Glass And Peace

Chapter 4. Peace.

"See!" I screech, affecting the gap-toothed sibilance and reedy nasal tone of the Sicilian crook in our favourite movie The Princess Bride.

"The Cliffs of INSANITY!", comes the response from the back seat, and the Outlander trembles with three loud, snorty bursts of laughter, and one mock-groan of faux despair. The "cliffs" in question - really the crags above Loch Snizort on the A87 in Skye - we have passed six times already this holiday, but the routine never gets old, not for Lilie, Eva and me anyway. Their mum is less impressed, but tolerates Dad's cheesy humour with good grace, happy that the children are happy.

We have a thing for catchphrases, the girls and I. It's my fault entirely, my need to regurgitate lines from movies and song lyrics - which Nat failed to quell when we were dating, probably finding it just endearing enough and just bearably geeky - is only encouraged by the children: each trying to be first with the required response whenever I feed a line.

"You know they're not the real cliffs of Insanity Daddy, er... Dad." frowned Lilie once the snorty laughter had subsided. Although this year she announced she has outgrown calling me Daddy, Lilie occasionally forgets, awkwardly correcting herself with a grimace.

"Oh, really? Can't you see the rope hanging from that overhanging rock up there? If only we had our own giant like Fezzik he could carry us to the top." Eva laughs, "I see it!" she giggles, "the rope, just after those trees that look like giant gherkins, it's just dangling, waiting for us, Daddy can't you climb it?"

Eva has a vivid imagination and always follows my lead whenever I take the kids on a flight of fancy, but Lilie is growing too old, too wise and too skeptical. "No." she says, sternly, "Dad's making it up, can't you tell?" and the older girl rolls her eyes at her little sister. "Well I can see it, even if you can't. Mummy, can you see it? Look where those gherkin trees are, it's there isn't it?"

"Poplars, honey" Nat says, kindly, referring to the trees, but refusing to take sides between the girls.

"No, it's true!" I quip and we share a grown-up giggle, causing the girls to forget their minor spat, look from eachother to us and back again and this time share an eye roll. "Are we there yet?" whines Eva, and Nat snaps back immediately, "No." The car goes silent for precisely ten seconds and Eva repeats, more dramatically, "Are we there yet?". We all start to chuckle... she's not whining at all, but running lines from Shrek 2.

Before we can get right through to the punchline - "Are we there yet?", "Yes!", "Really?", "No!" - Lilie sits up pressing against her belt and shouts "looook, in the river!". We all turn, and there, in the sea loch - not a river at all but right now the geography lesson can wait - in Loch Snizort doing backflips just for us is the sleek, supple, sublime shape of a sea otter.

"Wow" I gasp, as Nat slows the 4x4. There's nothing behind us, probably not for miles. We've been largely alone all week, staying as we are in the North West of the island, a good hour from the ferry ports of Lochalsh and Armadale. Many tourists "tick off" Skye just by motoring between those two harbours, many more make the trip up the east coast to Portree - from where we are returning today, having lunched at our favourite harbourside restaurant discovered on the way - but few continue on the A87 as it crosses the isthmus towards Uig where ferries depart for the still more remote islands, Harris and Uist, and where stands the croft we call home this Whitsun holiday. Eva lets out a low whistle, Lilie for once forgets to be cross at her inability to do the same and just sits open-mouthed, Nat cuts the engine and the car falls silent as our new aquatic entertainer holds our undivided attention.

The first thing I notice is its size, Sea otters are at least twice the weight of their river-dwelling cousins, and now we have one up close its size and obvious strength is remarkable. "One of those bit Terry Nutkins' finger off" said Lilie suddenly. "Who's Terry Nuptins?" asks Eva, not taking her eye off the otter, who was now doing corkscrew spins as if aware he had an audience. "Nutkins!" snaps Lilie, and I resist another "No it's true!" but share a conspiratorial grin with Nat. It is true, largely, as a young man living not far from this spot, the naturalist and co-presenter of seminal 70s kids nature TV show Animal Magic was viciously attacked by a sea otter he was caring for, and lost parts of two fingers. The female otter took offence to the scent of a woman's jumper Nutkins wore and apparently attacked the man in a fit of jealous rage. Nature "red in tooth and claw", can apparently be green in heart.

After what seems an age, with the otter doing nothing more productive than revelling in the water, probably preening but undoubtedly having fun, and Nat snapping away through the open passenger window, I reach for my video camera. I've upgraded to a Panasonic HD which is twice as powerful and half as heavy as the old JVC which had captured our safari honeymoon, but unfortunately it is not in the bag at my feet. I curse my luck and lack of foresight, and wonder if the otter - not the length of a tennis court away - would forgive the sound of the Outlander door or the crunch of my feet on the lochside gravel. I guess not, we are already pushing our luck with the window down, our voices and shutter clicks undoubtedly carrying across the water, but the otter seems so far unconcerned.

I guess that this moment is too good, the shared joy on my family's faces too complete, that I don't want to risk it. Shared moments, like all good things, are too fragile. I look from face to face, all are rapt in wonder, a half smile playing on Lilie's face as the otter performs another corkscrew, an almost inaudible giggle from Eva as he turns a somersault and comes up paws first showing his large incisors as if chuckling the words "Ta-da!" just for her. I choose not to shatter the moment with my hiking boots on the stony ground. Because this is true peace. And as David Mitchell puts it in Cloud Atlas: "Glass and peace alike betray proof of fragility under repeated blows". Or sometimes one blow. So I forsake the video camera, and choose to live in the moment. I choose glass and peace.