Chapter 7: You Must Remember This

“Och, its yourself, Fred. I didn’t recognise the van. Dave’s got some woman up there with him. Hot stuff! And years younger than Pat.” Andrew went on to offer me a bed for the night if Dave and his new woman got too noisy. It was still an hour before noon and the smell of alcohol on his breath was overpowering. Whatever was bothering our neighbour had accelerated during my absence. There was nothing I could do for him, so I mentally shrugged and drove the last kilometre wondering about Dave’s visitor. She wasn’t short of money, judging by the Range Rover sprawled across two parking slots.

I could hear the raised voices as soon as I opened the back door. Flubber crept out, her tail down, clearly disturbed by the altercation, so I guessed it had been going on for some time. “Give me a break, Daddy! You never liked him anyway.” Dave was standing in the lounge with his back to me, the woman facing me as she shouted at him. My movement must have caught her eye, for she changed her focus without altering her tone. “Who the Hell are you? And what gives you the right to walk in here without knocking? Just get out,” she added, dismissively.

“I’m the Managing Director, Chief Shepherd and Flower Arranger for Auchnasheen Ltd,” I told her, making sure all my titles had capital letters. “I’m here to talk to the Chairman, Chief Financial Officer and Catering Superintendent.” Dave turned towards me, with a look of relief on his face. “By the way,” I concluded, “I live here, in the guest bedroom.” I helpfully pointed upstairs. “Who is this clown?” she enquired of her father. “I’m Fred, and you simply must be Penny. I would be lying if I said it was nice to meet you.”

She was still looking at Dave, waiting for him to speak, when I sidled past and went up to change into my shepherd costume. Flubber, who wasn’t allowed upstairs, decided to wait for me in the kitchen, under the table. I could hear Dave’s rumble and her shriller responses, but I could not distinguish the words. My appearance seemed to have reduced the fervour of their exchanges. The woman was sitting when I came down again, emphasising the shortness of her skirt by tugging at the hem. She has nice legs and is quite pretty, now the angry red has faded.

“Good trip, Fred?” Dave was still standing where I had left him. “You must be hungry, and I haven’t given a thought to lunch.” Flubber had crept out to put her nose on my hiking boot. “I’m just going out so Flubber can tell me if there’s anything troubling the ladies. Why don’t you zap one of Mary’s lasagnas?” Penny made a snorting noise. “Perhaps you could pick some flowers and make a nice arrangement for the table,” she offered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. I smiled, opening the back door for my dog.

I felt truly content as I stood on the edge of the moor, looking out over my domain. Penny’s arrival was a complication, especially as it appeared that she was not in a contrite mood. All the indications were that she had come here to make some new demand on her dad. I wanted to protect Dave, but I would have to be careful in my choice of words. It was the depth of his love for his daughters, especially Penny, that had made their rejection of him so painful. It would not be good for either him or her if he capitulated, as I suspected he was tempted to do.

It was obvious that they would need to spend a lot of time together, so I unloaded my pup tent from the van and erected it inside the sheep pen. I could use the remaining hay as insulation, and the walls would at least keep me out of the wind. We were now well into October and the nights will be chilly at two hundred metres. I will dig out my thermal underwear and move some of my clothes from the bedroom into the van to give Penny some closet space.

Flubber was inside the van, sniffing at everything, but she showed no anxiety now we were alone. Both the fight in the house and my absence in Dumfries seemed to have been forgiven and forgotten. Nor was she showing any concern over the fate of the sheep, which I interpreted as a sign that I could enjoy my lunch before I went searching for the girls. It was while I was relieving my bladder behind the pen, that I spotted a clump of late daisies.

Penny was sitting at the table when Dave called me in for lunch. She blushed when I brought the daisies from behind my back and presented them to her. She stammered something about not meaning it when she told me to decorate the table with flowers. I think I gave them more to keep her off balance than as a peace offering, but I can’t be sure of my own motives. I simply had a strong feeling that it was important to heal the breech between Penny and her dad on the right terms.

“Seriously though: catering super and flower arranger,” she smiled to remove any sting from the remark, as we sat round the table sated and drinking coffee. “There are two of us with a hundred pregnant sheep to care for, so we must cover all the jobs. Fortunately, we have Flubber, who is worth more than both of us.” The dog was sitting beside Penny by this stage, her head on the elegant thigh of the newcomer. “And the flower arranging?” She smiled in fairly friendly fashion. I explained that I was preparing specimens with a view to writing a thesis.

“Do you really like it up here? Its so lonely, I think I’d go mad.” This was too good an opportunity to miss so I plunged in with both feet. “My wife preferred the arms of another man and, of course, your dad was cruelly rejected by his family. Perhaps we need the isolation to lick our wounds.” Penny immediately objected that I did not understand, and that there was no cruelty intended to Dave. “It was just as Fred described it, Penny,” Dave interjected, sounding despondent. “I sacrificed everything to be the best husband and father I knew how, and you replaced me with that cretin Henderson without a thought.” Penny kept opening her mouth to speak but closing it again as words failed her. “Did any of you think I enjoyed the life I led to give all three of you everything you ever needed - and a high percentage of the things you wanted but didn’t need, and often discarded unused after I bought them. When did you come to believe that your mother, who never had to work, deserved more than I did?” Father and daughter were both sobbing.

I made a swift and silent exit followed closely by Flubber. Her tail was still a bit droopy after the argument which she had watched, turning her head from one protagonist to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. She cheered up when I told her that humans are a bit strange. We set off almost due west across the moors. After the first week, the ewes had scattered into an area perhaps a kilometre in radius. By the end of the second week five or six of the most adventurous had gone half a kilometre further. I was looking for Anne, named after my professor, the most daring of all the sheep, which was why I gave her the name of my mentor.

Anne was still within a hundred metres of where I had seen her a week before but there now seemed to be a dozen of the pregnant ladies who had joined her. I had to turn then since I dreaded the thought of being out on the moor in the dark. On the way back we almost tripped over Penny, the ovine version, that is. I surprised myself thinking that the human Penny had much shapelier legs. It was with some trepidation that I opened the back door, and I had difficulty suppressing a comment when I found a scene of domestic bliss in the kitchen.

Dave was sitting at the table preparing vegetables, while Penny was at the stove, looking flushed although whether from the cooking or her outfit I could not tell. The skirt and blazer had been replaced by baggy jogging bottoms and a sweater so long it looked like a dress (some days later, I discovered that it was when she wore it with a belt and high heels when we went out to dinner). She locked the door before turning to the table to take a gulp from a glass of what I guess was gin and tonic. Then she peeled the sweater off revealing her white blouse, through which I could see her frilly, white bra.

“Andrew brought us a leg of lamb,” Dave told me. “He and his brother shared the cost of butchering a sheep and Mary sent some as a welcome gift for Penny.” There are times when I seem to have no control of myself: I wagged my finger at Penny’s outfit and asked her ‘Is that the reason for this?’ She looked at Dave. “That’s just Andrew,” he sounded defensive. “I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it, Penny.” Whatever he had said or done, she had felt the need to cover herself. Now she was showing her pretty bra through her blouse, but perhaps a flower arranger is no threat to her virtue.

Over dinner, I was required to account for my week in Dumfries. I told them the whole story of my memories being ruthlessly replaced by the calm recitation of facts as Ellen and I drove to Maidens. “Why ever did you agree to help save the factory?” Penny wanted to know. “I wasn’t going to do it, but then I discovered that my best friend, Jim, was going under. He was looking for a job at Robinson’s to support his family and the only way I could ensure that he would still have the job in another year was to do as Albert and Ellen asked. Then I let myself remember that there were a hundred and twenty other men and women depending on the survival of the company. I have to live with myself, you know.”

Penny reached across the table to squeeze my hands; Dave cleared his throat a couple of times, eventually telling me that Richard had put up the money for the garage. When I asked for details, he blushed and said he would tell me in the morning. We took our coffee to the lounge where father and daughter sat close together on the settee. By mutual consent, the conversation turned to the sheep and our life at the back of beyond – Ultima Thule, as Penny called it. Dave had us laughing at his descriptions of Susan and Anne at the dance. It was only later that I noticed he did not once mention Pat.

There was a friendly disagreement at bedtime. Penny offered to sleep on the couch, while I insisted that she use the guest room. I tried to make it sound as if sleeping in the pup tent was enviable, but I don’t think I fooled anyone. Flubber insisted on joining me in the tent and ended the night sharing my sleeping bag. Dave brought me a cup of tea at about six, before it was properly light. It was exactly three weeks since we met over the engine of his broken-down lorry. In that time, we had become friends and trusted allies.

“Penny left her husband,” he told me. “She’s talking of settling here and practicing law. We’re going flat-hunting in Alexandria tomorrow. I hate to ask, but are you all right spending another night out here?” I told him I would gladly do it if he had good news for me about the garage in Deirlien. “Better than good,” he grinned. “I told you that Richard is interested in vintage cars, didn’t I? Well, he’s been looking for a mechanic who can look after them. I told him what you said about Jim and Richard has had him checked out. He has an option on the garage and wants to offer Jim a salary to manage it. Better yet, there’s a house goes with it.”

Penny called from the back door, so we had to stop there although Flubber bought us a few minutes by bounding over and trying to lick the skin off her face. I went upstairs to shower while Penny made breakfast. I intended to leave dad and daughter alone again, but Penny asked me to wait until she had dressed so I could show her where I collected my flowers. I had left one of my notebooks on the bedside table and she had read it while she waited for sleep to overtake her.

It was after lunch before I could call Jim to broach the subject of a move to Loch Fuilteachside. It was Liz who answered the phone; Jim was meeting with Bob and Ellen while Pat had taken the kids to the café. “I’ve found a job up here that would suit Jim perfectly,” I blurted out in typical fashion. Liz needed convincing although she did eventually warm to the idea. At the end, she asked if I would contact her brother, Hamish, who is a solicitor. She wanted him to look at the garage but, more importantly, the house that was on offer. She would say nothing to Jim or Pat until Hamish had seen everything.

That evening, I went down to visit Andrew and Mary after dinner, leaving Penny with her dad. Andrew had gone off to play golf before ten that morning and was still, presumably, propping up the nineteenth hole. Mary was sitting looking through a photograph album and it was clear that she had been crying. I sat beside her while she showed me snaps of her son Jamie and his family in Australia. “He was my greatest support,” she sobbed. “But he and his dad didn’t see eye to eye, and he finally had enough and emigrated. He met Doris and they’re very happy.

“Coming here was a final chance for us, and it was working for a while, but now things are as bad as ever.” Andrew became increasingly bitter about lack of promotion, taking his spite out on his wife. She formed a friendship with the tailor who had been golfing when we visited the shop. “I confessed my interest to my husband before things became serious with Adrian.” After the initial fireworks, they took a month to consider if their marriage was worth saving. They agreed to move to her father’s farm and for Andrew to resign from the police force.

We were sitting close together so we could share the photo album, when Andrew crashed in, clearly very drunk. “Isn’t she a bit long in the tooth for you,” he sneered. “Still, I don’t suppose a fairy prancing about picking flowers has much choice. I’m off to see to the dogs,” and with that he clattered out. I gave Mary a hug and walked back to Auchnasheen, where Flubber and I crawled together into our tent. Sharing a sleeping bag with my dog was not restful. She has vivid dreams involving much growling and leg-twitching as she chases down some creature only she can see. My mood was not good when Dave brought my morning tea on Monday at six.

Things improved from then onwards. Penny was in high spirits over breakfast, and I was boosted by a telephone call from Liz’s brother. Hamish remembered me from the wedding, surprising me by recalling that I worked for Robinson’s. He surprised me even more when he declared an interest in the garage. He is a solicitor representing Mr. McTavish, the vendor, although it is another partner who is negotiating the sale. His worry, he said, was the condition of the house which was part of the deal.