‘But Grandad, I’m tired. Why can’t we sleep in a bedroom?’
‘I told you, Sean, Grandad hasn’t paid for a bedroom, just two seats.’ Arthur Rowse sighed and wished that British Rail employees wouldn’t leave the sleeping compartments with their doors sitting open - the boy would never have known about them if he hadn’t seen them for himself. ‘We’ll easily manage to sleep in here. It’ll be great fun, won’t it - not sleeping in a bed?’
He slung his duffel bag up on to the luggage rack and sat down, his heart sinking at the sight of the little boy’s disappointed face. Stretching out a gnarled, weather-beaten hand, he patted the fair, curly head. ‘It’ll be easy. Put your feet up and lie down with your head on Grandad’s knees and you’ll be asleep in no time.’ He hoped fervently that no other travellers would want to come in.
‘When I waken up, will we be in Scotland?’
‘Like enough, Sean.’
‘Will I see the mountains, Grandad?’
‘Once we’re in Scotland, you’ll see them, I promise.’
It was 11.15 p.m., and their train was still standing in King’s Cross station. They had left Yarmouth at 3 o’clock that afternoon, so it was little wonder that the boy was tired. Plus, he’d been up at six to wave goodbye to his father and mother, on their way to Aberdeen where his father had taken a job as an engineer with an oil company. As most of their belongings had gone on ahead of them, it was just the odds and sods which had been loaded into the boot and back seats of their Capri.
The two adults and baby Susan had taken up all the space in the front of the car, so Arthur had volunteered to take Sean by train, trying to postpone the evil hour of parting. It was going to be a long, lonely journey back to Yarmouth by himself.
The six-year-old settled himself down and was very quiet, and Arthur wasn’t surprised to see that he had fallen asleep already, his long, surprisingly dark eyelashes resting on his flushed cheeks.
With a shudder, the train drew slowly out of the station, and Arthur shifted his hip slightly to take his pipe out of his pocket. Puffing contentedly, he wondered how Nell and he would fill their lives now that the young folk had left. His wife was probably lying awake right now, going over their John’s life from the time he’d made his first squawking appearance.
Nell was going to miss John and Marge, his wife, but it was he, Arthur admitted to himself, who was going to miss young Sean most. He’d been the boy’s slave since the day the small dimpled hand had first clutched his finger and taken over his heart. How proudly he had taken out the pram to show off his grandson to his fisherman friends, and when at last the boy was old enough to walk with him, it had always been the harbour they had headed for.
Since Sean had started school, of course, they’d only been able to go out together on Saturdays and Sundays, except during the holidays, when they had set off early every day, rain or shine. ‘Was that the boat you used to go on, Grandad?’ Sean would ask a dozen times. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a trawlerman just like you and go out to sea in my boat.’
Arthur had been pleased about that. It had gone some way to make up for the disappointment he’d felt when John had refused to follow in his father’s footsteps. Sean loved to hear stories of his grandfather’s experiences in the Royal Navy during the war, and, especially just lately, of the time he’d been in Aberdeen. Arthur remembered that time, taken off a minesweeper and spending four weeks in Foresterhill Hospital after having his appendix removed. He hadn’t really seen much of the place, but had told the boy that it was a beautiful city, clean but cold.
‘Will I like it in Aberdeen?’ Sean had asked. ‘Maybe I’d better stay here with you and Gran.’
He had felt his heart lift then, but said, ‘What about your mum and dad, though? They’d miss you, and you’d soon be wanting to see them again, and Susan. No, son, you’ll like Aberdeen and you’ll forget all about Yarmouth in a short time.’ And about your grandad, had come the sobering thought.
He watched Sean shifting his position in his sleep. He was now lying with his feet against his grandfather’s leg, his head against the side of the carriage, one hand dangling over the edge of the seat and the other flung across his forehead. He looked so sweet and defenceless that Arthur had to restrain himself from grasping him up in his arms, and had to swallow several times to get rid of the lump in his throat. Knocking his pipe out in the ashtray, he put his feet up on the seat opposite.
No one else had come into the carriage - probably worried that the boy would be noisy when he woke up; but his Sean was never noisy. Well, not all that much. He fell asleep himself eventually, vaguely aware of the station noise at York, but the next time he surfaced was in Newcastle.
It was daylight now and he took a newspaper from his pocket. It was yesterday’s news, bought before they’d boarded the train in London. But it would occupy his mind and turn his thoughts away from the parting that had to come. He dozed again after a while, and in no time, it seemed, they were in Edinburgh, the milk churns clanking and a magazine trolley rattling alongside the window.
Sean sat straight up, wide awake at once. That was the best of being so young, there was no land of in-between, when the worries and anxieties of the day, forgotten in sleep, came crowding back to haunt you. ‘Is it Scotland yet, Grandad?’
‘Yes, son, this is Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.’
‘I’ll soon be seeing the mountains, then, and that’s two capitals I’ve seen, because when we were in London, you said that was the capital of England.’
‘That’s right. You’re a clever one, fancy remembering that. You’ll get on just great at your new school, I’m sure.’
Sean looked thoughtful. ‘I wonder what my new school will be like? Do the people in Aberdeen speak a different language, Grandad?’
‘You’ll think so until you get used to them.’
‘Will they laugh at me for the way I speak?’
‘I don’t think they’ll laugh, but they’ll likely find it difficult to understand what you’re saying.’
‘Why will they? I don’t speak funny.’
‘It’ll sound funny to them, though, Sean.’
The small lips pouted for a second. ‘I don’t think I’m going to like it in Aberdeen, Grandad. Can’t I go home to Yarmouth with you to live?’
Arthur was secretly pleased - there was nothing he’d like more - but shook his head. ‘You can’t do that, son. Anyway, you’re not going to be living right in Aberdeen. Your new house is more than twenty miles north of that.’
The guard blew his whistle, the train left Waverley Station and, after the scary journey through the tunnel, they could see the scenery again. With the quicksilver change of childhood, Sean forgot his qualms about the new life ahead of him.
‘Is that a mountain, Grandad?’ he asked in great excitement. He was pointing to the Castle, on its pedestal of volcanic rock.
‘Not really, but we’ll see one soon.’ Arthur stood up and took the duffel bag from the luggage rack. ‘Your Gran put something in here for us to eat. What say we have some breakfast?’
‘Ooh, yes, please, Grandad, but I’ll have to go to the toilet first.’
How could he have forgotten the most important of the boy’s needs, Arthur chided himself, recognising the same need in himself now. ‘Right, then, off we go.’ He hoped that the toilet would be free, or if it wasn’t, that they wouldn’t have long to wait until it was. Thankfully, most of the passengers had been up and about earlier, and they just had to wait a few minutes. Luckily, the Forth Bridge caused a diversion, as Arthur had told Sean just the week before that when he had travelled home from Aberdeen during the war, all the passengers had thrown pennies over the bridge for luck. So he dipped into his trouser pocket, took out a handful of small change and selected a penny for the boy to throw from the open window of the nearest carriage. ‘It only brings good luck,’ he instructed, ‘if it goes into the water.’ Unfortunately, the coin landed at the edge of the bridge, but bounced over the side and splashed into the river far below. Arthur wondered if Sean would worry about it not going straight into the water, but he seemed to be quite happy with his throw.
Back in their seats, Sean eagerly opened the duffel bag and pulled out a plastic container. ‘What’s in here?’
Soon they were munching sandwiches and drinking Coke out of tins. ‘It’s like a picnic, isn’t it. Grandad?’ Sean looked up into his grandfather’s craggy face, but the excitement on his own small countenance vanished as a shadow passed over it.
He’s thinking there’ll be no more picnics for the two of us, Arthur mused. It was going to be a heartbreaking business for both of them to say goodbye when he had to leave the boy. But even before they had finished eating, he was keeping constant his vigil.
‘That’s a mountain this time, isn’t it? Say yes, Grandad.’ He pointed to a mound in the distance.
‘No, no, that’s only a slag heap. Coal, you know.’
Mountains seemed to hold a deep fascination for the boy, but the old man realised that he’d been born and brought up in East Anglia, flat as a pancake, so he had probably never seen anything higher than a small hill.
They continued their journey, with Sean jumping up at intervals to say, ‘I don’t see any mountains yet, Grandad.’
When Arthur did at last point out the ranges that could be seen in the distance, his grandson was rather disappointed. ‘They’re too far away. I can’t see them properly.’
At Montrose, he was interested to see all the equipment lying around in the oil complexes. ‘Will my daddy be working with things like that?’
‘Like enough, lad, and he’ll be out on the oil rigs as well, I believe. Remember, I showed you a photo of one the other day?’
When the train passed Stonehaven, with less than half an hour to go before it reached Aberdeen, Arthur started to dread their arrival. ‘I hope your mum and dad’ll be there in time to meet us.’
‘What’ll we do if they’re not there, Grandad?’
A note of alarm sounded in the piping voice, and the old man regretted speaking his fears out loud. He had only succeeded in transmitting them to the boy. ‘No problem, son. We’ll just go in for a cup of char. There’s sure to be a tearoom there somewhere.’
The problem was pushed to the back of the boy’s mind when they passed a range of low hills. ‘Are they mountains, Grandad?’
‘Only little ones, lad. They’re likely the foothills of the Grampian Mountains. I’ll show you on the map when your dad unpacks it.’
They fastened up the duffel bag, took their coats off the rack and were standing at the door of the carriage as the train drew into the platform at Aberdeen Joint Station. It was a long walk to the ticket barrier and Sean was still tired. Even as he walked steadily forward, he surreptitiously wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Is it much farther, Grandad? I wish I could see Mummy.’
‘Come here, son, till I clean your face. It’s all sooty from poking your head out of the window on the Forth Bridge.’ The deep voice held a gruff note as Arthur took out his handkerchief, wet it at the boy’s tongue and scrubbed the greyish rivulets on the tear-stained face. ‘Your mum wouldn’t want to see you dirty, now, would she?’
It wasn’t long until they could see the ticket collector, and just behind him were a smiling Marge and John Rouse. ‘Mummy! Daddy!’
It was all Arthur could do to restrain Sean until they went through the gates. As they settled into the thankfully empty Capri, Marge took her son on her lap for the last stage of his daunting journey.
‘Mummy, where’s Susan?’
‘We left her with the lady next door. She was still very tired after yesterday. Did you enjoy being on the train, darling?’
‘Oh, yes! Me and Grandad saw all of Scotland.’ Then, rather wistfully, the boy added, ‘But we didn’t see any mountains near us. Grandad said there weren’t any near the railway line.’
Marge Rouse winked at her husband. ‘Wait till you see our new house, Sean.’ She gave an odd laugh as if she were hiding a secret joke.
The boy looked at his father, who was also laughing. ‘D’you understand what the Scotch people are saying, Daddy?’
‘We haven’t had time to speak to many of them,’ John began, but was interrupted by his father.
‘Scots people, Sean, not Scotch;’ Arthur felt obliged to correct him, because all the Scotsmen he had ever met during the war had always objected to anybody making the same mistake. ‘Scotch is either whisky or broth,’ they would say He didn’t give his grandson this explanation, however, and waited for him to ask, but Sean’s face had turned bright red with excitement.
Arthur looked in the direction where the boy’s eyes were turned and nodded happily. ‘Yes, lad, that’s a mountain.’
They had left the city well behind them and there was no mistaking the massive shape towering into the sky. ‘It’s called Benachie,’ John informed them, ‘and it’s not one of the highest mountains. Our home is just along this road.’ He turned off to the left, and in a few minutes drew the car to a halt in front of a modern villa.
‘That Bena-whatever-you-called-it looks like it’s right at the bottom of our garden,’ Sean observed, reverently, as they walked up the garden path.
His father shrugged. ‘It’s not really, though. It’s a good few miles away, but the estate agent said that lots of people climb to the top to see the wonderful view.’
‘Will you climb up to the top with me, Grandad, before you go home?’
‘Oh, well … I’m not able to climb mountains nowadays, son. I’m too old.’ And he hadn’t felt inclined to climb any when he was younger, either, came the thought.
‘Will you, then, Daddy? Please?’
John laughed. ‘One of these days, maybe.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘No, I’ve a lot of things to do tomorrow. We’ll wait until some time after Grandad goes home.’
‘Must we wait, Daddy? I want to climb it tomorrow. I’m going to love the mountains, especially Ben-thingummy.’ He rushed through to the kitchen where his mother was setting the table for a meal, and discovered that the window there commanded a panoramic view of the huge mass.
‘We’re going to have a lot of good times up there, me and Daddy.’
Looking at the boy’s radiant face when he went back to the lounge, Arthur realised with a sinking heart that this mountain was to be the love in Sean’s life now - a love to replace even his grandad.
They spent the rest of the day helping to unpack the tea chests and arranging the furniture to suit Marge, who couldn’t always make up her mind where she wanted things to go. From time to time Arthur noticed Sean going to the back door, or looking out of one of the windows, to see the impressive Benachie.
‘Wait till I tell the boys at school I’ve got my very own mountain at the end of my garden,’ the boy said, his voice quivering with the thrill of it, then his face fell. ‘I forgot. The boys at this school won’t be the boys I used to know.
The ones here will know Ben-a-whatever better than I do.’ Disconsolately, he went to his grandfather and pushed his small hand into the large one, and Arthur ruffled his hair in sympathy.
By 7 p.m. they were all exhausted. Marge put Susan to bed first, then gave Sean a bath before he went to his. John poured out a couple of drinks and handed one to his father. ‘I think we deserve this, Dad, don’t you?’
They sat in companionable silence for a while, then John asked hopefully, ‘Have you changed your mind about coming here to live? There’s plenty of room for you and Mum, you know.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘You don’t want us old folk living in your pockets, son, and the sea has always been my life. It’s in my blood.’
John gave up. ‘I know that, but remember there’ll always be a room waiting for you if you ever change your mind - or you could come for a holiday any time you like.’
When Marge returned to the large airy lounge, she said, ‘They’re both sound asleep. Sean was absolutely shattered and was off as soon as his head touched the pillow.’ She collapsed on to the settee and held out her hand for the glass John had risen to fill for her.
It wasn’t very long before the three adults realised that they, too, were shattered, so the whole household was asleep by ten o’clock.
The daylight streaming in through the uncurtained window woke Arthur. He listened to the unaccustomed country sounds - birds twittering, a cow lowing nearby - then swung his legs stiffly out of bed. As he dressed, he looked out at the dark outline of the mountain Benachie, with white mists swirling round its top - not a peak, more a plateau. There was something about a sight like this that grabbed you, he thought. No wonder some men go mountaineering. It had never appealed to him, though, and he was too old now even to consider it.
He walked into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, then decided to take a walk before breakfast. Putting on his coat, he noticed by the clock in the hall that it was only five past five.
‘Where are you going, Grandad?’ came an anxious little voice. ‘It’s not time for you to go home already, is it?’ Sean was also fully dressed. ‘I heard you getting up, so I got up, too.’
‘I’m just going for a little walk, lad. If you want to come with me, you’ll need a coat.’
The boy disappeared, to come back struggling into his bright red anorak. He took his grandfather’s hand and the two crept out like conspirators on some unlawful mission.
The keen wind whipped colour into their faces as they stepped briskly past the cluster of houses and turned, naturally, into the road leading towards the mountain, Arthur all the while listening to Sean’s chatter. ‘Mummy and Daddy’ll get a shock when they know what we got up to, won’t they Grandad?’
‘You’re right, son. Maybe we should have left a note.’
A young woman passed them on a bicycle. ‘Aye,’ she called, ‘fine mornin’. You’ll be fae the new hooses?’
‘Yes,’ Arthur shouted to the retreating figure.
‘She did speak funny, Grandad. “You’ll be fae the new hooses”.’ The boy giggled as he mimicked the girl’s broad accent.
They had been walking for half an hour when they came to a road branching off, with a sign ‘Private Road. Home Farm’.
‘Well, we can’t go that way if it’s private,’ Arthur said.
A little farther along, another sign pointed the way to the ‘Mither Tap’.
‘What’s a Mither Tap, Grandad?’ Sean asked when Arthur told him what it said.
‘I don’t know, son, but we could go along and find out, I suppose. It didn’t say it was private, and it’s probably some king of drinking well.’
As they went along the narrow road, not much more than a stony track, Sean hopped and skipped happily in front, looking for the myserious mither tap. Suddenly the road widened out into a large car park, at the far side of which the path continued, but now winding upwards. ‘This must be where people leave their cars when they want to climb up Benachie,’ Arthur announced.
‘And that’s the path to the top.’ Sean raced across the grassy surface towards it.
‘It doesn’t really look high enough to be Benachie,’ Arthur puffed, as he hastened to catch up.
They scrambled over the rough stones, and when they had almost reached the top, they found that it wasn’t the top after all. The path carried on over the brow of this part and went on and on up to the summit. Arthur had no doubts now about it being Benachie, and no doubts either that he wanted to climb to the very top now that they had come this far.
He noticed with relief that the mists were lifting and the sun was beginning to shine, but remembered that it might take some time to reach the highest point, and that he had taken nothing for them to eat.
‘What are those bushes, Grandad? I’ve never seen that kind before.’
‘That’s heather, son. Later on in the year it’ll come out in beautiful purple flowers. That’s why people speak about the purple hills of Scotland. About August or September it’ll look like one solid mass of colour from a distance.’
There were no trees now, and realising they had passed the tree line - the height above which trees will not grow - he explained this to the interested boy. The path had become more and more uneven, and they found the walking quite laborious.
‘It’s a long way, Grandad, but I still want to go to the very top. Mummy and Daddy’ll get a real surprise when we tell them we’ve been right up the mountain. And you said you were too old. You’re not really old, are you?’
‘I’m beginning to feel my age,’ Arthur laughed. ‘I’m getting short of puff.’
‘We can sit down and have a rest. We’ve plenty of time.’
The old man glanced at his wrist watch as he sat down thankfully on a grassy knoll. ‘It’s after eight o’clock, Sean. Your Mum and Dad’ll be up by now, and wondering where we are. We’d better turn back.’
He was surprisingly glad when the boy protested. ‘No, Grandad, we must nearly be at the top now. You said we’d passed the tree line ages ago, so it can’t be far. Please can’t we go on?’
‘In a minute, then.’ Arthur suddenly remembered that he had bought two bars of chocolate in King’s Cross, and they hadn’t needed to eat them; not with the load of sandwiches Nell had packed for them, and the fact that Sean had been asleep for a big part of the journey. He took them from his pocket and gave one to Sean, who sat down beside him. The foil was stuck to the chocolate, but they still tasted wonderful to the two hungry climbers.
‘Are you ready now, Grandad?’
Arthur hoisted himself to his feet and set off after the boy. After a while, the path deteriorated gradually until there was no path any longer. A wall of rock rose out of the earth in front of them, which Sean was madly trying to clamber up. ‘Come back, son, it’s maybe dangerous there.’
His grandson paid no attention and in a few seconds was out of Arthur’s sight, but his excited voice floated back. ‘Grandad! I’m at the top! Come on up!’
‘Eh, son, I don’t think I can make it.’
‘I’ll give you a hand up.’ The small hand dangled into view, but the man, shamed into action, forced himself upwards. He succeeded with no mishaps, although one step had been dodgy as he had dislodged the rock he’d been using as a toehold.
Shakily, he stood up and looked around him. On the flat plateau stood a plaque, showing the surrounding landmarks and naming the distant mountains on the skyline. He tried to place them all for the child, and a wonderful feeling of peace engulfed him; a peace he’d only thought to savour while he was at sea. This was very different from being aboard a ship, though it was still a marvellous, moving experience.
‘Masters of all we survey,’ he laughed, ‘and I can see for miles.’
‘There’s my new house, Grandad.’ Sean was pointing to a row of tiny doll’s houses far below them. ‘I’m going to like it here after all … except … I wish you could stay, Grandad.’
Arthur recalled the day John had told him that he’d taken a job wih an oil firm in Aberdeen, such a distance away. ‘Why don’t you and Mum sell your house and come and live with us? There’s nothing to keep you here, is there?’
Nothing, except that Yarmouth’s always been my home, Arthur had thought. ‘Sea’s in my blood and I don’t like mountains’, was what he had said.
Nell had been quite keen on the idea of moving to be with John and Marge, he knew, but he had held his ground. But now, up here in the sky, his love for the sea was struggling to conquer his love for the boy - and losing. Aberdeen and the sea weren’t that far away, and he couldn’t honestly say now that he didn’t like mountains. This feeling of peace and intoxication, this bracing air, could grow on him. Yes, this place could be the El Dorado he’d been searching for ever since he’d had to give up the trawling.
‘Grandad, are you OK?’ Sean was rather alarmed by his silence.
‘Aye, lad. I’m OK. Definitely OK. Come on, then, we’d better be getting back. I bet your mum and dad won’t believe we’ve climbed Benachie.’
‘Ben-a-heeeee!’ shouted the boy, and with a leap, he turned and ran down the proper path, the path they had somehow managed to stray from on the way up and had been forced into a bit of actual mountaineering. With youthful footsteps, Arthur went after his grandson, and broke into song as they marched, ever downwards.
‘One man went to mow, went to mow a meadow,
‘One man and his dog, went to mow a meadow.’
When they reached the car park, they found John and Marge waiting for them, along with the girl they had seen on her bicycle when they had been on their way to find Benachie.
‘Mummy! Daddy! I’ve been right to the top with Grandad, and it’s beautiful, really beautiful. And we saw heather, and rabbits, and after a while there’s no trees because they don’t grow if it’s too high up, and …’
‘Steady on, son,’ laughed his father. ‘We were worried about you, wondering where the two of you had gone. By good luck, we met this lady and asked if she had seen you. She told us you were heading in the direction of the Mither Tap, and showed us the way.’
‘We didn’t see the tap, Daddy, and we could have been doing with a drink at the top, I can tell you. But we did climb the mountain.’
The girl laughed loudly. ‘The Mither Tap is our way of saying the Mother Top. It’s the main peak of the range.’ Marge was to find out much later that the name had originated because of its shape - the outline of a woman’s breast.
They returned to the car, and Arthur settled gladly back against the cushions. He wasn’t really tired though they had been on the go for hours, but he was glad of the seat. ‘What was your estate agent’s name and address?’ he asked, casually.
John cast a quick, questioning glance at his father, who nodded happily and patted the curly head now resting against Marge. ‘I’ve changed my mind, son. Even an old man can be wrong - not often, mind, just once now and again. I think we’ll buy a house here after all. The mountain has cast its spell on me and I know your mother wanted to come, anyway.’
Sean snuggled deeper into his mother’s arms. This was all too much for the exhausted little boy’s emotions to cope with. ‘It’s like a fairy story, Grandad, and we can all live happily ever after.’
***
Word count: 4796
Written February 1986 before I had a computer, so the words were counted individually, as I also had to do for my first three novels. The computer was a marvellous invention.
Sent to Annabel 12.2.86 - rejected 19.4.86
Sent to Woman’s Realm 22.4.86 - rejected 1.6.86