My Highlander >>

This family, which used to be three...

My father was the most brilliant man I knew, him and I had been everywhere together. Egypt, Romania, Malaysia, Sweden, Cuba...the list is nearly infinite. As we are. But out of all the places we had been in all the spectacular edges and crevices of the round planet we had been on for our combined number of 68 years(my father being 50 of them.) we had never been to one of the countries closest to us...

You see, after my mother died, when I was five, my father packed our suitcases and we spent the money that he had earned and saved these past years of him being an ex-war veteran and history professor at Oxford and my mothers savings of being a nurse and writer, on two tickets to France, which he decided would be the start of our "voyages." He never, ever brought a return ticket.

He homeschooled me. As an educated, English, intelligent, teacher himself, it wasn't at all difficult. And as a result of the places we traveled and the things he taught me, I had steadily and thoroughly learned French, Spanish, Russian, Romanian and Italian. I had witnessed and experienced the cultures of the west, Asia, Scandinavia, Africa and Europe and had finalised school and college by the time I was fifteen.

I was born in the year 1921, three years after the First World War. I suppose my conceiving was a result of the celebration. My mother had been a nurse, and she tended to my father after he lost his small and ring finger on his right hand and his foot. Disabled, he was no use to the frontline and the war was over. Instead he took a mellow job teaching Oxford pupils the art of History and the times and ways which had been in the past.

Perhaps his sudden need for leaving was his way of coping with my mothers death,was exile. A need to escape. To run from the pain of sad memories and woeful reminiscence. He doesn't think I know, but ever since I was twelve, I had always noticed that everyday he took two pills. One a a powdery white tablet and the other a coloured capsule. One, relief of pain for his leg, the other, a source of relief for his heart.

It was the two off us, and although we thrived, Japan, Venice, Iceland and Transylvania had now been explored. Money was running out, and maybe now he was wanting to settle down. Maybe meet a woman and move on. Teach everything that he has learned to other people my age. Allow me to make friends with people my age and have a life.

And so we went to the place that I was conceived, the place he lived for a long time as a child. (A place other than Birmingham.) and the place, little did we know, I was going to spend the rest off my life.

"If only mum was here to see this."

"She's here, Darling. She's here."

The grass beneath my feet was an alien but delightful feeling. The hills and century-old buildings of the Scottish town we were staying in was a nice and homely change in comparison to the tall buildings, bad air and Motor-vehicles of London, or the intimidating, hulking mountains of Peru. The glens were much more enjoyable.

"Excuse me, sir? Do you know where there is a hotel around here? Near to town?" My father asked, aiming his arm towards Inverness. His southern English accent was prominent and the Scottish man had been heard a flock of sheep with a dog.

"Aye." His accent was thick. "There's a bed n' breekfast bout' four miles that way. I ken they ave' good rooms and lodging, bu' the food is terrible."

My father thanked him and the two off us made our way to his automobile.

"The people are friendly." I stated, getting in the drivers seat. I turned on the engine, got into gear and reversed out it the field we had temporarily parked in.

"They are, even with the war clearly coming up, they seem to be in good spirits." My hair whipped around my face as he used his three-fingered hand to smooth back his greased ebony hair. I knew how to drive by the time I was fourteen but had been driving in my fathers car for about a year now.