KNOCKANDO

July 1935

‘When are you going to let me kiss you?’

‘Never, Angus,’ Violet replied matter-of-factly, inhaling the smell that blew across the barley fields on the soft wind, creating golden waves all around them as their tall heads bent in ripples.

‘Why not?’

‘We grew up next to each other. You’re like a brother!’ She shoved him as they walked together.

‘Och, no! Don’t say that.’

‘Already said it.’ She grinned.

‘But I’ve waited all my life for it.’

Now she laughed aloud. ‘You liar! I saw you kissing Morag behind the school sheds.’

‘Ach, that was nothing. ’Tis you I love.’

‘Angus,’ she pleaded.

‘I can’t help it if you’re so pretty.’

‘Neither can I,’ she said, laughing again; it sounded boastful.

‘Fall in love with someone else, please.’

‘Is it because of my red hair?’ he asked, frowning.

She had to stifle a fresh gust of laughter. ‘No, you’re very handsome.’ He wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. She adored him all the same.

‘Is it my flat feet or freckles?’

‘No. Angus,’ she began patiently, ‘you’re lovely in every way. And you’re my very best friend—’

‘So kiss me!’ he said, before she could give him any more reasons not to.

Violet stopped walking. They’d reached the turn-off that would send Angus up the hill to his home. She reached for the basket he had been carrying for her. ‘Angus, do you like having me as your friend?’

‘I want no other,’ he said.

‘Well, surely you’d hate our friendship to change, wouldn’t you?’

‘I would hate that,’ he replied, looking wounded.

She put a hand on her hip. ‘Well, then. It would change. A peck on the cheek doesn’t change much, but a kiss on the lips changes everything,’ she said, hoping her tender tone would get through to him. ‘And neither of us wants that. We want to stay friends forever.’

He frowned, unsure.

‘Trust me.’

He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t stop me wanting to kiss your lips instead of your cheek, though.’

She gave him a friendly push. ‘Go home, Angus. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Don’t leave me, Violet.’

‘I’ve got to go home to—’

‘No, I mean later. Don’t leave. Say you’ll marry me when you’re older, and I won’t chase you for a kiss now.’

She paused to summon her mother’s patient tone as she’d told Violet she behaved like a much older person. Her mother had remarked on it so often that Violet believed it. And the truth was, she felt it, aided by her height, which often put her on par with the boys and a head above many of the girls her own age. These days, in the company of her peers, she heard herself speaking like a grown-up: sometimes dismissive or impatient with their antics, often bored. She had long ago accepted that she was different and needed to follow her own path.

‘So?’ Angus prompted, believing she hadn’t heard him.

‘Angus, if I’m not going to risk our friendship to kiss you, then I’m certainly not going to marry you.’ She didn’t add that she couldn’t promise to stay in Knockando either, that it was too small and she wanted to explore more of Speyside . . . Gosh, she wanted to travel around Scotland, England and perhaps even Europe, where both her parents had been during the war. In her imagination that sounded so exciting.

Angus kicked at the dust. ‘Maybe you’ll change your mind.’

‘I won’t,’ she said…