by Emma Fraser
I miss our children too, my love. I hope that one day they will understand why I did what I did.
Now listen to me, Margaret. Your father came to see me. He demanded to know where you and the children had gone, said that he would set a detective to find you, and it was far better for all concerned that I tell him. He repeated his threats and included poor Firth in his rants. Firth is impervious. He claims he has nothing to lose but everything to gain by helping to win my case. But, my love, be careful. Your father is more dangerous to you than ever. He is not a man who cares to be thwarted.
Yours
A
The letter was unusually pensive. A shiver of unease ran up her spine. It was almost as if Alasdair had given up hope – as if he were saying goodbye. She scrambled in the drawer and finding her pen, started to write.
My darling
Every minute of happiness I have given you has been returned ten-fold. I think of that day when, as a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman, I met you for the first time. Even then I knew you were someone exceptional and I know we were meant to find each other again. You make me the proudest woman on earth. Peter tells me that the islanders are bound to their home by a silken thread – that is how I feel about you. We are forever bound and neither time nor place will ever break us apart. My love for you has no end, no beginning, no limitations.
She hiccupped and stopped to wipe her eyes. She hadn’t even realised she was crying. She had to send him the force of her love – make him feel it. Make him have faith in it.
I believe we will be together again and you must too. When I die I want it to be in your arms, your voice the last thing I hear, your breath on my face the last thing I feel. But that won’t be for a very long time. We will grow old together, my love. You in your chair, me in mine. Our grandchildren at our feet.
My father hasn’t found me yet and I trust he never will.
She didn’t tell him about Sinclair. There was no point in worrying him, not when it appeared Sinclair had lost interest in remembering where he’d seen her and definitely not when Alasdair seemed so unsure.
Do not lose faith, Alasdair
Yours forever
Margaret
As she folded the letter inside its double envelope she wondered, once again, if she’d made the right decision leaving Glasgow. Should she have done what her father asked and taken the chance on regaining custody of the children when Alasdair was free?
But she’d known then her father couldn’t be trusted and she had no reason to change her mind now.
There were only just over ten weeks to the trial.
Firth and Toni simply had to find the man Mrs Murphy had seen.
It was two days after she’d been to see Caroline before Margaret was able to get Dr Alan on his own. They kept on missing each other. She was either out on calls when he was seeing patients at the surgery or vice versa. Just when she was wondering if she’d ever manage to see him, she found him in his consulting room. He was staring into space, his normally cheerful expression muted.
‘May I speak to you for a moment?’
He looked up as if surprised to find her there. ‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Sit.’
She told him she’d confirmed that Caroline was indeed pregnant.
‘Ah, yes. I was planning to talk to you about that. Donald MacIntosh came to see me in high dudgeon. Said you’d suggested that his wife abort her baby. Is that correct?’
Her heart jumped to her throat. If Caroline’s husband had made a complaint about her, it was only a matter of time before the police became involved. ‘I suggested it because it’s the only way to save Caroline!’
He frowned at her. ‘The last I heard it is against the law.’
‘Not even if it might save the mother’s life? That baby will almost inevitably die anyway – if the mother doesn’t die first. They terminate pregnancies in the cities. They just call it something different.’
‘That may well be, but you should have discussed it with me first. I could have told you, you’d be wasting your breath.’
‘I’m sorry. But if Caroline had agreed to a termination then the sooner it was done the better.’
‘But if there is a chance, however small, that the baby might survive, who are we to take away a life?’ He folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. ‘We like to think of ourselves as the patients do: that we are gods. But we are not. Caroline and her child are in the hands of a higher power than either you or I. It is out of our hands. You have to accept that.’
‘I don’t know that I can.’
Dr Alan looked at her keenly. ‘When you’ve been a doctor as long as I have, you’ll come to realise you can’t save everyone. In many ways it’s easier in a city. Especially when you work in a hospital. You see them, treat them, they either get better or they don’t. But whatever the outcome, your part is over then. In a community like this it’s harder. We get to know the families, we’re forced to confront their pain when a loved one dies, sometimes several times over. We know their hopes and their dreams, we keep their secrets and while it is a privilege, it is a burden too. We have to find a way of separating the doctor from the friend. We can be both but not at the same time.’
Margaret thought she saw tears in his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
He smiled wryly. ‘Perhaps I’m not as good at taking my own advice as I should be. A wee girl died from pneumonia last night.’
‘I am so sorry!’
‘Aye, well. Death. Birth. It’s all part of a doctor’s life.’ He took his pipe from his pocket. ‘Not always easy, though.’
They were silent as Dr Alan packed his pipe. He lit it and sat back.
‘Is Caroline’s husband going to make a formal complaint?’ Margaret asked, her stomach churning. She wouldn’t blame him, but if he did…
‘I don’t think so. It took a while but when he understood you were only trying to save his wife’s life, he calmed down. He is a reasonable man who just happens to love his wife very much. There will be no formal complaints made.’
Margaret’s racing heart began to resume its normal pace. She suspected she had this man to thank that she’d escaped unscathed. The patients trusted him completely.
‘He hadn’t understood quite how serious her situation was,’ Dr Alan continued, ‘but he did say that his wife will never agree to a termination – that she thinks if she does, both she, and even worse as far as she is concerned, her child, will burn in hell.’
‘What will we do about Caroline? Should we send her to Glasgow?’
‘We could. But what will they do there? And that’s supposing Caroline and her husband could afford the cost of the journey.’
‘They might be able to keep her alive long enough to deliver her baby.’
Dr Alan shook his head. ‘When you first told me about her I immediately got in touch with a colleague on the mainland – in case new advances in treatment had come about that I had not heard of. But sadly that wasn’t the case. Anything that can be done can be done here just as easily.’
‘And what’s that?’ She felt a flicker of hope. Perhaps there was something she hadn’t thought about? Or a new development. Medical science was always advancing.
‘Keep an eye on her. Give her fluids if she needs them. Let me be clear. Sending her to Glasgow will make no difference. All we’ll be doing is passing on the burden of caring for Caroline on to someone else. It’s unlikely her husband will be able to stay with her there. Caroline will still die, but alone. However, if you want me to send her away, that’s what I’ll do.’
Margaret felt her shoulders sag. ‘No. Of course not. Unless that’s what she wants.’
‘Donald said she’d like you to continue to see her. She said when she calmed down, she realised you were only trying to help. But there is to be no more mention of terminations.’
She couldn’t pass on all the difficult and tricky patients to Dr Alan. She had to bear her fair share of those – especially if the islanders we
re to accept her. And what were the easier cases? The ones where whole families had TB? The ones where children died from scarlet fever or one of the other infectious diseases? The easier cases didn’t need a doctor, the nurses were well able to look after them. In a population of this size and with only two doctors it was inevitable that all the cases she saw brought their own difficulties.
‘No. Caroline is my patient and I’ll see her through whatever she has to face.’ She hesitated. ‘There is something else. We agreed that I would come here on a month’s trial so see how we suited each other.’
He looked startled. ‘Did we? What the hell for?’
She was as taken aback as he appeared to be. ‘That was the arrangement. To give us both an out clause should we need it.’
‘Good God, woman, this isn’t your way of telling me that you’ve had enough, is it? Missing the bright lights of the city, are you?’ He puffed on his pipe with more vigour than usual. ‘Can’t say I blame you. Uist isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.’
‘No. No! I like it here. Truly.’ And not just because she felt safe. She liked the work, the people, the place. If it wasn’t for the fact she was separated from Alasdair and her children, she would have gone as far to say she loved it. ‘I just wanted to check that you didn’t want me to go.’
‘Want you to go? Why?’
Margaret was getting that parallel-universe feeling back again. ‘Because that’s what we agreed. When you wrote to me. But if you’re satisfied with my work, I’d very much like to stay.’
‘Odd girl. Can’t say I understand half of what you’re going on about. Of course I want you to stay. What would I do without you?’
‘That’s settled then?’
‘Didn’t know there was anything to settle. But yes. You’re here until the end of February.’ He chewed on his pipe stem and mumbled something that Margaret couldn’t quite make out but sounded like ‘Sure to have had enough of us by then.’
Chapter 32
There was no further news from Alasdair or Firth, and time marched on relentlessly, ticking off the days when Alasdair would have to fight for his life in court. She’d seen the children twice since the first visit – once when she’d visited them and once when Flora had brought them to visit her.
As autumn came to an end the days shortened markedly and the weather became increasingly unpredictable, giving a foretaste of the winter to come. Sometimes the rain would lash down, driven almost horizontal by a razor-sharp wind. At other times the wind would drop away completely and the sun would shine, bathing the island in gold. On days like that, when night fell, the moon and stars would be bright enough to guide Margaret’s steps without the need of a torch.
When she went out on visits, more often than not she was soaked through by the time she reached her patients and she’d come to look forward to the hot cup of tea and warm scone that always greeted her. The islanders were unfailingly and touchingly grateful to her for coming out and any small thing she did for them or their loved ones. Sadly, too often, especially for those who had tuberculosis, there was little she could do. At least her work kept her from brooding.
In the meantime, something happened that almost pushed Caroline and her worry about Alasdair from Margaret’s mind. One evening, she was woken by a loud banging on her front door. Thinking it might be someone needing the doctor, and that Dr Alan was already out on a call, she slipped on her dressing gown and lit her paraffin lamp. But by the time she got to the door there was no one there. She looked outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever had chosen to call at this early hour. The moon was full, casting a light bright enough to see for miles. Yet there was no one in sight.
Who had been knocking? And why hadn’t they waited? It had only taken a minute or two for Margaret to come to the door. It was possible they had been knocking for a while and, too impatient to wait, had gone in search of the surgery. She was so tired these days that she fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Then she saw it. A basket. The type that the women used to take the fish from the boats. At first she thought someone had left her a gift, but when she bent down to pick it up, something moved inside. Taken by surprise, she reared back. Then she peered closer. Lit by the moon, a tiny hand waved out from a bundle of cloth. It was a baby! Quickly she picked the child up and carried it inside. She laid it on the kitchen table and opened the shawl coverings. It was a newborn, no more than a few hours old and still smeared with blood and vernix. The cord had been cut – there was a little piece of string attached to the stump. The mother, if she’d delivered it on her own, had known enough to do that, but she might need urgent medical help. Certainly she should be reunited with her child and as soon as possible.
‘Hello you,’ she whispered. ‘Now why did your mummy leave you here?’
The baby blinked up at her and she wrapped him up again, worried he would get cold, although judging by the warmth of his skin he’d only been on her step for a minute or two.
But who had left him? And why?
In her arms the baby mewed pitifully, turning his neck into Margaret with the reflex search for sustenance all newborns have. ‘You hungry, little one?’ She popped her finger into his mouth as she’d done with Libby and James when they were babies and his small jaws sucked with surprising strength. When he realised there was nothing to be gained from his efforts he gave a cry of rage. He needed feeding.
She carried the child into her bedroom and laid him on her bed as she dressed quickly. She would take the infant to Dr Alan – maybe he would have an idea who the baby belonged to, and if he wasn’t there, Dolina was bound to know. At the very least they might have an idea where to find some breast milk for him. She wrapped the child in another layer and set off for the surgery, her crunching steps the only sound in the chilly night air. She knocked on the door of the surgery and let herself in, praying that Dr Alan wasn’t out on a call.
‘Dr Alan!’ she called up the stairs. ‘Are you awake?’
She waited a few moments. Then she heard creaking as if feet were hitting the floor as someone got out of bed. Moments later a flickering light appeared at the top of the stairs. Dr Alan held the lamp high and peered down at her. ‘Margaret? Is that you?’
‘I’m sorry to have woken you, but I need your help.’
It was only when the baby let out a feeble cry that he noticed she was carrying something. He hurried down the stairs. ‘Who’s that you have with you? A sick baby? Come, let’s go into the surgery.’
Margaret followed behind him, waiting until he’d closed the door before speaking. ‘I found him on my doorstep. He couldn’t have been there for long. Whoever left him made sure I was awake before running away. I don’t think he could be more than a few hours old.’
‘A baby! On the doorstep!’ Dr Alan shook his head. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing. Not here! Let’s have a look.’
‘Someone tied off the cord as you can see.’
‘We should clean the stump. I hope to God the scissors or whatever they used were clean.’
Margaret did as he suggested. As she swabbed the baby’s cord, the child started to wail.
‘He’s hungry. He needs a feed,’ she said, wrapping him up again.
‘Boiled water will have to do for now. Let’s take him through to the kitchen. It’s warmer there.’
The baby’s cries must have woken Dolina. She appeared in the kitchen and looked around sleepily. ‘What’s going on here? What’s that child doing here? Where’s the mother?’
‘How could any mother just abandon her child like that?’ Dolina muttered, after Margaret explained what had happened. ‘It’s not right.’
‘We need to find her. Do you have any idea who it could be?’
Dolina placed the kettle over the heat to boil. ‘Now then. There’s Mrs White but she would never abandon her child and then there’s…’ She thought a bit longer before shaking her head. ‘No, none of the women I’m aware of. But as you know, they don’
t all come to see us when they’re pregnant.’
‘So how do we find the mother?’ Margaret asked.
‘We’ll find her soon enough,’ Dr Alan said. ‘As soon as word gets out about the baby – and it will – someone will come forward. It’s only a matter of time before someone notices that a woman who was pregnant isn’t any longer.’
‘We might not have time,’ Margaret said. ‘What if she has post-partum bleeding? What if she gets an infection? What if…’