Highland Diaries - a short story FREE TO READ

Remember to smile

"Remind me again why we are doing this?" Jack, reluctantly pulling on jeans rather than trackie bottoms seeing as we were about to be filmed full body instead of being seen top half only, asked.

Safe to say, my husband loathed 'putting himself out there'. Like me, he'd grown up with social media. Unlike me, he'd never learned to love it. Two years ago, Mhari and my best friend Katya hit upon the idea of a YouTube channel to promote the Lochside Welcome, the pub Jack had taken over only recently.

Thanks to a lot of promotion by Katya, her boyfriend the marketing guru Dexter and the other supporters we'd picked up here and there, the channel's popularity grew and grew. Xavier, the French-Canadian manager of Lochalshie, featured on our YouTube channel a lot.

He could throw pizza dough up in the air, twirl it on his fists, and create a wafer-thin base for toppings that made your mouth water. Excellent material when filmed. He'd even been approached by Katya's agent pre the lockdown asking if he wanted to consider writing a cookbook.

"But I cannot write!" he said. That French-Canadian accent made everything he said sound much better. "Doesn't matter," Katya told him. "I'll do the words. All you need to do is come up with a few recipes and look pretty in the pictures."

The deal fell through when the pandemic hit, but we kept uploading films of him showing people how to make their own pizzas, or his speciality, Poutine (crispy chips, cheese curds and gravy). Our loyal followers kept liking those videos, sharing and commenting on them.

We crossed our fingers. Please let them remember us when all this is over.

The BBC, though. Very, very, very good publicity. The chance to promote our new services to an audience beyond the Highlands and Scotland.

Evie, settled on the rug in the living room, chose that moment to break off from what she was doing—bashing together the toy drum a friend (an enemy more like—honestly, who buys a small child a drum?) had bought her. She beamed at us—the smile pure McAllan. Tiny tufts of red hair stuck up from her head. I smoothed them down all the time. Made no difference. They popped up of their own accord.

Mildred, our ancient moggie, wandered in, flicking her tail disdainfully at Evie. Didn't put my daughter off. She clapped her hands, tipped forwards on to all fours and chased after Mildred as fast as her little legs and arms could carry her. Mildred, scurrying out, turned her head, arched her back, the hair standing on end, and hissed.

Evie stopped, falling back onto her bottom with a thump, and laughed. Mildred flicked her tail again. But she decided against fleeing, instead leaping up onto the back of the armchair and well out of Evie's reach. Safe to say, my daughter and my cat had a love hate relationship—love on Evie's part, hate on Mildred's. But Mildred had grown used to her. Sometimes, she even snuggled up when Evie flopped asleep on the sofa, the two of them the cutest little package of two you ever did see.

A knock at the door. "That's Mhari!" I said, nervous suddenly. Here it was, the opportunity to push ourselves. Jack and I exchanged glances—him, as ever, the beautiful man I married. I had suggested he wear a kilt, but he shook his head. "I'll look ridiculous, Gaby!"

Still, he'd pulled on his Lochside Welcome the UK's Best Community Pub T-shirt (logo designed by yours truly), the black a perfect contrast with his red hair. Like most people, he hadn't been near a hairdresser or barber in weeks. I liked the longer hair. More of it to push my fingers through, right?

I opened the door. Mhari backed away to maintain the distance. She was going to film us in the living room. The BBC had supplied questions we might like to think about and answer on film. I'd also suggested she film me walking to Jamal's shop—might as well publicise the vital role his small store played in our village—and Jack taking his daughter for a stroll around the loch.

"Look what they sent me!" Mhari exclaimed, holding up the camera—a heavy-looking Panasonic camcorder, a tripod and an on-camera microphone.

Behind me, Evie squealed. Mhari was one of her favourite people. I whisked her up as she headed straight for Mhari, the "ma-ma" sounds she made disconcertingly close to 'Mama'. My action triggered screams followed quickly by tears.

The biggest bit of how much lockdown sucked? My daughter not getting the cuddles she deserved. The village's GP, Caroline my mother-in-law, reassured me the risks to Evie's health were minimal. So far, the Highlands had escaped with a few cases of COVID-19 and thankfully only two in the village where both people recovered fully.

But as first-time parents, Jack and I bordered on paranoia. And promised our daughter when this was all over, she'd spend every hour of her waking day being passed around a circle of people who all wanted to hug her.

"Come on in then," I said. We'd set up the living room so that Mhari would be able to film from two metres back, clearing away the coffee table and putting the sofa against the back wall under the paintings that hung on the wall.

My idea again. Might as well show off Jack's artwork on TV and hope people wondered enough to google the Lochside Welcome website, which also advertised Jack's landscapes for sale.

"Who else have you filmed so far?" I asked Mhari.

"Lachlan," she said, pretending not to notice when my eyebrows shot up. Lachlan and Mhari shared a romantic history. My bet was she'd used the filming as a pretext, jumping at the opportunity to spend alone time with him.

"Is the footage fit for public consumption?" I asked, "or is it for your private pleasure only?"

She stuck her fingers up in a vee. I whipped a hand over Evie's eyes and tutted. Ever since Evie's birth, I had to come up with a lot of replacement words. Shoot. Fudge off. Bligger it. Jack wasn't quite as quick as remembering them. The last few weeks had elicited a lot of the f-word from Jack as he battled fear and panic about the future. At this rate, my daughter's first word wasn't likely to be 'Mumma' or 'dada' but one of the rudest examples of the English language.

We sat down on the sofa as Mhari set the camera up. She'd completed an online photography and film course at the local college two years ago, so knew what she was doing.

"So I thought you should start," she said, "wi' how you spend your days. And then you could move onto what you've done at the Lochside Welcome tae keep the business goin' when naebody is allowed tae go tae the pub."

"Fine," I said, taking a deep breath. "I'll go over the non-stop excitement of what I do day to day." Heavy on the sarcasm there. "And then Jack will talk about the Lochside Welcome."

Next to me, Jack put his head in his hands and groaned.

I dug my elbow in his side. "Yes, you will, oh gorgeous one. And remember to smile when you do it, okay?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE - for my international readers, trackie bottoms is how we in the UK refer to jogging bottoms/joggers. I live in mine. The universe was kind enough to send us elasticated waists for good reason.