No Place Like Home

when he wanted to say something negative but wasn’t sure how to phrase it in a non-hurtful way.
‘It’s a bit rough around the edges,’ Bram conceded, ‘but we’ve a few days to practise.’
‘It’s great, and the history behind it is really cool and everything, but they’re not into that kind of stuff here, Dad. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to sing that at the housewarming.’
‘There’s a long tradition of making your own entertainment in the north of Scotland,’ Bram pointed out. ‘At ceilidhs and get-togethers in the long winter evenings. People doing turns, singing a song or telling a story–’
‘Yeah, maybe fifty years ago. Finn says they still have ceilidhs, but it’s mainly just dancing now. And if there was any singing, I think it would be the locals doing it. That kind of stuff sounds… a bit peculiar, if you don’t have the right accent.’
‘Och, I’ve a few days to work on that too!’
Phoebe giggled, but Max rolled his eyes, setting his guitar aside on the sofa.
Max shared Bram’s love of folk music from all corners of the world, and Bram had expected him to jump on this with his usual enthusiasm. He hardly thought Finn Taylor was representative of the tastes of the local population, but refrained from saying so. The Taylors were incomers too, having moved up here from Edinburgh a decade or so ago. Andrew had been in ‘finance’, whatever that meant, until he’d had a midlife crisis and decided to give up the rat race and open a restaurant in the Highlands. What did they know about the local culture?
‘Don’t do it, Dad,’ Max muttered, getting up to replace his guitar in the corner by the bookcase.
‘I thought it was good,’ Phoebe asserted virtuously. ‘You kind of sounded Scottish.’
‘Och aye.’ Bram stood, striking a pose. ‘I’m a Hieland laddie now, you ken!’
When everyone else was in bed, Bram settled in the armchair next to the ‘wireless’ in the Walton Room, the 1930s vibe spoilt somewhat by the laptop open on his knee.
His blog, Our Highland Home, had gained a few followers – they now numbered two hundred and forty-nine, although most of them were friends and family. And there were twenty-six comments on this morning’s post, which didn’t surprise him given its content. There was no point doing a blog, in his opinion, unless it was warts and all, so he’d described the happenings of yesterday – the dead crow on the whirly, Bertie being shot at and the vegetable patch weedkilled.
He scrolled down the comments, pausing now and then to add quick replies: Thanks, yes, we’re all fine or The police are pretty sure it’s just kids, which is borne out by what the neighbours have told us about hi-jinks going on in the woods a while back.
The first comment from ManOnAMission was about halfway down.
Yeah. Okay. Your out-of-control animal rips its side on a barbed wire fence trying to get to a field of sheep (should sue the farmer – dear Bertie has every right to worry sheep if he so chooses). And, surprise surprise, you can’t grow aubergines outdoors in Scotland. But no – someone ‘shot Bertie’ :-( :-( :-( and ‘poured weedkiller on the vegetable patch.’ :-( Sheesh.
There were a couple of replies from Jan and Freddie, two friends from London, telling ManOnAMission where to get off, and then a reply from someone called Red:
There ain’t no cure for stupid, Man. Fucking wee hipster arsewipe.
Red had left his or her own comment further down. Just two words.
You people!
Bram snapped the laptop shut and sat for a moment, his fingers spread out on top of it, as if to contain what he’d just read safely inside. You people… What on earth was that about? You people as in what? Incomers? Londoners? Liberal-minded New Age lunatics? Had they got it all wrong? Had Bertie actually torn his shoulder on barbed wire trying to get into a field of sheep – had one of the locals seen it happen? Had the veg died from incompetence-stroke-overconfidence, from Bram’s ignorance of the Scottish growing conditions? Were these trolls rightly indignant that the Hendriksens’ default had been to blame local kids and call the police on them?
Well, even if that were the case, it was an honest mistake.
There was no excuse for trolling.
He’d warned Max and Phoebe often enough about cyber bullying. He’d never expected to be on the receiving end himself.
Just walk away, he always told them.
He stood, and set the laptop down on the chair, and literally walked away, across the room to the windows looking out onto the darkened verandah. The sky wasn’t black, it still had a blue tint to it – the summer dusk this far north was late and slow – but it was dark enough to obliterate whatever was out there, the windows throwing back only his own reflection, an average Joe dressed in a vintage 1950s chocolate and beige polo shirt, navy M&S jeans and polished leather shoes, standing with arms dangling at his sides.
Fucking wee hipster arsewipe.
Bram wasn’t ‘wee’; he was five foot ten. And he wasn’t a hipster. He was too old and he didn’t even have a beard. Okay, the vintage polo shirt – but M&S jeans, for God’s sake!
Before he quite knew what he was doing, he was twitching the curtains closed across all the windows and frowning at the four panes of glass in the upper section of the door, and asking himself why they hadn’t thought to put up a door curtain.

6
If Bram was being honest, which he wasn’t – ‘Looks like a nice place,’ he’d smiled as they’d parked up – the Inverluie Hotel was the kind of hostelry that showed to best advantage in the rear-view mirror. It had once, he supposed, been charming, a Victorian coaching inn by the side of the main road to Grantown, but uPVC window salesmen and lax planning regulations had done their worst. The bar was now housed in a hideous extension