Chapter 6

Rory.

It was nearing Christmas and I was wondering what I could give my lady as a Christmas gift. I knew how to lay my hands on the money if I needed to, but I was also aware that I could not give her a really expensive gift without having questions asked. I decided to ask my mum for advice and hope she could come up with some suggestions. She told me she would give it a bit of thought and get back to me. A few days later she did come back to me just before dinner and handed me a small box. It contained a beautiful gold locket with lovely Celtic engravings on the front.

She said,

"This locket belonged to your great grandmother on your father's side of the family. She was quite old when your dad started courting me and he took me to see her. I liked her straight away and she made it obvious that she liked me. One day when I was alone with her she looked at me and I thought I saw something like sadness in her eyes.

Then she spoke to me and said,

"I have a gift young woman, a gift that can be a blessing and a curse. I can sometimes see the future. I know that is something people will scoff at, but there is a long tradition of this in our Celtic ancestry. I know you are going to be my grandson's wife and I know you will be unbelievably happy with him. I have also seen that you will have a very gifted child, but I also know that there is pain and sadness coming somewhere down the road. I know it is your birthday soon, but I want to give you a present now."

It was then she handed me this locket and told me to look at the back of it. On the back of it these words were engraved 'Rioghal Mo Dhream".

"It is the motto of the clan," she told me, "and it means 'My Race is Royal' The Macgregor's are descended from Gregor the younger brother of Keneth Macalpin who was a ninth century King of Scotland. This locket has been in our family for centuries and we are believed to be direct descendents of that first Gregor. It has been passed on to those who were thought to have need of it. I am passing it on to you with my blessing child. May it give you courage and strength in the future when you most need it?"

I looked at the locket with awe. I had never thought much about my name although I knew it was Scottish. Now I was learning that my ancestry could go back to the brother of a long dead Scottish King.

"That is a wonderful story mother, but why are you telling me about it now?" I asked her.

"Because your great grandmother was right," she told me. "I married and we moved south and made our home here. And we were incredibly happy. But not long after you were born your father took what we thought was jaundice but when he went to the doctor he was sent to a liver specialist and was told he had advanced liver cancer. We were shattered and what was worse it was spreading through your dad's body in a very virulent fashion and he was dead within six months. It was then I remembered your great grandmother's words. I took that locket from the drawer where I kept my precious things and I wore it constantly for the next few years. I am certain I drew strength from it and it enabled me to overcome my sense of sadness and loss and be the kind of mother you needed me to be."

I could see tears glistening in my mother's eyes as she told me this and sensed the pain behind her words. She had never spoken much about my dad, and since I had never really known him, I had never felt inclined to ask questions about him. Now I knew that her silence was due to the pain she felt when he had died and still felt when she spoke about him.

"I'm sorry mum," I told her, "I don't think I have ever thought about what it must have been like for you to lose the man you loved and be left to bring up a young child on your own."

She smiled and said, "I am glad of that for you had enough troubles of your own without taking mine on your young shoulders. I am telling you these things now because I think you are in love with Rebecca and whatever way it turns out you are going to be faced with some serious problems. I don't have your great grandmother's gift but I do know if you woo her and win her, then you will both have to carry a heavy responsibility for the well being of this community.

If she turns to someone else you will be heartbroken and need all the courage and strength you can muster, but I get a feeling it won't come to that. So I am passing this locket on to you and you can give it to your girl with the story behind it and I hope it will help to bind you two together and give you the strength you will both need in the future."

I have always loved my mum, and I have always known that she loved me. With this gift, however, I was seeing how deeply she loved me and it made me humble. It also made me aware of the deep debt I owed her and I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how much she meant to me and how much I loved her. Then a little voice spoke inside my head and I heard my other lady's voice saying to me,

"So what is stopping you?"

I realised she was right, there was nothing to stop me but my inhibitions and I rose, took my mother in my arms, kissed her tenderly and for the first time was able to tell her about the depth of my feelings for her and to thank her for all she had done for me and given to me. My mum and I hugged for a while and then she let me go and said with a smile,

"I think I am going to be very grateful that this young woman has come into your life. She is opening you to your emotions and giving you the confidence to express what you feel."

I laughed, "She is certainly doing that mum," I told her, "I sometimes feel as if I am on a roller coaster."

"You are," my mother told me. "It is the most wonderful roller coaster you will ever ride, for it is the roller coaster of love with all its ups and downs of joy and sadness. I pray that for you the joy will always triumph over the sadness and that this girl will bring you the happiness you deserve my son."

I said with tears pricking my eyes, "Thanks mum, I hope she will too"

Then to break the emotion of what we had just experienced I looked at her and asked, "Now what's for dinner if I am going to ride that roller coaster successfully I need to keep my strength up?" She swatted me playfully and with the tears still glistening in her eyes went through to the kitchen to serve it,

I whispered after her knowing she would not hear, "I love you mum and I hope one day all the pain will be lifted from your heart and your memories of my dad will become happy ones"

Rebecca.

I was having a conference with my father. He had just told me how pleased he was with my efforts so far. My teachers had remarked to me that they were pleased with my new application to my studies and my grades had improved accordingly. When we had finished dealing with my academic strivings he turned to me and asked how Rory and I were getting along. I smiled and told him we were getting along fine. Then I decided to tease him a bit and said, that he might even get his wish because I was discovering there was a lot more to Rory than I ever imagined. He really is a boy whom it would be easy to fall in love with.

My dad grinned that evil grin of his and said to me that he would be worried about anything being easy for me. If it was easy I would often be thrawn and choose the hard way. Now and again he would come out with these old Scottish words but I knew what he meant and that I could be very contrary and go against what was best for me. I smiled at him and then said that I in that case I would give him some kind of comfort and hope. I went on to say that Rory was the kind of young man whose brilliance, whose appreciation, love and concern would make it hard for any girl to turn him down.

My father laughed at the way I had turned my phrase around in answer to his riposte.

"I think, my girl, you are telling me more than you meant to. Your mother and I have seen the way he looks at you and the way you look at him. Just recently I have noticed how much you touch him when you are talking to him and how you look at him from time to time. I think he is having a greater effect on you than just improving your grades and he is coming to mean more to you than you are prepared to let on. So let me ask you this, what are you going to give him for Christmas?"

It suddenly dawned on me that I had not even considered this. I had been so taken up with how he made me feel and the discoveries I was making about my sexuality that I had not given Christmas a thought. I looked at my dad in surprise and said with a wail,

"I don't know, I haven't even thought about it."

"Well if I were you I would start thinking about it now, for I am sure that he will be giving you some kind of present."

"Da a ad." I said drawing out his name in my exasperation, I can't think of anything he would want."

"Well," my father said, "I could make some suggestions."

"Go on then," I told him.

"I said a while back that I wanted you to begin taking on some of the duties your brother was going to undertake and had been undertaking. Among these was attending functions and speaking to people about what we did in the community. It would be a good idea if you and Rory attended some of these together."

"How does that help me with my problem about what to give Rory?" I wailed.

"Well some of the occasions I want you to attend will be pretty formal and if he is with you, you will both have to be dressed for the occasion."

"You mean that I should get him evening wear or something like that? I asked,

"I don't think he would find that very exciting."

"You are right," my father told me, "But with a name like Rory Macgregor we could make it more exciting."

"What does his name have to do with it?" I asked