Eileen Campbell - Barra’s Angel

Rose quickly came to appreciate the small independence it brought her, but it didn’t lessen her anxious concern for her son’s well-being.

Barra had been seven years old when they moved from Craigourie to Drumdarg, and the woods were as comfortable to him as his own back garden. They were his back garden. As the seasons turned around him, Rose watched and worried as his childhood slipped seamlessly from him and adulthood began sweeping a gentle brush over the planes of his body; smoothing, preparing.

Yet Barra’s eyes were childlike still, and the magic he found in every leaf, every flower, was captured and distilled, and fed to a heart not yet ready for a grown-up world.

Rose knew these things. Chalmers, of course, did not.

‘You’ve ruined him!’ had become his anthem, especially since the incident with Mama Iacobelli.

Barra had had a late start to his education, due to a sickly infancy which left him smaller and weaker than his contemporaries. Consequently, at the age of thirteen (almost fourteen, as he informed anyone who might care to ask), he was sharing his first year of secondary school with pupils a year younger than he. Among these pupils were the redoubtable Iacobelli twins – more usually referred to as the Yaks.

Once it became known that Barra had had to be pushed in the big pram until he was nearly three years old, the Yaks had all the reason they needed (if, indeed, any was needed) to pick on their new classmate. During Barra’s first term at Craigourie High School he had been beaten up twice in quick succession by the Iacobelli brothers.

Barra had taken his licks, refusing to fight back. First, and most importantly, he saw no reason for people to fight ever ; and secondly, he knew it was a waste of time, when between them the Yaks outweighed him four to one.

After the second beating, Rose had urged Chalmers, whom she knew would have been better pleased if his son had put up at least a semblance of a fight, to call upon Mr Iacobelli Senior.

Mr Iacobelli was a small, mild-mannered man, whose entire conversation seemed to consist of ‘ Si ’ and ‘Prego’ . While his wife attended to the fish-frying side of the family business, Mr Iacobelli ran the ice-cream parlour. Fortunately for him, they were separated by an adjoining wall, for Mama Iacobelli was anything but mild-mannered. Her sons had inherited her imposing physique and belligerent attitude, and all three were inordinately proud of their ancient lineage.

As luck would have it, Chalmers had arrived just as Mr Iacobelli had taken the opportunity of a lull in his day’s toil to nip across to the bookie’s. Chalmers was therefore confronted by the formidable lady of the house, and had scarcely opened his mouth to complain about the twins’ bullying when Mrs Iacobelli (dressed, as always, in readiness for a funeral) rolled up her black sleeves to reveal two massive, and very threatening, arms.

Chalmers was forced to step back out of the doorway to avoid physical contact, and indeed felt fortunate to have had the chance to complain at all.

Retreating to the relative safety of his van, he was followed the length of the High Street by Mrs Iacobelli’s voice – which was every bit as intimidating as her presence.

‘Stay outta my shop, you hear me? My boys, they no doing bad to no -body. My boys, they look after their mama. Nobody pincha da sweetie in Mama’s shop! My boys, they no allow it. My boys …’

And on and on she went.

Chalmers had been in a foul humour by the time he arrived back in Drumdarg. Even Socks, the family cat, and Chalmers’ sworn enemy, deemed it politic to remain at a discreet distance.

‘Barra!’ Chalmers shouted.

‘What is it? Chalmers, what is it?’ Rose had tried to catch her husband’s arm as he marched past her towards the staircase. Barra, who had earlier pleaded with his mother to leave well alone (it wasn’t as though the Yaks had singled him out; they had already beaten up most of the other boys), appeared on the landing almost at once.

‘Did you want me, Da?’

‘Were you stealing sweeties from the Iacobellis?’

Barra came hurtling down the stairs. ‘Course not! Course I didn’t. I don’t steal !’

Chalmers looked at his son and knew that he was telling the truth. The boy always told the truth. He didn’t have the gumption to lie. Again his eyes surveyed the split lip and swollen nose, and Rose breathed a silent sigh of relief as Chalmers reached to ruffle Barra’s auburn curls.

‘Right, then. Well, that woman takes the biscuit, so she does. Stay away from those boys, son,’ he warned. ‘Let them take their Tally tempers out on someone else.’

Chalmers turned towards the kitchen. ‘Cup o’ tea, Rose,’ he commanded.

A look passed from Barra to his mother. As so often, they had no need for words, and Rose smiled at him, her eyes sympathetic. They both knew it wouldn’t be so easy to stay away from the Yaks. The boys were well known for picking on others at a moment’s notice – and for no reason.

The twins, however, seemed to have lost interest in Barra, partly as a result of Barra’s determination not to put up a fight, and partly because they deemed him too puny to bother with. Until, that was, Mr Macdougall inadvertently gave them a new excuse to make Barra’s life hell.

The good teacher, in an effort to capture his pupils’ flagging attention during an Ancient History lesson, rightly pointed out that Barra Maclean shared his middle name with the ill-starred Roman soldier, Mark Antony.

By the end of the period, the Yaks had worked out that the initials of Barra’s name spelled B.A.M. From that day forward Barra was hailed as ‘Y’wee poofy bampot’ whenever he was in the near (or far) vicinity of the Yaks.

Barra had some idea of what ‘poofy’ meant. He certainly knew enough to recognise that, if indeed he was ‘poofy’, he shouldn’t be interested in girls. But he was. Very interested. For in that spring of 1965 Barra had fallen in love, his young heart rendered helpless by a barefoot pop singer named Sandie Shaw; the only woman to have removed Rose to second place in the boy’s affections.

Rose wouldn’t have minded at all, if Chalmers didn’t see fit to remind her of her demise every chance he got. ‘Fair play to him. It’s time he was cutting the apron strings.’

Rose gritted her teeth. How could Chalmers forget? Or was his mind so befuddled with thoughts of Sheena Mearns that he didn’t want to remember. God, the long days and nights they had held on to each other – and to Barra – praying the child would make it, that he’d survive.

Well, dammit, didn’t he just, though? And wouldn’t she herself? Survive, aye. And she’d see Sheena Mearns in hell before she’d give her husband up that easily!

But as quickly as her resolve had hardened, it dwindled – and disappeared. For Rose had been abandoned once. And if her own mother hadn’t wanted her, how could she possibly hope to keep this man she loved more than life itself?

The afternoon sunshine streamed into her kitchen, warm and bright, burnishing her hair, as vibrant and auburn as her son’s. Rose Maclean lifted her face to it, and shivered.

* * *

‘Wake UP, Maclean!’

Barra jumped. ‘Sir?’

Mr Macdougall shook his head. All of his colleagues at Craigourie High School agreed that Barra was university material if he’d just put his mind to it. But that was the problem – Barra’s mind was never where it should be. He would certainly have to be moved away from that window, Mr Macdougall decided, if there was to be any hope of steering him towards his O-level History.

Barra gnawed on his bottom lip for a moment. Then he smiled – a smile that would melt you if you didn’t feel like giving him an occasional slap.