by Valpy, Fiona
He glanced across at her and smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry, I’m not very good company again today. Had another almighty row with Pa this morning.’
She didn’t ask what the argument had been about, knowing that it would almost certainly have revolved around his unsuitable attachment to the gamekeeper’s daughter. If Sir Charles had suspected that Alec’s plan to spend a couple of days camping in the hills involved spending time with Flora, too, that would no doubt have reignited his anger. As they walked, she wondered again if they could really ever be together when the war was over. These extraordinary times had allowed barriers to break down, but what would happen when life returned to normal? Would Alec ever be able to heal? Would the old boundaries reassert themselves? Could she ever really be the mistress of Ardtuath House? Or, if forced to choose, would Alec leave his heritage behind to be with her? Which would prove stronger, she pondered, duty or love? And what of her own sense of herself, which had grown through her work and her singing? Would the voice she’d found be silenced again if they were husband and wife?
As the pair climbed higher, Flora’s uncertainties weighed her down more than the basket she carried, and the silence between them was heavy with unspoken thoughts.
To break it, Flora asked, ‘How’s your mother?’, knowing how Sir Charles’s ill humour might well have had wider repercussions.
‘She’s all right, I think. Keeping herself busy now she’s so involved with the Rural these days. It’s a good thing – gets her out of the house.’
In her quiet way, seeing that help was needed, Lady Helen had stepped in to assist Mrs Carmichael, gently insisting that the status quo should be maintained with Moira as chairwoman, but that she was happy to lend a hand behind the scenes to keep the SWRI’s work going. With the multitude of servicemen coming and going and rations stretched more tightly than ever, their contribution to running the canteen and to the organisation of social events had become even more essential.
At the top of the steepest part of the climb, they stopped to catch their breath and turned to look back out over the loch. Alec breathed deep and, to Flora’s relief, when he smiled at her his dark eyes seemed to have regained some of their old warmth. Being out on the hill was doing him good.
Most of the merchant ships had gathered now and lay at anchor beyond the island, American Liberty ships tied up alongside British vessels. Fuel ships ran back and forth between the depot and the fleet, filling their tanks in preparation for the off and servicing a Norwegian oiler, which would accompany the convoy to refuel vessels en route. On the near side of the bay, the Kite rode at anchor alongside the rest of the naval escort.
‘They look awfully wee from up here,’ Flora commented. ‘I hate to think of you so vulnerable out there, on the longer route. And it’s still daylight until almost midnight up there.’
Alec put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a pair of aircraft carriers going to be joining us once we get to Scapa Flow, so we’ll have Stringbag support from the Fleet Air Arm too. Those pilots are aces.’
She’d seen one of the carriers once, its immense bulk dwarfing the other naval vessels in the harbour. Ruaridh had explained to her that the Swordfish biplanes – affectionately nicknamed Stringbags – lashed to its deck might look old-fashioned, with their open cockpits and fabric-covered fuselages, but they were efficient hunters of U-boats, dropping depth charges and torpedo bombs from a height on any attackers. He’d described the skill needed by the pilots to launch themselves at full throttle from the pitching deck out over the waves to hunt down enemy submarines, then to return to the carrier and land on that same moving target, with just one chance to catch the arrester wire that would slow the plane in time and prevent it from plunging off the deck into the seething sea. Flora couldn’t imagine what it must be like for those pilots, often flying blind and only emerging from the blanket of Arctic fog just a couple of hundred feet above the deck.
Even with the support of two aircraft carriers, though, she knew how vulnerable that summer convoy would be. ‘Just one more push,’ everyone was saying. ‘It’ll be over by Christmas.’ Again. She hoped that perhaps this convoy would be the last one . . . but then how many times had she sent that particular prayer up already?
They picked up their gear and continued on towards the lochan, turning their backs on the grey flotilla in the loch below.
The weather was fine, so there was no need for cover as they tied flies to their lines and began to fish for their supper. The lochan’s coverlet of green lily pads offered shelter to the brown trout whose burnished scales were the same colour as the peat-infused waters of the lochan, so they cast close to the edge of the lilies, hoping to tempt the fish to the surface. Soon they had a good-sized one, and Alec cleaned it while Flora got the fire going in the hearth of the ruin. She put a dab of butter into a blackened frying pan that they’d brought with them, and set the trout fillets to fry. Before long, the skin was crisped and golden at the edges, and the flesh of the fish, basted with brown butter, turned to succulent flakes. They ate it with a few potatoes, fried in the same pan, and a handful of sweet green peas.
Alec lay with his head cushioned on Flora’s lap while she leaned against the fallen stones of the bothy wall, and they talked long into the evening, about how well Roy was doing in his recovery – which had a great deal to do with the care he was receiving from Mairi and her family on the farm – and how Bridie seemed to be starting to regain her spirits just a little.
‘How are Stuart and Davy getting on?’ Alec asked.
The Carmichaels were still struggling with their grief and Flora had been worried that the two wee boys weren’t getting much attention. So she’d suggested to Mrs Carmichael that they come and help her in the garden and give her father a hand with some of the chores on the estate. Three days a week all through the summer holidays they’d turned up at Keeper’s Cottage and thrown themselves into the jobs that Iain had found for them, helping him with the pony and the dogs, digging up tatties and pulling weeds from the kitchen garden. Stuart was growing as fast as a thistle, skinny wrists and ankles protruding from the cuffs of his trousers and jacket, but the extra fish and meat the boys ate at the Gordons’ table were helping him fill out a little. Braan was the boys’ constant companion and Davy, especially, loved the garron, too, and would happily spend hours combing the tangles and burrs out of her long blonde mane.
‘They’re looking well. They’re off back to school again this week, but they’re going to keep coming over in the evenings to help Dad and have their tea with us. They’re old enough to help with the shoots now, too. Dad says they’ll make good beaters.’
‘Has their mum been able to get up to see them over the summer?’
Flora shook her head. ‘I know the Carmichaels invited her to come and stay, but she’s not managed to get here. She said she was coming for Davy’s birthday, but never turned up in the end. It was awful, seeing him try not to show his disappointment. He was so brave – told me she’s too busy helping make bombs to stop the Germans to come just now, but that she’ll come and bring him and his brother home just as soon as the war is over. For the time being, they’re better off here, I reckon.’
Alec propped himself on one elbow and threw another peat on the fire. It wasn’t cold, but the smoke helped keep the midges at bay.
‘Look at that,’ he sighed, settling himself against her again and reaching for her hand. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of watching west coast sunsets.’
Silhouetted on the crest of the hill, a herd of red deer hinds stood stock-still, facing the setting sun as it painted the western horizon in shades of crimson and vermillion. The colours grew bolder and deeper before they faded finally and night drew a blue-black curtain across the sky, obscuring the deer.
In that moment, safe in the hills, the shadows of her doubts lifted a little. Alec seemed at peace, sounding more like his old self again, and Flora felt the tension in her n
eck and arms relax. She wriggled closer to him, resting her head on his chest as the stars began to appear.
She knew a few of the constellations: the Plough, which wheeled around the constant point of the North Star, was an eternal feature of the night sky over the loch, a familiar friend to every crofting family and to the men who fished the treacherous waters of the Minch. And when she was wee, her father had shown her how the hunter, Orion, would appear over the hills to the south in the winter, searching for the Seven Sisters who had been placed in the sky for safety by the king of the gods.
‘Tell me a story about the stars,’ she said softly.
Alec settled himself more comfortably, drawing her into the crook of his arm. He pointed out one of the constellations to the north. ‘You see that W shape of bright stars? It’s one of my favourite constellations – Cassiopeia’s Chair.’
‘Who was Cassiopeia?’ Flora asked, tracing the line of his cheekbone with her finger. His eyes were as dark as the night sky.
‘She was a very beautiful queen, the mother of Andromeda. But she boasted to the god of the seas, Poseidon, that her daughter was more lovely than his sea nymphs. He flew into a rage and cast her up into the sky on her throne, sentencing her to spin around the North Star for eternity.’
‘Poor thing, she must have to hang upside down half the time.’ Flora smiled.
‘Well, now that you’re acquainted with her, when I’m away at sea we can each look up at her and know that the light from her stars is shining on us both. The distance between us is nothing when you think how far off those stars are. I shall like that thought when I’m on watch up there in the Arctic seas. It’ll help me to know you are never really far away.’ He braided her fingers with his own, binding their hands together.
As they watched, more and more stars emerged until it seemed that they lay under a blanket of black velvet that had captured a million sparkling dewdrops in its folds. And as those stars wheeled above them, describing a vast whirlpool of light across the night sky, they drew even closer until there was no distance at all between the beating of their hearts, and they melted together to become one.
Lexie, 1978
Daisy’s in her bed, tucked up under her shell-pattern blanket, and Davy and I are sitting on the steps in front of Keeper’s Cottage finishing off the bottle of wine we’ve shared over supper. I lean my head on his shoulder and watch the stars materialise as the autumn night draws its own blanket of darkness over the loch.
There’s a comfortable sense of companionship between us, as if we’ve always known one another. Which, in a way, we have. It’s a new sensation for me, this feeling of contentment, and I realise that I have never felt at home like this before.
‘Tell me the names of the stars,’ I say.
He points out the Plough. ‘Everyone knows that, and it’s a good one when you’re out at sea. It always points to the Pole Star, one of the few fixed points in the night sky. Once you know where true north is, you can navigate more easily.’
‘What’s that one?’ I ask, tracing a zigzagging line in the sky above us.
‘The one shaped like a W? That’s Cassiopeia’s Chair. It’s usually easy to spot with those five bright stars. And that one over there is Sirius, the dog star. It’s the brightest one in the sky. If you spot anything brighter, it’s probably a planet.’
He leans forward to look towards the south. ‘At this time of year, you can just see my favourite constellation on clear nights. Aquila, the eagle. It’s harder to make out, but that brighter star just on the edge of the Milky Way is Altair and that’s the eagle’s head. Its wings spread out in a V shape from Altair, see?’ His hand describes the sweep of the eagle’s wings, sketching the shape in the darkness. ‘One night, when it’s flat calm like this, I’ll take you out on the boat. Out on the water, away from the lights of the cottages, you can see the stars even more clearly.’
I imagine being out there, picturing the deep, black water beneath the boat that swallows the light of the moon and the stars. The thought makes me shiver a little.
‘Come on,’ says Davy, ‘you’re getting chilled. Time to go in.’
I shake my head, resisting, not wanting to break the spell of our closeness by moving.
He stands anyway. ‘Well, at least let me bring out a rug.’
The warmth of him evaporates from my skin and now I realise I do feel chilled. He begins to move away and, out of nowhere, a memory of the rejection I felt in London surges over me. It’s absurd, I know. He’s not leaving me, he’s just being thoughtful. But the wounds of Piers’s abandonment must go deeper than I’d recognised.
‘There you go again, still trying to look after everyone.’ I mean it lightly but it comes out wrong, sounding petulant and accusing.
‘And there you go again, frightened of letting anyone take care of you in case they hurt you,’ he replies. There’s an edge of irritation to his words that makes me draw back, trying to read his expression. But the shadows obscure his face and he turns away to go inside.
I sigh and stand, too, before he can return with a blanket. The thought of it makes me feel claustrophobic and his words have stung me. It’s too late now; the spell has been well and truly broken. I go in and switch on the light, start clearing the supper things into the sink, running the taps, wiping the countertop.
Davy stands in the doorway, the plaid rug in his hands no longer needed. He folds it carefully over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, smoothing the creases.
‘I’ll be going then,’ he says.
I nod, busily scrubbing a saucepan, not meeting his eyes.
He comes over and gently removes the scouring pad from my hand, then wraps me in a hug.
I don’t know where this evening went wrong. Perhaps we’ve both got too used to living on our own. Perhaps we’re just too different. Or perhaps the wall I’ve built around my feelings over the years is simply too much for anyone – even him – to dismantle. It all seems so complicated suddenly, letting someone else in, having to work at a relationship, and I long for the simplicity of my solitary life with Daisy, even though I know how lonely it can be.
‘Sorry,’ I say, burying my face against his shirt. ‘But don’t try and rescue me, just like you try to rescue everyone else because you couldn’t rescue your mum and your brother.’
He pulls away, hurt. Then he shakes his head and picks up his jacket. He turns to go, hesitates, looks back at me, the expression in his eyes wounded.
‘I’m not trying to rescue you, Lexie,’ he says. ‘I’m trying to love you.’
I surface through layers of troubled dreams, trying to make sense of the sounds that have woken me. There’s been a week of calm weather and so the sudden storm that’s blown in while I was sleeping is bewildering, howling like a banshee as it flings itself at the walls of the cottage with a fury that seems to have come out of nowhere. There’s another sound, too, steadier and more insistent than the wind and rain. At last I realise it’s the ringing of the telephone and a surge of alarm grips me. It’s the middle of the night. Who on earth could be calling?
I bump into the door jamb, jarring my shoulder as I hurry downstairs and snatch the receiver from its cradle, sending up a quick prayer of thanks that Daisy hasn’t been woken by the din.
‘Lexie, is Davy there with you?’ It’s Bridie, her voice pitched high with panic.
‘No. I haven’t seen him for a few days.’ Not since the night I said such hurtful things to him, but I don’t tell her that.
‘He went off in the boat yesterday. Said he was heading out for a couple of days’ fishing while the weather was good. It was forecast to change but not this fast.’
Her panic is catching, pulling me in, and my mind starts to spin in a whirlpool of fear.
‘Did he say exactly where he was going?’ I ask, trying to keep calm so I can think more clearly.
‘No. Just that he’d be out at sea. Oh, Lexie, what should we do?’
‘I’ll call the coastguard. See if they’
ve heard anything from him on the radio. He may have gone into Gairloch or be sheltering in Gruinard Bay. If not, I’ll tell them he’s missing so they can put out a search. I’ll phone you back as soon as I’ve spoken to them.’
I’m still on the phone when Bridie arrives at the front door, unable to bear waiting alone. She’s soaked to the skin, having cycled through the storm, and I hand her a towel to dry her hair. She starts to shake uncontrollably.
‘It’s all right, Bridie,’ I say, sitting her down on a kitchen chair, trying to calm her, although I feel anything but calm myself. ‘They’re putting out a search for the Bonnie Stuart. His last radio contact was from just this side of the Shiant Isles – he said he was heading for home ahead of the storm.’
I try hard to stay calm and to push from my mind an image of the Blue Men of the Minch, those malicious storm kelpies, slithering out of their caves in the cliffs along the edge of the islands, intent on snatching sailors from their boats and pulling them down to their deaths beneath the surge of the hungry waves.
I hold Bridie’s hands, but can’t stop their trembling. ‘Something’s not right,’ she insists. ‘I can feel it.’
Her fear is infecting me. I see Davy in my mind’s eye, his grey-blue eyes clouded with hurt when he left the cottage the other night, and I hear an echo of his quiet, sad words beneath the roar of the storm: I’m not trying to rescue you, Lexie. I’m trying to love you. I have a sudden vision of the torn and twisted remains of the lifeboat on the beach at Black Bay, and I know I have to do something, anything. I can’t sit here knowing he’s out there somewhere.