In the Far Pashmina Mountains Read online

Grateful, Mairi Sinclair waved them away with a wan smile. Some folk had questioned her insistence on marrying the tall Lowlander – he was a man of few words and fewer still were Gaelic – but he was strong and dependable and Mairi loved everything about him, from his dextrous hands to his bashful pride in their handsome son. Five-year-old John had her dark looks and green eyes but his father’s energy and good humour. The boy followed like his father’s shadow, struggling to match his broad strides. The two of them were inseparable around the Foxton estate, where Sinclair was tasked with growing food for the gentry and laying out the formal gardens.

  ‘We’ll bring you apples,’ young John called back, grinning.

  Father and son spent the morning in the walled garden, digging up cabbages and beetroot and picking the last of the fat, juicy raspberries among the yellowing bushes. Autumn was on its way but it was only when they emerged from the sheltered garden that Sinclair realised how the wind had strengthened. As they climbed the hill behind the modern mansion house, John was nearly knocked off his feet. He clutched at his over-sized bonnet while his father studied the clouds amassing over the mountains.

  ‘Run home, Johnny,’ his father ordered. ‘Storm’s coming.’

  ‘We haven’t picked the apples for Mammy,’ John said, his look stubborn. He liked nothing better than being out in a gale with the clouds racing overhead making him dizzy while his father anchored him with a large, warm hand.

  His father hesitated and then nodded. Heads bent into the wind, they carried on over the hill to a small wood that had been planted a century ago by the MacIans when they had ruled the glen. Little had they guessed how two generations later their lands would be sold to a new landlord from the south and their fortress demolished along with its old Gaelic name. Foxton was an ambitious, brash piece of the Lowlands exported into the heathery, wind-blasted hills of southern Skye. Jeremiah Fox had made his money importing rich fabrics from India – colourful calicoes and silks – and his mansion was embellished with exotic white-and-gold cupolas to remind him of his days in the East India Company. Sinclair, his broad-shouldered gardener, had been brought from the south to tame the bracken and plant trees to shelter Foxton from Atlantic gales.

  ‘Look at all the apples!’ John slipped his father’s hand and rushed into the wood. The ground was sprinkled with the small, hard fruit shaken out of the trees. He picked one up and took a bite, his face puckering at its bitterness. John spat it out.

  His father laughed. ‘Good for pies, Johnny.’

  They set about filling a sack, John trying to imitate his father’s whistling. All the local people sang songs as they worked, including his mother, but his father whistled like a bird, and John knew it was a sign that the big man was happy. Above them the wind roared and the treetops swayed and John laughed as he dodged a falling apple.

  ‘Enough.’ Sinclair swung the small sack over his shoulder as the first spatters of rain carried on the wind.

  ‘Just a few more,’ John protested, not wanting this time with his father to end.

  Sinclair strode ahead. ‘Come on, Johnny, or we’ll get a soaking.’

  ‘Just this one,’ John said, diving for a large apple with a rusty tinge that caught his eye. Maybe this one would taste sweet for his mother.

  As he crouched down, a noise like a musket shot cracked overhead. John fell back in fright. His father had stopped and turned to wait for him. Sinclair didn’t even see the tree crashing towards him, unleashed like a wild thing, tearing up its roots in its hurry to fall.

  John screamed, ‘The apples!’

  His father barely had time to glance backwards when the tree felled him. He spun round as if he were trying to fight it off with a swing of the apple sack. Then he lay beneath it like a beetle trapped under a stick, legs twitching, face half-buried in the moss, one eye staring in bewilderment. Apples spilled out of the sack. The rain came sweeping in.

  John crept forward. His father was scaring him. ‘Get up, Father.’ He prodded his shoulder. Why didn’t he just stand up? The tree didn’t look that big. His father could lift anything he wanted. But he was making strange grunting noises and his eye was rolling.

  John sat back on his haunches and began to wail. His father was hurt and the apples were ruined and he didn’t know what to do. He wanted his mother. Suddenly his need for her was overwhelming. John scrambled to his feet and started to run. Brambles tore at his jacket and scratched his face as he blundered out of the wood into the full violence of the storm. Long before he reached home he was soaked to the skin, clothes nearly torn from his trembling body.

  His mother was standing at the cottage door watching anxiously for husband and son. John could barely stammer out what had happened. Neighbours heard her screams and braved the storm to search for Sinclair. By the time they found him, crushed under the beech tree, his breath had stopped and the life had gone from his eyes.

  Jeremiah Fox was sorry about the death of his very capable gardener but felt none of a Highland chief’s sense of obligation to his staff. He was already regretting his wife’s romantic notions of a summer residence in the Highlands where she could come and paint and he could shoot game, and they had already left for Edinburgh and civilisation when the accident happened. He had no wish to deal with the local population, and a man of his social position shouldn’t have to. He paid a factor – an estate manager called Brewis – to handle the unfortunate affair.

  ‘See that the widow is provided for,’ Fox wrote to Brewis, ‘by which I mean that she is conveyed back to her own people without delay with some victuals for the journey. We shall need to find another head gardener as soon as possible. In the meantime, try to get rent for the cottage as best you can.’

  Even Brewis, a hardened former sea captain, thought his employer’s attitude callous. He had liked Sinclair, a fellow Lowlander, and felt pity for the pretty young widow, Mairi, and her affectionate son, John. The poor boy hadn’t spoken a word since his father’s death nor cried a tear at the funeral – a foolishly lavish affair for people of their lowly class – and Brewis feared young John had gone mad from witnessing Sinclair’s grisly death.

  He went to Mairi Sinclair with a proposition.

  Mairi had been waiting tensely for a formal visit from the factor. She knew it was only a matter of time before she was evicted from the cottage where until two weeks ago she had been so happy. How she dreaded the day they would have to leave! Yet, looking around the kitchen-parlour now empty of its fire-irons, china, copper pots and chairs, which had all been sold to pay for the funeral, Mairi thought how the soul of the house had died along with her husband.

  She offered the factor a cup of water – their milk cow had also been sold – and watched him look around in vain for somewhere to sit.

  ‘Mr Brewis,’ Mairi said, wanting to get the painful moment over, ‘I have made arrangements to return home to my father and sister at Ramanish – me and the boy. If you could just give me another week to settle my affairs. I know the landlord wants me out.’

  Brewis flinched at her directness. He had expected her to whine and plead with him to stay on, beg for a job in the dairy or kitchen. He had planned to be magnanimous but her quiet dignity unnerved him; she had not even called him sir.

  ‘Do you not wish to stay, Mistress Sinclair?’

  ‘What is there to stay for?’

  ‘You could be my housekeeper,’ he blurted out.

  Her eyes widened. ‘You already have a housekeeper, Mr Brewis.’

  ‘My wife, then.’

  They stared at each other, Brewis just as startled by his sudden impulsive proposal as she was. What had possessed him? He stuttered in explanation.

  ‘I-I would welcome the company. Mine is a lonely position in this place. You are an outsider like me. I would give you a comfortable home and—’

  ‘Mr Brewis,’ she trembled, ‘I have just buried my husband. How can you suggest such a thing?’

  ‘Not immediately perhaps, but in time. A woman in your position
can hardly be choosy. And I would take on the boy.’ Brewis gestured at John squatting by the fire. ‘Give him work in a year or two.’

  Mairi gaped at him; the man was serious. She looked at his craggy weather-beaten face with the grey hair sprouting from his nose and felt leaden inside. Older than her own father, Brewis was a hard taskmaster around the estate but as fair in his dealings as his master allowed. He might be kind – he seemed genuinely fond of John – but she could never love him or bear to have him touch her in intimacy.

  ‘It’s not just the boy you would be taking on,’ Mairi said, dropping her voice and glancing at John. But the boy was sitting hunched and lost in his own thoughts. ‘I am carrying Sinclair’s baby.’

  Brewis flushed. She saw his discomfort and waited for him to retract his offer. John was a strong, robust boy who could be put to work even at his tender age, but a pregnant woman and then a mewling baby were a different matter. He frowned with indecision, then cleared his throat.

  ‘My offer still stands, Mairi. But I am not a patient man and neither is my master – he wants a new tenant here as soon as possible. I will give you the week you ask for, then you will either come and live with me at the factor’s house or you can go to Ramanish. Either way, you will have to leave this cottage.’ He looked around for somewhere to put the cup and, seeing no table, handed it to Mairi. ‘I very much hope you will agree to be the future Mrs Brewis.’ He tipped his hat – a battered old-fashioned naval one – and strode to the door. ‘Good day to you.’

  Mairi nodded. ‘Good day, Mr Brewis.’

  She sank down beside her son, pulling him into her arms and lapsing back into Gaelic. ‘Oh, Johnny, what shall we do?’

  He gazed at her mutely, his vivid green eyes troubled. She squeezed him tightly. Where would her grieving son best be healed: Foxton or Ramanish? Foxton would give him security but be a constant reminder of his father’s accident; Ramanish would mean hardship in a cramped cottage shared with cattle but surrounded by their own people.

  That night they bedded down in the box-bed but Mairi didn’t sleep for the anxious thoughts that spun in her head. For the hundredth time she cursed the storm, the tree and the wretched apples that had led to Sinclair’s death. Her beloved husband! The pain was suffocating. John moaned and cried in his sleep.

  She’d be a fool to turn her back on Brewis’s marriage offer, yet she could not bear to be his wife. Some neighbours would call her haughty and headstrong if she refused him; others would distrust her and say she grew above herself if she accepted him. She fell asleep just before dawn and dreamt of the sea at Ramanish crashing onto a grey beach, and her great-grandfather – the old Spaniard – swinging her up and carrying her over rocks to the sandy meadow beyond.

  When Mairi woke, she had made up her mind.

  Will there be apples at Ramanish? Will we sleep in a box-bed like at home? Why do they call us the Spanish MacAskills? Are we really going to climb over that mountain?

  All these questions buzzed around in John’s head but he could not find words in his mouth to say them aloud. His father’s death had put a seal on his lips like wax to paper. Instead, he clutched his mother’s hand and walked through the village in the early morning light. Neighbours came to their doors wrapped in woollen plaids to watch them go. The wife of the shoemaker scurried forward and thrust a cloth parcel at his mother.

  ‘An oatcake for your journey. You’ve a long way to go.’ The woman glanced anxiously at the Cuillin Mountains behind.

  John saw his mother’s eyes water at the woman’s kindness. ‘Aye, but it’s a clear day and I want to be gone before the weather sets in again.’

  The wild, wet weather that had lasted most of October had given way to clear, cold air and bright blue skies, morning frosts and a dusting of snow on the peaks to the north.

  ‘Thank you for this.’ His mother stowed the round of oatmeal in her basket and squeezed the woman’s hand before moving on.

  Why aren’t we going to say goodbye to Mr Brewis? It had been three days since the man with the funny hat and the hairy nose had been to visit. Ever since then his mother had seemed in a hurry to cross the mountains and stay with his Grandfather MacAskill and Aunt Morag.

  ‘You’ll be happy there,’ his mother had promised.

  John was doubtful; the stern grey-haired man who had come to his father’s funeral and reeked of whisky did not seem the type to grab his hand and run with him through the wind like John’s father used to do.

  They hurried past the path to the factor’s house, his mother yanking on his hand. She muttered, ‘Better this way, Johnny. Don’t want to embarrass the man with an outright refusal. And today is perfect for travelling – not a cloud in the sky. Tomorrow the mist could be down. He’ll understand.’

  Who will? John was baffled.

  They walked all morning. John had never been this far from home before. When they stopped on the mountain path for his mother to catch her breath, they turned and looked back and saw a tiny Foxton House surrounded by miniature gardens, trees and newly walled-off fields like in a painting. Behind towered the jagged, forbidding range of the Cuillins, thrusting black peaks in an intense blue sky. A massive bird wheeled overhead in lazy circles.

  What is that? His mother saw him squinting into the dazzling autumn sun.

  ‘It’s a sea eagle. See the white patches under its wing tips? That’s how you know. Grandpa Carlos told me how to spot birds when I was a girl. No doubt he’ll tell you too.’

  John wondered if this was the stern grandfather or whether he had another. His mother talked more about their family as they continued on.

  ‘Grandpa Carlos was a soldier. He came from Spain to fight for the Jacobites when he was no more than twelve or thirteen – he’s not sure exactly. Over a hundred now but he can still catch a fish and gut it. He’s my great-grandfather, so he’s your great-great-grandfather. Outlived his own sons.’

  John wanted to know who were the Jacobites and where was Spain and how old was a hundred; it sounded as old as could be. But he kept his questions tucked away and ran to keep up with his mother, enjoying her stories. The further they got from Foxton, the more she told him about his family at Ramanish.

  ‘Your Aunt Morag is older than me and looks after the home for your grandfather. Got a hump on her back so no one will marry her but she’s the kindest person I know.’

  John imagined his aunt, whom he had never seen, as looking like his mother but carrying a sack of apples on her back. As the climb steepened, his mother grew breathless and her words dried up. They stopped for a bite of oatcake and a swig of water, sitting in a pool of sunshine and leaning against a large, warm rock. His mother closed her eyes and dozed. John clambered over the rock and scrambled up the loose scree, sending a shower of tiny stones down the slope. The eagle – or perhaps another bird – soared high above. The silence of the mountains filled his ears until they hummed and he swallowed to clear his hearing. He banged two stones together and listened to the echo bounce around, just to check he had not turned deaf. This world of rock and sky and silent birds was thrilling.

  He must have climbed further than he realised. The hillside went into shadow and he could hear his mother calling from below like a frantic crow.

  ‘John? John! Come down now!’

  When he skidded to a halt by her side, she shook him. ‘Never run away like that again. I thought you were lost. It’s dangerous in the hills. Come on, we’ve wasted too much time.’

  John fell into step behind his mother, the magic of his scramble vanishing. The sun faded behind hazy cloud. As they wound higher, the deer path they followed grew stonier and the wind picked up. Finally, they came down the other side, grabbing onto tufts of heather, and John craned for a view of the sea and the grey beach and the MacAskill castle that his mother had told him about during the walk. But all he could see were more mountains in front, hemming them in and blotting out the sky like stone giants.

  They wound along a path – a drover’s ro
ad where cattle were taken to market, his mother said – until the track split in two and once more they followed the one climbing upwards.

  ‘It’s shorter this way,’ his mother said. ‘We’ll be there by nightfall.’

  She didn’t speak again until they were high up in the mountain and scrambling along the stony pass. John’s leather shoes rubbed and pinched and he began to flag. All day he had been hot, toiling in the sunshine. Now the air was suddenly icy and his cooling skin made him shiver. He was tired and hungry but his mother didn’t seem to notice; she kept looking up at the sky and pulling him along as if they were late for something. The heavens turned from pearly blue to dark grey in minutes. Flecks of sleety rain whipped at his bare knees and face.

  ‘Come on, John,’ his mother urged, pulling her plaid over her hair. ‘Don’t slow down.’

  But she was labouring too in the rising wind and thickening sleet. Mist descended and hid the path ahead. Sleet turned to hail, stinging his cheeks and making him cry.

  ‘Stop your bleating!’ she ordered.

  They pressed on, his mother dragging him behind her. They stumbled and slipped over rocks. Abruptly, she came to a standstill, chest heaving, face frowning. She peered ahead and then behind. Her indecision frightened him more than her cross words.

  The hail eased into soft, wet snow. It descended on them like a cold blanket, sticking to their clothes and hair. He thought his mother was going to burst into tears, her face puckering and bottom lip trembling like it had when his father’s body was brought to the house for her to wash.

  ‘Over there,’ she said, pushing him towards a black shadow in the falling snow. ‘You can squeeze in there.’

  Tripping over numb feet, John was propelled forward by his mother. The black shape turned into a crevice like a shelf in the overhanging rock.

  ‘Climb in,’ his mother ordered, heaving him up.

  John’s feet slithered on the icy rock and his hands stung with the cold as he hauled himself up. He lay panting, his mother’s face staring from below, pale as the moon.