to look at them both.
‘Are you going for a pint or not?’ he asked.
‘Aye,’ Chalmers answered. ‘Are you coming, Rose?’
‘Nope.’
Chalmers glared at her. ‘It’s Saturday night. It’ll do you good.’
‘It certainly won’t.’ She finally looked up. ‘Why would I want to sit wi’ your cronies, listening to the lot o’ yis rambling on about nothing, and getting crosswise with each other in no time flat?’
‘Right then. Forget I asked!’
‘Right then,’ Rose repeated. ‘And yir no’ taking Barra with you. It’s against the law.’
‘I bloody well am!’ Chalmers said, almost shouting. ‘No-one bothers about that out here.’ Socks stirred, fixing him with a malevolent golden stare.
‘I’ll get my shoes,’ he said to Barra, his voice quieter.
As Chalmers headed for the stairs, Rose leaned forward in her chair. ‘You’re not to go through the woods, Barra. And sit with Maisie when you get there. I don’t want you getting involved wi’ that lot.’
Barra screwed up his face. ‘Come with us, then, Mam. If we all went, and we walked through the woods together, you might get to meet Jamie. He’ll be wondering where I am by now.’
‘This is the worst day of my life,’ Rose stated, slowly, and with conviction.
‘It is not, Mam,’ Barra reminded her. ‘What about when yir grandad died?’
Rose gasped. ‘I didn’t mean … God, you’re getting a quick tongue on you.’
Barra stared back at her. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘Aye, you are!’ Rose insisted. She picked up her book, hoping to hide the hurt in her eyes.
Immediately Barra was beside her on the couch, his hand reaching to clutch her own. ‘I’m sorry, Mam.’
‘It’s all right, Barra.’ Rose nodded, squeezing his hand. She could barely trust herself to speak. Why on earth had he brought that up? She didn’t need any more punishment right now, and she certainly didn’t need reminding …
The evening darkened from the shadow of Rose’s nightmare – a nightmare which had haunted her all of her life.
Martha Sinclair, a child herself, had given birth to Rose in a home for unmarried mothers, a home two hundred miles distant from Craigourie, a home where Rose should have been left, given up for the adoption that had been so carefully, so heart-breakingly planned.
It hadn’t happened.
Martha, two months past her sixteenth birthday, had wrapped her baby daughter in a blanket and left the Salvation Army home in the dead of night, tramping the long road and the miles from Dundee back to Craigourie. A day and a half later, in the lambing snows of 1925, she’d knocked on her parents’ door.
‘I couldna’ give her to strangers,’ she’d said, pushing Rose into the arms of Bartholomew Sinclair, while his wife Joan stood weeping soundlessly by his side. And with that, Martha turned, disappearing from all of their lives for ever.
Four years later Joan had passed on, leaving Rose in the only arms which had held her fast – ‘Pops’ Sinclair, otherwise known to the folks of Craigourie as Barra.
She remembered the day she had begun school, running home to pluck Joan’s brown-edged image from the mantelpiece.
‘Is this my ma?’
‘No, Rose,’ Barra had answered. ‘She’s yir gran. She died, slowly and with great pain.’
‘Why, Grandad?’
‘Because yir ma turned at the door, and was lost to us for ever.’
Rose hadn’t understood. Throwing herself into her grandfather’s lap, she’d cried. ‘You’ll no’ turn at the door, Pops? You’ll no’ leave me?’
Barra had held her for as long as he could, but he too had had to leave. Months after the wedding, when he so proudly walked her down the aisle, Barra had slipped away.
And the first morning Rose had rushed to vomit into the cracked toilet-bowl, she knew she would have a son. And she knew he’d take his great-grandfather’s name. Her heart had filled to overflowing when she told Chalmers her news, and he kissed her, and held her close in these new arms, the arms she had come to love so much.
‘Barra it is,’ he’d laughed, covering her with kisses. ‘Barra it is.’
‘Right, Barra. We’re off.’ Chalmers strode back into the living room.
Rose pulled herself from her reverie and glanced towards her husband.
‘Sure you won’t come, Mam?’ Barra asked gently.
With a last squeeze of his hand, Rose released her son. She shook her head slowly. ‘No. No, thanks.’
Chalmers had broken his stride only slightly. ‘Yir welcome, y’know.’
‘Am I?’ Rose asked, her head back in her book.
Barra looked at his father. ‘She should come.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t you start,’ he grumbled. ‘C’mon, or the night’ll be over before we get there.’
With a final look behind him, Barra ran to catch up with his father.
Chalmers was already around the path and on to the road before he became aware of his son’s presence at his side. There was no reason to go by the road. It would have
