By Hamish Brown

"Climb when you're ready," he yelled down to his invisible partner on January Jigsaw.

"Climbing" came the billowy response as Betty began to pick her way up the neat holds. Rannoch Wall would make anyone want to climb. She just wished she'd got Allan to take her years ago. She liked it when Norrie was there too. He was so much more gentle than her husband. But she'd have to be careful - ca canny - in case Allan thought there was anything going between them. Which there wasn't, "mair's the pity," she muttered as she lifted a runner off a pink porphyry spike. "Keep your mind on whit you're daein", she told herself.

Allan and Norrie were partners in a garden ornament business. "Selling garden gnomes" as Betty taunted him on their last screaming match.

"And whit's wrang wi' garden gnomes?" Allan had responded.

"Oh, naethin. It's jist you become mair an mair like them: Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy."

"Shut up then, Snow-white!" he'd yelled and stomped out to slam the door and set the plates on the dresser quivering.

His anger was the worse because he knew she was hitting too close to the mark. They were overdrawn and in trouble and he'd no desire for Betty to discover that or, more importantly, her stuck-up father who was so correct and proper in everything, like ensuring Allan had taken out a good life policy before they married. (Betty of course was already covered, had been since birth.)

"Don't want my little lily left in the lurch, what?" he'd admonished in that smug voice of his.

The last straw had come with the patio Allan and Norrie had agreed to do for the colonel. At the last moment he'd wiggled out from his commitment and they'd been left with the materials some parts of which were already looking tatty or rusting. They'd threatened the colonel with suing him for breach of contract but he pointed out there was no contract, he'd signed nothing and they'd get nothing, except a big bill for the costs. The bugger was probably right too They gave up on that one. They were pretty well giving up tilli stop.

The odd Sundays when they could escape claustrophobic Helensburgh and head for the Coe were treasured respites from the pressures of failure. Allan and Norrie had come together through climbing and it had seemed a good idea, three years ago, to set up their own business. "70% of households in Scotland have gardens which are actually looked after," he'd quoted. "Man, there's the market."

Somehow it didn't quite work. People who'd sink twenty five quid for a fancy conifer or a weeping cherry grudged parting with even a tenner for some concrete eye-catcher.

"No taste, folks," Norrie complained.

Allan thought it was probably the opposite. Too many effing people had better taste than to want garden rubbish. Jetty's father had creased himself when he'd set eyes on the first Seven Dwarfs set they'd stocked. He did not like his father-in-law; nor his daughter if it came to that.

He'd first suggested she came along on a climbing trip with the gloating hope of scaring the shit out of her but she'd taken to it. Liked it! And she was such a cocksure little bitch she never even noticed how she rubbed Allan's nose in it with her new enthusiasm.

Betty's beloved father had - naturally - raised hell about her climbing. It was far too dangerous. Allan's efforts at explaining that Betty always had a rope on and couldn't fall, not seriously, never got through.

"You might fall," he'd remonstrate.

Allan thought, "The way things are goin I'm mair liker tae jump!".

"What's that you're muttering?" "Nethin. Nethin. It's quite safe ...."

But explaining the old man was more at risk every time he stepped into his Rover had not gone down well.

He tried again. "If I'm leading I've got protection on. Besides, Norrie's usually seconding."

"Well, he's probably more reliable."

"Thanks."

He kept very quiet about the fact that on a few recent occasions Betty had led routes. Norrie had had a job keeping a straight face while Allan and Betty argued over that.

"Your old man'll kill me!" "Only if I kill masel," she countered. "And who's gone to tell? You? Norrie?"

She reckoned she could lead January Jigsaw, or Agag's Groove. Rannoch Wall's exposure was exhilarating rather than scary. It was that verticality that first put the idea of mischief into Allan's head. If she peeled it would be easy to cut through the taught nylon. You could say a sharp edge cut it - except the experts could tell it was a knife cut. There must be some way though. Alas, Allan's preoccupation led to another row on the drive home, which started with Betty's shot across his bows, "Right talkative tonight aren't we?", and only eased off when they ate their chip suppers in the lay-by before home. Actually laying hand on money enough to save their business as well as being rid of Betty seemed a really brilliant idea. But how?

Be sure and check out Hamish's books on the family page.

You can reach Hamish by snail mail at 26 Birkcaldy Road, Burntisland, Fife KY3 9HQ.

You can find more articles in the archive under The Bothy.