If Scotland said YES!

Part One: The VIllage of Brae

Chapter One: The Village of Brae

Murdo Mackay leaned forwards over the steering wheel of his Citroen van, peering steadfastly through the windscreen into the mist and drizzle covering the road ahead. He drove the small van on the road from Lerwick with the same earnest deliberation with which he steered his fishing boat through the murkiness of sea–mists when tending his lobster pots around the coasts and voes of North Shetland. 

Murdo was alone with his thoughts this September morning, which were reflected in the grimness of his face if anybody could have seen it. The misty darkness lightened ahead as the road turned sharply eastwards, skirting the shore at the head of Busta Voe to become the main street of the village of Brae and the site of his destination at the leisure centre. He glanced at his wrist- watch and murmured.

“Five fifty eight and the sun should be rising now.”

He reduced speed sharply by changing down through the gears before applying the brakes as his father had taught him when learning to drive as a boy. The little vehicle shuddered and its engine screamed in protest at the treatment. Murdo swung the wheel heavily to the right, as if it was a trawler's’s steering wheel, passed through the open gates and screeched to a halt in the only empty space in the car park of the North Mainland Leisure Centre.

He climbed out of the van greeting the damp, misty morning with a huge toothless grin and faced south towards Busta Voe to breathe deeply of the salt laden air carried on the light breeze coming up from the voe. This was a fine morning for the weather, but the urgency of his mission prompted him to forego the simple pleasures of enjoying the arrival of a new day. He scrambled among fish boxes, netting and coils of tarred hemp in the van for his oilskin and his father’s leather document case; once firm, but now gone soft with age and ill usage.

He turned his back to the breeze, while he fastened buttons at the neck of his oilskin and faced north, towards the narrow isthmus that separated the island called Mainland from that of Northmavine and the wider, deeper waters of Sullom Voe beyond. The fuzzy outline of the new Leisure Centre came into view through the drizzle fifteen metres away to tell him the sun had risen, but with insufficient strength to break through the cloud cover. 

Murdo grasped his father’s document case, slammed shut the door of the van and stepped out towards the entrance to the building in the long purposeful strides that was his gait for any time or eventuality.  The lights blazing through the windows either side of the entrance and the fullness of the car park bore testimony that he was not the only person in Brae who had not seen a bed that night.

A loud gasp with muted murmurings from dozens of people followed by an instant silence greeted him as he wrenched open the entrance door and entered the foyer. He shook the water droplets from his head on taking off the oilskin to hang it on top of the layers of coats adorning the pegs and with his document case under his arm opened the double doors to enter the main hall.

The sight that met him took him by surprise. The hall was crowded with people sitting at tables, many with hands held in shock to their faces and those faces he could see wore grim and forbidding expressions. The drinks on the tables stood still and untouched; it was as if the people in the room had become petrified. The only sound and movement came from the big-screen TV on the wall where Jeremy Vine of the BBC election commentary team explained the message contained in one of his graphics. 

There were two horizontal columns each growing in the same direction, but at different rates depending upon the results coming in from each of the thirty two electoral regions: one was coloured green for “Yes’ and the other red for ‘No.” The green column was growing ahead of the red towards a white, dotted vertical line that represented the winning post. 

The latest result had come in from Midlothian, putting the ‘Yes’ campaign significantly ahead in the poll. The whole room waited with baited breath for the next result for the red column to even or surpass the green. 

Brae was essentially ‘No’ territory, the Union Flag flew over the public buildings here. Those villagers supporting Scottish independence were few and mostly immigrants from Scotland working in the oil industry.

Huw Edwards, the veteran broadcaster and anchor man of the BBC commentary team cut to Fife, where the returning officer had mounted the rostrum to declare the result from that region.

Murdo stood in the doorway watching the screen with growing dismay. He did not hear what the returning officer said, but saw the Vine graphic in a window superimposed below the scene at Fife Town Hall.

He watched the red column moving to the right and clenched his fists burying his nails in his palms as he willed it to cross that dotted vertical line, but it stopped some way before reaching the crucial target marker Then with growing horror the green line propelled itself forwards with increasing momentum to cross and come to rest beyond the line. 

Uproar followed in the room with cries of disbelief from the audience and with tears from many as they stood willing this result to be a dream and not reality. The ‘Yes’ campaign had won the referendum. Any results not yet declared were now meaningless, as they could not change the result.  People gave vent to their shock and dismay in angry expressions and gestures of defiance as they began filing out of the hall to go home; leaving their drinks unfinished, abandoned and unwanted on the tables. This was not a moment for joy or celebration, but one of sadness for most of the citizens of Shetland. .  The ‘Yes’ campaign had won. Scotland would become independent of the United Kingdom in eighteen month’s time.

Murdo thrust out his jaw. Acknowledging the comments of the people leaving with a bland nod as he stepped gingerly through the throng to gain access to the hall.  A man tugged at Murdo’s elbow. “We’ll nae be British anymore Murdo, we have to be Scottish now. We’ve lost.” Murdo squinted at the man and smiled.

“Well Hamish, we’ll just have to see about that, will we not now?”