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‘There was something about them being good clan leaders, not evicting their tenants during the clearances, is it?’
He snorts as I say this.
‘That sounds pretty awesome to me, like something to be proud of?’
I look up at him, heart thumping. I’m excited these people are my ancestors. Why can’t he indulge me and talk about it?
‘Me grandda liked to boast of his links to the noble clan. But they weren’t so keen when me da tried to tap them for a business loan. Aye, they think a lot of themselves.’ Don holds me in his gaze.
Is he like studying my features? Has he actually noticed I’ve got his eyes?
‘Folk around here have a lot of nonsense to talk,’ he says, all slow and deliberate. ‘I’ll thank you not to go about bragging of your relations to the McCalstry clan, or to me for that matter.’
I’m literally squirming with the sternness of his stare. I nod just to get him to look away.
He goes to fill the kettle and stoke up the stove. ‘Enough of the bloody McCalstrys.’ He sits back down. ‘What about yourself?’
His look is a challenge again and I’m pissed off with its power. What the hell is there to say? I sip the whisky, shift my feet.
‘Not a lot to tell, I’m nothing special.’ How pathetic does that sound?
Don smiles for the first time in ages. And there it is, my dimple again. ‘That’ll be something we have in common then.’ His eyes softer now. Not so bad looking after all.
I feel a strange comfort in this like solidarity of failure. Without Mum to add, of course you’re something special, then outline all the reasons I’m not.
‘But you’ve got this epic motorbike museum?’ I say.
‘Aye and it’s bankrupting me.’ Don stares past me.
‘But I’ve seen it online. Such an awesome idea, as in, I don’t know a lot about motorbikes, but I really like all that old stuff…?’ I gabble.
‘You don’t want to believe everything you see on the internet,’ he interrupts.
‘I knew it was you when I found it on Google? You said in your letter, like about your passion for old bikes?If only there were a job in that…?’
‘Aye, I made a fair bit of money before I came here, rebuilding the British bikes that no beggar cared about in the seventies. Now you get old bikers gone respectable, wanting to turn heads with a shiny old classic at the weekend. Pay through the nose for someone else to tart up the chrome, retune the engine.’
‘So, what gave you the idea of the museum?’ I’m feeling smug with how neatly I’ve got the conversation back on him, but I’m still treading carefully.
He nods his head slightly as he thinks. You can pretty much hear the cogs whirring.
‘These bikes are a part of the history of everyday folk. So, I had the idea of showing them as they were: transport for a family trip to the seaside; café racers, highland scramblers, all that. I managed to scrape enough to open about four years ago.’
‘Sounds sick! I can’t wait to see your museum. You should be dead proud.’
‘Aye, well pride never paid the bills, and it doesn’t make enough. I’m out of capital before it’s finished.’
‘Couldn’t you like get a grant or something?’
‘Oh aye, a grant. You have nae idea how things work here.’ He jerks his head around the caravan, like he’s heard something suspicious.
I’ve obviously hit yet another sore point. What about that woman at the Heritage Centre, hinting that Don had no friends? I’m desperate to know what that’s all about, but somehow, I sense now’s not the moment.
‘I’d still love to see the museum,’ is all I say.
‘It’s open to the public.’ He starts twirling the car pennant flag from his tray, like that ends the subject.
Fuck’s sake, why can’t he just show me now? And I remember again I’ve got to tell him I’ve nowhere to stay and no money. I put it off as another question emerges.
