He opened her letter and read.
Finlay,
I instructed this pair of penny-pinchers and filchers to forward this note to youunopened and unreadat the conclusion of all matters concerning your late father’s estate, now your estate. I trust that is what has happened, and so I’ll be brief.
I’m aware of my shortcomings as a mother and won’t go on about them here, but if it aids you, I would be heartsore to leave this earth without letting you know that I am sorry.
Perhaps I could have been more lenient, as your father always wished, but when a mother has a child as obtuse and rigid as I have, it is natural to fear for him and to steer towardsdiscipline, rather than other misguided parents might do andindulgetheir child.
I spent a good deal of time attempting to shape you into a useful and polite young man. Only you can decide if I ever succeed in that mission, but for what it is worth, as much as I have scolded you, I have also loved you in my own way.
Finlay let his hands fall into his lap. This was his mother to a tee, a bewildering blend of strictness and scripture, faint praise and human frailty, and yet this was the first time she was telling him she loved him at all.
He’d had very little idea of it growing up, when what had mattered most to her was impressing the congregation at the kirk teas and protesting the opening of yet another betting shop, or whatever the bee in her Sunday best bunnet was that week.
Yet she’d fed him (sensibly), clothed him (respectably), and taught him about living in moderation (fiercely), and his father, a rational, good-hearted man (weak-hearted, it had turned out, when he died all too early), had made sure he knew the name of every moth and beetle in the kirkyard. It had been an education.
Finlay hadn’t thought to complain about any of it. It was simply the way things were. Nothing much changed when he told them at twenty-three that he liked men. They received the news of his sexuality with the same weary acceptance with which they accepted his school report cards and the rejected job applications or in the way they let him grow wildflower cuttings and tiny saplings in jars all along every windowsill in the house.
‘She loved me, in her own way,’ he told himself, not sure if it really mattered any more. He’d believed he’d made his peace with her influence over his life, andnotat that maudlin funeral service on the outskirts of Edinburgh, but out here on the hills.
Now there was this trouble with probate concluding and him having a vast deal of money to distribute. Mountain rescue helicopters always need money. Then there were the Highland rewilding projects he took an interest in. They’d be glad of a chunk, surely.
He bit at a big square of tablet and braced himself for more of his mother’s words.
You have today come into your money, Finlay, and I am pleased for you, as your father would be. Now that I’m with him, I have one last wish for you.
Do not dispose of this money.
I may not understand you, but Iknowyou. You’ll baulk at the amount and want to give it away as fast as you can, thinking yourself ‘rich enough’, as you’ve been telling me ever since you took that job in the Highlands, but this is your opportunity to make areal lifefor yourself; a meaningful, connected life.
Now, I’m not telling you to store up your treasures. Only, spend them wisely onsomething that will see you bloom, and so you may enjoy long life on the earth.
This is my very last wish for you,
Mum
Finlay’s coffee went cold in its cup that day as he sat out on the stormwall, letting his mother’s words sink in then blow away again on the chill wind.
Hewas still here, he told himself, looking for comfort.Hestill had his mountain dominion.
As if to remind him this didn’t come without its downsides, a party of hillwalkers approached his coffee spot and hailed him for a chat.
They seemed sensible enough, experienced with their map and compass (he made them demonstrate as much, and whether this had offended them or not wasn’t any of his concern). They told him they’d walked this route many times, and so he’d allowed them to go on without even parting with one of his leaflets, only warning them to be safely inside their bivvy by six tonight because there was freezing fog forecast and that would mean sharply falling temperatures and low cloud that could sit over the range well into tomorrow afternoon, maybe even for days if they were unlucky. The party went on their way and he watched them go until they were colourful dots, like pins on a map, in the far distance.
His mother’s letter was folded in his pocket and, with it being ten o’clock, he figured he’d better begin his morning rounds on the community paths, picking up rubbish and stoppingheid-the-bawhikers (which is as unflattering a nickname as it sounds) arriving with neither map, provisions or a plan, so he could send them back down to sea level where they belonged. That’s just what he needed, he thought. A good chance at a roaring out. That’d help.
Speaking of life down there… He lifted his binoculars once he hit the well-trodden heath path near the rangers’ station, and scanned the town below, with its roof tiles gleaming in the low winter morning light.
The library was opening. A good reminder he had books to return, and there’d be new releases to browse. The chimney was smoking at the police station. The bank was of course shut. And the repair shed, not that he was all that interested, was… hold on!
Finlay adjusted the focusing ring, pulling into sharper view Murray McIntyre, it had to be him, turning out from the gap in the mill house wall and making for the high street. Who else wore white trousers and a cream jumper with a long cream puffa coat while out walking a big silly old black Labrador – currently spinning round and round on her lead like a pup?
He shouldn’t look. There was Gillie Fell still to sweep for litter, and that steep section of path by the bins where everyonemust insiston slipping that still needed salting because the temperature was unlikely to rise all day, what with that white haze of icy cloud cover sinking lower over the snowy tops of the mountains on either side of the valley.
One last glance and, painfully inevitably, there was that young builder, a bright-orange stick figure from up here, bounding towards Murray, fussing with the mutt. The builder was opening his arms, gesturing for Murray to step in for a hug.
Finlay let the binoculars drop, turning away.
