by Valpy, Fiona
‘Here are some of Flora’s letters, too.’ Mairi takes a little bundle from her handbag, tied with a length of tartan ribbon. ‘I thought you might like to read them sometime.’
‘Thank you.’ I set them aside politely, although the urge to look through them immediately is strong – maybe they’ll offer more clues to whatever it is Bridie’s been keeping from me.
As if she can read my mind, Mairi says, ‘Bridie tells me you’ve been asking some questions about your father’s family.’
‘I have. I suppose having Daisy has opened my eyes a bit to what it must have been like for Mum, raising me on her own. She never said much about my dad. And neither has anyone else. I’m curious to fill in the gaps, so I can pass it on to Daisy when she’s older.’
Mairi nods, holding out her arms to take Daisy from Bridie to give her a rest and let her drink her tea. ‘That’s only natural,’ she says. ‘I know Bridie’s been telling you a lot about the war years, how our lives were turned upside down. I’m happy to tell you all I can remember. The album and those letters will be a good starting point. And then you can ask us any questions after you’ve had a chance to look through them. I’m here for a while, staying with my brother at the farm. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to chat.’
‘Thanks, Mairi,’ I say. ‘I’m grateful to you both.’
I go through to the kitchen to refresh the teapot and as I wait for the kettle to boil, I think how easy it will be now to put in place the missing pieces of my family history. As I come back into the sitting room, though, Mairi is murmuring something to Bridie, who is shaking her head vehemently.
They look up as I come through the door, falling silent, and it seems to me their expressions are a little guarded. They’re both quick to smile again, but I get the impression that those smiles are just a little too bright to be entirely natural.
Hmmm, I think. Perhaps piecing together my mother’s story might still not be quite such a doddle after all.
Flora, 1942
‘They made it safely! They’re on their way back.’ Bridie’s face was alight with joy and relief as she passed on the news to Flora and Mairi. A first lieutenant who worked in the wireless station had told her that the first of the convoys to leave from Loch Ewe had had a safe run to Murmansk, making it through the narrow corridor of sea between the Arctic ice and the north cape of Norway without encountering any enemy action from either the waves beneath them or the skies above.
‘They’ve still a way to go until they’re safe though,’ said Mairi, reluctant to let down her guard until she saw the ships back in the harbour with her own eyes.
‘Yes, but he said they’re almost south of Jan Mayen Island already. If this weather holds they’ll be here within the week. And they’re getting close enough to Iceland now for our battleships to defend them. That should deter the Germans, too.’
Automatically, Flora’s hand went into the pocket of her jacket where she kept the sweetheart brooch when she was on duty. It was her link to Alec out there on the unforgiving seas and she clutched it as tight as a lifeline. For the first time in a month she allowed herself to breathe a little more easily, as a swell of hope surged in her heart with the thought that she’d soon see him back home safely.
It took an age for Alec to disembark when the Isla finally tied up alongside the pier at Mellon Charles. Flora had just finished her shift and she stood on the damp sand at the corner of the bay waiting for him to appear, as the crew made the ship fast and finished up their duties on board. She pulled the sweetheart brooch from her pocket and pinned it to the lapel of her jacket, then blew on her fingers to warm them.
Everyone on the base was overjoyed that the first convoy to leave from Loch Ewe had been successful and all the ships had returned safely. That afternoon, the tugs that operated the boom had drawn back the nets, and the line of ships had sailed slowly into the calm waters without ceremony. The merchantmen dropped anchor on the far side of the island and Mairi and Bridie had cycled off to welcome back Roy and Hal.
The evening chill seeped from the ground through the soles of Flora’s shoes and she stamped her feet, to dispel her impatience as much as to keep her circulation going, as she scanned the faces of the disembarking seamen searching for the one that would make her heart leap with joy. And then there he was at last, and in a few strides he’d covered the final yards between them and was holding her tight. She breathed in the smell of the journey from his thick duffel coat – the damp salt of the sea mingled with the chemical tang of fuel oil – as she lost herself in his kiss.
‘Come back to the house with me,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to spend another evening without you. It was bad enough being miles away out at sea, but it’ll be torture knowing you’re just down the path while I’m at Ardtuath.’
She hesitated, freezing at the thought of going back there. ‘Will that be all right with your parents?’
He took her face in his hands and kissed her again. ‘It’ll have to be. I’ve been thinking about it – being on watch at two in the morning gives you quite a bit of time for that. My father’s going to have to get used to the idea of us from here on in.’
Ardtuath House was completely dark as they walked up the drive, its turrets black against a sky hung with stars. Flora felt herself tensing in anticipation at having to face Sir Charles on the other side of the blackout and reached for Alec’s hand. But the front door was locked and Alec’s knock echoed in the darkness, met with a resounding silence.
‘Looks like they’re not here,’ he said. ‘Come on, we’ll go round the back.’
He unlocked the kitchen door and they stepped into the stillness of the empty house. The range had been left to go out and it was barely warmer inside than out.
‘Perhaps they’re at the Urquharts’,’ Alec commented. ‘Come on, let’s light the fire in the library and see what we can forage in the larder.’
Half an hour later the logs were blazing cheerfully in the hearth and they’d spread out a makeshift picnic before it. The atmosphere in the house was completely different when Sir Charles wasn’t there. Flora eased off her shoes and knelt on the rug to toast some slightly stale bread on the flames, wriggling her toes in their thick stockings as she luxuriated in the warmth. Once each slice had browned, she removed it from the toasting fork and passed it to Alec to spread with butter while she made the next piece. They ate it with slices of ham and washed it down with a couple of bottles of ale that they’d found lurking in a forgotten corner of the larder.
‘Best meal I’ve had in ages,’ Alec grinned. ‘But that may have as much to do with the company as it does the menu.’ He stretched out contentedly in front of the fire and rested his head in her lap.
‘So what was it like? Out there?’
She stroked his hair, watching the firelight dance across his face as he gazed into the flames and told her about the journey. He described the mixture of fear and excitement as they’d set off, which had soon turned into a kind of dull dread as they faced the monotony of the grey Arctic waters, day in, day out, never knowing whether they were being watched and what might be lurking below the waves.
A storm had blown up a few nights in, sending towering waves of icy green water crashing over the deck of the ship. In the bitter temperatures, the water had frozen, forming a thick shell of ice on the windward side of the ship. They’d taken it in turns to tie on a lifeline and brave the treacherously slippery, listing deck as it pitched and rolled, taking an axe to the ice to prevent the build-up of weight from capsizing the ship.
Radio silence had to be maintained so that the German listening stations didn’t pick up the convoy’s presence, so although they travelled as a group with each ship holding its position in the line, there was a sense of isolation that was only amplified by the sight of the Arctic ice floes in the distance. That winter ice narrowed the channel available to them, forcing them to navigate a fine line between icebergs to the north and the German-occupied Norwegian coast to the south. But the
short winter days brought fog as well, which covered the sea in a low-lying blanket – so thick, Alec said, that you could hardly see the jackstaff from the bridge of the Isla. Ordinarily they’d have cursed it as another hazard to be negotiated, but in those dangerous waters they’d given thanks for the white shroud that concealed them and allowed them to slip past the north cape undetected. Finally, with relief, they’d turned their bows to the south-east, hugging the Russian shore as they entered the Kola Inlet which led to the port of Murmansk.
Flora passed Alec her glass and he raised himself up on one elbow as he replenished it from the bottle. Then he reached across and fished another log from the basket, throwing it on to the fire where it settled in a cascade of sparks as tongues of flame licked around it.
‘What’s Russia like?’ she asked.
‘Cold. Dark. Vast. But with a terrible sort of beauty as well. We were met by a pilot vessel to guide us in and were pretty pleased to see it, I can tell you. It’s a deep fjord but the channel’s so narrow there you need to keep your wits about you. We had steep mountains to starboard and were jolly glad to think that they stood between us and the Germans. And the most extraordinary thing happened as we neared Murmansk . . . All the upper works of the ships, the masts and the yards, suddenly started to glow with a white flickering light. I’d heard of it before – they call it St Elmo’s fire – but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen it. In the mist, everything becomes charged with static and it discharges from anything that has a point. It was like our own personal lightning show. We were mightily relieved that it hadn’t happened off Norway, I can tell you. We’d have been lit up for the Jerries like Christmas trees!’
‘The Russians must have been glad to see you, with all that equipment for them.’
‘I suppose so.’ He paused to take a sip of beer. ‘Russian dockers are not exactly effusive. In fact, once the cargo was offloaded, one of them said, “Is that all you’ve brought us?” But it’s a tough life for them away up there in the Arctic Circle. At this time of year they only get an hour or two of daylight and the weather is brutal. I think they pretty much survive on vodka to get them through. The war’s brought awful suffering to their country as well. Ever since the German advance last year there’s been bitter fighting in the south and some of the men working on the dockside had seen action there. They’re hard as nails.’
‘Well, thank goodness you all got back safely.’
He nodded. ‘We were lucky. We picked up a German weather plane on our radar once, thought they might have spotted us, too. But we got away with it this time.’
The words ‘this time’ made Flora flinch. ‘Do you know when you’ll next be sailing?’
He shook his head. ‘Not yet. It’ll take a bit of time to muster the next convoy. Could be a month or so, I imagine. At least the weather should be improving by then. And as the ice retreats we’ll be able to give the north cape a wider berth.’
Flora was silent. She knew he was putting a brave face on it, because the hours of daylight would be lengthening, too, and the convoys would be at sea for longer if they were sailing that much further north. It was a double-edged sword: the changing of the seasons would simply bring different risks, making the journey no less perilous. She tried not to think about that tonight, though. He was here, and she was safe in his arms beside the warmth of the fire. She knew that this was a memory they’d both treasure and so she leaned down to kiss away the lines of tension from his brow, her red-gold hair catching the dancing reflections of the firelight in its depths.
Roy and Hal’s ship remained at anchor in the loch alongside the other merchantmen just long enough for them to have a couple of days off. They spent every moment they could ashore with Mairi and Bridie. The noise levels in the Jellyjar Tavern reached new heights as the safe return of the convoy was celebrated on the first night, and the brothers spent the next day with the girls, walking on the shore and visiting Bridie and Mairi’s homes. Their families were impressed at the good manners and easy humour displayed by the Americans, although Flora overheard Mrs Macdonald telling Bridie that she oughtn’t to set her heart on a Yank who most likely would disappear one way or another before the war came to an end.
Two days later, the merchant ships were refuelled and made ready for the Atlantic crossing once again, ordered to return to the States to pick up another cargo.
Bridie wept uncontrollably as they waved them off. Flora handed her a hankie and put an arm around her shoulders, while Mairi stood shielding her eyes as she tried to keep sight of Roy. He’d disappeared round to the starboard side as he helped his shipmates weigh anchor, but he emerged again to salute her and to blow her a kiss, his blond hair glinting in the silver light that bounced from the surface of the water as the ship’s propellers began to turn, churning the loch into turmoil.
‘They’ll be back,’ Flora said. ‘You know they promised they’d try and get another Arctic run so they can see you again. That shows how much they must like you both – most men probably wouldn’t be too keen to do both the Atlantic and the Arctic runs again so soon . . . if ever.’
‘Oh, oh,’ sobbed Bridie, ‘it’s so dangerous out there. It feels so wrong to wish them to come back when it’s putting their lives in danger. But I can’t help it . . .’ The rest of her sentence was lost as the ship’s whistle blew, its call answered by the other ships in the convoy so that for a minute the hills echoed with the sound.
The three girls watched as the convoy sailed, this time turning westwards from the mouth of the loch. Once the last ship had departed, the tug pulled the boom net closed behind it and the waters of Loch Ewe slowly settled, becoming calm again.
The girls trudged back towards Aultbea, each of them lost in her own thoughts, but then the clouds parted just a little and a ray of spring sunlight shone through.
‘Look,’ Flora nudged Bridie. She pointed to where the sun had coaxed the first primroses of spring to push their heads out from under their mossy coverlets in the sheltered spots alongside the burn and begin tentatively to unfurl their petals. The sight lifted their hearts, just a little, and Bridie began to talk again, more hopefully now, about the picnics they’d be able to go on when the Gustavsen brothers returned.
Lexie, 1978
It’s another diamond day, the loch sparkling after a long spell of rain that has cleared at last. A few fluffy white clouds scud across the blue of the sky, looking as freshly washed as the sheep in the fields below. I’m walking home with Daisy, the pushchair laden with shopping and playgroup paraphernalia, as we’ve spent another morning making music in the hall. It’s lunchtime, so the road is empty, and she and I are both singing one of her favourite songs as we go:
‘You’ll take the high road
And I’ll take the low road . . .’
As we approach the pier, a third voice joins in, adding a tenor harmony to Daisy’s piping soprano and my slightly rough-around-the-edges alto.
Davy hails us. ‘Ahoy there!’ Only his head and shoulders are visible where he stands on the deck of the Bonnie Stuart, hoisting creels up on to the rough boards of the jetty.
When we reach him, Daisy strains to be released from the straps confining her and I let her out so she can toddle over to inspect the morning’s catch. Davy holds up a huge brown crab, its powerful-looking claws safely bound, and lets her touch the carapace, glossy as varnish. The boat bobs restlessly in the breeze, tugging at the mooring lines tethering it to the cleats on the jetty’s edge, bouncing gently against its fenders. With a satisfied nod, Daisy allows him to replace the crab in its bucket of seawater and potters over to pick up an oyster shell dropped on to the boards by some passing bird.
‘Everyone enjoyed hearing you sing the other night,’ he tells me. ‘You should make it a regular thing. We’d be pleased to have you do a set with the band if you wanted.’
His eyes meet mine, his gaze as clear as the waters surrounding us. I find it unsettling, as if he can see right into my soul, to the places I try to keep
hidden from the world, those dark neglected corners where grief and guilt and pain lurk. I look away, pretending to be fascinated by a clump of seaweed that trails its knotted fingers in the ebbing tide.
‘Really,’ he insists. ‘Do you not miss it, Lexie – the singing? When it’s in your blood, surely you’re denying a big part of yourself if you’re not making music.’
‘I am making music,’ I say, gesticulating towards the bag of instruments hanging from the handles of the pushchair. It comes out a little sharper than I’d intended.
‘Yes, for others,’ he replies. ‘But what about the music you make for yourself? I know I couldn’t live without it. It’d be like cutting off a limb if I ever stopped playing and singing.’
A surge of annoyance rises in me, rearing its head like a wave nearing the shore. I’m fed up with everyone judging. I know he’s only trying to be encouraging, but it feels like criticism to me – of my choices and decisions, of how I’m trying to live my life.
I’m about to retort that I’m taking my time, that I may never want to sing publicly again, and how could he possibly know what I’m feeling?
The words are in my mouth. But the sound of a splash interrupts them.
In a panic, I look across to where Daisy should be busily posting pebbles through the gaps in the boards, and in the same moment Davy yells her name. There’s the sound of another splash and he disappears over the side of the boat.
For a split second I stand, frozen, alone on the jetty. And then Daisy’s name tears at my throat as I scream it over and over. I fall to my knees, frantically trying to hold the boat away from the wooden edging, desperately trying to keep it from crushing my baby or from pinning her beneath the water: from sealing the gap into which she’s tumbled, the salt water swallowing her whole.