'You do know that there is no direct electricity supply to the cottage, just a generator? There is no mains water or sewerage. Water comes from the nearby stream and sometimes in the summer the stream can run low or dry up, so you need to be prepared if staying for any length of time.'
'Are you trying to put me off?' I asked.
'No, not at all,' the estate agent replied. 'But don’t you want to view it?'
'I’m sure it will be perfect,' I reconfirmed. 'It’s not going to be my main home, just a bit of a long term rental bolthole that I can escape to.'
'It’s called Rainbow’s End.'
I chuckled to myself ‘Rainbow’s End’, how appropriate! Things hadn’t quite turned out the way that I thought they would. I had retired early from a public sector management job and quickly plunged into a downward spiral of staying up till the early hours, drinking too much, getting up at mid-day, of having no purpose. I had too much time to dwell on the possibilities of a post-operative cancer recurrence. Cancer had a lot to answer for!
Frayed and weary, I needed to find the will again, the will to do something great. If greatness was to elude me, mediocrity would be a starting point, at least I would be mediocre in the safety of the remote cottage with its creaking door and leaking roof.
'I’ll take it,' I said to the estate agent.
With cancer follow-up test results clear, my self-rescue plan was rooted in being able to focus over the summer months on writing, something that I had always wanted to do but had never got around to. It might not have been a great plan, but it was something; it was a future which was better than no future at all.
Soon enough, the day came to collect the keys from the estate agent.
'Good luck up there, don’t be getting snowed in,' said the estate agent as she handed me the brown envelope that contained one large key.
I drove for most of the day with the key in its brown envelope in pride of place on the passenger seat. I intended to stay for a month on this occasion, mainly to get the cottage organised, and to prepare for my longer summer stay. I arrived in Loch Carron, a pretty, Wester Ross village of white-washed cottages by the loch continuing for a mile beyond the village and then down a gravel road by the loch side which snaked and wove its way to Rainbow’s End.
My heart in my mouth as Rainbow’s End came into view; grey stone and rock reflecting the glint of the loch. Stone and water, amidst heather dashed with pebble astride a long slither of silver sand. This wasn’t a road to nowhere, it was a road to somewhere, I thought as I turned the key in the lock and opened the door to what would be a future yet to be charted.
I unloaded the car, brewed a large pot of good coffee and explored every nook and cranny. There was a kitchen of sorts with an old electric cooker, no washing machine, no fridge, no dishwasher. What had I been thinking, no dishwasher! The bathroom had seen better days, the living room small but cosy with a log burner and leaking roof and a tiny bedroom with a single bed that reeked of damp; the sofa would have to make do as my bed for the time being. Sleep!
The next morning, I was woken suddenly by loud whimpering; something was in the living room with me. I stumbled from the sofa, tripping over my own feet landing on the floor. A large unknown black dog was almost standing on top of me, wet and shaking and cold. I sprang to my feet, thinking that someone must be in the cottage.
'Hello,' I shouted at the top of my voice, to which the dog responded by barking as loudly as he could.
'Sit!' I shouted at the dog, half expecting it to sink its teeth into my throat, but it didn’t.
To my amazement the dog stopped barking and sat still as if waiting for further instruction. I checked the windows and the doors, I could hardly believe it, I had left the front door wide open the night before.
'Out!' I yelled at the dog, pointing towards the door. The dog seemed reluctant to move, but after I pointed to the door again, he slowly got up and limped towards the door, his hind leg bloodied by a snare of barbed wire that was still wrapped and embedded within it. 'Stop,' I said but the dog kept walking. 'Heel,' I said.
I loaded the dog into the car and took him to the vet, who confirmed that the dog had no chip and was severely malnourished and injured.
'Do you want me to put him to sleep? He’s in quite a bad way,' the Vet said.
I looked at the dog and the dog looked at me with his huge saucer eyes and I sighed 'No, if you can patch him up, I will look after him until his owner can be found.' It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. What was I doing?
A few months later I walked along the silver stretch of sand by the loch, where I found a rock to perch upon and write. I watched the sun throw embers of pink, amber and ochre across the water as it slowly sunk below the silhouetted hills on the opposite bank. Bo sat at my feet, no one had claimed him in Loch Carron, no one knew where he had come from. As the day ended, Bo and I walked back together to our home at Rainbow’s End. The future seemed wide open.