Leopard print heart on a forearm

You'll not believe what came off the Oban boat on Tuesday. Mr Gillies, the showman with the caravan on the machair, had his leopard in a crate, and the crate went over the side when the tide was running hard. Nobody drowned, though the leopard came close. It swam to the slipway, shook itself like a wet dog and walked up the main street as if it owned the place.

Half the island shut its doors. Ishbel Macrae climbed onto the bus shelter roof with a bread knife, which is the sort of thing she does. I stood in the shop doorway with a tin of peaches in my hand and watched the animal stop at the bottom of the hill to sniff a puddle. Its coat was soaked and the spots had gone dark, pressed close together like a sum that had come out right.

It was Calum who got it to come. He didn't shout. He sat on the chapel wall and sang the Gaelic psalm he sang at his mother's funeral, low and tuneless, and the cat padded over and lay across his boots as if he'd paid for the seat.

Gillies calls it Heartbreaker on the programme, though the poster says Dolly, and I've never trusted a man with two names for one cat. The crate goes back on Friday's boat. I've slipped a flat grey stone shaped like a heart into this envelope from the beach below the manse, so don't lose it in the post.

Love, Aunt Morag