News Report

Is it me or is there something slightly odd about people posting all their personal sadnesses in a public place like a blog site? What is that? I have only really been blogging for just over a year. I was persuaded to it on the grounds that it would be a good promotional tool for the writing and I hope that is what it is and what I do. I have discussed ideas too, about writing, and aired disagreements with other writers and put my own thoughts down about writing and writers and disagreements. But I don't tell what is going on in my life... because I don't know everyone who visits here and I wouldn't share all my life with just anyone.

And when I read other blogs that bare the soul of the writer, telling me all the little and big sadnesses that have upset their week/month/year, all the personal heartaches and their trials and tribulations... well, I just don't know what that's all for and I don't really know what to say except 'don't need to know all that, thankyou.'

So here's a wee news report that is not about my cat or my dog (cos I only have one of those), nor is it about my neighbour or my family or my work colleagues. And it certainly isn't about any hurt that I have or scars I have collected or parking tickets that I have had to pay or toothache - or anything personal to me. It is about writing and a wee success.

This Sunday I held a workshop for children in the National Museum of Scotland. A new exhibition has just opened there showing off the Lewis Chessmen and as my published children's novel is a fantastical adventure centred round these chess pieces, the museum got me in and I got to do a very healthy book signing after the event. All in all it was a successful day and I got to meet my public (some of the youngsters that have read my book and loved it!).

One wee boy reported that his class at school have all been reading the book. And they had to write a book report on it last week - for homework! And this week - again for homework - they have to construct something 3-D based on the book. You'd think he'd be sick of 'The Chess Piece Magician' but he tells me he has loved everything to do with the book and he loved the book itself.

There. Nothing personal. Just a wee success story. And you don't need to say anything in response to it, because that is not what I am writing this for. Just reading it is enough.

Grace in PB

(Update on that shortlisting I had reported a couple of posts earlier: turns out it became a second place winner in the competition. I had thought a shortlisting was a good result... this is much better. I was second in the same comp last year, and this year the number of entries was up fourfold, so I must be doing something right.)

GRACE AND THE BABY FEED BOTTLE

She hadn’t told him. Not everything. Not the important stuff. Not yet. She wanted it to be as it was before, just for that first night, even though she knew it could not really be the same. Not once he knew.

‘It’s been a year,’ she’d said.

It felt like a reproof. Even in her ears it did. Even remembering it the morning after if felt wrong what she had said.

‘A lot can happen in a year,’ she’d added.

‘You look just the same,’ he’d said. ‘Just as pretty.’

They’d held hands and just walked. Out across the sand. In the dark. Sometimes he just said her name. Whispered it like he could not believe she was there. That’s what she thought when he said it.

‘A lot can happen in a year,’ she’d said again, like she was making room to tell him. She should have told him then. There was a space so she could. Instead she said nothing. And when he spoke the moment passed. There’d be others, she thought.

He told her about the circles he'd been going round in and how he wanted to do it different from now on. He was tired of always moving and never getting anywhere. And being always dirty and his clothes smelling of smoke and oil and fast food cooking. ‘I want it different,’ he said.

‘How different?’ she’d asked. She’d held her breath for his reply. Hoping for something more than he gave her then

‘Just different,’ he said, and he shrugged. She drew breath and gave him time to elaborate. He just wanted not to feel trapped anymore and being with Berlie’s made him feel trapped. That’s what he said. The same words, or as near as the same.

Grace couldn’t tell him then.

She got up to see to the baby. Her yellow dress was folded neatly across the back of a chair in her room and her yellow cardigan laid on top and her white shoes set heel to heel and toe to toe on the floor. Everything flat, like balloons when the air has leaked away or dreams when the sunlight falls on them.

‘I like you in yellow,’ he’d said. ‘Like sunlight.’

She wasn’t sure now that she would ever tell him. She’d kept it a secret from everyone else. She could keep it a secret from him too. Maybe that would be best. In two weeks he’d be gone again. Not trapped, maybe.

There was bottled baby milk in the fridge. Her mother always prepared it the night before. All Grace had to do was to shake the bottle and reheat it; then test it with a squirt-drop on her elbow and it was ready. She sat with the television turned on and the sound off. The baby sucked at the teat of the bottle and lifted its arms into the air, reaching for something and not finding anything in its small hands. Grace thought she knew what that felt like.

Lachlan - you can love him or hate him!

(The first Thursday character piece for Port Brokeferry... and no other news at the moment.)

LACHLAN DAVIE REGRETS

Lachlan Davie woke again in Christine’s bed. Twice in the one week and last night he was not drunk and neither was she. He thought that meant something. Then there was her telling him where she kept the key so he could let himself in, which he had. And all the stuff he’d written on her body in black pen that wouldn’t easily wash off. She had stripped and made him read out loud everything he’d written.

‘Fuck, Lachlan. That’s just lovely.’

She was crying before he’d finished. Her hand clasped to her mouth as though she was holding back something, as if there were words she might have blurted out and was thinking she’d later wish she hadn’t. Instead all she said was, ‘Oh Lachlan.’

Christine lay beside him now, still in sleep, her back turned to him so that he could read again what was penned across her shoulders and down the line of her back. His words, but now not like his. Like he was reading a book that someone else had written and so he did not know what words came next.

‘The bones of her back press against the skin, underneath, and running my hand down her is like what I imagine playing a musical instrument could be, only there is no sound except her sighing, and shifting underneath me.’

He did not know he had those words inside him. Did not know how they had arranged themselves into what was written. He stroked his hand lightly down Christine’s back, brushing over his words. She sighed and altered her position in the bed, just a little, without waking.

Something was different between them, between Lachlan and Christine. Lachlan wasn’t sure what it was. Wasn’t sure he wanted it to be different. He felt uneasy. A little giddy, as he did when he was so drunk that the world seemed to move under his feet throwing him off balance. As he did when he was on a high ladder, unsteady and looking down.

At her neck, almost too faint to read now, he’d written ‘Lachlan lies with Christine and does not want to lie anywhere else.’ Of course he was drunk when he’d written it. He could always use that as an excuse. He leaned in close and kissed the words he had written. Not drunk now, he thought, and the words still there.

Lachlan Davie rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing?’ he said to himself. He thought of the blond girl at the fair. Her name was Liz or Lynne. He wondered what he would write on her body if he got the chance. Then he decided that words just messed things up. He recalled a girl he’d once met in The Ship. She was a visitor. He’d walked her back to her hotel room. In complete silence. Neither of them said a word. Not the whole night, or the morning after when he’d dressed and left. ‘Perfect,’ he thought.

Lachlan Davie got up. He collected his clothes and crept to the door so as not to wake her. He dressed on the step outside and put Christine's key back under the geranium pot. Then he left.

Thursday in PB

(Followers of this Port Brokeferry project will know that each new day begins with an extract from an historical or official document, something that tells us a bit more about the place where all these people have their days. This is now Thursday in PB and below is something from a collection of folk tales.)

THE PORT BROKEFERRY MERMAID

About six miles out from the shore at Port Brokeferry the sea floor rises to a jagged point that just breaks through the surface of the water. Locally these rocks are known as The Snag on account of the nets that fishermen all too regularly tear on their teeth when the water is high enough to conceal the danger. The rocks were also once known as Bessie’s Seat and behind that lies our story.

Bessie was the name given to a mermaid that was sometimes seen on the rocks off shore at Port Brokeferry. Several accounts have been written down and most are consistent in their description of her and of her habits. Her hair was green and long, so long it could conceal her like a blanket as she slept curled on the rocks. When she entered the water her hair fanned out about her and took on a reddish hue.

She had eyes as black as new-mined coal and as shiny, like the wet wide eyes of seals, always looking surprised and interested. There were webs between her fingers and her nails were sharp and horny, as old men’s toe nails can be. Her tail was scaley and marked like a mackerel is marked, banded in blue and silver and black.

Bessie knew the fishermen and would come to their call. They fed her honey dripped from a wooden spoon, and sweetened mead poured from a beaker into her open mouth. She had no words but made sound. It was sometimes like she was singing and the fishermen came home humming the music she had made and for days afterwards the one song was in their heads like a small madness.

If boats veered too near to the claw and tooth of Bessie’s Seat, she would scream in alarm and in this way she is credited with saving many a boat from a broken hull and the lives of the fishermen were always in her debt.

Then things changed. Like in the poem, ‘in an instant a’ was dark.’

A visitor paid a drunken man called Bacon to ferry him out to Bessie’s Seat. The visitor wanted to see her for himself, he told Bacon, wanted to see the mermaid he had heard so much talk of. She was there as she always was. Not so pretty as the man had hoped, but he still calculated some profit in catching her and exhibiting her as a curiosity in the cities and towns. He cast a net over Bessie’s Seat, and hoped to take her as he would take fish from the sea. Bessie tore the net with her nails and her teeth and screamed so loud she was heard by women on the shore. Then she attacked the small boat and pulled the unnamed man to the bottom of the sea. Bacon was later found adrift on the broken remains of his boat. His grandson is still resident in Port Brokeferry and can confirm the story.

Bessie the mermaid was never seen again and fishermen still curse their torn nets and curse the man who sent Bessie away. Bessie’s Seat is a little more obvious these days and is now the home of a small colony of common seals. They too come to the sides of visiting boats and take offered fish from the hands of boatmen and stare wet-eyed and curious at the visitors that are brave enough to sail out to The Snag and back.

(extract from ‘Spit In Your Eye: A Collection of Sea Tales From The North-West’, Charles Crawley, editor. Published in 1929 by Blackfriars Books, Edin.)

Ooops! Sorry.

(I know I said the next PB piece would be the first of the Thursday pieces and the previous post was the last of Wednesday... but then Mad Martin had something to reveal... so this one is now the last of Wednesday... honest!)

THE SWEET NOTHINGS OF MAD MARTIN

Athol Stuart helped Mad Martin down from the pedestal of the Three Stone Fishermen. He had been standing there with one hand shading his eyes and his gaze fixed on the horizon even though the sun was gone. Mad Martin still as stone almost. Looking for Col.

‘Have you seen him?’ he said taking Athol Stuart’s offered hand and climbing back down.

‘I haven’t seen him, Martin. I haven’t seen him today.’

Mad Martin looked into the eyes of Athol Stuart. Stared through him as if he could see the truth or the lie in what had been said.

‘No not today,’ Mad Martin said. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

‘Maybe,’ said Athol Stuart and he took Martin by the arm and lead him back along the length of the front. Lead him as you would lead a child, and like a child Martin chattered, sending words into the air as though setting things free.

‘No Kerry on The Silver Herring today either. And no story from Finn. I didn’t hear one, anyway. Maybe I missed the story. That’s what I think. About whales as big as buses or trucks. Big enough to swallow men whole and Finn riding the back of one that is called Mordan. And no more biscuits in my pockets; the dogs ate them all. Took them without chewing. One bite and gone. Afterwards licking my hand like they had forgotten to taste what they’d eaten and were looking for the taste on my fingers.’

Athol Stuart was only half listening tonight. As they walked towards the green he could hear music playing and some of the lights were flashing in fairground colours of red and yellow and blue.

‘And Dodie Bredwell did not cycle his bike this afternoon. He pushed it. Slower than slow. And Alley-cat walked by his side. No laughing from Dodie Bredwell and no flapping of his red scarf for she was wearing it and wearing his laughing too. And a picture gone from the window of Mhairi’s shop. I liked that picture. It was of the beach and I was on the beach with my arms in the air and seagulls falling from the sky. Now I am gone and there is a space in the window. Mhairi says she will paint me again one day.’

Athol Stuart saw Grace in a yellow dress and white shoes. He watched her lock the station door, all the lights out inside. Then she ran – half running at least – into the dark at the edge of the green.

‘No lights on in The Bobbing Boat café but I saw Guthrie holding hands with a woman who has no name. And Lachlan Davie needs no key to open the door of Christine’s flat; she’s shown him where she keeps it – under the geranium pot. No sound he makes when he closes the door behind him.’

Athol Stuart lets Martin into his house and follows him in.

Nothing then but the muffled sound of Mad Martin’s voice on the other side of the door, and the small music playing at the fair, and somewhere a boy whispering Grace’s name over and over in the dark.

The end of Wednesday in PB

(My tenth competition hit of the year turned up this week - just a shortlisting, but I reckon that they all count. Here is the last PB flash for the Wednesday. Next up and it will be Thursday in Port Brokeferry.)

PORT BROKEFERRY – WEDNESDAY EVENING

Mhairi’s Port Brokeferry Giftshop had done good business for a Wednesday. Several paintings had sold, including one of her own from the window. She was sorry to see it go and could not hide that from the old woman who had paid for it. That was the way sometimes. One minute the painting was hers and the next minute it wasn’t, even with her name in blue in the bottom right hand corner.

Callum dropped in on old Tom at the close of the day. He brought scones and bread. The minister was asleep in the chair by the bed. Tom was asleep, too. Callum laid the bread and scones on the kitchen table and left the house shutting the door softly behind him. He waved across at Lillian and she waved back.

Grace stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She was applying blue eye-liner and making her hair pretty. Behind her a packed bag of clothes that she would change into when she had finished cleaning up for Athol Stuart at the police station. A yellow dress and a yellow cardigan and white shoes. He’d sent her a message. An arrangement to meet. Like before, a year ago. She remembered walking with her hand in his. Over the sand. The light going from the sky so she could not really see him. His words coming to her from a shadow.

Magnus had walked past the window of 'The Bobbing Boat' café. They were to be meeting, Magnus and Eileen. He thought she finished at five-thirty. She was still wiping tables at six. He sat on the green bench opposite and watched time.

Margaret laid a cup of tea on the desk of Doctor Kerr. He had promised to call in on Tom Storey at the end of the day. She left a note beside his tea explaining that she would look in on Tom instead, just in case he woke up before she returned.

Sharon waited at the corner of The Victoria Hotel. She was watching the door to her house, keeping a little out of sight in case Mr Struan Courtald saw her as he was leaving. He’d stayed a little later than usual. The curtains were drawn on her mother’s bedroom window. She smiled and then was singing again, quiet as quiet.

Kerry read the letter through once more. It said nothing she had not expected. Ward had thought he had secrets from her, things he’d tried to keep only to himself. But Kerry had seen the letters from the hospital. It was why she had let him go so easily. His last months should be as he wanted them to be and she had no right to take them from him or to mar them with her bitterness. On her bed she’d laid out a black dress, even though there was almost a week before she needed it.

Moira sat at a table in The Bobbing Boat café. The door was locked and the lights out. Guthrie stirred sugar into his tea and asked her how she was. Said she looked the same. Said he had missed her. Ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head as if he thought he might be dreaming. ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said. ‘I never thought…’ She laid a hand on his arm and told him it was good to see him, too.

Corinne had written in her journal again. Next to Munro's name. The same four words she had earlier crossed through.

Dodie and Alice in PB

(“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”(George Bernard Shaw) - This speaks to the nature of ideas... that they are not owned in the sense of property and that when shared they only enrich the world for having been shared. Calling an idea your own seems absurd really and the only way not to share it is to keep it hidden... and where is the good in that?)

MR DODIE BREDWELL AND ALLEY-CAT

Miss Alice Greyling sat at her desk and sighed. The day had been long and the boys in the class more excitable than usual. It was the fair. It always stirred them up a bit and she’d had to raise her voice more often than usual. She was tired now the bell had rung and the classroom was empty.

Alice had a stack of work to mark before leaving for home. The sooner that was done the sooner she could go. But Alice was slow in starting. She was thinking. ‘Dreaming’ she would have scoffed if it had been one of the boys in her class. Unless it had been Munro. She had a soft spot for him. There was something she thought she recognised in him. Something serious. Like he was older than the rest.

‘You want to go for a drink?’

Mr Dodie Bredwell was at the door. Standing on the threshold, leaning in.

‘Sorry?’ she said.

‘It’s been a long day. Just thought a drink would make it seem a little shorter.’

Alice Greyling was crying. No sound but there were tears on her cheek. She had no idea why that was or what she had been thinking of.

‘Are you alright, Alley-cat?’

Mr Dodie Bredwell had names of his own for all the teachers, too. Gentle and funny and no reason for them that anyone could think of. At first it had irritated Miss Alice Greyling. She thought he was being rude. Then she had grown to like it without really understanding why.

‘Well?’

She shook her head and did not know what she was meaning by that. She wiped away the tears with the back of one hand and blinked surprise and opened the first exercise book on her desk.

Then Mr Dodie Bredwell was sitting at a desk in the front row, like he was a pupil. He rocked back on the chair, something she would have stopped if it had been a boy in her class. She made a show of clicking the pen she was about to write with and bent her head over the opened book. He did not leave.

‘Doesn’t get any easier, does it?’ he said. ‘What we do. Taming the unruly dogs into some appreciation of the written word. Casting pearls before swine, it seems like.’

She did not like that way of talking about the children.

‘Only sometimes it gets through. What we are trying to do. And someone in the class in front of you just gets it and you know then it has been worthwhile. Like Cor-blimey.’

She did not know what he meant. It showed on her face.

‘The pretty one from your class. She was reading over lunch. Poetry, it was. Yeats, if I am not mistaken. And that boy Monday-Monday was listening to her. All soft-eyed and eager.’

Monday-Monday: he meant Munro. Alice understood then. Corinne and Munro. Of course. She wondered why she hadn’t seen it herself.

‘So, Alley-cat, how’s about that drink and I’ll read you some poetry, if you like?’

Miss Alice Greyling looked at Mr Dodie Bredwell then. To see if he was laughing at her. She saw he was not.

A Bastard in PB!

("The idea comes to me from outside of me - and is like a gift. I then take the idea and make it my own - that is where the skill lies." (apparently said by Brahms) And it is what I understand about the nature of ideas... that they are free and available... and not something that come from inside us, and so do not belong to us in any real sense... and what makes anything your own is what you do with it. What is your own is the thing you have done with it and not ever the idea itself. Makes sense really.)

‘BASTARD TOUCHED MY ARSE’

Guthrie stood at the window of The Bobbing Boat café. He was watching a woman seated on a green wooden bench in the street just opposite. There was something about her and he wasn’t sure what it was. Something that snagged at his memory.

He called Eileen over. She ignored him or hadn’t heard. There was so much to do if she was to ask to get away on time this afternoon. He looked across at Eileen. She was moving between tables, and smiling at the customers. They were smiling back at her. He wondered what it was had put her in such a good mood. He hadn’t heard her swear once today, not even under her breath.

Guthrie looked back to the green bench opposite. The woman was gone. It bothered him, but again he was not sure why that was. He looked to left and right but the woman was nowhere to be seen.

Then Eileen was at his shoulder. ‘Coffee machine’s fucking playing up again,’ she said. And there it was: everything as it should be in his world. He pretended to be cross with her and scolded her for swearing, scolded her quiet so no one else could hear.

‘And I’m not serving that bugger at the table by the door,’ she said. ‘Bastard touched my arse as I passed. I swear he did. A gentle pat like I was something he owned. You’ll have to serve him.’

Then she was away from him and smiling at the other customers as though nothing had happened. He watched her again. Just for a moment. The way the fabric of her skirt moved against her, the line of her underwear showing through her white blouse. She was making an effort to be all that Guthrie had asked of her. Dressing properly, like the maids at The Victoria Hotel. Bringing a bit of class to The Bobbing Boat. And though she was still swearing, she did it more and more so that only he heard.

The man by the door was a visitor. Guthrie saw the way his eyes followed Eileen around the room. Guthrie believed what Eileen had told him, about the touching. It happened sometimes. They usually tipped extra, his sort, and she would have to learn how to deal with them. For now Guthrie would take the man’s order and be as nice as nine-pence to him.

Later, after the man had drunk his coffee and paid and left, Eileen came up behind Guthrie and laid one hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I owe you. And sorry about the swearing.’ Then she kissed him on the cheek. He wanted to rush off to the mirror to see if she had left a mark.

They worked later than normal, later than either of them had expected, and when Eileen had gone Guthrie dropped the tip the man had left into Eileen’s jar and a little extra besides. He looked up suddenly, aware somehow that he was observed. On the other side of the closed door stood the woman he had watched earlier. She’d seen what he’d done with the money and was smiling at him through the glass.

PB (Still Wednesday)

(Here's a thing: I just read somewhere that my children's book, 'The Chess Piece Magician', was discussed at the Bologna Book Fair and there was quite a bit of interest in the book. I don't know what that means exactly, but it feels quite nice to have been discussed.)

INA McALLISTER MOVES LIKE SHE IS DANCING

Mr Struan Courtald sits in a comfortable armchair in Ina McAllister’s kitchen. He has his tie loose and all the silver buttons of his waistcoat unfastened. On one arm of the chair is a small plate with a slice of battenburg cake on it. Ina knows it is his favourite, knows he has a sweet tooth. Always has had. On the other arm of the chair is balanced a cup of tea on a matching saucer.

‘I am glad that you came,’ Ina says.

Mr Struan Courtald nods his head. ‘I am glad I came, too.’

‘Are you really?’

He nods again.

Then they sit in silence for a little time. Ina is holding his hand in hers. It is like they are new lovers. Shy. Trying to think of things to say. Or older lovers, comfortable with the silence between them. Lovers at any rate.

Outside there is more noise than usual with the hammering and the shouting on the green. They seem to be listening to the new sounds with interest.

‘The fair’s here again,’ says Mr Struan Courtald at last.

‘Berlie’s?’ she asks.

‘Name’s the same, but everything else is changed,’ he says.

‘You best drink your tea, love. Not let it get cold.’

Mr Struan Courtald withdraws his hand from hers. She almost reaches for it again to pull it back. Instead she folds her hands together in her lap and leans a little closer to where he sits.

She waits for him to set the cup back in its saucer. Then she speaks again.

‘And how’s Sharon today? Is she behaving? Is she doing as you tell her?’

‘She’s a credit to you Ina, and that’s the truth.’ The words trip easy from his tongue, for he says the same thing to her every visit that he makes.

‘And does she seem happy to you?’

The same question.

Mr Struan Courtald had heard Sharon singing this morning. It is not something that they encourage at The Victoria Hotel, but he’d let it go. She was busy laying forks and spoons and knives at all the tables. He’d watched her. She handled each piece of cutlery with a bright white cloth, examined each knife and fork and spoon carefully to make sure it was shiny and clean. Then she’d set it carefully in its place. He’d taught her how to do it. Here in Ina’s kitchen he’d shown her how and tested her till she got it right. Today Sharon was singing as she did it. Quietly and to herself, except that he was listening hard and he could hear.

‘Yes, happy. She does seem so to me.’

Ina McAllister bends forward and kisses Mr Struan Courtald.

‘I am glad,’ she says. ‘And it’s you we’ve to thank for that, Mr Struan Courtald,’ she adds. Then she is on her feet, and he watches her, and he thinks she moves like she is dancing. That is something he always thinks. Thought it back when Ina McAllister was a maid herself at The Victoria Hotel and Mr Struan Courtald was just plain Struan.

‘You seem happy, too,’ he says.

‘I am,’ she says. ‘I'm happy you called round.’

On Board The Silver Herring

NO KERRY ON THE SILVER HERRING AGAIN

It is busier on The Silver Herring today. Visitors to Port Brokeferry taking advantage of the good weather. Some have been before. In other years. Still they pay their money and file on board. There’s a rush to fill up the seats in the wheelhouse. Then people spill out onto the deck seats. Edwin has a cloth to dry the water from the benches and is busy making sure everything is right.

Mad Martin is dancing beneath the statue of the three fishermen, and laughing and calling to Edwin, calling him Finn. There is not time for a story today. Mad Martin does not seem to notice.

Bran helps women and children onto the boat, taking the hands of the less sure as they move from the solid surface of the harbour steps onto the shifting deck of The Silver Herring. ‘It is like dancing,’ he tells them, and he means it kindly. ‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ he says, not letting their hands go until they are fully aboard.

Edwin runs through the safety talk in a calm and almost disinterested voice. Lifejackets are under the seats and the life rafts are towards the back of the boat. There is no need to inflate these jackets. They act as buoyancy aids really. They fit over the head and there are straps to fasten them around the middle. Then he tells them not to worry. That he can count the number of people he’s lost on one hand. He adds that they still have two minutes to change their minds and can step ashore again if they wish. It is by way of a joke and he quickly reassures them that the weather forecast for today is good and that the trip should be on flat water.

Bran watches him closely. He knows something of the truth behind what Edwin says. No one lost in the days since they started trips for holidaymakers round The Snag and back. But some lost to the sea when The Silver Herring was a fishing boat. Edwin never forgets them. Bran can see that. Just behind Edwin’s eyes there is a flicker of pain beneath his joking. There a second, and then gone again as he takes care of business.

Edwin checks his watch and it is past two o’clock. Kerry is not there. Two days in a row now. Something is up, he thinks. He must have a word with her. Or maybe she and Helen could share a pot of tea and Helen could check that everything is alright.

Edwin explains how long the trip will last and the route that they will take. He tells them that they will see seals, though he cannot today promise dolphins or basking sharks. It is early in the season for them. At the last minute he offers them hope: ‘But you can never be sure,’ he says.

He looks to the harbour and the shore once more. Kerry is not there. He instructs young Bran to cast off fore and aft. Then Edwin, still with one eye looking out for Kerry, uses a long pole to push off from the side. Bran jumps aboard and begins coiling the rope into neat shell-like structures.

Just a PB Piece

PUTTING BERLIE’S TOGETHER, PIECE BY PIECE

The fair is not long in taking shape on the green. Tarpaulins unfold and a whole brash brush-painted world is pieced together. Behind the scenes men with spanners and hammers and oil on their cheeks sit discussing what is still to be done. A woman on a stepladder is checking the light bulbs, making sure that they work and that the right colour of bulb is placed in the right socket.

Mad Martin wanders round the green stopping to ask if anyone has seen Col. He plays with the dogs, too. Three of them and all looking like they are from the one litter. Mad Martin has broken biscuits in one of his pockets and it is like they remember from last year. He sits on the grass and fusses over the three dogs. Above him the seagulls wheel across the sky and call down in protest, but today Mad Martin does not pay them any attention.

Athol Stuart circles the green looking like he is just out for a stroll. Keeping an eye on things, he is. He’s bright enough and cheerful to some of the men who stop and give him the time of day. Shakes the hands of those he is more familiar with. Not like they are friends exactly, but as if they know each other. Athol Stuart also makes sure that Martin is no bother to them.

‘No, he’s no bother at all. Like a great big child is all he is. No bother in that,’ says an elderly man who has stepped up as the spokesperson for Berlie’s.

Sinnie goes out of her way to see what’s what at the fair this year. She stands at the edge of things looking for the lady who reads fortunes – a small dark haired woman who walks with a stoop and a tight grin on her face. Sinnie wants to ask her if she knows about dreams and what they mean. Last night the waist-coated owl took Sinnie on its back and flew with her high above Port Brokeferry. Dreams of flying are common enough, Sinnie believes, but she does not know what they mean.

Evelyn takes her lunch break down by the fair. She has seen Kelso and knows Kelso has seen her. She thinks to wave and decides against it. Instead she sends a message with one of the children, pays the wee girl fifty pence to deliver it. ‘Just tell him Evelyn says hello.’ She waits for his reply, but none comes.

There are others who make a circuit of the green at some point in the day, just to look. Some of the boys from school linger longer than they should and Athol Stuart has to shoo them away when he hears the school bell ringing. Lachlan Davie is seen chatting to a girl with too blond hair and too red lips – it is Evelyn that sees him and she is confirmed in everything she has said about the man to Morag. What she is no witness to is Kelso waving to Grace, and smiling all the afternoon afterwards.

Some of the other visitors to Port Brokeferry come to discover what all the new noise is about. They are less certain of what is going on. They are here for the peace and quiet and now it looks like that will be broken.

WRITING NEWS

WRITING NEWS

This month I had a story published in a collection called ‘NEW WRITING DUNDEE 5’. This was a story that was originally a flash fiction piece, but which wanted more space. It is called ‘Up Mendick Hill Again’. The collection arrived this week and it is a beautifully produced book. I am quite pleased that this story has ended up in such a respectable publication and alongside some established names.

I also recently received the latest anthology from BINNACLE. I hesitate to call it an anthology because this is an unusual production of flash fiction pieces printed as a collection of ‘Business Cards’ with each card holding a separate story and the whole collection contained in an attractive presentation box. There’s a picture by Vermeer on the cover and I love Vermeer. Oh, and I have a piece in the collection along with names like Vanessa Gebbie and Tania Hershman.

I have just won second prize in a themed competition run by ‘WRITERS' REIGN’. I am not a fan of themed competitions but this is the second one that has been good to me this year. The theme was ‘A New Day’ and I already had a piece that needed just a wee polish for it to find its way into the competition. My piece was called ‘The Street of New Beginnings’ and was a response to an image by the photographer, Steve McCurry. The story will be published on the ‘Writers’ Reign’ website soon.

I am shortlisted in another competition. Results for this will be out at the end of May.

I am doing two workshop presentations later in May to do with the Lewis Chessmen, and I am booked to do four events as part of the Faclan Book Festival in September.

And on Monday I go to watch a pupil of mine receive his winner's certificate in a major national prize for creative writing in Scotland.

And I have written fourteen stories this year so far, and that feels pretty good.