by Rikki Sharp
China slept fitfully to start with, plagued by ancient dreams. In her sleep, half-recalled memories started to come back, not all of them pleasant ones. But there was always the tousle-haired Donald, holding her hand, looking after her.
Pulling the massive quilt tighter, China Stuart settled into a deeper sleep with a smile on her face as the wind howled around The Cuckoo like something possessed. Yet she found the storm strangely soothing. In her dreams, she wondered what the new day would bring.
Chapter 3
The following morning was the day before the funeral. By some divine miracle, the rain had finally stopped, the clouds dispersed, and the sky turned an ice blue. Morgan woke China up with loving licks around her face, despite her protests. Squinting at her watch, she was horrified to find it was only half past five in the morning.
Guilt stopped her from turning over and trying to get back to sleep, as she suddenly remembered she had promised to ring Anthony back in Manchester the minute she set foot on that tiny dot in the Minch, the Sea of the Hebrides. Of course, even when she waved her mobile around standing on her bed, she couldn’t get a signal. She was sure she had seen a mast just behind the pub, but maybe The Cuckoo was in a dead zone.
“Sorry Anthony,” she said to herself as she washed and dressed, staring up at the piercing blue sky through the room’s skylight. This was the island China remembered from her childhood. Long walks to the tiny stone Kirk, the wind ruffling the course grass into waves that rippled down from the hillside. The air so fresh if you could have bottled it you’d have made a fortune, and the smell of the sea all around her.
Breakfast, consisting of toast, sausages, bacon and eggs with a steaming pot of coffee, was waiting for her on the bar, as the homely Mrs. Baxter was up and about polishing the antique round tables.
“I’m starving!” China cried, tucking into the pile of fresh toast. “How did you know I was up?”
“The water pipes in this old place tell a story every morning, banging and whistling. And that’ll be the sea air giving you an appetite. You could do with a few square meals inside of you, there’s nothing of you, lassie!”
The hours spent in her expensive gym back in Manchester to keep that trim figure suddenly faced off against the pile of carbs before her. The bread won, and she slipped Morgan a sausage as he leaned against her legs, appearing by magic at the smell of cooking. He certainly seemed to have taken a shine to her, and she hoped it wasn’t all for food.
“That hairy con-artist has already had his breakfast.” Mrs. Baxter scowled at the dog. Morgan’s ears went down and he tried to hide under China’s stool. “Donald’s waiting outside,” the landlady let slip as she dusted the various paintings adorning the snug. There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she told China this. “He says he’ll take you up to the Grange.”
Although China thought she remembered the way, the idea of spending a couple of hours in the fisherman’s company rather pleased her. Demolishing the remainder of her breakfast, she grabbed her coat from upstairs and raced Morgan for the front door. The fresh air hit her like a solid wall. She closed her eyes and just soaked it all in.
Donald rose from the wooden bench at the front of the pub dressed in the same oilskins she’d first seen him in. But he looked as if he had attempted a shave and had put a comb through his untidy hair. China felt honoured. As he fussed the massive dog, he pointed back up the natural slope of the island, towards the woodland over its hills.
“Remember the way?”
“Try and catch me!” She laughed and ran on ahead, her boots splashing through the puddles left from the previous night’s storm.
He let her win for a few hundred yards, of course. It was all part of the game. But as she reached the beginning of the heather-covered hillside, China managed to snag her sweater sleeve on an old barbed wire fence.
Donald took too long to untangle her, standing far too close.
“What are you smiling at?” she asked, testing the water.
“You.” He couldn’t resist. Leaning forward, his lips were about to meet hers when Morgan barked impatiently and jumped up between them, splattering mud everywhere.
Laughing, they held hands tightly and forged their way up the hillside towards China’s forgotten home. Brushing her curls from her face, she shielded her eyes with one hand and stared up at the edifice that crowned the island. Now just visible amongst the woods, it seemed like a ruined castle from a fairy tale, that great grey block of a building with its four impossibly tall chimney stacks known locally as the Grange, built and first owned by the Laird of the island back in 1732. From that day it had always stayed in the hands of the Stuart family.
“The trees are a lot larger and closer than I remember,” she said.
“You’ve been gone a good while,” he came back with, just a hint of bitterness catching his voice. Finding what was left of the old hill path, they approached her late aunt’s house, both falling into silence.
China hung on tight to Donald’s hand, suddenly feeling a little afraid. This was where the memories lived. The good ones and the bad.
Up close, the house was in a worse state of repair than she had expected. The path directly to the front door was overgrown by spiky bushes, and sprouts of vegetation were peeking out of the crumbling gutters. Its dark slate roof had one or two obvious holes and there were broken fragments of slate scattered over the flagged path. Grimy glass rattled in rotting window frames as she took out the key that had been sent to her solicitors. When she opened the massive front door, the handle came off in her hand.
“That says it all.” She sighed, her usual clumsiness striking again.
Morgan barked once and squeezed his way into the gloomy house. Reluctantly, China followed, Donald letting her go in on her own.
It was the smell she remembered first as she stepped into the hall of the Grange. Even empty, there was still a hint of homemade pies and fresh laundry, despite overtones of damp and mildew. At least there was to her. The old house seemed to whisper to China, telling her ancient tales of its life. Forgotten stories of her own.
Morgan was obviously pleased to be home, padding up and down the stairs, tail wagging frantically and that massive tongue lolling from one side of his mouth.
“Why did you leave here, mum?” China asked the shadows.
“Because she hated this place,” replied Donald from behind her. “Your mam was an outsider. She only came here to marry your da . . . and when he died she couldn’t leave the Isle fast enough, as if she were afraid. That’s what the gossips say.”
“How do you know all of this?” asked China, suddenly angry that her mother had never told her anything about their life in the Outer Hebrides. Angry that she had died leaving things in such a mess.
“Your Aunt Beatrice told me some stuff. She said you’d be back some day and I was to tell you what you needed to know.”
The old house groaned and creaked around them, as if in agreement.
“Why was my mother afraid?”
“Beatrice never mentioned why, as if it were a family secret. Maybe it was because she felt an outsider. The open skies worried her. She was never warm, Bee said, not even in summer. Maybe she never really settled. Who knows?” Donald said, staring into her eyes. “But you liked it. When you were a wee girl, you liked it. You liked me . . .”
China stared at her old childhood playmate, forgotten memories of the two of them tumbling back. The helter-skelter runs down the bracken-strewn paths that crisscrossed the island. Fishing off the pier with an old rod borrowed from Donald’s dad. The roaring peat fires in wintertime and the first sight of the summer’s butterflies, like moving carpets of colour.
A final kiss from that young boy as she had stepped on to the boat to the mainland, perhaps never to return. He had whispered something in her ear just before she left for that last time. What had he said?
Only then did China notice there was something crumpled up in Donald’s hand. It rather spoiled the moment as
she prized it loose. It was a ‘Trespasser’s will be prosecuted’ notice, with the black castle turret logo of the McKriven company all over it.
“This was on the gatepost. There are more of them along the fence. He’s got a bloody cheek, with poor Beatrice not yet in her grave!”
The angry Donald was back again. China couldn’t cope with him when he was like that. Back in Manchester she’d had one too many macho boyfriends who thought raising their voices and sometimes their fists solved every problem. She hadn’t come all this way to fall for another man like that.
“You said Aunt Bea’s solicitor could help,” she said, standing back from him a few paces, giving him some space as she made the excuse of fussing Morgan.
Donald looked confused at her sudden offish tones. “Aye. He’ll winkle out the truth if Beatrice signed something she shouldn’t have had. I was over in Balivanich village this morning and told him about your letter. Hope that’s OK.”
He could feel her growing cold and he wasn’t sure what he’d done. After all these years apart it was so good to see her again, all grown up. He’d just hate it if he drove her away.
“Fine. I’m sure that will be OK. You must have work to do. I’ll have a bit of a look around and then lock up. See you later at the pub?”
“Sure. Can’t waste all my day with a tourist, can I?” he snapped. “Be careful upstairs. There are a couple of ceilings down at the back where the roof’s at its worst. See you later.” Before he said something he’d regret, he ducked through the front door and left her alone, his face a mask of suppressed anger.
Morgan barked once and ran around in a circle, eager to be off doing something, whilst China chewed at her thumbnail, wondering what had just gone wrong. But that was the chance she was taking, wasn’t it? She didn’t really know this Donald Dart. She had half-forgotten childhood memories of a sweet young boy who’d been a large part of her early life, but maybe too many years had drifted by. The city girl and the island boy just didn’t seem to have anything in common any more, except clouded memories.
For some reason she found herself crying as the dog whined around her, sensing her disappointment and confusion, and the house creaked and shuddered in the returning wind, as if it were trying to join in the conversation. What had she been thinking of? A whirlwind romance? She was here to bury her aunt and maybe it would be best to sell to this McKriven company and get back to civilization as swiftly as possible.
What was a pile of rotting old stones, a great smelly dog, and this weather-blasted island to her?
But then her mother would have won. Having poisoned the childhood memories and put a barrier between herself and this wonderful place, she would have finally got her way. Somehow China had to get past this and work out what she really wanted from life. Whether she had really come home, or was only visiting a place she had long since outgrown.
There was a faint fluttering in front of her as she ascended the wide bare staircase to the first floor. She could hear a frantic beating of wings. In the tall, arched window at the head of the stairs, she watched, entranced, as a single butterfly fluttered weakly against the windowpane. It was still too cold for the island’s secret inhabitants to hatch from their chrysalises en mass, but sometime soon, within a couple of weeks, the island would become covered in a variety of bright fluttering wings. This solitary butterfly must have hatched early within the slightly warmer environment of the house. As she held her hand up to try and capture the frantic insect, it settled on one finger, wings twitching nervously.
For a second, she knew how it felt. Alone, confused, but fighting for a purpose in life. Then it was away, its wings flashing small beats of colour, flying deeper into her aunt’s house.
Her phone began to suddenly bleep in her coat pocket, breaking the spell, as a signal of sorts had finally found its way through. Smiling at the six messages and four missed calls from Anthony’s number, she wandered around the echoing house until she picked up a stronger signal then went to ring her friend, so very far away in Manchester.
Chapter 4
After she had finally spoken to a rather offish Anthony for all of three minutes before the signal went again, China spent almost two hours exploring he Grange, glad of Morgan’s company in those dimly lit rooms. Work suddenly seemed another universe away, all the gossip and who had said what to whom now strangely unreal. All that seemed to exist at the moment was this house, the sky, and the sound of the sea.
Then there was Donald, of course. Where did he fit into the puzzle? At that moment she had absolutely no idea.
She was saddened by the decay permeating the house. Peeling wallpaper and cracked and mildewed plaster overlaying her bright childhood memories of the place. Most of the furniture had already gone. The solicitor had warned her about this, as Aunt Bea had sold most of her possessions down the fallow years to pay for structural repairs on the Grange.
But one room on the second floor held a certain timeless magic. Aunt Beatrice’s bedroom was just how she remembered it, a little faded and threadbare around the edges, but still alive with an otherworldly charm. Like a child who had sneaked into her parents’ room, China wandered around as quiet as a mouse, peeping into lace-lined draws here and opening creaking cupboard doors there.
On the ornate dressing table, next to a silver hand mirror and a fine brush was a large green book in pride of place. As China touched the wisps of fine white hair caught up in the brush, her hand strayed to the book, wondering what it could contain. But then the feeling that her aunt was still alive in this house and would return at any moment stopped her from opening it. It felt too much like prying.
Morgan lollopped onto the massive four-poster bed with its carved stanchions and heavy head and footboards then turned around three times he settled down for a snooze.
“Dog! Morgan, whatever! Come off there now!” she hissed at the mutt.
Morgan opened his eyes, giving his new mistress a hangdog look. He let out a tiny whine, such a little noise from such a beast.
Then China realized something. This was his old mistress’s room. It must have still resonated with her presence, reminding the faithful hound that she had disappeared somewhere. What animals understood of death was a mystery, but Morgan knew something traumatic had happened in his simple life. Coming back here must have reminded him of what he’d once had.
Ruffling the crown of his head and pulling at his ears, China perched on the end of the bed and tried to comfort the animal. “I know, boy. You knew her better than anyone else. This must be so confusing for you.” As the dog fell into an instant deep sleep, China was almost tempted to snuggle up beside him. She remembered the distant times when she had clambered into this very bed and listened to her aunt’s lilting voice as the old lady told her stories about the Grange and the whole Stuart clan.
In China’s memories, it was as if Bea had always been an old lady. But a cluster of ornate, framed family photos displayed around her antique dressing table showed a pair of laughing-eyed sisters dressed in old-fashioned clothes, both in their late teens. It must have been of her aunt and the grandma she never knew, Cora Stuart. China suddenly felt a tear trickle down her face again, probably caused by the dust in that old room, which she hastily whipped away with her sleeve.
This trip into her own past was proving harder than she had ever imagined.
Leaving Morgan to rest, she crept around the rest of the upper floor, peering into darkened rooms to see what else she could find. Again, most had been stripped bare, even of carpets. Ivy had grown up the Western wall down the tens of years, obscuring many of the rooms’ windows, so it was a twilight world the city girl explored.
As Donald had warned her, several rooms had sagging stained ceilings and in two cases the plaster had collapsed, showing the broken wooden laths that had held the lime-based plaster, looking up into the attic space and to chinks of daylight beyond that. Revealing gaps in the roof slates that had let in the wind and the rain.
Through the clean
er windows China could see scaffolding erected at the back of the house. From what Skipper Dart had said the previous day, she guessed that was Donald’s work, trying to repair the roof before any more weather damage was done.
Just for a second she recalled one of her favorite films, The Money Pit, with starred Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, who played a young and upcoming couple who were duped into buying an old mansion that was literally falling to bits. To turn back the clock and rebuild it took every penny they had, and nearly cost them their marriage.
She shook those thoughts right out of her head. This was her inheritance. She was the last blood descendant from the Stuart Laird who’d built the place with its four proud chimneystacks. After the funeral she’d have a proper word with Donald and any professional builders that lived on the island that could give her a ball-park quote on how much money she might expect to pay to return the Grange to its former glory.
Over the years she had been quite frugal with her money, something she had inherited from her late mother, although she’d never admit it. It had occurred to her when Donald had led her hand-in-hand up the hill, what a magnificent hotel the place would make. Breathing life back into all those rooms. Providing the estate with an income so as it would never fall into disrepair again.
But she was no fool. The structure might be too far gone and selling it on or, perish the thought, having it demolished might be the only way forward. As she finally left the Grange with one long, backward look, Morgan now full of beans again after his dog-nap, first thoughts about possible Heritage grants or the like crossed her mind.
There had to be a way to save the place. There just had to be, whether she stayed on the island or not.