scotland – Kirsteen Bell

Standing at the top of the croft and looking down the slope I can hear Lawrie calling to one of our sons. The sun shines hard and white at my back, a welcome change from the dreich grey days of winter. Even at this distance, glimpsed as he is through the birch trees, I can see his face screwed up as he looks for the boy. He is the size of a lego man from where I stand up the hill, yet when I call “Is he there?” with no great force in my voice I hear him answer “Aye”, as if I had been standing just a few metres away.

I am up the hill with a black bin bag and thick gloves, collecting rubbish dropped by the ravens. He is by the house putting up a fence to stop the sheep from destroying the garden. Neither of these activities particularly smack of crofting conventions, but as we call to each other across the ground I am struck that when this croft was created human voices would have carried across the earth, through the air, just the same. I am standing in the winter remains of long grass that in years gone by would likely have had livestock on it, so our voices would have been joined by the animals’ sonorous lowing. As it is, the bass notes now come from the rumble of forestry and landfill lorries on the single-track road by the shore below.

Earlier in the day I had been at the same task in the trees at the back of the croft next door and my phone had started ringing in my back pocket. It had been Lawrie checking that our 5 year old son, who had wandered off in my direction, had indeed found me. If he’d called with his voice alone then I doubt I would have heard him, so what would he have done before we had mobile phones? Downed tools and come to check himself I suppose, or at least come within hearing-shot. As I go further up the croft with my bag now, heading towards an oak beneath which is a midden of pecked-clean mammal bones and plastic food containers, I can still hear the reassuring sounds of the boys shouting at their game. I can hear the metallic thud of the fence-post driver as Lawrie hammers the posts into the ground. Two ravens fly in a straight line above my head; I’m alerted to them only by the soft whupping of their wings in the air. “Aye, it’s your mess I’m cleaning up”, I call up to them. Whether they hear me or not, there is no acknowledgement and they are soon gone.

Some of these short pieces are written as a result of the optional prompt for the monthly meetings of the Lochaber Writers Group. The prompt for April was ‘Sound’.

The single-track road curves away to the west, following the dark shore. Straight still pines look unsure in this undulating landscape, but when the rain sweeps in they hold steady, riding the strobing surge as one. The downpour billows wide like a net curtain released from a window flung open. Higher up, the river courses down the slopes against the wind, the water streaming off granite like smoke. There are no ravens in the sky now. What strength do the birds have to maintain their grip in the face of this onslaught?

Perhaps their strength comes from the knowledge that the tide will pass. When the worst of the storm moves before us, the sun begins to shine gently through the clouds. The deep-wine tips of the birch poke through the hillside, like the underside of embroidery, and the dun-wet rushes have been buffed to a purple shine. At a distance the full burns rush with a faceless stony white, but seen closely their foam is creamy with peat. Raven calls begin to echo in the hall of birch; in ones and twos they lift to embrace the wind that remains. A double rainbow appears in the grey sky, but our attention is suddenly shifted down to the soft brown feathers of a buzzard tensed in a visual shriek as it swoops in a fast curve across the road, level with our headlights. Ultimately, the strength to hold on comes down to one thing: you have no other choice.