Chapter 11: Hearts Full of Passion

It takes about three hours to drive north, depending on the traffic, and I had planned to spend the time thinking strategically about the future of Fred Enterprises, Unlimited. There was a message waiting for me when I got home from dinner, telling me to collect Pat at the café at eight the next morning. I tried to be upset at this change of plan, but the truth is that I would enjoy the company. I had been contemplating my navel far too much since I caught Glenda in Philip’s embrace. Making decisions under pressure on the spur of the moment has revitalised my life.

Six, no its seven now, weeks ago, all I had to look forward to was another week of fixing worn-out machines with another boring party to attend at the weekend. Now I had a hundred pregnant sheep, a hundred and ten employees and Albert’s wealth to care for; not to mention a three-week trip to Europe. I also had Madelaine, who seemed to be interested, Marika, ditto, not forgetting Hamish’s suggestion that Penny had some feelings for me. At the outset, my best friend was another mechanic like me, and now I was rubbing shoulders with billionaires and top legal eagles.

Well, to be fair, it is only one billionaire and ‘GG’ Graham is probably just a big fish in a small pond. I think I have the resources to deal with GG, but I cannot get a line on Richard Douglas. He has bought into Robinson’s and is underwriting our sales trip; he has also spent a small fortune on providing Jim and his family with a secure future. Hamish advised me to keep my friends close and my enemies closer. The problem is that I can’t make up my mind if Richard is friend or foe. That was as far as I got before Pat skipped out of the café, leaping into the car. I got yet another lingering kiss on the cheek.

To my surprise it was Hamish who trailed along behind her loaded with two large cases. He has an offer for the site for housing development, apparently, and is meeting the potential purchasers to agree terms. Pat had wanted to sell the café as a going concern, but she had been talked into maximising the return on the whole property. Considering that she was turning her back on a lifetime of hard work, she was remarkably cheerful. It didn’t take long to find the reason for her good mood.

“I didn’t know it at the time, Fred, but something happened that day you walked into the café with Dave. I thought it was him at first, which is why I gave him my telephone number. It was only after you came back from Cuadh the first time that I realised that it was actually you. You know that I left an abusive husband and I’ve made a pretty good life for Jim and me over the thirty years since. What I never realised was that I was looking for The Man.”

I had driven into the motorway service station through the staff gate and onto the M74 north while she told me this, so I had been concentrating on the crossing traffic. Was Pat really saying that, after all this time, she had found the man of her dreams and that I was it, or him? Sounded more like a nightmare to me. ‘By the way, Jim, your mum and I are going to ride off together into the sunset’ – more like the Twilight Zone. “Get your mind out the gutter, Fred Robinson,” she laughed, punching me on the shoulder.

When she arrived with ten-month-old Jim, her dad had greeted her as if she had never been gone. He never criticised but he was always there as a reassuring presence. She discussed everything with him, and he always encouraged her to listen to all the advice before making her own decisions. “His last words to me when we were waiting for the ambulance, were that I’d have to do everything alone until Jim became a man. He died before we reached the hospital.” The problem is that she can’t see her son as a man.

“I know it’s me, Fred, but I fed him at my breast, I changed his nappies, for God’s sake. There will always be a part of him that will still be my wee boy.” Until now, she had placed me in the same category as a grown-up boy however old I was. “Then you walked in that Sunday with Dave, and I got goosebumps because, suddenly, The Man was there. You can hardly wonder that I thought it must be Dave.” When she met him again at the dance at the Invermor Inn, she knew he wasn’t the one, assuming that what she felt in the café was a touch of flu, or something like that.

It was only when I sat with her and told her honestly that she was misinterpreting what her family was doing, that it occurred to her that I was the one. “You didn’t pull any punches, just telling me what I had done wrong. It was like listening to dad again. However critical he sounded, I always knew he was doing it for me. You were just the same that day.” After that, she reviewed conversations she had had with me in the past, being surprised at how often I had said something that enabled her to reach a decision. “Even while I was still thinking you were a wee laddie, I was paying attention.”

She started recalling instances of my influence, so I was able to relax my attention on what she was saying to think about the implications of her revelation. At first, I simply felt inadequate, until It occurred to me that she would surely be willing to reciprocate. If she could bring her problems to me, then I would be free to use her wisdom and all the life experience she had at her disposal. I tuned back in just as she was asking me if I understood the implications of being The Man.

That’s when I told her of my urge to tell Madelaine all my problems. “I don’t want her to solve them, or even help to carry the burden, but I dearly wanted to unload.” Pat clapped her hands: “You do understand! It’s such a relief.” Its six years since Pat’s father died, and she reckoned that she had a backlog of issues she wanted to discuss. “You’re not going to get much peace from now on, Fred. Do you mind?” I pointed out that we were nearing Glasgow and that I would have to give all my attention to the traffic. “Is there anything you need to discuss that can’t wait?” She blushed: “Well, there is Dave.” Why do people have to start with the embarrassing questions?

“Now he’s not The Man, that makes him a social contact and you’ve been dealing with these for years.” She bridled. “I’m not a slut, you know. I’ll admit I haven’t lived like a nun for thirty years.” She stopped short and groaned. “Oh God, that’s not what you meant, is it?” I was laughing. “Between us, Pat, we’ll have total honesty. If I mean sexual, I’ll say so. Jim and I fell out over your nun-ness, if that’s a word.” She demanded to know what my view had been. “I thought you were too beautiful to be a nun.”

“When did you become such a smooth talker, Fred?” I realised that I had always been a smooth talker in my head but never allowed the words past my tongue. I had always tried hard to be worthy in front of people. Seeing Glenda kissing Phil and then the way she dismissed it as unimportant when she came home hours later, flicked a switch in me. She was the one that wasn’t worthy of me, and neither was my cousin Philip. Once that thought was established, I began to think of all the other people who had said or done unworthy things. Looking back, I think that is what triggered my decision to climb into Dave’s lorry to explore a different life.

Liz was still living with her mum while their new home was having rooms repainted and carpets laid. After asking my opinion, Pat decided to go straight to the Deirlian Hotel, almost opposite the workshop, where she had a room for the next week. After we cleared Glasgow traffic, she probed my love life. I had already mentioned Madelaine and I admitted that I would be seeing Phil’s wife in Holland over Christmas. “And Hamish tells me that Dave’s daughter has the hots for you. There’s no stopping the new Fred!”

We stopped at the hotel, and I unloaded Pat’s cases while she checked-in. The girl at reception promised they would be taken up to the room ‘When Glen gets off his fat arse.’ Pat walked me to the door, standing watching as I unlocked the car. I was just stepping into the driving seat when she fired her Parthian shot. “Now that Phil has joined the unemployed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Glenda made a move to get you back.”

There are some attractions in living in the shadows thinking bold thoughts. Stepping out and speaking up is certainly exciting but draining. I was wondering if I could sneak through the steading, avoiding Mary but I needn’t have worried. Discreetly off to one side was the Land over with the ‘TAILOR’ number plate. Dave’s car was at the cottage but neither he nor Flubber was in sight. I had only just taken my bag up to my room when the pair of them bounded in, one as exuberant as the other. Pat had wasted no time in getting in contact; we are dining with her at the hotel this evening.

Dinner was not at all what I expected. Glenda and I didn’t live amongst the dinner-party set and I could think of no previous time when I had dined formally with just two companions. I think it was the faded grandeur of the hotel that gave me the impression of dressing up and feasting in a baronial hall. I should have picked up the clue when we arrived; there were two luxury coaches parked outside. Inside, Dave checked in at reception and we were led along a hall, past a large lounge full of rioting pensioners. I must have been standing at the entrance open-mouthed, although I don’t remember stopping. Dave was led to a door about ten metres away and I was engulfed in warm woman.

Pat had emerged from the scrum of partying geriatrics, flushed and smiling. Her new friends called ‘See you later, Pat’ from all parts of the room. She greeted me with a kiss on the cheek as warm as her hug, and we walked arm-in-arm along to join Dave in a small dining room. He was standing by the table chatting to Penny. We were settled by a pretty girl, all in black except for a dazzlingly white bib apron pinned to the front of her costume. Dave performed the introductions, and we sat together in a suddenly tense atmosphere. It didn’t help that we could hear the sounds of revelry from close by.

Pat and Dave were wary of each other; although she will make frequent visits south for weeks to come, this visit marks the start of her move to Loch Fuilteachside. Perhaps it was no more than a first meeting between the two women, but I had the feeling that Pat viewed the presence of Dave’s daughter as an escalation of his pursuit of her. After both Hamish and Pat remarked on it, I was watching for signs that Penny had more than friendly feelings for me. The service was swift and friendly, but it seemed to take forever to get through the meal. Conversation was stilted at best.

“C’mon Pat, you promised to join us!” This was said by a somewhat disheveled lady well into her seventh decade, who stumbled as she came into our private dining area. Pat made a helpless gesture, but it was Dave who replied. “That sounds wonderful.” I think he might have agreed to a midnight swim in the freezing loch: anything was better than another hour alone in this room. I know that I had been rehearsing reasons to cut the evening short. From then on, we had a wonderful time.

There was after-dinner entertainment laid on that included a local group covering songs first recorded on wax discs, I shouldn’t wonder. At least two-thirds of the old folk were female, and they loved to dance. Once they discovered that Pat and I knew the steps, we were never allowed to sit down. Many of the old ladies knew the words and I was crooned to all evening. Penny felt a bit left out at first, but she was adopted by a group of three couples. She denies it now, of course, but at one point, she was sitting on the lap of an old gent, explaining the difference between Scottish and English law. Not, on the face of it, much fun but the whole group was giggling. I drove Dave home about one in the morning; Penny spent the night on the spare bed in Pat’s room.

Pat, Dave and Penny met for brunch the next day, with Jock McTavish taking my place. Penny and Pat had bonded, rather disconcerting Dave, I think. Two coach loads of pensioners on holiday must be one of the most thorough ice breakers in existence. Pat was on fire, as I later learned. Having decided to move to Deirlian, she was determined to complete the transfer without delay. Jim drove up in a hired lorry on Wednesday with all his household effects and most of his mother’s. Hamish met him at Sturach to help unload with Liz and Pat directing operations.

On the Thursday, they moved Elaine and her belongings; I was unaware until then that she had agreed to move in with them. Jessica had been looking after Liz’s three and she brought them with her own four kids to join the party. By the weekend you would have thought they had lived in the house for years, except that the kids didn’t know where to find anything. Everyone blamed Pat for insisting that there was a proper place for everything, and not confiding where that was.

The highlight of the Sunday after brunch was Pat eight metres up in a cherry-picker planning her new café. Jock had been servicing the equipment for the electricity board and it was in the yard waiting for collection. From that height, she could see the loch and she later had the architect design a dining room on a balcony that would give the clients a romantic experience. The love poems of Rabbie Burns would be the theme. Ordinary mortals would eat downstairs in humbler surroundings.

I opted out of the Sunday meeting, ostensibly so I could reconnect with the sheep. I didn’t want to tell them the real reason, since it sounded daft even to me. At odd moments, I had been pondering on how to improve the quality of our flock. The first step was the deal I had made to buy two rams from Fergus. My question now was which sheep to mate with them. I had a theory that the less adventurous sheep would gain weight faster.

My plan for this autumn was to keep that group close and drive the others, like Anne and her mates, over towards James’ farm in Glen Dars. Although it must be twenty-five kilometres by road, it is only about three kilometres across the moors. I had called James on Saturday to arrange to meet him to agree a fee for using his tups. What I didn’t tell him was that I planned to walk across to the meeting. I had one glass of wine the previous evening, but I had danced for five straight hours, so I was a little later than planned in setting out.

Three kilometres on the road would take half an hour for trained soldiers and not more than an hour for a moderately fit man. That distance across a heather moor is an entirely different proposition. I had spent many hours on the moors, and I had Flubber with me to steer me past the worst of the obstacles, which include seemingly bottomless peat bogs. It still took me four hours and I was close to the limits of my endurance. Looking back, it was a stupid thing to attempt, particularly as I had told no one of my intentions. I did leave a note for Dave, but he didn’t get back until after dark and a night on the moor would have finished me. I had my phone, of course, but it would have gone into the bog with me.

I thankfully accepted the offer of a lift home. James used less inflammatory language, but he expressed much the same views on my sanity as his younger brother Andrew. His wife Margaret – the famous Mags - expressed her disapproval, but I sensed that she was rather taken with my spirit of adventure. I think she liked the idea that there were still men who ventured into danger without proper preparation, although she would castrate her own husband if he even thought of doing it. She it was who ran me back, driving slowly so she could extract as much information as possible from me about my family back to Noah. I left her with Mary, sharing gossip before I got out the car to walk the final half mile.