Page 8 of Summer Escapes on the Scottish Isle

Satisfied that he’d done everything that needed to be done, Mack ensured the boat was secure, then sauntered towards his truck and climbed in. He was looking forward to a shower, followed by some home-cooked food, courtesy of his mum. As far as he was concerned, nothing could beat his mum’s cooking. He dropped in every Friday for his tea, and sometimes during the week as well.

He wondered what was on the menu tonight. Gossip, certainly, because his mum loved nothing better than to keep abreast of everything that went on in Duncoorie. His brother would probably get a couple of mentions too, usually in the form of nagging Mack as to, ‘When are you going to find yourself a nice girl like Jinny?’ Jinny was his brother’s wife, and his mum loved her to bits.

Mack couldn’t understand this drive to see him settle down that everyone seemed to have. It pained him that Cal, one of his best mates, had also joined the ranks of happy coupledom, and now was extolling its virtues and trying to get Mack all loved-up.

Mack wasn’t having any of it. He was having too much fun being footloose and fancy-free. Besides, he’d done the serious relationship bit, and it hadn’t ended well. There was no way he was going to risk being hurt a second time.

Forty minutes later, he was striding past a row of five terraced whitewashed cottages. His mother lived in the middle one. She’d moved in a few years back, after Mack had bought his own place, saying that the three-bed family home was too big for her and the wrap-around garden too much to cope with.

He had to admit that this cottage was rather cute. The two bedrooms were built into the loft, and although small, they were light and airy due to the skylights set into both sides of the grey slate roof. With a kitchen on one side of the little vestibule and a sitting room on the other, it was the perfect size for her.

When he entered the kitchen, his nose began working overtime as he sniffed the delicious aroma of frying sausages. His mum was at the stove, her face red from the heat, and she beamed when she saw him.

‘What are we having?’ he asked, giving her cheek a quick peck as he peered into a bubbling saucepan.

‘Sausage and neeps.’

‘And onion gravy?’

‘You and your gravy.’ Jean rolled her eyes. ‘I’m mashing carrots in with the neeps.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t eat enough veg,’ she said.

‘Neeps is veg.’

‘Swede only counts asoneof your five a day.’

‘Potatoes don’t?’ he teased, and she waved a spatula at him.

‘Go lay the table, else I’ll feed your sausages to the dog.’

Mack laughed out loud. ‘We haven’t got a dog.’

‘The cat, then.’

‘We don’t have a cat either,’ he pointed out, then hastily glanced around the kitchen in case his mother had suddenly acquired one.

‘Rhona has, although it spends enough time in my house that it may as well be mine,’ she replied.

Mack took some knives and forks out of the drawer and placed them on the table, while his mum drained the pan containing the swede, potatoes and carrots.

‘Have you heard?’ she asked.

Mack grinned.Here we go, he thought,gossip time. He supposed it was inevitable in a small place like Duncoorie, where everyone knew everyone else – unless they were tourists, of course. The village, along with the rest of Skye, had a fair number of those. And very glad he was too; tourists wanting to go whale and dolphin watching were what kept a roof over his head.

‘Heard what?’ he asked.

‘Vinnie’s had a fall.’

Mack pulled a sympathetic face. Vinnie Sinclair owned the end cottage two doors down. An elderly chap, he lived alone, his wife having passed away many years ago. He used to have a trawler operating out of the same quay where Mack moored his boat, but that was before Mack had started his whale-watching business.

‘Is he OK?’ he asked, pouring two glasses of water.

‘Broken hip, Rhona reckons. She was the one who found him. Poor man had been lying on the kitchen floor for most of the night. She only heard him because that cat of hers was nagging to go out, otherwise he could still be there. She says they’ve transferred him to Inverness.’

Mack’s heart went out to the old fella. It was awful what old age did to a person, and he thanked God that his mum was fit and healthy.

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