Bruar's Rest by Jess Smith Page B

were traces of fastening on a wall where once hung a cupboard, and doors long since replaced by openings leading from one room to the next. We stood alone, gazing at what once had housed families, probably happy people, and wondered what they’d think of the bleak place now? We sat on a sill and wondered if it had ever held a vase with flowers. My sister Helen never put an empty vase on a sill, even in winter she’d put some plant or other in her blue vase. Every tiny low roofed cottage in Durness had them, little, rounded, glazed sea-blue they were, always filled with a few flowers.
    Long grasses grew from a hole in the floor behind the front door, as if searching for some light. I told the factor we weren’t too happy with the state of the place, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “What do you expect, a mansion? You’re bloody tinkers, for God’s sake, nothing more! I’ve scraped cleaner stuff off my boot.”’
    Megan stopped him then and said, ‘You’re not a tinker, Rory, I know, because sometimes I speak to Rachel in our tongue, and Bruar hasn’t a clue what we’re saying.’
    ‘No, but my lassie taught me some words. And anyway, what difference does it make? I’m not a tinker, but the boys are half-bred, so I suppose they’re as near as can be. Anyway, do you want to hear this tale of why Bruar is so called, or not?’
    She apologised, folded her arms, and asked him to continue.
    ‘For the remainder of the summer we lived in the cottage with its partly thatched roof and worked from morning till night, clearing bracken from acres of braeside. The factor only came by to pay us, apart from the day he handed my lassie a bag of scones. His wife had made a batch for a shooting party, but she’d baked too much. We ate them heartily, even if they were a week old and as hard as stones.
    Although the moorland around our makeshift home spread wide, a deep forest grew over the lower land. One Sunday we wandered off down through the vast forest, following a burn until it widened into a wild untamed river. She laughed when I said that those gigantic fir trees trapped a power of jungle heat, and for this reason, big hairy men over twenty feet tall dwelt in their midst. It certainly was a hot day, and when we were exhausted with the heat, we were so glad to see the beautiful waters of Bruar falling in sparking cascades over rocks and canyons. ‘Let’s jump in, my love,’ said my lassie.
    I thought it far too deep and dangerous, but she said that at our age there was no danger, only a challenge. So over we went, like salmon leaping to a magical spawning ground. Our skin tingled with bouncing bubbles that popped and danced all over our bodies. Oh, I can still feel the surge of water, what a feeling, I haven’t the words to describe it. I felt her legs tangling around mine; her hands found my face as mine entwined her small middle.’
    Megan blushed. She thought that maybe this wasn’t for her ears, but her truth-teller was living again through those heart-hid moments, and not she or anyone else would stop him. He continued.
    ‘Eventually we scrambled up on the bank, and there, while the water sparkled and danced around us in pools, we made passionate love.’
    Unaccustomed to such expressions of emotion, Rory blushed too and rose to his feet, leaving Megan completely dumbstruck. She threw back her head, panting with excitement at his words, her earlier embarrassment gone. ‘What wonder, what a brilliant scene! And ma lover was the result o’ that heavenly day—unbelievable, simply magical.’
    He smiled, glad she’d enjoyed his story and not run off red-faced. ‘Yes, your lad was the outcome of me and my lassie finding the joy that only the fairies know, making love beneath the mystical water. Now, there you are, you even know the heart of me, a wee skelp of a thing. I must be getting soft, telling you my secrets.’
    Unable to control the joy she felt at that moment, Megan rushed over, hugged,