School Days Scotland
The train rattles across the Barmouth bridge, steel wheels clicking against the tracks like a metronome. James’s reflection floats ghost-like in the window glass, superimposed over the glittering slate-blue sea. His fingertips touch the cool pane, tracing the outline of Olivia’s smile from memory. The mountains rise in the distance, their purple silhouettes blurring as his eyes unfocus. A seagull banks sharply against the wind, and suddenly he’s fifteen again, sitting on a Scottish pier, watching the fish in the clear water below and willing them to bite.
He heard laughing and turned to see two girls walking down the pier towards him. It was Grace and Yvonne from the school bus.Yvonne is trailing Grace, as ever, a willowy scarf behind the bullet of her friend. They don’t see James at first; they are too busy laughing, Yvonne’s nose scrunching as Grace reenacts some catastrophic netball mishap in comic pantomime. Grace is slicing her hand through the air, miming the ball’s trajectory, swan-necked, then collapsing onto the railings.
Yvonne, seeing James watching them, lifts her hand shyly. Grace performs a little curtsy on the uneven boards, then vaults the bollard and plops down beside him, all elbows and unapologetic grins. “You’re the fisherman? I thought it was the old guy from the shops,” she says, examining his line without invitation. “You ever actually catch anything?”
James, who has never caught so much as a cold with his rod, shrugs. “It’s more about the quiet,” he says, voice careful, not wanting to sound as ridiculous as he expects to. “I like the sound the line makes in the water, and the pier’s quieter than my house.” He surprises himself by saying this out loud, a half-truth that tastes odd on his tongue. Grace gives him a look of mock-sympathy, then nudges Yvonne. “See? He gets it. There’s no good arguing with your brothers about the telly, but if you’re freezing your arse off down here, it’s all yours.” At that, she snatches the rod from James’s hands, checks the line with the brisk competence of someone who’s fixed her share of tangled spools, and, with an unladylike grunt, casts further than James ever has.
Yvonne sits on the opposite side of the bollard, knees hugged to her chest, hands inside the arms of her jumper for warmth. She glances at James, then away, then back, in cycles as regular as breath. “I prefer watching,”
The next hour slips away as James’s fishing rod becomes a prop in a play he never rehearsed. Grace tosses her head back laughing, sunlight catching the golden threads in her hair as she reels in his line with practiced flicks of her wrist. When she stretches forward to point at something in the water, her shorts ride up her thighs, and James finds himself staring at the small freckle just above her knee. Yvonne sits cross-legged now, one hand perpetually pressing her dress against her calves whenever the sea breeze lifts it, her eyes following a distant boat with quiet intensity.
They get up to leave. James’s fingers clench the fishing rod, knuckles whitening. His stomach knots as he tries to shift position without drawing attention to the tightness in his jeans. Grace brushes salt from her shorts, leans in close enough that he can smell the coconut in her shampoo. “Badminton. Parish hall. Friday night,” she says, tapping his shoulder with each word. “Unless you prefer sitting alone in the cold?” A smile plays at the corner of her mouth. “I’ve seen you in gym class, you know. Those quiet ones are always hiding something.”
The evening sun casts long shadows as James trudges up the hill, his father’s wooden racquet knocking against his knee with each step. The grip tape, peeling at the edges, leaves sticky residue on his palm. Inside his blue duffel bag, the pristine white Dunlop Green Flash squeak against each other when he shifts the bag from shoulder to shoulder.
The parish hall smells of floor polish and sweat. Grace’s grey top clings to her back as she stretches, reaching upward until a sliver of skin shows above her shorts. Yvonne’s pleated blue skirt flutters when she jumps to return a high shot. Mr. Dixon’s whistle hangs around his neck, his clipboard marking names in columns of “advanced” and “beginners.” James’s name appears in the latter, circled twice in red.
Between games, James sits on the hard bench, his new shoes squeaking against the polished floor. When the adults retreat to the kitchen, teacups clinking, he seizes his moment. The shuttlecock arcs high. James launches himself across the court, arms windmilling, legs splayed in exaggerated desperation before crashing to the floor with a theatrical groan. Grace’s laughter rings out, her head thrown back. Yvonne covers her mouth, shoulders shaking. Mr. Dixon’s shadow falls across him, whistle already between his lips.
Later, wedged in the back of Yvonne’s father’s Mini, James feels the warmth of bare thighs against his PE shorts – Yvonne’s smooth skin on his left, Grace’s on his right. The car hits a pothole. Bodies press closer. On the train to West Wales, seventy-one-year-old James touches the window, feeling not the cool glass but the phantom warmth of that long-ago night.
James finds the letter on the kitchen table, his father’s handwriting slanting sharply right as if blown by a Highland wind. “Plymouth,” it says. “June 17th.” The word “regrettably” appears three times in five lines. His mother stands at the sink, scrubbing a pot that’s already clean, her lips pressed into a thin line. The calendar on the wall has his exam date circled in red, now joined by another circle in his father’s blue pen—moving day, just after.
On their last Saturday, James’s toes curl against wet sand as Grace passes him the cigarette, her fingertips lingering against his. The filter is damp from her lips. Behind their rock fortress, Yvonne hugs her knees, watching the tide creep closer to their shoes. “So you’re really leaving?” Grace asks, blowing smoke sideways into the wind. When James nods, she leans in close enough that her hair brushes his cheek. “Poor Jamie,” she whispers, “just when you were getting interesting.” Her eyes hold his a beat too long before she turns away, laughing at something only she understands.
The two girls shrink in the rear window as the car pulls away. Grace’s hand remains raised, frozen mid-wave, while Yvonne clutches her cardigan closed at the throat. James’s lips still burn where Grace had pressed hers against them—three seconds of warmth that left the taste of salt and cigarettes. The phantom pressure of Yvonne’s thin arms, surprisingly strong around his shoulders lingers as fields replace houses outside the window. His father adjusts the rearview mirror, catching James’s eye before looking back to the road. Plymouth waits, six hundred miles and a lifetime away.
Fifty-six years later, James’s fingers tremble slightly as he pockets his train ticket. The car key feels cold in his palm. He rehearses fragments in his mind: “The presenter droned on,” “Terrible coffee,” “Same PowerPoint as last year.” Emma will nod, satisfied with these crumbs. He touches his lips absently, remembering how Olivia’s eyes crinkled when she laughed at the museum café, how her fingers had brushed his when passing the sugar. His heart quickens, teenage-fast beneath his seventy-one-year-old ribs.