September

little house had kept her happy for a year, and she was still not finished with the garden.

I am, she told herself, a fortunate woman.

Sitting there, on the dog-smelling chaise longue, Violet looked about her. Saw the worn Turkey rug, the old bits of furniture that she had known all her life. It was pleasant when things did not change too much. When she said goodbye to Balnaid, Violet had never imagined that so little would change. Edmund's new wife, she decided, would be the new broom, come to sweep away all the dusty old traditions, and she was indeed quite interested to see what Virginia-as young and vital as a breath of fresh air-would achieve. But, apart from completely revamping the big bedroom, freshening up the drawing-room with a lick of paint, and turning an old pantry into a utility room that fairly hummed with deep-freezes, washing machines, drying machines, and attendant luxuries, Virginia did nothing. Violet accepted this, but found it puzzling. There was, after all, no lack of money, and to her it seemed strange that Virginia should be content to live with the worn rugs and the faded velvet curtains and the old Edwardian wallpapers.

Perhaps it had something to do with the arrival of Henry. Because after Henry was born, Virginia abandoned all other interests and immersed herself in her baby son. This was very nice, but came as something of a shock to Violet. She had no idea that her daughter-in-law would prove so deeply maternal. With Edmund away so much, and mother and child left on their own, Violet had secret reservations about this overwhelming devotion, and it was a constant source of astonishment to her that despite his upbringing, Henry had grown into such a delightful little boy. A bit too dependent on his mother, perhaps, but still, not spoiled, and a charming child. Perhaps…

'Sorry, Vi, to keep you waiting.'

Surprise made her start. She turned and saw Archie and Virginia coming towards her, Archie holding up the long buff envelope as though it were a hard-won banner. '… took a bit of searching for. Come along now, and I'll drive you home.'

3

Henry Aird, eight years old, banged with some importance at Edie Findhorn's front door, using her brass knocker shaped like a pixie. The house was one of a line of single-storey cottages that lined the main street of Strathcroy, but Edie's was nicer than anybody else's because it had a mossy thatched roof and forget-me-nots grew in the little strip of earth between the pavement and the wall. Standing there, he heard her footsteps; she unsnibbed the door and threw it open.

'Well, here you are, turned up like a bad penny.'

She was always laughing. He loved her, and when people asked him who his best friends were, Edie came on top of the list. She was not only jolly, but fat, white-haired, and rosy-cheeked, and appetizing as a fresh and floury scone.

'Did you have a good day?'

She always asked this, despite the fact that she saw him every lunch-time, because she was the school dinner- lady and served out the midday meal. It was handy having Edie doing this because it meant that she stinted on helpings of things he hated, like curried mince and stodgy custard, and was lavish with the mashed potatoes and chocolate shape.

'Yes, it was all right.' He went into her sitting-room, dumped his anorak and his school-bag on the couch. 'We had drawing. We had to draw something.'

'What did you have to draw?'

'We had to draw a song.' He began to undo the buckles of his satchel. He had a problem and thought that probably Edie could help to solve it for him. 'We sang 'Speed Bonnie Boat Like a Bird on the Wing over the Sea to Skye,' and we had to draw a picture of it. And everybody else drew rowing boats and islands, and I drew this.' He produced it, slightly crumpled from contact with his gym shoes and his pencil box. 'And Mr. McLintock laughed, and I don't know why.'

'He laughed?' She took it from him, went to find her spectacles, and put them on. 'And did he not tell you why he laughed?'

'No. The bell rang and it was the end of class.'

Edie sat on the couch and he sat beside her. Together they gazed in silence at his work. He thought it was one of his best pictures. A beautiful speedboat slicing through blue waters, with white water pouring up at its bow and a snowy wake at the stern. There were seagulls in the sky and, on the front of the boat, a baby wrapped in a shawl. The baby had been difficult to draw, because babies have such funny faces. No noses or chins. Also, this baby looked a bit precarious and as though at any moment it might slip off the boat and into the sea. But still, it was there.

Edie did not say anything. Henry explained to her. 'It's a speedboat. And that's the lad that's been born.'

'Yes, I can see that.'

'But why did Mr. McLintock laugh? It's not funny.'

'No, it's not funny. It's a lovely picture. It's just that… well… speed doesn't mean a speedboat in the song. It means that the boat's going very fast over the water, but it's not a speedboat. And the lad that was born to be king was Bonnie Prince Charlie, and he was grown up by then.'

All was now explained. 'Oh,' said Henry, 'I see.'

She gave him back the drawing. 'But it's still a good picture, and I think it was very rude of Mr. McLintock to laugh. Put it in your bag and take it home for your mother to see, and Edie will go and start getting your tea.'

While he did this, she heaved herself to her feet, put her spectacles back on the mantelpiece, and went out of the room through a door at the back that led to her kitchen and bathroom. These were modern additions, for when Edie was a little girl, the cottage had consisted solely of two rooms. A but and ben it was called. The living room, which was the kitchen as well, and the bedroom. No running water, and a wooden lavatory at the end of the garden. What was more astonishing was that Edie had been one of five children, and so seven people had once lived in these rooms. Her parents had slept in a box-bed in the kitchen, with a shelf over their heads for the baby, and the rest of the children had been crowded into the other room. For water, Mrs. Findhorn had made the long walk each day to the village pump, and baths were a weekly affair, taken in a tin tub in front of the kitchen fire.

'But however did five of you get into the bedroom, Edie?' Henry would ask, fascinated by the logistics of sheer space. Even with just Edie's bed and her wardrobe, it still seemed dreadfully small.

'Oh, mind, we weren't all in there at the same time. By the time the youngest was born, my eldest brother was out working on the land, and living in a bothy with the other farm-hands. And then, when the girls were old enough, they went into service in some big house or other. It was a sore wrench when we had to leave, tears all over the place, but there was no space for us all here, and too many mouths to feed, and my mother needed the extra money.'

She told him other things, too. How, on winter evenings, they would bank up the fire with potato peelings and sit around it, listening to their father reading aloud the stories of Rudyard Kipling, or Pilgrim's Progress. The little girls would work at their knitting, making socks for the menfolk. And when it came to turning the heels, the sock was given to an older sister or their mother because that bit of the knitting was too complicated for them to do.

It all sounded very poor, but somehow quite cosy too. Looking about him, Henry found it hard to imagine Edie's cottage the way it had been in olden days. For now it was as bright and cheerful as it could be, the box-bed gone and lovely swirly carpets on the floor. The old kitchen fire had gone too, and a beautiful green tile fireplace stood in its place, and there were flowery curtains and a television set and lots of nice china ornaments.

With his drawing safely stowed, he buckled up his satchel once more. Speed Bonnie Boat. He had got it wrong. He often got things wrong. There was another song they had learned at school. 'Ho Ro

My Nut Brown Maiden.' Henry, singing lustily with the rest of the class, could just imagine the maiden. A little Pakistani, like Kedejah Ishak, with her dark skin and her shining pigtail, rowing like mad across a windy loch.

His mother had had to explain that one to him.

As well, ordinary words could be confusing. People said things to him, and he heard them, but heard them just the way they sounded. And the word, or the image conjured up by the word, stuck in his mind. Grown-ups went on