Barra’s Angel

By Eileen Campbell

Reminiscent of Frank Capra’s ‘Its a Wonderful Life’, Eileen Campbell’s second novel is set once again in a small highland community, this time in the mid-Sixties, and exposing the complex relationships and love affairs of its inhabitants.

As Easter approaches in the small highland community of Drumdarg, Rose Chalmers, who takes in Bedders at her B&B has a few problems: her electrician husband Chalmers (who hopes to secure the big re-wiring contract from the Cunninghams up at the Big House) has caught the eye of flirty Sheena Mearns, and her eccentric 14-year-old son Barra wants her to believe his new best friend is an angel called Jamie he met while wandering in the woods.

Rose is not the only one with problems: did Mad Hattie Macaskill really murder her mother years ago? And as Jim Pasco is dying, his business partner Graham stands by to claim his wife. Stewart Cunningham at the Big House has married a snobbish Sassenach and is bringing her up from London for Easter, and vastly overweight Maisie Henderson, who runs the Whig bar adorned in flowing purple kaftans, is convinced that if her alcoholic husband Doug ever gives up the drink he’ll realise how ugly she is and leave her. And weaving in and out of everyone’s lives is young Barra Maclean who believes the angel only he can see will be able to sort out everyone’s problems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Apr 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9780007401864

Eileen Campbell

Eileen Campbell has travelled the world and studied with a variety of teachers from different religious traditions. She is a pioneer in the field of mind, body and spirit, and during the past two decades has been responsible for the publication of many best-selling books dealing with health, self-help and spiritual growth. In addition to her work as a publisher and writer, she has also broadcast for the BBC and teaches meditation.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Rose glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen clock. Ten to four. Barra would be out of school soon, but when he’d arrive home was another matter. She sighed, and continued scrubbing the tatties. The velvety sound of Nat King Cole soothed her in her labours and she hummed along to her favourite, ‘Nature Boy’. The song reminded her of her son each and every time she heard it, and she smiled. For wasn’t it Barra himself in every line?

The smile dissolved, tugged downwards into a frown. If only Chalmers could see what she saw, could try to understand the boy – just a wee bit. Rose placed the tatties in the pan and dried her hands, tutting at her husband’s scarf which hung carelessly on the back-door knob. Three times this week she had hung it on the hallstand, and three times Chalmers had taken it off; only to leave it dangling behind, having decided at the last minute that the April sunshine would last another day.

Rose reached for the scarf, holding it for a moment against her cheek. Her heart lurched, an uncomfortable habit that had begun just weeks ago. Please God, let me be wrong. I couldn’t stand it … Then fury, white-hot and suffocating, rose within her.

Well, Chalmers Maclean, if it’s Sheena Mearns you want, you can bloody well have her! Rose wrapped the scarf around the doorknob, once, twice, three times, twisting it within an inch of its life.

She gave the stew more of a skelp than a stir, and walked back into the living room. The LP had come to an end and the needle whished irritatingly at its centre. Rose shook her head. Her husband was an electrician, for God’s sake. You’d think he could get the damned thing to work properly!

She lifted the arm back on to its rest and switched off the radiogram. Throwing her small frame heavily into the chair, she snatched yesterday’s newspaper from the basket by the fireplace. Her eyes scanned the headlines. Halfway through the ‘swinging sixties’ and the world’s going to hell in a basket, thought Rose – what with Mods and Rockers, and free love all over the place!

The Craigourie Courier also contained a full-page report on the previous Tuesday’s Budget, which had resulted in an increase in the price of a fag and a dram. And this from a Labour government!

Rose snorted. Who could you trust any more?

Unable to concentrate, she folded the paper and returned to the kitchen. Well, at least she’d have some company when Barra got home. The Easter holidays started today, and she’d be opening the house for the bedders next weekend. Wouldn’t that be enough to keep her mind off things?

Rose gazed out at the ancient forest bordering her home, and knew that it wouldn’t; for Barra would likely be spending every minute he could lost among the trees, giving her even more to worry about.

It was Rose’s ever-present nightmare that Barra would be ‘molested’ (they were using that word more and more on the telly) while wandering in the woods which separated the Maclean household from the Whig at the other end. The Whigmaleerie was, in fact, the full name of the café but, as the building housed Drumdarg’s only shop, bar and café under the one roof, the property had simply been referred to as the Whig for as long as anyone could remember.

The front was given over to the shop and the bar, with the back divided neatly between the café and the kitchen. Maisie Henderson owned all of it, and lived in the four rooms above with her bidie-in, Doug Findlay. It was no secret that Maisie and Doug ‘lived in sin’, but they were popular enough for folks to turn a blind eye to the fact. Besides, they had been together for ten years now, and everyone assumed they would marry some day.

Rose had been glad of Maisie’s friendship when she first arrived in Drumdarg, and the pair had become even closer over the years. Rose had found an easy comfort in Maisie’s company that she had never shared with anyone else. Yet even Maisie paid scant regard to Rose’s complaints about the inordinate length of time Barra spent in the woods.

More than once, Barra had come upon some poor inebriated soul attempting to navigate the forest trail and had helped him back to the Whig, and the inevitability of yet another ‘one for the road’.

‘It’s the boy’s nature,’ Maisie would insist. ‘Y’might as well accept it.’ And, despite Rose’s most earnest entreaties, she could not encourage Barra to stay out of the forest. Chalmers, who had been known to stagger along the trail himself on occasion, could understand her anxiety even less than Maisie.

‘I’d have given my right arm to live wi’ the woods at my back when I was his age,’ he would assure her; often, and in a voice that brooked no argument.

As soon as Chalmers had felt sure his electrical business could support it he had bought the house at Drumdarg; this despite Rose’s concern over such a foreign idea as ‘paying a mortgage’. Once installed, however, Rose had decided to make the best of it and, realising that the front room and the spare bedroom were destined to remain empty most of the time, set about contributing to the family coffers by planting a ‘Bed and Breakfast’ sign at the end of the road. A large carefully printed notice in the shop window of the Whig soon followed, and it wasn’t long before the ‘bedders’ started arriving.

Rose quickly came to appreciate the small independence it brought her, but it didn’t lessen her anxious concern for her son’s well-being.

Barra had been seven years old when they moved from Craigourie to Drumdarg, and the woods were as comfortable to him as his own back garden. They were his back garden. As the seasons turned around him, Rose watched and worried as his childhood slipped seamlessly from him and adulthood began sweeping a gentle brush over the planes of his body; smoothing, preparing.

Yet Barra’s eyes were childlike still, and the magic he found in every leaf, every flower, was captured and distilled, and fed to a heart not yet ready for a grown-up world.

Rose knew these things. Chalmers, of course, did not.

‘You’ve ruined him!’ had become his anthem, especially since the incident with Mama Iacobelli.

Barra had had a late start to his education, due to a sickly infancy which left him smaller and weaker than his contemporaries. Consequently, at the age of thirteen (almost fourteen, as he informed anyone who might care to ask), he was sharing his first year of secondary school with pupils a year younger than he. Among these pupils were the redoubtable Iacobelli twins – more usually referred to as the Yaks.

Once it became known that Barra had had to be pushed in the big pram until he was nearly three years old, the Yaks had all the reason they needed (if, indeed, any was needed) to pick on their new classmate. During Barra’s first term at Craigourie High School he had been beaten up twice in quick succession by the Iacobelli brothers.

Barra had taken his licks, refusing to fight back. First, and most importantly, he saw no reason for people to fight ever; and secondly, he knew it was a waste of time, when between them the Yaks outweighed him four to one.

After the second beating, Rose had urged Chalmers, whom she knew would have been better pleased if his son had put up at least a semblance of a fight, to call upon Mr Iacobelli Senior.

Mr Iacobelli was a small, mild-mannered man, whose entire conversation seemed to consist of ‘Si’ and ‘Prego’. While his wife attended to the fish-frying side of the family business, Mr Iacobelli ran the ice-cream parlour. Fortunately for him, they were separated by an adjoining wall, for Mama Iacobelli was anything but mild-mannered. Her sons had inherited her imposing physique and belligerent attitude, and all three were inordinately proud of their ancient lineage.

As luck would have it, Chalmers had arrived just as Mr Iacobelli had taken the opportunity of a lull in his day’s toil to nip across to the bookie’s. Chalmers was therefore confronted by the formidable lady of the house, and had scarcely opened his mouth to complain about the twins’ bullying when Mrs Iacobelli (dressed, as always, in readiness for a funeral) rolled up her black sleeves to reveal two massive, and very threatening, arms.

Chalmers was forced to step back out of the doorway to avoid physical contact, and indeed felt fortunate to have had the chance to complain at all.

Retreating to the relative safety of his van, he was followed the length of the High Street by Mrs Iacobelli’s voice – which was every bit as intimidating as her presence.

‘Stay outta my shop, you hear me? My boys, they no doing bad to no-body. My boys, they look after their mama. Nobody pincha da sweetie in Mama’s shop! My boys, they no allow it. My boys …’

And on and on she went.

Chalmers had been in a foul humour by the time he arrived back in Drumdarg. Even Socks, the family cat, and Chalmers’ sworn enemy, deemed it politic to remain at a discreet distance.

‘Barra!’ Chalmers shouted.

‘What is it? Chalmers, what is it?’ Rose had tried to catch her husband’s arm as he marched past her towards the staircase. Barra, who had earlier pleaded with his mother to leave well alone (it wasn’t as though the Yaks had singled him out; they had already beaten up most of the other boys), appeared on the landing almost at once.

‘Did you want me, Da?’

‘Were you stealing sweeties from the Iacobellis?’

Barra came hurtling down the stairs. ‘Course not! Course I didn’t. I don’t steal!’

Chalmers looked at his son and knew that he was telling the truth. The boy always told the truth. He didn’t have the gumption to lie. Again his eyes surveyed the split lip and swollen nose, and Rose breathed a silent sigh of relief as Chalmers reached to ruffle Barra’s auburn curls.

‘Right, then. Well, that woman takes the biscuit, so she does. Stay away from those boys, son,’ he warned. ‘Let them take their Tally tempers out on someone else.’

Chalmers turned towards the kitchen. ‘Cup o’ tea, Rose,’ he commanded.

A look passed from Barra to his mother. As so often, they had no need for words, and Rose smiled at him, her eyes sympathetic. They both knew it wouldn’t be so easy to stay away from the Yaks. The boys were well known for picking on others at a moment’s notice – and for no reason.

The twins, however, seemed to have lost interest in Barra, partly as a result of Barra’s determination not to put up a fight, and partly because they deemed him too puny to bother with. Until, that was, Mr Macdougall inadvertently gave them a new excuse to make Barra’s life hell.

The good teacher, in an effort to capture his pupils’ flagging attention during an Ancient History lesson, rightly pointed out that Barra Maclean shared his middle name with the ill-starred Roman soldier, Mark Antony.

By the end of the period, the Yaks had worked out that the initials of Barra’s name spelled B.A.M. From that day forward Barra was hailed as ‘Y’wee poofy bampot’ whenever he was in the near (or far) vicinity of the Yaks.

Barra had some idea of what ‘poofy’ meant. He certainly knew enough to recognise that, if indeed he was ‘poofy’, he shouldn’t be interested in girls. But he was. Very interested. For in that spring of 1965 Barra had fallen in love, his young heart rendered helpless by a barefoot pop singer named Sandie Shaw; the only woman to have removed Rose to second place in the boy’s affections.

Rose wouldn’t have minded at all, if Chalmers didn’t see fit to remind her of her demise every chance he got. ‘Fair play to him. It’s time he was cutting the apron strings.’

Rose gritted her teeth. How could Chalmers forget? Or was his mind so befuddled with thoughts of Sheena Mearns that he didn’t want to remember. God, the long days and nights they had held on to each other – and to Barra – praying the child would make it, that he’d survive.

Well, dammit, didn’t he just, though? And wouldn’t she herself? Survive, aye. And she’d see Sheena Mearns in hell before she’d give her husband up that easily!

But as quickly as her resolve had hardened, it dwindled – and disappeared. For Rose had been abandoned once. And if her own mother hadn’t wanted her, how could she possibly hope to keep this man she loved more than life itself?

The afternoon sunshine streamed into her kitchen, warm and bright, burnishing her hair, as vibrant and auburn as her son’s. Rose Maclean lifted her face to it, and shivered.

* * *

‘Wake UP, Maclean!’

Barra jumped. ‘Sir?’

Mr Macdougall shook his head. All of his colleagues at Craigourie High School agreed that Barra was university material if he’d just put his mind to it. But that was the problem – Barra’s mind was never where it should be. He would certainly have to be moved away from that window, Mr Macdougall decided, if there was to be any hope of steering him towards his O-level History.

Barra gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment. Then he smiled – a smile that would melt you if you didn’t feel like giving him an occasional slap.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Barra apologised.

‘Would you care to join the rest of us, Maclean?’

The bell sounded.

‘Saved by the bell, sir.’ Barra beamed.

‘Indeed,’ Mr Macdougall answered, too weary at four o’clock on the last Friday of term to argue further.

The teacher watched as his pupils, calmed as much by the warmth of the classroom as the knowledge that a fortnight of freedom awaited them, filed obediently out.

Barra, however, had leaped to life and rocketed through the door, throwing a cheery ‘See you, sir’, behind him.

The boy was just too exhausting altogether.

* * *

Barra headed for the bike sheds, relieved to see that the Yaks were nowhere in sight. Freewheeling down the brae and on to the High Street, he kept his eyes firmly ahead as he approached the Iacobellis’ shop. Sure enough, the twins were lounging in the doorway, obviously having left school early – a not uncommon occurrence.

‘Get back in yir pram, y’wee poofy bampot.’

‘Aye, get back in yir pram.’

‘Bampot! Bampot!’ In unison.

People in the High Street clucked and tutted their way past the twins, some curious enough to stop and take a look at the ‘bampot’. The traffic lights at the end of the High Street stubbornly refused to turn green and Barra, in an effort to get as far away as quickly as possible, dismounted and wheeled his bike across to the other side, barely missing an elderly woman pulling a shopping trolley behind her.

‘Y’wee bugger,’ the woman complained, leaning against a shop window to catch her breath.

‘Sorry, missus,’ he called back, swinging back on to his bike and heading for the bridge.

Barra said ‘sorry’ a lot.

Once across the bridge, Barra relaxed, and cycled slowly onwards to where the road rose steeply towards Drumdarg. Much of what had once been a thriving country estate had been swallowed into the suburbs of Craigourie, but over the crest of the hill Drumdarg House still marked the beginning of the old village.

Barra loved every inch of it. He was at home here, away from the noise and the traffic, his mind free to roam wherever he chose; the shifting patterns of the land, the big skies and open fields all grist to the mill of his imagination.

Within minutes he had put the Yaks and their abuse behind him, for stretching before him lay two whole weeks to spend as he chose. Mind, the Easter holidays weren’t like the sprawling holidays of summer, but they were still great. Even though nothing much seemed to happen, Barra’s days were full of them – the happenings.

Wild broom spread along the roadside and clung tenaciously to the rocky mountain reaches. Most of the shrubs were in full flower, but he inspected every bush until he found one with blossoms still held tight by the green pods. He stopped to listen, trying to isolate the little cracking sounds which signalled the birth of the golden flowers.

There! And there!

Barra grinned. ‘Grand,’ he said, and pushed onwards towards the crest of the hill.

Spring came late to Drumdarg, and this year March blizzards had almost obliterated any hope of it coming at all. But it did arrive, and it was everywhere, and all at once.

Where recently wild crocuses had carpeted the earth, new clumps of daffodils grew confidently in their place, and on the trees leaves burst from branches laid skeletal by winter. Snow still wrapped its crystalline blanket across the mountains’ shoulders, but the air was warm, and softer than it had been for months.

Barra came to a stop as a flock of wild geese flew noisily above him, then wheeled in a perfect ‘V’ to settle on the greening earth. He watched them for long minutes before turning to make his own descent. As he swung back on to his bicycle he noticed a figure in front of the gatekeeper’s cottage. Barra shook his head.

Poor Hattie. She’d been there every day this week, and she’d probably be there every day next week – at least until Easter had come and gone.

Barra had seen Kenneth More in quite a few pictures, and was bound to agree with everyone else in Drumdarg that the chances of the actor arriving at Easter to carry Hattie off into the sunset were slim, to say the least. Still, it hadn’t stopped her from telling anyone who’d listen (and precious few did) that the great man was definitely coming to fetch her.

But as fanciful as Hattie’s notion might be, it wasn’t the reason for her nickname. She had been known as Mad Hatters for as long as Barra could remember, long before she had taken to waiting for Kenneth More.

Barra tried to recall when he’d first heard that Hattie had been taken to the jail for murdering her mother, but he couldn’t – at least, not clearly. It had happened so long ago, and he supposed that the stories of the trial and how she’d been set free had been embellished over the years.

Barra couldn’t help thinking that the folks in Drumdarg, and Craigourie too, if it came to that, loved nothing more than a wee bit of gossip.

Even so, he had yet to receive a satisfactory explanation for Hattie’s mad – and quite uncharacteristic – behaviour all those years ago. It seemed to Barra that folks just naturally seemed to clam up any time he raised the subject. It was quite frustrating altogether, but then Barra had little time to dwell on life’s frustrations.

Well, he’d stop and pass the time with Hattie anyway. Maybe it would take her mind off the waiting.

Barra pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. He had never been able to master the art, but it didn’t bother him. In his head he could hear every note.

CHAPTER 2

Hattie was standing quietly in front of the large wooden gate which marked the entrance to Drumdarg House, just as she had done in the weeks before Easter for the past three years. Her eyes scanned the road in both directions, and Barra knew she had noted his approach long before he got there.

Barra was fond of Hattie, rushing to her defence whenever he heard someone remark that she ‘wasn’t the full shilling’. He didn’t have to defend her too often, however, as Hattie Macaskill wasn’t top of the list when it came to gossip. She was just part of the scenery.

He waved as he closed the distance between them and, tentatively, she waved back. Laying down his bicycle, Barra walked over and climbed on to the bottom spar of the gate.

‘How are you the day?’ he asked.

Hattie nodded. ‘I’m OK,’ she answered. ‘I’ll be leaving soon, when he comes to fetch me.’

‘Aye, well …’ Barra said. ‘It’s a lovely day for it.’

Hattie crossed her arms, waiting. She was a small, rounded woman, and today was clothed as usual in a brown jumper and matching tweed skirt which looked as though they had withered on her. With her spiky hair and fierce features, it crossed Barra’s mind that she resembled a malevolent hedgehog.

He was immediately ashamed of the thought, for he knew that her appearance masked a gentle heart and, when you got close up to her (which nearly everyone avoided), you could see that she had a nice smile – sort of shy; and that her eyes were a soft grey colour, like the velvet curtains Mam had in the front room.

Barra jumped from the gate and picked at a stray daffodil.

‘Look at me,’ he said.

‘Och, Barra, don’t be doing that.’ Hattie looked uncomfortable, and shrugged a little farther away from him, her head bowed.

‘C’mon, Hattie. Look at me. Lift yir head.’

She raised her neck free of its woollen collar and Barra tried to stick the flower behind her ear. It held for a moment, and then fell. Hattie caught it in her work-worn hands, cradling it as though it were the finest crystal.

‘Aye, it’s yirself that likes it.’ Barra grinned.

‘Away y’go,’ Hattie murmured, but she, too, was smiling.

Barra jumped up, and reached for his bicycle. ‘Yep! I’d better get going,’ he said. ‘Mam’ll be at me for dawdling. Again!’

There was no need to say goodbye. Hattie wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Barra looked up the driveway leading from the cottage to the big house. ‘Where’s Murd the day?’ he asked.

As if in answer, a dog began barking and Murdo Macrae appeared from the back of the big house, Gallus running at his heels.

‘Hi, Murd,’ Barra shouted across the distance between them.

Murdo raised his walking stick in salute and bawled at the dog to stop barking, at which the little white Westie sat stock still and gave a melancholy howl.

‘What a sense o’ humour he’s got,’ Murdo called, bending to give Gallus a few fond strokes.

‘He’s great,’ Barra agreed. ‘How’s Mrs Macrae?’ he went on, as Murdo and Gallus neared.

‘Fit to be tied, Barra. Fit to be tied.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Och, we had word the young master’s coming up, and …’

‘But I thought she liked Mr Cunningham,’ Barra interrupted.

‘Aye. Aye, she does. Of course she does. But he’s bringing herself with him.’

‘Mrs Cunningham?’ Barra was pleased. Marjorie Cunningham had visited the family home only once before, and he’d not had a chance to meet her. It would be a fine thing to have a new face around.

‘The very same. And you know Helen,’ Murdo answered. ‘She canna be doing wi’ Sassenach ways.’

Barra grinned. There had been comments made about Mrs Cunningham’s ‘Sassenach ways’ after her last visit. But then she was from London. You couldn’t expect her not to have Sassenach ways. In fact, Barra was most interested in finding out just what ‘Sassenach ways’ were.

Murdo placed a hand on Hattie’s shoulder, making her jump.

‘Sorry, hen,’ he said quietly. ‘But I’m thinking he’ll no be coming now. Not today.’

Hattie sighed, and lowered her head again. ‘D’you no’ think so, Murd?’

‘No, hen, I don’t.’

‘But I finished my work early, and Mrs Macrae might no’ be needing me now.’

‘Och, I’m sure she can find a wee job t’ keep you occupied. Go on up ‘n’ have a wordie wi’ her. She’ll no’ be minding,’ Murdo assured Hattie.

Barra and Murdo watched as Hattie trudged up the driveway,