He always carried them the same way: two steps forward with the first case, two steps backwards to pick up the other two, like some strange dance, forward and backwards, all the way from the station or where his old van was parked by the main road to the coast. He could not risk his suspension on the potholes to Stratharvar.

He was a cheery sight that morning: Kerr’s Tailors and Drapery Store on the move to each farmhouse to mark out the seasons of the year. She could remember her own mother sifting through each of the samples in his cases in silence. ‘I’m just waiting for something to jump out at me,’ she would say to Wee Alec as he sipped his cup of tea, and little Netta would wait with bated breath for something to leap out of the case into her hand. It never did but Alec Kerr never went away without an order: warm shirting material, heavy stockings, interlock directoires in salmon pink or sky blue. Come hail or shine, he was always a welcome sight for there were few visitors up the long track to bring the news from Dumfries to the eager ears of the farmers’ wives.

All the colours of the rainbow came in those cases: satin ribbons; winceyettes and Clydella for nightgowns; even the heathery tweed suiting brightened the long dark nights when Mother would sew up the cloth on her Singer machine. Netta’s job was to catch the offcuts and make them into doll’s dresses, collect the fluff into balls. The feel of fine material across her fingers was always soothing. Wee Alec brought no shoddy cloth on his rounds for farmers needed warmth and quality in their clothing to keep out the draughts and wild weather.

Netta recalled Wee Alec and his dance up the lane in those happier times when she stumbled down to meet him halfway as a child.

Now she watched furtively, ashamed to be showing her bulk so boldly. But for Auld lang syne’ she must make an effort and drag herself down to be polite.

*

In the farm kitchen Wee Alec’s visit was a welcome intrusion on the day’s chores for Peg. The ritual never varied. First there were the formal greetings, a weather report, the state of rationing – all discussed as Alec laid out his samples on the scrubbed deal table and Peg infused the tea, buttering drop scones to accompany his forenoon cuppa.