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boy I knew, that is my memory of him.

8
A BASKET OF APPLES
     
Jamie
     
    I’m finding it hard to concentrate on my work today. It just doesn’t seem to be flowing like it normally does.
    Work usually takes care of itself – I go to the workshop, put on the gear and away I go, job after job, until I’m finished. End of. Sometimes I give myself time to sit with a sandwich, outside on the bench if it’s good weather, inside at the small table in the corner, looking out of the window, if it’s raining. The view from the workshop is amazing, which is something that always delighted my father. He loved his work for the same reasons I do: we use our hands, we don’t sit all day and we don’t need to speak to anyone. I know, it makes me sound like a real misery guts, which I’m not. I love having people around, I just couldn’t chat all day.
    I come from a long line of quiet men. My father and my grandfather were both blacksmiths and both legendarily silent, even by Scottish standards. My mum used to always tell me how restful she found this quality of his, the way they would sit in peaceful silence, and how every time my father spoke, the whole family would listen because we all knew he had something important to say. They both smiled when, one year at school, my teacher wrote in the final report: ‘Jamie doesn’t speak much but when he does, he always says something worthwhile.’ I’ve inherited their love of silence and also their gift: my greatgrandfather was a stable lad and a horse whisperer. His voice could calm and soothe the horses, when he spoke softly in their ears. I seem to be able to do the same but with people.
    I’m deeply, deeply rooted in this place. Nobody was surprised when, after doing my Masters, I came back to live in Glen Avich. Well, nobody who knew me. I’d been offered a scholar ship to do my PhD in London. I was all set to go, as if I couldn’t help just walking on the path I seemed to have taken by accident – I hadn’t expected to do so well – when it occurred to me that I desperately, desperately didn’t want to go to London.
    I was on holiday at home in between terms and I just walked over to my father’s workshop and told him I wasn’t going, that I wanted to stay in Glen Avich. That I wanted to help him in his job and eventually take over.
    He said, ‘Oh aye? Great.’
    That was it. But I knew he was delighted.
    My mum tried to talk me into finding some kind of academic post in Aberdeen or Edinburgh, or at least teaching. But I had decided I wanted to do what my father did, that every time I raised my head from what I was making, I wanted to see the pinewoods and the hills silhouetted against the sky, the clouds’ shadows moving across the heather.
    It turned out I had a talent. I’d always enjoyed it but when it became my full-time job I realised that I was quite good at it, that things took shape easily in my hands and they were beautiful. When my father got ill and couldn’t work anymore, I took over completely and by word of mouth I became quite a hit with the tourists and hillwalkers coming up in the summer. I make ornaments, small objects and jewellery, all inspired by Scottish history and landscape, and they seem to be quite popular. Before I knew it, I was doing exhibitions in Edinburgh and down south, and orders were coming in from as far as America. From ‘local blacksmith’ I became ‘a promising young artist’, quoting from the Guardian , no less.
    I bought my lovely home on the hill, up the winding road that leads to St Colman’s Well, hoping to fill it with a family one day.
    My work thrived but the right person didn’t come along. All my childhood friends seemed to settle down, marry and have children, some happily, some less happily. I didn’t. I had had a few girlfriends when I was a student, nothing serious, but by that time I was ready to settle down. I wanted to find the love of my life.
    There just didn’t seem to be the right woman around.