‘So it’s all over.’
‘With Malcolm, aye.’
Frances raises an eyebrow.
‘I’ll make sure I fall in love with a good guy next time.’
She shakes her head.
‘You’re still pure, then?’ I say.
She giggles. ‘As the driven snow. Actually there’s a rather tasty chap who I’ve been trying to get into bed for the past few months. Richard, he’s called. But he’s proving difficult. Insists upon my freedom from his clutches.’
‘Sounds like your ideal man.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m still staunchly independent.’ She sips froth from her coffee. ‘By the way, Diana sends her greetings.’
‘Is that right? Am I forgiven?’
‘Forgiven? What do you think?’
‘And you?’
‘You’re my pal. You’re hopeless, but I still want to be your friend.’
‘Thanks, Fran. How can I refuse an offer like that, you heartless cow?’
She clinks her latte mug against my teacup. ‘Slit your wrists and hope you die.’
‘Forever and ever, ah mental.’
‘Ah mental,’ she says, and I know it’s fine between us again, really, fine. For the time being, anyway.
At Christmas I have some unexpected presents. One is a card with a letter enclosed, from Professor Bergen, telling me that Yuri Zeveris has been sacked after it was revealed to the Institute (she didn’t say how, but I can guess) that his qualifications were fraudulent. ‘He was not, it now transpires, who he led us to believe him to be.’ She sends her unconditional apology for the suffering caused to me by my boss’ behaviour and offers me my job back. I respond with thanks but decline the job.
I tell this story over Christmas dinner at Aunt Marjory’s. I haven’t seen Dad at all since the awful days after the miscarriage. He looks thinner. He’s dismayed at my non-acceptance of my job back.
‘I’ve moved on, Dad,’ I say.
My aunt pats my lower arm then reaches for the Cava bottle and tops up all of our glasses. ‘Quite right. Never go back, love. That’s what I’ve always said. I just think it’s super that you’re back with us in Scotland. Isn’t that right, Jack?’
Jack Magee raises his glass and an eyebrow, and says nothing.
My other end-of-year treat is a brand new top-of-the-range specialist wildlife Pentax with a huge lens, complete with camouflage cover. It’s the prize for my winning shot of a female bear peering out through the fence at Glenmathan into a sparkling landscape of pools, rocks and a berry-laden rowan tree caught in autumn light. I called the picture ‘Wistful’, and though only I know it, it’s of the mother of the animal whose icon I watch daily, pulsing in its hiding place. The photo is causing quite a stir in the media, reawakening some of the debate of earlier in the year, but now commentators are suggesting that the political decision to refuse any consideration of bear reintroductions may have been short-sighted. The wind of public opinion is fickle.
I’m not sure how much I’ll use the camera in earnest. My interest in photography has waned as my sketches have grown in confidence, but it will be good to have it to take shots as material for my drawings. Adding to my glee at the photography prize, I spot among the runners-up a photograph of a sow and several piglets crossing a track, entitled ‘Wild Boar’. The work has been captioned by the magazine as ‘A Celebration of Motherhood’. I can only imagine the annoyance of its photographer, Diana Hunter.
I give Dad a framed copy of my winning photo, complete with its gold winner’s rosette, and watch as pride overcomes all his other feelings, whatever they are. I’ll never understand, I know that now, but I no longer mind. We have weathered another year without my mother. We will manage more.
After dinner, in the lounge chairs, Jack asks Dad about his football club. ‘Well, I’ve decided to give up the coaching.’
I look up from the crossword.
‘It’s a young man’s game,’ he says. ‘And how’s the chandlery business?’
‘Och, just the same.’ Jack lifts his cap, strokes his bald head and puts the bunnet back on. ‘Just the same, ken?’
‘And you still have your boat?’
‘Och, yes. There’s aye someone needin’ a wee job.’ He winks at me, and I grin and concentrate on six across. ‘Gizza clue, hen.’
‘Six letters, starts with S, untold.’
Spring marches forwards. In February I notice the first pale primroses in the mossy woodland carpet. The bracken has died back and riding is much easier than through the autumn thicket. The days are starting to lengthen and I ride out more often, eyes peeled.
So it is, one warm, breezy Tuesday morning in March that Gretel stops and stares at a brown shape among the boulders at the foot of the crag where for months I have watched the yellow Fern Bear icon blip on its secret screen. I fasten my gaze on the bear, my heart pounding. Hardly daring to breathe, I lift my field glasses to my face and watch.
The bear shuffles around a large boulder and looks back over her shoulder, and there, emerging from the shadows, is a smaller version of her, a fluffy bundle of bear cub tottering out to join its mother in the spring sunshine.
I reach into my pocket and draw out my phone. Sure enough, the badger icon is green. I switch to silent and send a message to Luke. Fern bear plus cub emerging from den.
I feel the tremble as his response comes in. Freakin magic.
I start a new column in the monitoring sheet, record the time and location, and tap in ‘playing’. Then I put the phone away and turn my full attention to the bears.
The mother leads her little one out to a sunny, brackeny patch where she rolls, scratching herself on the last of the bronze stalks. Her cub clambers up on to her belly and reaches for a teat. The new mother cradles her young, head back, eyes closed in what appears unambiguous bliss.
My eyes blur. I let the field glasses hang. A fat tear rolls down my cheek. I catch it with my tongue. Salty.
I take the phone back out of my pocket, tap in ‘nursing’ then open my address list and flash to a number I have skipped a thousand times, somehow never quite managing to hit the green button. I press it now, hold the phone to my ear and wait. Two long tones and then a pause. ‘Allo?’
‘Hi. It’s Callis. I’m watching a mother bear and cub, in Scotland.’
‘Beautiful!’ I can hear his grin. ‘So you still love bears?’
‘More than ever.’
‘Beautiful.’
I’m smiling so hard I might topple off the horse, but Gretel stands solid. ‘You were right about everything.’
‘Good.’ That deep voice, the faint Romanian twang, how could I have forgotten? ‘I met friends of yours recently in Russia,’ he says.
‘Who?’
‘Tanka and Païvi.’
‘My favourite friends, how are they?’ The thought of the Finns is sweet as chocolate.
‘Very good. Very cool people. They like you almost as much as I do.’
I remember the first time he said he liked me, when I was tucked up like Goldilocks in bed in the cabin in the forest. ‘The feeling’s mutual.’
‘Which one?’
‘All of them.’
‘They call you Madabout. Madabout Bears. ‘
‘Yes.’ We laugh. I try not to jiggle the stirrups or grip Gretel too tightly with my calves. The sound of his voice makes my laughter flow so much, I miss what he says next.
‘What?’
‘I like the name. It suits you.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t write back. My life’s been a bit… complicated.’
‘Is it simpler now?’
‘Yes, much simpler.’ There is a hot wind blowing through me.
‘You didn’t forget me after all.’
‘No. Not at all.’
‘Can I come and see them? Your bears?’
‘Of course.’ What else could make me happier?
‘It’s been a long time.’
I don’t know what to say. ‘Do you kno
w where to come?’
‘No.’
‘Just come north. North of Inverness. I’ll guide you in.’
‘One cub, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘I missed you.’
There is more in those three words of his than I can believe. ‘Just come,’ I say.
The mother bear rolls on to her side and the cub tumbles and scrambles back up, scrabbling at its mother’s fur, up on to her shoulder, tugging at her ear. I chuckle.
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘The bears.’
‘Tell them I’m on my way.’ He hangs up. I keep the phone near my cheek.
‘Petr is coming to see you.’
The mother gets up, sniffs at the wind and rears on to her hind legs, scenting. Gretel snickers in alarm, and steps back. The bear catches our scent or hears the horse, perhaps, and cautiously ushers her little one back into the safety of the scree.
‘Keep tight,’ I whisper after them. I turn Gretel away and head for the gate in the fence.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the many people who have provided me with information, advice and opinions about bears and other carnivores, particularly Andreas Zedrosser and Jon Swenson of the International Bear Association, staff of the Carpathian Large Mammal Project in Romania, Kostadin Valchev in Bulgaria, and in Scotland, David Hetherington, Roy Dennis, Dan Puplett, Jonny Hughes, Alan Featherstone Watson and Margot Henderson.
Early work on the book was made possible thanks to a period of creativity funded by a writing bursary from the Scottish Arts Council. Thanks also to Jane Alexander, John Bolland, Maggie Wallis, Ed Group and members of the North West Highland Writers for invaluable comments on drafts. Sara Hunt and Craig Hillsley at Saraband have made the publication process a pleasure and I’m hugely grateful for all their work on the book.
Finally, thanks to Bill Ritchie, for being almost as mad about bears as I am.
Mandy Haggith
About the Author
Described by The Scotsman as a ‘backwoods philosopher’, Mandy Haggith lives on a wooded croft in Assynt, Sutherland. Originally from Northumberland, she spent a decade in artificial intelligence research before quitting academia for a freelance career as a forest activist and writer. Her first poetry collection was published in 2005 to broad acclaim; her non-fiction book on the environmental impact of the paper industry was called ‘compelling and terrifying’ by The Observer, and she scooped a national literary prize in 2009 for her first novel, The Last Bear. She co-ordinates the European Environmental Paper Network.
Also by Mandy Haggith
Fiction
The Last Bear
Poetry
Castings
letting light in
Non-fiction
Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash,
the True Cost of Paper
Copyright
Published by Saraband
Suite 202, 98 Woodlands Road
Glasgow, G3 6HB, Scotland
www.saraband.net
Copyright © Mandy Haggith 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining the written permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN: 978–190864329–2
ebook: 978–190864330–8
Printed in the EU on ‘revive pure’ 100% post-consumer-waste recycled paper, made without optical brighteners or bleaches.
Layout by Jo Morley
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