“Yes!” Jack punched the air, surprising the people around him who jumped back in alarm.
“Yes what?” I piped up. We’d found a spot in the field’s edge which wasn’t so crowded. This year’s Lochalshie Highland Games had not drawn in as many people as last year’s event, which had been graced by the presence of one of the biggest reality TV stars in the world, but it was still busy. Mother Nature had granted us a warm, sunny day too, rare in the north-west of Scotland.
From where we sat, I could see the tops of heads as dancers competed on the stage and the queue that snaked all the way around the park as people waited to see Psychic Josie, international medium consulted by all the stars. (As she herself put it.) From time to time, the bagpipes sounded. Earlier that day, the local pipe band dressed in regimental tartan marched down the High Street to start the games, and a few of them hung around piping tunes for the dancers and hammer throwers.
“The results are in!” Jack showed me his phone. As a long-time resident of Lochalshie, Jack held the record for best caber tosser in the area. And, as I often told him, the best-looking caber tosser. Shockingly judgemental of me to say so, but the competition wasn’t high. Meeting any of the other contenders on a dark night guaranteed nightmares.
Jack’s screen showed the Lochalshie WhatsApp group—the first and often the only source of up-to-date news for the area. Angus had sent out a rude message questioning the accuracy of the result but was one hundred percent certain the village’s biggest tosser had won.
“I’ve regained my pride,” Jack said. “First again.”
Last year, he didn’t win—distracted thanks to his pursuit of me. He was back in the game this year. The sun caught the red in his hair and made it gleam. I fell in love with Jamie Fraser’s far more handsome and younger brother, and I still tingled when I looked at him. The Games competitors all looked the part—kilts, Timberland boots and tight T-shirts. Biased I know, but no-one wore a kilt better than Jack. He had the knees to carry it off. And the biceps to show off a skin-tight black T-shirt, and the calves that displayed socks to full adv—
“Gaby?”
I snapped to attention. Tempting as it was to sneak off home for a little tumble, we were committee members. Our job today was to help organise the Highland Games and ensure everything ran smoothly.
I ruffled his hair. “Good,” I said. “I only date winners.” Whispered, “Sleep with.”
He laughed and leaned over to kiss me, a tiny peck on the lips that took me back to our first kiss on this same day one year ago. Once upon a time, I lived in Great Yarmouth with my boyfriend of ten years who was, not to put too fine a point on it, a douche bag. Chance took me here—the village in the middle of nowhere—when I signed up for cat-sitting services. As a fanatical Outlander fan, I’d been delighted to discover the village contained Jack, Jamie Fraser’s (better-looking) double. We didn’t hit it off at first, but the path of true love never does run smooth as the cliché goes. When we got together months later, it was all the sweeter for the wait.
And what a year it had been.
“What’s the prize, oh champion tosser?” I asked Jack. “One thousand pounds?”
That was the cash prize last year. In my head, I’d spent the money already starting with a long weekend in a luxury hotel somewhere in the city where I rediscovered retail therapy and the two of us romped on a bed we didn’t have to make afterwards.
“Ah… ten pounds and a wee dod o’ shortbread.”
Oh well. Last year’s generous donation was a one-off. Though it seemed cheeky to force the winner to make his own prize. Yes, my boyfriend not only tossed cabers with aplomb, but he was also a dab hand in the kitchen. His shortbread had won the best bakery entry overall in the village’s version of the Great British Bake Off, which had taken place earlier this afternoon.
“We’d better make our way over there,” I said, “so you can have your picture taken receiving the prize for best caber toss.” And then upload it onto the village website and Facebook page. If it’s not on social media, it never happened right?
The Games were almost finished. The crowds had drifted away, and the stallholders were packing up. I’d seen plenty of people carrying bags brandishing the names of local companies—those selling soap, candles, hand-knitted jumpers, food and everything else artisan and craft-sy. Jack’s stall advertising his authentic Outlander (ish) tours of the Highlands had taken sheet-loads of sign-ups to his mailing list, which promised a good start to next year’s tourist season.
We picked our way over the field. Torrential rain the week before had turned it into a quagmire. The sun had come out today and the day before, making them the best ones of the summer so far. A miracle. The muddiness was due in part to building work going on nearby. The Highland Games took place in the large greenfield area next to the Royal George hotel. It had been bought last year by a company determined to expand. And the field was under threat. Next year, we’d need to find somewhere else to hold the games.
“Jack!” Angus waved us over. He sat at a table in front of the roped-off area for the actual games. Kids mucked about, trying to turn over the smallest of the tractor tyres. A few of them managed, which was more than could be said for me. I tried taking part in Highland Games activities once—the result a broken windscreen on an expensive car thanks to losing control of a too-heavy hammer.
“Fancy a go at the tug of war?” Angus said, standing up. I had to strain my neck to look up at him. He was also a rugby prop—a truly terrifying prospect to face. No wonder he doubled up as a bouncer at our local pub.
Jack squeezed my hand. “Nah. Gaby and I were going to head home and—”
Just what I’d been thinking too. But Angus butted in.
“New team put themselves forward. Calling themselves the Royal George champions.”
Rivalry between the Lochside Welcome and the Royal George, the two pubs that bookended the village, had always been fierce. This year it was worse than ever. The expansion of the hotel threatened the Lochside Welcome—our favourite pub. The George never usually bothered with the tug of war. This year they must be trying to prove something. Honour was at stake.
Jack turned to me, eyes glinting. Often, I had to pinch myself. My mind would feverishly run through his many plus points. Red-head! With lovely knees! Jamie Fraser or rather Sam Heughan look-a-like but better… Then, I’d give my mind a ticking-off for being so shallow and make myself list the good points that didn’t relate to his appearance. Kind! Maker of fantastic shortbread! Considerate! Fun to be with.
…a-may-zing between the sheets.
We’d seen little of each other during the past week. It being August, the tourist season was in full swing, and Jack left most mornings at sparrow’s fart, not returning until nine or ten o’clock at night. He was off tomorrow, and we’d planned to sneak away from the games early and… catch up.
“You go,” I said, prodding him forward. “And make me proud.”
He and Angus exchanged eyebrow-raises—an ‘as if!’ thing I guessed. The Highland Games champion caber tosser and hammer thrower along with the other rugby boys, and Stewart who fuelled himself on industrial quantities of lager and porridge. What could the Royal George team throw at that?
Jolene wandered over to join me, baby clamped to her front. Macmillan Junior was a month old and—luckily for him—had inherited most of his mother’s eight percent Māori genes. A tiny dark head nestled against Jolene’s chest and snored gently. She’d put those baby headphones on him to protect against the bagpipes.
“How’s Tamar?” I asked, resisting the impulse to stroke his little head. As a later in life cat lover, I wasn’t sure what you did with babies, but I assumed they didn’t enjoy being stroked the way cats did.
“Fine,” Jolene said, reaching her arms behind her so she could stretch out her back. “Though I wouldn’t mind heaps more sleep at night, eh?”
Like many New Zealanders, most of what Jolene said sounded questioning.
“And is Stewart…?” Pulling his weight. A delicate question. Stewart’s second home was the Lochside Welcome. I didn’t know how much that had changed since the arrival of baba. Or if his attendance there had increased—a reluctant father too eager to leave the demands of parenthood to the woman.
She grinned—large straight white teeth gleaming, and the movement highlighting the dimples she had on each cheek. “Devoted. Tamar’s his perfect audience. He doesn’t mind listening to Stewart for hours at a time. Works a treat to get him off to sleep.”
Oh to be a baby! If you nodded off when a person started banging on about the mysteries and marvels of coding as Stewart loved to do, no-one considered it impolite.
“Blast it!” Jolene’s tone changed. Alarm. She pointed across the field.
I followed the direction of her fingers—the Royal George and a line of people who’d walked out of it. The tug of war wasn’t always about bulk and size but having heavyweights on your team was an advantage. Every man swaggering out of the hotel was three times the height and width of a normal person. Except for the end guy who looked familiar though I wasn’t close enough to see.
“Right,” Jolene said, unbuckling her baby harness. “He’s been fed and changed, and he’s fast asleep.”
To my dismay, I realised she meant me for me to hold Tamar. Oh heck. Before I could mutter, “Gosh, are you sure?”, she strapped the baby to me, dropped a kiss on his head and strolled over to the Lochside Welcome team.
That was the thing with Jolene. She was far fitter than your average person and stronger too. All the way through her pregnancy she jogged and weight-lifted—all the better to pop your baby out in under two hours, as her GP (and my almost mother-in-law Dr McLatchie) told me later.
The team members lined up, eight on each side, one behind the other and a thick strand of rope lying to the side of them. Word must have spread. Those crowds drifting off home drifted back inside the park gates. Whistles, cheers, boos and catcalls started up.
I booed myself when I worked out who the Royal George’s end man was. Zac Cavanagh, one-time resident of Lochalshie, would-be boyfriend of my best friend and murderer. Come on, the Lochside Welcome team!
“The rotten, sodding cheats,” Laney Haggerty hissed beside me. Owner of the local riding school and a cousin of Ashley, proprietor of the Lochside Welcome, she had skin in the game. “Channel 5 is filming the World’s Strongest Man in Inverness. The Royal George has bussed them all in. I hope their steroid-filled biceps explode under the strain.”
I could hardly bear to watch. These monsters dwarfed Jack, Angus and the others. The teams picked up the rope, the centre line above a marking on the ground. Jolene, face grimly determined, was third in line. Jack was behind her, his face equally so.
Big Donnie—and even he looked tiny next to the George’s team—held a whistle and conferred with the teams’ drivers. He positioned himself at the line marked on the ground, raised his arm in the air and dropped it, blowing the whistle at the same time.
The teams’ drivers yelled instructions. “It’s no’ just about big bulging muscles,” Laney said, eyeing the other team in their wife-beater vests with distaste. “A team needs rhythm too, so they harmonise their traction power.”
I nodded as if I understood what she meant, my eyes fixed on the middle of the rope as it moved one way then the other. The whistles, cat calls and jeers grew louder. Laney gripped my hand and Tamar stirred, his little mouth opening and shutting before he twisted his head the other way and returned to baby snores.
A faint cheer but a much louder boo sounded as the George’s team yanked the Lochside Welcome’s four metres over the centre line.
“Best of three!” someone yelled, and the teams nodded.
Second time round, the driver’s pep talk must have worked. After what felt like the whole field willed on the Lochside Welcome team to “heave!”, the George’s overgrown athletes stumbled over the centre. Tamar’s baby headphones did their job. The ear-shattering cheer that went up didn’t disturb him.
So, one-all. Laney started muttering the Hail Mary under her breath.
Once more, the teams lined up, feet dug into the ground and scowls all round. Jack twisted his head and blew me a kiss. I blew him one back and concentrated on bargaining with everyone—God, the universe, Big Donnie even, any old Celtic god whose spirit still hung around.
Please. Let. Them. Win.
And if they did… An idea took root. What about if I…? Yes, yes, yes! The team’s win would be a clear sign from the universe. Approval, even.
The George’s too-big crew hauled the rope over to their side so easily, our team fell forward—the ground yanked out from underneath them. The boos rose once more. I cursed, upset because the universe had just signalled disapproval for my plan. The omens had seemed so promising too.
Laney shook her head. “No way,” she said, ducking under the rope that fenced off the field. She marched over to Big Donnie. He blew his whistle once more and called both teams back.
“What did you say?” I asked when she returned. “Those rotten cheats cheated again,” she said. “Did you notice the guy second at the back? He had the rope over his shoulder. Not allowed!”
Big Donnie conferred with the teams’ drivers. Both sides gesticulated wildly, but another cheer went up when every team member returned to their positions. A replay then. Beside me, Laney muttered, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”
The ground wouldn’t help the Royal George. Those overgrown heavier than average bodies were ankle-deep in rain-sodden soft soil. The cry, “Heave!” started up once more, and both teams grasped the rope and pulled.
Laney bargained. She’d resume regular chapel attendance; even get up at 8am to attend mass every morning. “What are you going to do, Gaby?” she asked as we watched the rope nervously. “Give up pizza and chips for two months?”
“No! I’m going to do something much better.”
“… blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus… Oh aye? What are you going to do?”
I tapped my nose.
This time, the universe listened. Seconds later, the George’s giants fell forward and everyone around us exploded—yelps, hoorays, claps and wolf whistles. Time to fulfil my part of the bargain.
