outta my shop, you hear me? My boys, they no doing bad to no-body. My boys, they look after their mama. Nobody pincha da sweetie in Mama’s shop! My boys, they no allow it. My boys …’
And on and on she went.
Chalmers had been in a foul humour by the time he arrived back in Drumdarg. Even Socks, the family cat, and Chalmers’ sworn enemy, deemed it politic to remain at a discreet distance.
‘Barra!’ Chalmers shouted.
‘What is it? Chalmers, what is it?’ Rose had tried to catch her husband’s arm as he marched past her towards the staircase. Barra, who had earlier pleaded with his mother to leave well alone (it wasn’t as though the Yaks had singled him out; they had already beaten up most of the other boys), appeared on the landing almost at once.
‘Did you want me, Da?’
‘Were you stealing sweeties from the Iacobellis?’
Barra came hurtling down the stairs. ‘Course not! Course I didn’t. I don’t steal!’
Chalmers looked at his son and knew that he was telling the truth. The boy always told the truth. He didn’t have the gumption to lie. Again his eyes surveyed the split lip and swollen nose, and Rose breathed a silent sigh of relief as Chalmers reached to ruffle Barra’s auburn curls.
‘Right, then. Well, that woman takes the biscuit, so she does. Stay away from those boys, son,’ he warned. ‘Let them take their Tally tempers out on someone else.’
Chalmers turned towards the kitchen. ‘Cup o’ tea, Rose,’ he commanded.
A look passed from Barra to his mother. As so often, they had no need for words, and Rose smiled at him, her eyes sympathetic. They both knew it wouldn’t be so easy to stay away from the Yaks. The boys were well known for picking on others at a moment’s notice – and for no reason.
The twins, however, seemed to have lost interest in Barra, partly as a result of Barra’s determination not to put up a fight, and partly because they deemed him too puny to bother with. Until, that was, Mr Macdougall inadvertently gave them a new excuse to make Barra’s life hell.
The good teacher, in an effort to capture his pupils’ flagging attention during an Ancient History lesson, rightly pointed out that Barra Maclean shared his middle name with the ill-starred Roman soldier, Mark Antony.
By the end of the period, the Yaks had worked out that the initials of Barra’s name spelled B.A.M. From that day forward Barra was hailed as ‘Y’wee poofy bampot’ whenever he was in the near (or far) vicinity of the Yaks.
Barra had some idea of what ‘poofy’ meant. He certainly knew enough to recognise that, if indeed he was ‘poofy’, he shouldn’t be interested in girls. But he was. Very interested. For in that spring of 1965 Barra had fallen in love, his young heart rendered helpless by a barefoot pop singer named Sandie Shaw; the only woman to have removed Rose to second place in the boy’s affections.
Rose wouldn’t have minded at all, if Chalmers didn’t see fit to remind her of her demise every chance he got. ‘Fair play to him. It’s time he was cutting the apron strings.’
Rose gritted her teeth. How could Chalmers forget? Or was his mind so befuddled with thoughts of Sheena Mearns that he didn’t want to remember. God, the long days and nights they had held on to each other – and to Barra – praying the child would make it, that he’d survive.
Well, dammit, didn’t he just, though? And wouldn’t she herself? Survive, aye. And she’d see Sheena Mearns in hell before she’d give her husband up that easily!
But as quickly as her resolve had hardened, it dwindled – and disappeared. For Rose had been abandoned once. And if her own mother hadn’t wanted her, how could she possibly hope to keep this man she loved more than life itself?
The afternoon sunshine streamed into her kitchen, warm and bright, burnishing her hair, as vibrant and auburn as her son’s. Rose Maclean lifted her face to it, and shivered.
* * *
‘Wake UP, Maclean!’
Barra jumped. ‘Sir?’
Mr Macdougall shook his head. All of his colleagues at Craigourie High School agreed that Barra was university material if he’d just put his mind to it. But that was the problem – Barra’s mind was never where it should be. He would certainly have to be moved away from that window, Mr Macdougall decided, if there was to be any hope of steering him towards his O-level History.
Barra gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment. Then he smiled – a smile that would melt you if you didn’t feel like giving him an occasional slap.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Barra apologised.
‘Would you care to join the rest of us, Maclean?’
The bell sounded.
‘Saved by the bell, sir.’ Barra beamed.
‘Indeed,’ Mr Macdougall answered, too weary at four o’clock on the last Friday of term to argue further.
The teacher watched as his pupils, calmed as much by the warmth of the classroom as the knowledge that a fortnight of freedom awaited them, filed obediently out.
Barra, however, had leaped to life and rocketed through the door, throwing a cheery ‘See you, sir’, behind him.
The boy was just too exhausting altogether.
* * *
Barra headed for the bike sheds, relieved to see that the Yaks were nowhere in sight. Freewheeling down the brae and on to the High Street, he kept his eyes firmly ahead as he approached the Iacobellis’ shop. Sure enough, the twins were lounging in the doorway, obviously having left school early – a not uncommon occurrence.
‘Get back in yir pram, y’wee poofy bampot.’
‘Aye, get back in yir pram.’
‘Bampot! Bampot!’ In unison.
People in the High Street clucked and tutted their way past the twins, some curious enough to stop and take a look at the ‘bampot’. The traffic lights at the end of the High Street stubbornly refused to turn green and Barra, in an effort to get as far away as quickly as possible, dismounted and wheeled his bike across to the other side, barely missing an elderly woman pulling a shopping trolley behind her.
‘Y’wee bugger,’ the woman complained, leaning against a shop window to catch her breath.
‘Sorry, missus,’ he called back, swinging back on to his bike and heading for the bridge.
Barra said ‘sorry’ a lot.
Once across the bridge, Barra relaxed, and cycled slowly onwards to where the road rose steeply towards Drumdarg. Much of what had once been a thriving country estate had been swallowed into the suburbs of Craigourie, but over the crest of the hill Drumdarg House still marked the beginning of the old village.
Barra loved every inch of it. He was at home here, away from the noise and the traffic, his mind free
