Keepsakes from the Cottage by the Loch (Loch Cameron #6)

Chapter 7

SEVEN

‘Tea could be stronger. I’d have left the bag in.’ Dotty opened the china teapot and peered inside it. ‘How many did ye use?’

‘One.’ Tara opened the floral chintz curtains in her parents’ bedroom and let in the morning sunlight. She’d helped Dotty sit up in bed and put a knitted bedjacket around her mother’s shoulders after bringing her breakfast on a tray and setting it carefully over Dotty’s legs. Then, she’d gone to the window. This was the order that her mother had specified the day before, because, in her words, I dinnae want the whole o’ Loch Cameron seein’ me in me nightie, Tara.

Tara had really wanted to point out to her mother that not only was her bedroom on the first floor, and so it was deeply unlikely that anyone would see her from a vantage point outside, but Dotty was also in bed under the covers, and wearing a long-sleeved nightdress. Quite what her mother imagined anyone could see of her, apart from brushed cotton and her hair slightly askew, Tara had no idea. Still, she knew that it wasn’t best to argue with Dotty.

‘I’d usually put two bags in,’ Dotty instructed. ‘Make sure ye do two tomorrow, hen. ’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Tara returned to sit at the end of Dotty’s bed. She’d been thinking about how to tell her mother the news about Ramsay, but she hadn’t said anything the day before. She’d still been processing it herself. ‘Errr… I have news.’

‘Do you?’ Dotty chewed a piece of toast. ‘What?’

‘When I was at the market yesterday, I saw Ramsay Fraser.’ Better just to say it in one go , Tara thought. Just get it out.

‘Oh, did ye?’ Dotty pursed her lips. ‘I thought that might happen, though perhaps no’ on yer first trip out.’ She sighed. ‘I was goin’ tae tell ye, darlin’.’

‘You knew?’ Tara asked, incredulously.

‘Only just. A few days ago. I saw him on the high street. Didnae say hello, but it was him all right,’ Dotty told her. ‘I havenae spoken tae him. The day after I saw him, I had my fall, an’ I forgot all aboot it. Are ye all right, poppet? It must’ve been a shock. I must say, it was a shock tae me too.’

‘It was, yeah. We had a brief chat and then he had to run off.’ Tara let out a long breath. ‘Agh. It was weird. But I think there was a part of me that always thought he might be dead. I know it was stupid, but…’ she trailed off.

‘Aye, I thought the same, over the years. Ye never know. Your father an’ I even filed a missing person’s report at the time, hen. We were that worried that someone had done somethin’ awful tae him.’ Dotty shook her head. ‘His family were terrible. I dinnae if ye ever really knew the Frasers. We kept Ramsay away from them as much as we could.’

‘I do remember you asking him over all the time. And he had his own room here.’ Tara nodded.

‘Hmm. I’ll tell ye about them one day. Make your hair turn white.’ Dotty closed her eyes. ‘Still. Now he’s back, what’ll you do?’

‘I don’t know, Mum. It’s a lot to take in.’

‘Aye. Ye could start dancin’ together again,’ Dotty suggested. ‘It always made ye so happy. ’

‘Mum. I teach Primary 4. When am I going to find time for a Highland dancing career?’ Tara snapped. She’d never felt that Dotty had taken her teaching seriously; she’d always wanted Tara to be a dancer.

‘Listen, whit’s fer ye won’t go past ye.’ Dotty raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe Ramsay bein’ back, is a sign. That ye should start dancin’ again. It made ye so happy. Up there, on the stage, free as a bird.’ Her mother looked misty for a moment, deep in her memories.

‘Mum. I’m way too old for that. I haven’t even done any cardio in years,’ Tara protested. ‘And, anyway… it’s not about that. Seeing Ramsay… it’s really messing with my mind. I grieved him like he was dead, Mum. And now he turns up, back in my life, just like that.’ She realised that she was choking back tears. ‘It’s a lot.’

‘All’s I’m sayin’ is, think aboot it.’ Dotty sighed again. ‘Dancin’ was such a happy time for ye. I used tae watch ye up on stage an’ be so proud o’ how free ye were, in yerself. Ye were always so bright, so happy. I’m not sayin’ yer not now, but some o’ that… radiance , it’s no’ there anymore.’

‘Oh. Thanks a lot.’ Tara felt immediately defensive.

‘I dinnae mean it like that. It’s just because I care.’ Dotty looked uncomfortable.

Tara felt as though she couldn’t ever make Dotty understand how heartbroken she was when Ramsay left. Perhaps that was just the way that her mother was: she’d always been brisk and kind, not one for showing deep emotion. Dotty and Eric had been supportive when Ramsay had disappeared, but Tara had never really felt that they’d understood just how deeply it had hurt her. It had taken years for Tara to recover from the loss, and she’d thrown herself into her teaching career to distract herself.

Teaching was consuming, needed focus and took up most of her free time with marking and planning and involving herself in various after school clubs and pastoral care for the children that needed it. After she’d finished university and her teaching qualifications and got her first job, Tara had put herself forward for as many extra responsibilities as she could. She wanted to fill her time so that she didn’t have to think about Ramsay. And she’d got so used to pushing the memory of him into a corner of her mind – behind a locked door where all of her memories of him lurked – that when she’d seen him again, it was a shock. That door had been blown open, and all of her memories had been jolted free.

Yet, there was a truth in what Dotty was saying, too – once, Tara had been so carefree. In the days when she’d been a dancer, she’d had a freedom in her spirit and her soul that wasn’t connected to Ramsay or anyone else. Dance had been her way to connect to that sense of being that she’d heard described on social media as a flow state. A sense of being completely in the moment, of feeling connected to something profound and just being in a state of joy.

She didn’t experience joy anymore, not in that same way of complete freedom, complete abandonment to the moment. Teaching gave her plenty of heart-full moments with the children, who she genuinely loved, but it wasn’t the same.

She didn’t know how to explain that to her mother, who was looking at her concernedly.

‘Aww, hen. I’m sorry.’ Dotty handed her a tissue from a box by the bed. ‘Come and give me a hug. Gentle, mind ye.’

Tara hugged her mum briefly around the shoulders and blew her nose, sitting back at the end of the bed. ‘Ugh. Sorry.’

‘No’ a bit o’ it, poppet. It’s a shock,’ Dotty sighed. ‘Ye know, you’ve always put me in mind o’ my aunt Agnes,’ she added. ‘She was independent. Bookish. Emotional, like ye. And a teacher, of course.’

‘I know.’ This was familiar ground for Tara. Her similarity to her spinster great-aunt was a common theme of conversation between her and Dotty, even though Dotty never seemed to remember the fact that they’d talked about Agnes before. ‘She never married. Taught at the primary school all her life.’

‘Aye, she did.’ Dotty nodded sagely. ‘Became a teacher after the war. She would only have been young while all that was happenin’, I think, and then there were more jobs for women after the war, weren’t there? Emancipation, an’ all that. I’m not sure what qualifications she had. Not like you, probably. But she loved it. Never married.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ Tara rolled her eyes. ‘Are you saying I’m destined to be a spinster all my life?’

‘No! Just, that she was happy wi’ her life. That’s no’ a bad thing,’ Dotty said, defensively. ‘Loved books too. Ye know, we have some o’ her books down in the bar. The poetry ones, leather bound. Ye’ll have seen them.’

‘I don’t remember seeing them. But okay.’ Tara shrugged. ‘I’ll check them out.’ She still felt very glum, and the prospect of leafing through great-aunt Agnes’ old poetry books wasn’t particularly thrilling. Plus, she had a million chores to do.

‘Hmm. Ye should take them back with ye, probably. Bein’ the family bookworm,’ Dotty said. ‘Listen, hen. It’ll be okay, with Ramsay. I know it’s ootae the blue, him comin’ back. But it’s a good thing, isn’t it? Ye might have a second chance at happiness. I’ve prayed fer it. I really did.’

‘I don’t know, Mum. It’s been a long time.’ Tara still felt utterly overwhelmed by the impact of seeing Ramsay. ‘I’m not even thinking about that right now.’

‘Well, perhaps ye should,’ Dotty said, quietly.

But there was the thought in the back of her brain that she couldn’t get over. What if, rather than a second chance at happiness, she’d done something terrible – something that had ruined her chances of reunion with Ramsay forever?