News and then the lovely Mhairi in PB

(Some uplifting news this week: a former colleague from the Fiction Workhouse asked me to look over a story they had written and were thinking of entering into a competition. The person said some flattering things about how helpful and how thorough and how insightful my crits always are. And two of my stories have got onto the shortlist for a nice competition bringing my total number of hits to twenty for the year so far. That feels very good. And some of my pieces are being hung up on the internet... have been a bit lazy about sending stuff out there this year. And here's the next installment of Port Brokeferry... and there is a girl I know who runs such a shop and her name is Mhairi!)

MHAIRI’S NEW PAINTING

There was a new picture in the window of Mhairi’s Port Brokeferry Giftshop. A larger piece than she was used to painting so that she had to rearrange everything in the window around it. It was in Mhairi’s style, even though the brushstrokes were looser and broader, as befitted the larger canvas. The colours were hers and the lines hers, too. And it was recognisably Port Brokeferry: the beach, and the sea coming in or going out, and the sky all burnished and blue and the sand a wide yellow stretch. And, if there had been any doubt that it was the beach at Port Brokeferry, there was Mad Martin in the picture.

‘It’s Martin. And he is not with Col. Just Martin. And Mhairi is there too, though you cannot see her, for she is behind the picture. But she is there all the same.’

It was only right that Martin should be the first to view it, and so Mhairi had arranged for Athol Stuart to bring him along early to a small unveiling in the window of her giftshop. There was a cloth draped over the picture at first, like it was a secret or a surprise. Then Martin was there, sometimes looking over his shoulder as if he was expecting that someone else would be there also, and Mhairi pulled back the cloth, slow, like she was performing a trick on stage, and she revealed the painting specially for him.

Martin in the picture was wearing his kilt and his grey suit jacket, the same as he wore every day, the same as he was wearing now. His painted shoes were off and his painted socks too. He was shown from behind, looking away from the artist, looking out over the sea, the foaming edge of which was like ribbon lace.

‘It’s Martin,’ he said again.

Mhairi grinned at him from the other side of the glass and nodded as though she was translating into movement Martin’s approval. When she came out to where he stood, and where Athol Stuart stood, she asked Martin if he liked it.

Martin was pressed up against the glass, as if he might enter the picture again if only he could find a way through. He did not reply to Mhairi’s question. It was as if he hadn’t heard, so Athol Stuart spoke for him.

‘It’s a grand work,’ said Athol Stuart. ‘Yes, a really special piece. I hope it stays in your window a long while, Mhairi. I hope it does.’

There was a small cream coloured card tucked into the edge of the mahogany wood frame. The picture had a title. In blue writing with all the letters curling and coiled, it said: ‘On The Beach at Port Brokeferry, with Martin.’ The price was written underneath.

‘Though I fear it will not be with us long, seeing what you charge for it,’ said Athol Stuart.

Then Martin did speak, showing that he was listening all the while. Spoke without taking his pressed-face from the glass.

‘Charge more, Mhairi. So that nobody will buy it. So that it will be there in the window for a long time. And I will come and see it every day. For as long as it is here. Long enough that Col will see it when he comes, too.’

‘I’m glad that you like it, Martin,’ she said, and she fetched a smaller sketched version from inside the shop. The same picture, but everything thrown down in a hurry, and the colours all washed through and the pencil lines showing. It was framed too, and Mhairi had signed it in the bottom right hand corner.

‘This one’s for you, Martin.’