September 2000

The phone rang. It was Jean. There was no mistaking the lightness, the joy in her voice. But Bren's friend first asked about her.

"So, what is it like up there?"

"Oh, you know," Bren replied, looking out over the gloriously green fields. "Spectacular scenery. Tony's happy - he's in remission, and he's trying to give up smoking. He and Colin are planning on doing the barn up for a B and B. Maybe for Scottish Nationalists," she mused.

"Yer what?"

"Scottish Nationalists," Bren repeated. "Braveheart, yer know. Blue face paint. Bill Oddie."

"Bill Oddie...? Do you mean "Naturalist"?"

"Might do," Bren admitted. "Might have got those two words mixed up. But, you know, if he wants to take all his clothes off - "

"No, I mean you What is it like up there for you, Bren?"

They had arrived, with one wing mirror and an ounce of petrol on the last Sunday of April. Bren remembered the time they were there, at Christmas. It had just been three nights, but it had been wonderful. Now, the pub being two-thirds theirs, with Tony and Bren drawing a wage, the place fully furnished. And picked up the pub as the last landlord had left it: Geraldine the day help, who was about a hundred and four but was always on the doorstep at six o'clock, and Willie McCorquodale, son of one of the local dairy farmers going into the trade and picking up some extra money doing bar work at the weekends.

"Well, it's...a dream to be honest, still feels like a dream," Bren confessed. "I've got a bike, yeah, done a bike up, and ride around. We're doing well, with food and theme nights..."

"But?" Jean prompted.

"I still feel nervous, like it's a going to end, like I'm gonna wake up and not have him, you know, or the money, or the pub."

"Give over!" Jean admonished. "I know fate's dealt you a rough hand in yer life. You've got to find a way to accept it all. Tony loves you, and he wants you to make a life with him."

"Does he, though?" Bren felt her voice drop low, as she confessed her fear to Jean, of the letter Bren had found behind the bar tucked between the invoices, the one from his ex-wife.

"I took the trouble to put Martin out of my life, and - "

"You mean Sandra? Pah!". Jean scoffed. "They were divorced nearly ten years ago! She moved away from Manchester, just got remarried, as far as I know. Now, don't give two thoughts to Sandra, Bren, and enjoy your life."

"Yeah," Bren replied. "Yes," she added, more brightly. "I will, Jean. I mean, we have a lot to look forward to: theme nights are going well and Colin and Tony are going to do up the barn in the off season - we want to be a bed and breakfast. Or a retreat, for writers, and that. Little Willie McCorquodale said he'll help too."

"A retreat?"

"Oh yeah, writers pay a lot of money to come out to places like this to get their books written and the like."

"Willie McCrocodile?"

"McCorquodale," Bren corrected. "A young lad, wants to be a farmer like his dad. Works behind the bar at weekend."

"Well, Dolly did say Scotland was full of Willies," Jean laughed.

"You'll have to tell her, when you next see her, she was right, we have Willies here in Fossley, little Willies, big Willies..."

"All sounds great, Bren," Jean replied, warmly. "You won't forget to come to visit before the wedding?"

"Course I'll come! It's not til next spring, is it?"

"That's right, after Lisa's had the baby." She lowered her voice. Bren put the receiver closer to her ear to catch her friend's words. "I'm going simple; I went too far with Lisa's arrangements. And as long as we are both there, me and Stan, that's all that matters. So," Jean changed the subject, "you got Tony a new car for his birthday?"

"The Astra was falling apart; I might have gone a bit overboard, but I had some of my mum's money left over. Colin says a good car was necessary up here, when we get ice, and snow. And - "

But the repeated blast of an air horn caused Bren to shout a goodbye down the phone before pushing open the Dram Shop's front doors.

"What the - " she began, as she looked at the heavy goods vehicle taking up most of the width of the village's road. The driver slipped from the cab.

"Hello!" She called, striding over to Bren, and grinning. "So you're the new lady?"

"Bren, yes," Bren frowned. "Bren Furlong, yes, new part owner. And Tony, but he's not here, he's over at Kilmarnock with Colin sorting out the stock.". The frown didn't diminish the woman's high-wattage grin, and it was only when she introduced herself that the trace of familiarity made sense.

"So, Clara, had a long drive, have you?"

"I was in Felixstowe yesterday morning," Clara relayed. "Then round to Grimsby. Got to go round to Stranraer tomorrow - thought I'd pop in to see my brother."

"He's with Tony," Bren said, pointing her thumb inside. "Fancy a brew?"

"Wouldn't say no," said Clara, removing her jacket. "Warm day, isn't it?"

"Lovely. Got all me sheets and tablecloths out." Bren disappeared into the kitchen, glancing through at the red-haired, leather-trousered woman who had just turned up, who was now looking round the pub's lounge, still grinning.

"Sugar?"

"Just the one. A splash of milk, is that OK?"

"Is that OK?" Bren echoed, as she brought the tea through, and placed it down in front of Clara Tulloch. "You're not from Leeds, then?"

"Me? No. I was a menopause baby," Clara replied, sipping the tea. "Mam and Dad had Colin when Dad worked at Coultaulds, then they moved back up here when Colin went into the army. Then they had me. 43, Mam was." She sipped her tea again.

"So you're called Clara, and you drive a juggernaut?" Bren asked the obvious, peeking out of the pub's window to see if the cab has white heart curtains in the window.

"Way down the motorway to the city port," Clara finished. "I thought "Pigeon Street" had been put on the telly just for me."

"Could have been worse," Bren replied. "You could have been called Ben - you could have felt you had to spent your life going in and out of a fancy dress shop." Clara grinned again.

"Got some things for Colin," Clara said. "As I said, on my way to Stranraer, then over to Belfast, got a job for agricultural and aircraft parts - did you know that Nothern Ireland is third in the world for six inch screws?" Bren raised her eyebrows and suppressed a giggle.

"They tell you it's six inches, don't they, men?" Bren joked, holding her finger and thumb about two inches apart, "but that's why women can't park cars. Spatial awareness." Clara's tinkly laughter filled the pub. She drained her tea, and Bren finished off hers, too.

"Okay, where do you want it? They're steel girders, for the barn, so Colin tells me."

"Oh yeah," Bren replied, following the young girl out into the street. "It's round the back."

"Hang on, I'll reverse," Clara said, springing up into the cab.

"And you can get them out on yer own?"

"I can," Clara declared. "You should see those old men, looking me up and down, thinking a woman couldn't load the wagon."

"And you can?" asked Bren.

"Every time!" Clara exclaimed. "Right, can you open the gates? I can back down, and I'll show you how big my crane is."

88888888

"No sign of my idiot brother then," Clara said, an hour and a half later.

"Doesn't look like it," Bren shook her head. "I didn't think they'd be this long." She looked past Clara's blonde pixie cut and out of the window. Clara smiled at her bright smile again.

"So, you're enjoying working here?" Clara looked around the Dram Shop, at the olde-worlde plates with farming scenes on them sitting on the rail around the room.

"Yeah," Bren admitted, "it's great. I couldn't have asked for better. We do theme nights and they're good, yeah, we did a whisky one; we're going to be doing a theme night once a month. It was Abba the month before. You wouldn't think it would be popular, would you?"

"Sounds good," Clara replied. "I'll try and pop in to your next one if I'm in the area. Always glad to be out of the cab and in a bed. But, the cost of one is almost not worth the journey. Colin is always worrying, young woman driver on her own. I don't blame him. But I know the safe spots, and the regulars look out for me. I try to pop in if I'm in the area, it stops him from worrying."

"You were here at Christmas," Bren said, suddenly. "You had really short hair then, a blonde buzz cut cut."

"Yeah!" Clara nodded. "You were here, with Tony?"

"Oh yes, but you've changed. Not just your hair."

"Put on a bit of weight," Clara laughed, glancing over the fields beyond the derelict barn. Then, she looked back to Bren.

"I'm going to have to be off - I wanted to ask Col when he was planning on doing the place, so I could book the time off, you know, to help."

"First three weeks of January, but don't hold me to that, that was the last I heard." Bren looked down the road, and along it in the direction of Kilmarnock. "Don't know why they are so long: they were going to the suppliers, and picking up the money for Tony's old car from a second hand car place."

"Pity," Clara replied, "I like doing up old cars."

"You woudn't have liked this one," Bren replied, shaking her head. "It was a bit of a Heinz 57. It said Vauxhall on the back, but the chassis is a bit of old Ford Cortina and the windows are from a Rover and the gear lever is from an Austin Seven. If it were a dog, it would be a left-in-the-dog's home dog, you know? Like the one that's used on the poster, and it would have, like, been in the dog's home for, like, years?" Clara laughed.

"Right, OK," Clara declared, smiling at Bren, "Go, otherwise I'll miss the ferry. Great to meet you again, Bren!" She waved an apology at the cars who were now trying to pass her parked lorry on the very narrow road.

"Bye, Bren," she called, as she hopped up into the cab, pulling on her belt and sounding the air horn again. And to the cars, called out, "Sorry! Sorry!"

October 2000

"What do you mean, a second bank holiday?" Bren frowned, as she and Tony listened to Colin explain about the public holidays in Scotland. "Why, has the Queen Mum died?"

"No," Colin replied, patiently. "Hogmanay. And they have New Year's Day off, plus another one."

"New Year's Day 2?" Bren asked. "Like Terminator 2? But the Queen Mum's going to go back in time and stop the Second World War by killing an anomaly?"

"What, like Wallis Simpson? So Edward VIII doesn't abdicate you mean?"

"No," Bren shook her head, "Like the Duke of Kent."

"Anyway," Colin shook his head. "We'll need to cater for another day, cold food, cobs and the like. Are you able to do that, Bren?"

"Are you able to do that , Tony?" Tony laughed.

"Course I am." He wrapped his arm around Bren's shoulder, stifling a yawn as they headed to the kitchen. "You tired?"

"We went to bed at 2am, Tony, of course I am. But the "Food around the World" night went well." She handed him a potato peeler. "We are, aren't we?"

"Oh yeah," Tony replied, confidently. "And we've got Geraldine, and Little Willy. Laura the Hippy. And Clara."

"She's talked to Colin, then?"

"Yeah," Tony replied. "And she's taken her leave to help us with the B and B -slash - retreat."

"Jean said she would swap me for Stan, so he can help yer," Bren continued, taking up the carrots.

"Good idea. You can do weddings with Jean and Stan can have a screwdriver contest with me and Colin. He won't be able to do much, though. And I'll see if Willie wants some extra shifts.

"And I want to ask Geraldine to come over the holidays, in case it gets to cold for her, you know?" Bren replied, taking up the swede. "D'you know, I thought this was a swede, but the veg man tried to bring me turnips."

"Bit like the canteen - you were all dinnerladies, but if you'd been in a canteen in the south, you'd be lunch ladies." Tony took up a parsnip, topping and tailing it. "As for Geraldine, you can try; Colin tried to give her Christmas off last year, but he came down with Jonathan, the manager, in the morning and found her peeling the sprouts."

"So Jonathan and Colin took the chance to go back to bed, yeah," Bren nodded, remembering Jean and Dolly's conversation over the bet they had had the year before, on Bren and Tony. "But yeah, Clara, you, me, Colin, yer mum, little Willie McCrocodile - going to be a great Christmas, yeah."

"Don't call him that, Bren, you'll scare the poor lad. Last time a woman spoke to him, he spent two days keeping on hiding in the big fridge in case she came back. No, me mum wants to go to my Aunty Edith's this year, in Doncaster."

"Half way between Leeds and Hull," Bren added.

"Leeds and Hell," Tony quipped. "And I haven't had a fag since July," he added, pulling Bren closer.

And there might be one more addition this Christmas, he added to himself, wishing Bren a silent "Happy Birthday" as he kissed her temple. I hope you'll like it.