CM Keir

I put it down to having been born in a very bad storm - apparently the Kessock ferry was off, so it must have been bad...and no bridge to Inversneckie in those days. Today was one of those days – half-heard on the evening news the night before, we hadn’t expected the groans and the bawdy rocking of the house that was now shaking the very rafters and making the window jambs stretch and the coal shed beat like the drum of Death. The rain starting and stopping so frequently that one dash to the shop to fetch a pint of milk for the evening coffee turned from a struggle to walk to a dash home in the teeth of the gale, flying all the time, the spinnaker of her long-coat catching on trees and railings as she went.

Drawing the curtains shut for fear of the wind, she huddled her winter cardigan close around her shoulders. The drapes in the scullery last to be pulled, necessary as the cottage was so old and draughty, she saw tree-cast shapes throwing themselves about in the wet-obscured orange from the village’s single streetlight. She saw blackness all around. And she heard the crunch of someone on the gravel border by the window.

Scared, she squeezed her head closer to the pane, trying to tell if she could see her visitor. But nothing. Nothing and noone to be discerned in the raging black. She finished her job, making sure the two yards of cloth joined at the middle and overlapped to be impassable by sight from without, then she took to the front room.

Here, where the fire cracked and the radio sang, she silently drew all three bolts on the door. She had no reason to be scared other than the wind. She had no enemies to speak of. No exciting past to be returned to her. Yet scared she was. The door had only ever been locked so securely once or twice a year when she went away. Once or twice a year when she knew it was the sensible thing to do. Now this also seemed a sensible time to strengthen her fort and keep within. Her cat peered sleepily from his place down at the hearth, sleepily he stretched, rolled and fell back to dreams of chasing birds in the lane. She finished her glass of red and picked-up her book to try and return to Helsingør.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The door was rocking on its pins at the force. Hardy oak that had known the winter storms of eighty years or more was splintering as she watched. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Iron bolts as thick as her thumbs were beginning to wrench out the hasps and clasps that bound them. And still it went on. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The tattered brush at the foot of the door, designed to keep the dust and the wind out, shook loose from it’s screws and hung slackly from one corner. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!