The Skylark's Secret

by Valpy, Fiona

  As if sensing his sadness, Daisy toddles across to him, grabbing his knee to steady herself, and hands him Blue Bunny. He smiles at her then lifts her on to his lap, carefully pushing the mug of hot tea out of her reach. But I can see he’s distracted, that he’s still back in that too-empty house of his own childhood.

  ‘We’d creep about, trying not to disturb Mrs C on her bad days. There were lots of them, days when she couldn’t get herself out of her bed. And who could blame her? All three of her boys gone like that. It was the same for so many other families across the Highlands. And in these small crofting communities, the loss of their young men was a devastating blow.’

  I think of my mum and the Carmichaels and all those other people who lost so much in the war. They were a generation who had to get used to goodbyes. I realise how fortunate I was to be born just as the war ended, into a generation that knew only the optimism of a peace-filled future.

  I watch Davy as he smiles at Daisy, taking her tiny paw in his much larger one to play ‘round and round the garden’. His eyes are as dark as a storm-blown sea, but as warm as the sun-warmed stones on a summer’s evening, too. His face is etched with the lines of his life’s story, weathered by the wind and the losses he’s had to bear. Yet at the same time, he seems at peace with himself and with the world that has taken so much from him. I think of him playing with the band in the bar, how the music seems to flow from within him until it’s hard to say where his arms end and the guitar begins because they are all part of the same song. Maybe his music has played a part in healing those old wounds. They’ve left their scars, that’s for sure. But maybe playing the songs and singing the words that so many have sung before him have helped to lead him to a place where he’s been able to find a way to live with the loss. Perhaps that’s the only way to deal with grief. It’s such a heavy load to bear alone – but knowing that there are always others to share it is a help.

  My own grief has been a heavy load to bear. So heavy that I’ve done my very best to push it aside and ignore it, I realise.

  Daisy chuckles and reaches a hand up to stroke Davy’s face, urging him to play the game. ‘’Gain!’

  And as he obliges, something seems to shift inside me, slightly thawing the cold lump of grief that’s sat there for so long.

  He glances up at me and catches sight of something in my expression – the broadness of my smile, perhaps, or the look of tenderness in my eyes – that makes him raise his eyes to mine, questioning. I hold his gaze, giving my answer.

  He swallows, as if picking up the courage to say something, and I wait, allowing him time.

  ‘D’you think Bridie and Mairi might be persuaded to babysit and we could go out for a meal one evening?’ he asks. ‘Just the two of us, maybe?’

  I nod. ‘I’d like that. Very much.’

  ‘It’s a date, then.’ Davy smiles at me. ‘Not a date-date, of course,’ he adds.

  I can’t help but blush.

  ‘Although,’ he says, his eyes not leaving my face, ‘I wonder if a date-date might in fact be a possibility at some point? What do you reckon, Lexie?’

  ‘What?’ I say, in mock astonishment. ‘Are you actually asking me on a real date-date, Davy Laverock?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think I am. Of course, Bridie and Mairi and everyone else in Aultbea will know exactly what we’re up to and be keeping a close eye on the pair of us. So you’ll have to be home before midnight or your reputation will be mud.’

  I laugh. ‘I’ve a feeling my reputation went out the window many years ago. But if you don’t mind risking your own, consorting with the scarlet woman of Ardtuath, then I’d love to.’

  ‘Okay then. How about tomorrow?’

  I nod. ‘Okay then,’ I say, echoing the hint of relief that I detect behind his words. ‘Tomorrow it is. A real date-date.’

  Davy picks me up and we go to the best restaurant in town. Of course, it’s also the only restaurant in town, at the hotel. It feels a bit strange not to be going into the bar for a change, and at first we’re both a little self-conscious to be sitting face to face across a table set with linen napkins and glistening wine glasses. The hotel sits right down on the loch shore so at least we have the welcome distraction of the view across the water, where the setting sun has begun to paint the sky in deepening shades of coral pink.

  I can’t help worrying about Daisy. It’s the first time I’ve left her since the accident, and although I know she’s fine now and will be enjoying all sorts of fun and games with Bridie at the cottage, my anxiety pinches at my neck and makes my shoulders hunch. I take a breath and sit a little more upright, trying to relax.

  ‘You look nice,’ Davy says.

  ‘So do you,’ I reply, settling my napkin in my lap to distract myself from how awkward this exchange sounds.

  I look up and he’s smiling at me. ‘You know, I really did enjoy hearing you sing again, on Elspeth’s birthday. Like I was saying on the jetty that day, before Daisy’s accident, if you ever want to do a bit more you’d be welcome. Your new voice suits the old songs.’

  ‘Thanks. Maybe.’ I don’t admit that it feels an age ago and I think my voice may well have rusted up again.

  We pause while the waiter brings us the menu and pours us glasses of water. I gulp mine thankfully.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Davy says. ‘Highlanders are generally a people of few words. And yet the traditional songs express the things we’d never normally say. I suppose that’s why they were written originally. To say the things that matter and pass them on from generation to generation.’

  I laugh. ‘Well, yes, they’re mostly about love and loss, though. But then I suppose that’s mostly what life is about.’

  He shakes his head and sighs theatrically. ‘Ach, Lexie Gordon, so cynical for one so young.’

  ‘Not that young! I’m certainly old enough to have experienced love and loss. And I bet you that for every cheerful song you can name me, I could name you three laments.’

  ‘Yeah, well, no one ever said life was supposed to be easy, did they? And it would have been especially hard back in the day when those songs were written. But that’s what binds us together, isn’t it? Shared hardships and the eternal hope for better times ahead. For our children at least, if not for ourselves.’

  I consider this for a moment as I pretend to examine the menu. An image of my mum floats before my eyes and in my mind I can hear the songs she used to sing. Her life was pretty tough, all things considered, but he’s right: there was always hope mixed in with the sadness. And being part of the tightly woven crofting community on the shores of Loch Ewe gave her a sense of solidity, of belonging to something that was as unshakeable as the hills and as constant as the tides. The music of this place is as natural to us as the cries of the seabirds and the sound of the wind on the hills – the woodwind and string sections in the orchestra that provides the score to the songs of our lives.

  As he scans the menu, Davy hums the snatch of a song under his breath and I recognise the chorus of ‘The Parting Glass’.

  He knows a thing or two about goodbyes, I realise. How hard it must have been for him to lose his brother so suddenly and to witness the slow, interminable death of his mother through her drinking. My mum used to sing that song, too. Perhaps she’d been thinking of all the people she lost in the war. How hard it must have been for her to let me go, when the time came for me to move to London and the promise of a new life there, and how easy it seemed for me to leave: a modern-day version of so many goodbyes that have been played out before from these crofters’ cottages along the shore of the loch. The Highlands are undeniably beautiful but they can be harsh, too, just like life itself. This is a land long-used to farewells.

  As if he can read my thoughts, Davy glances up from the menu and says, ‘Don’t look so sad, Lexie. Life is full of beginnings as well as endings.’ He pours wine into our glasses from a bottle that the waiter has placed between us. ‘A toast,’ he proposes. ‘To beginnings. And to finding new song
s to sing.’

  I raise my glass and echo his words: ‘To finding new songs to sing.’

  As we talk and eat and talk some more, I begin to relax. And something seems to nourish me besides the very good steak and chips we consume. When we’ve finished our meal and drained the last drops of wine from our glasses, a sense of contentment has settled over me. It’s a novel feeling, not just the contentment of a full belly after a good dinner. It’s more than that. It seems to have something to do with being in the company of Davy Laverock.

  By the end of the evening, when he gives me a goodnight kiss at the gate of Keeper’s Cottage (supposedly so that Bridie won’t see us, but I’m sure I catch a glimpse of light from the corner of the sitting room curtain), I notice something. Beneath the beating of my heart and the hushing of the waves there’s a current that runs through my veins that seems stronger than the tides of the ocean.

  I think I recognise it from bygone times: its name is hope.

  Flora, 1943

  As the year went by, Flora began to grow accustomed to the cycle of arrivals and departures. The loch was seldom peaceful, with the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the navy and the busy activity of the refuelling tankers and the boom-net trawlers. After a convoy left, churning the waters to a frothing chop, there might be a day or two of relative calm. But within a few days more merchant ships would begin to gather, dropping anchor beyond the island, until thirty or forty more joined them to form a solid mass of shipping. Then they would slip into their positions, one behind the other, and set off on the next perilous journey.

  But no matter how many times the gathering and the leaving were repeated, she felt she could never get used to saying goodbye to Alec. Every time he left, she’d linger in his arms, savouring the final precious moments before they would have to tell each other, ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ and she would watch him walk away again. Try as she might, she couldn’t harden her heart against the lurch of pain she felt at the sight of his broad shoulders disappearing down the path, squared determinedly as he prepared to face the Arctic seas again. It only seemed to hurt more, knowing that each time he went he’d have to endure those things that corroded his soul a little further. Sometimes she felt that they were both adrift on the cold grey waters, struggling against undercurrents that were trying to sweep them apart and might well prove too strong for their relationship to survive.

  Flora knew that with the desperate struggle for Stalingrad through the cruel winter of 1942, surrounded and besieged by Hitler’s forces, it had become even more critical to keep the Soviet supply lines open. Yet, for exactly the same reason, it had become even more important for the Nazis to try to stop those same supplies from getting through. She pictured Alec on board the Isla, trying to protect the convoys as they ran the gauntlet of the stormy, ice-strewn wastes of the Barents Sea in the darkness. The men on board never knew when the next attack might come from above or below, while they battled through gale-whipped waves that turned the decks of the ships into lopsided, top-heavy ice palaces, threatening to capsize even the heaviest vessels. They might have had anti-aircraft guns and depth charges to defend themselves against the U-boats and the Heinkel bombers, but all they had to fight back against the smothering blanket of ice were pickaxes and shovels. Somehow, though, many of the ships got through, delivering their precious cargoes of fighter planes and tanks, trucks and weapons, as well as supplies of food, ammunition and fuel oil.

  At the end of the winter, the convoys had been suspended again through the summer months and Alec had been sent back out on patrol on the stretch of sea between the Northern Isles. Time and time again, Flora waited and watched as she drove her ambulance along the loch, scanning the horizon for new arrivals and searching among the flotilla of vessels at anchor in the bay for his ship.

  And then, at last, her patience was rewarded. He’d been given a few days of leave, days she hoped they’d spend beachcombing along the shore and fishing in the lily-covered lochan. But his father found jobs for him to do on the estate, and she suspected Sir Charles was deliberately keeping Alec away from Keeper’s Cottage.

  On a warm summer’s evening Flora wandered up to the stable block, having volunteered to see to the garron. As she approached, she heard the rhythmic thud of an axe on wood. Behind the stables, she found Alec. She smiled at first, watching the muscles of his back move beneath his shirt with each swing of the axe and each blow. He must have been at work for hours, she realised, noticing the split logs strewn chaotically around him, left unstacked. Then she saw how his shirt clung to his back, soaked by sweat.

  ‘Alec,’ she said softly. But he was lost in the motion of the axe, swinging it high and pounding it down on another log. The force of the movement sliced through the chunk of wood, rending it in two. She said his name again, more loudly this time. He spun around, the axe held high, and for one terrible second she thought he was about to bring it down on her head, splitting her skull as easily as he’d split the logs around his feet.

  That second seemed to draw itself out as the pair of them stood, frozen, in a grotesque tableau of fury and fear. And then she saw his face. It was darkened with the same rage she’d witnessed in him before, his features contorting into those of his father. With a gasp, she caught sight of the axe handle. It was red with his blood. Consumed by his fury, he’d flayed the skin from his hands until they’d become contorted, scarlet claws.

  In that moment, she hardly recognised him. He seemed completely lost in the darkness of his anger. Instinctively, Flora shrank back against the stable wall and held her breath until he slowly lowered the axe and relinquished his grip, letting it fall to the ground beside him. She swallowed her fear and went to him as his body was wracked by sobs and he gasped over and over again, ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’

  She held him until he was a little calmer, then led him to the cottage in silence, where she washed and bandaged his hands. ‘You need to rest,’ she told him. ‘You’re supposed to be on leave.’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t rest. I can’t sleep,’ he said. ‘Every time I close my eyes, I see the waves rolling towards me, coming for me. I feel as if I’m drowning, Flora. It’s better to keep busy, so that I don’t have to think. So that I don’t have time to remember the faces of the men we’ve lost.’

  She held his hands wrapped in their padding of white bandages between her own, as if trying to physically prevent him from sinking into the desperation and anger that reminded her so much of Sir Charles. But she was frightened. Every time Alec sailed, she feared she might lose him. And sometimes she had the sense that he was lost to her already.

  On the day of his leaving they sat together on the shore, and Flora held Alec close and spoke to him of the time when there would be no more need for goodbyes: they would take their children to fish in the peat-dark waters of the lochan and to collect shells from the rock pools beside the loch. She didn’t mention the issue of Sir Charles’s opposition to this rosy vision of their future: she supposed that time would resolve the impediment, one way or another. And she didn’t voice the doubts she felt in her own heart about the distance between them and the dark currents of anger and pain that still flowed in Alec, just beneath the surface. Instead, she traced with her fingertips the lines of the anchor and crown on the brooch pinned to her jacket and painted her picture of the years ahead, giving them both something to hold on to.

  The seasons wheeled through their ever-changing cycle and the heather-covered hills changed from green to purple to brown. Then, one morning, Flora woke to find them dusted with a capping of white. And her heart lifted as the first rays of the sun made the peaks dazzle against the blue of the winter sky, because she knew it was a sign that Alec should be returning any day now.

  A week later, Flora was making the tea, humming to herself while Ruaridh sat by the kitchen window with his bowl of porridge, watching the next convoy of merchantmen begin to converge on Loch Ewe. They both wore their naval uniforms, ready for the day’s duties.

&n
bsp; Ruaridh reached for the pair of field glasses that sat on the windowsill and scanned the harbour, watching the activity. Then he turned to Flora with a smile. ‘Come and have a look,’ he said, holding out the binoculars for her to take.

  She focused the sights and then gave a little gasp of joy as the familiar lines of the Isla came into view, making for the pier. And standing on the foredeck she could just make out an officer standing to attention alongside the jackstaff, who raised a hand to salute Keeper’s Cottage, as a squall of wind made the surface of the loch dance.

  Grabbing her overcoat and cap, Flora hurried down to the base. But to her dismay, she found she wasn’t the only one who’d come to welcome Alec home. Sir Charles stood at the end of the pier with his spaniel at his feet. On seeing Flora, the dog bounded over, tail wagging, and pushed its damp nose into her hand until she caressed its soft ears and broad bony forehead.

  ‘Corry! Heel!’ Sir Charles snapped. The spaniel immediately crept back to her master’s side, head lowered in fear.

  ‘Good morning, Sir Charles,’ Flora said politely. ‘Isn’t it good to see the Isla back in port again?’

  He glanced at her coolly before turning back to watch the ship as it manoeuvred into position. ‘Shouldn’t you be going about your duties, Miss Gordon?’

  She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘I’ve another ten minutes before my shift begins, so I thought I’d come down and welcome Alec home first.’

  A muscle in his jaw twitched with annoyance. ‘Well, as you can see, I am here already. There’s no need for a delegation. I’m sure my son will wish to come straight back to Ardtuath House to see his mother. There’ll be time enough for your welcome’ – he stressed the word with a sarcastic sneer – ‘later on, when you’ve finished your work. His Majesty’s Navy isn’t paying you to loiter here, distracting the men and getting in the way of important operations.’