Vee: Lost and Found

by David Roberts

  “We don’t need to go any further than this. After all, the people are new- and so is that whitewash, by the look of it.”

  Outside the front door were a yellow plastic tractor and a small bicycle. The doors and window frames were a bright red, like the pickup at the side of the house. A thin stream of smoke issued from the chimney at the far end.

  “It’s smarter looking than I had pictured it,” said Tom. “And what a location, though I imagine it could be a bit remote in winter.”

  “But not Applecross remote.”

  “True.”

  They must have stood for five or six minutes looking at the house and the looking at the shore of the loch, with the white houses of the village clustering near the road. A red van passed through, tooting at a local, who waved a greeting.

  “Around here everybody will know everybody. There will be no secrets here,” said Tom.

  “Yes. It would be the opposite of remote, in that sense. What would be the opposite of remote? Busy?”

  “Claustrophobic,” said Tom.

  “Yes, it would be claustrophobic.”

  They made their way back to the car.

  Over the next two miles, they retraced their conversation: the trail beside the River Lair; the triangular lochan; the two larger lochs at the Torridon end.

  “I can see the attraction of a book like this,” said Tom. “The written sections do make you want to go there in a way that a map doesn’t. I get that now. What was the actual place like then? Did it match up to the description?”

  “Pretty much. The riverside trail was very scenic. When I reached the end of it I could see the route which takes you to the two lochs. Rather than retracing my steps right away I thought I’d take to opportunity to veer off to the left and explore some of the lower slopes of mountains in the 2500 to 3000 feet category.”

  Tom looked at the map. Sgorr Ruadh and Faur Tholl were in the immediate area, with two others nearby. He nodded. That was easier than trying to pronounce them.

  “Well, as you’d expect, the land twists around a lot so you can come across unexpectedly boggy areas, rocky areas, small stands of stunted, wind blown trees. It’s not uniform up there. Before going up I’d had a good look at the book and something intrigued me about it. If you look at where the river emerges, off a bit to the left there’s an annotation.”

  “Oh yes, I see it. It says it’s the site of a plane crash. Well it’s still high ground even though it’s in a dip between the mountains. I know there are lots of crash sites in the Highlands. Most of them probably date from the Second World War and were documented at the time. Did you find it then? Was there anything still there?”

  “A memorial to the aircraftmen killed: a small cairn with a metal plaque cemented in it. That told me I’d come to the right spot. The bodies and the wreckage were all gone of course.”

  “You’d expect that.”

  “Yes, but I was surprised by something else. It was a German aircraft, not an Allied one. And the plaque was recent too: it had only been there since the nineteen eighties. It was in German as well as English- something about fallen comrades. I think Adrian must have discovered it, but why he’d be up here, off the beaten track, is anyone’s guess. I think he passed the information on to the authorities, who would have contacted the German government.”

  “When would this be, then?”

  “Sometime in the nineteen eighties, I imagine. He would just have stumbled on it, I suppose.”

  “You’ll see now why I carry this old book around with me. It’s the maps, plus the text, plus the annotations which make it useful. And unique.”

  Tom looked back at the page dealing with Torridon and Achnashellach. Keen to see where they would be going, he traced the route from Applecross, through Shieldaig to Annat. Then he saw something curious: a small rectangle with a circle inside had been drawn on the map. His finger lingered on it and he looked across to Alastair.

  “That means it’s one of the photographs. I put that in when I identify a site. I’ve got three of the five at the moment: here, Loch Maree and Altnaharra. I haven’t found the two with mountains yet.”

  He reached across and showed him them. One had a single mountain on the right, at the end of a long, straight road. In the lee of the summit, a small cloud was being unpeeled by the wind. There was no clue on the back of the photograph. The other had distant mountains, with water and trees in the foreground. Again, no clues.

  “What now?” asked Tom.

  “We’ll have coffee in Kinlochewe, if you fancy it. It’s not far to Gairloch after that and after that the road is fantastic- wide, smooth and fast. Not like this.”

  7 The Green Racer

  Mallaig 1936

  Twice, he had been disturbed during the night. At ten-thirty she had still been awake when he had started to become restless. He began turning from side to side and soon his arms were fighting with the blankets. When he cried out she drew herself closer to him and wiped the sweat which was forming on his forehead. After a few minutes he calmed down. She had managed to settle him.

  The second time she had been asleep herself, but he had woken her with his sobbing.

  “I want my mummy,” he said. “I want my mummy.”

  Mhairi cuddled him once again, and whispered to him.

  “Good boy, Jamie, you’re a good boy. Mummy will be thinking about you. You will be seeing mummy and daddy sometime soon. They will be thinking about their good boy. We all love you, but now is a time for sleeping. We have to be quiet now, Jamie.”

  These persuasions continued for several minutes, as long as it took to settle him. The clock said around four-thirty: the glow from the harbour lights was not strong enough to make her sure. Another three hours, even just two hours, and he would be rested. That would give them over two hours until the ferry. After breakfast, she would be able to take him across the harbour to see the fishes.

  It was important to keep promises. Even though she had no children of her own, she knew that. Seeing the fishes was a promise she had made on the train as it crossed the bleakness of Rannoch Moor, when she had run out of things to distract him. Earlier that day, when they left Oban, there was the excitement of boarding a train- the noises, the steam, the hustle and bustle of the station. She had pointed out the islands, and McCaig’s Tower on the hilltop

  At Crianlarich there was the switch over from the Glasgow train to the one heading north to Fort William. Jamie had actually nodded off at one point, but he was wide awake as they made their way across Rannoch Moor. She could see a beauty in the desolate landscape but she felt that for him it was just an emptiness. The persistent drizzle hadn’t helped. The promise of seeing the fishes was what she used to fill it up.

  And if he had forgotten, she told herself, that wouldn’t matter: it was something they could enjoy together, something shared. It would be something they could speak about later. Perhaps she could buy a colouring book in the shop across the road. She imagined him poring over it, holding the pencil clumsily as he tried hard to keep to the lines. They could talk about the colours. Yes, a colouring book would be ideal.

  Mhairi looked across. He had drifted off again. She felt relief but increasingly, she could feel something else too- guilt. Another promise had been made. ‘You will be seeing mummy and daddy soon’. Perhaps this was the truth; after all, there was no way of knowing.

  She lay awake, going over the past few days, trying to piece it all together, as if there were an answer. Talladale, half way between Kinlochewe and Gairloch, was a wonderful place to have grown up, especially when she thought of the grime of Glasgow or the bustle of Inverness. It could be bleak in winter of course; and often they had been completely cut off.

  She smiled as she remembered trudging with her brother through the snow to the Loch Maree Hotel. Whenever the road was blocked, they would always have a surplus they were happy to give out. This would be paid back later, in milk and eggs from the farm, or sometimes just firewood.

  There
were other ‘arrangements’ also. Two small wooden dinghies (and one larger one) were stored at the rear of the hotel. They tended to be fully used in mid-April and May, when the salmon were around. Guests would come year after year for this- often travelling from Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as Inverness. Later in the year, the boats would be busy with sea-trout but between these two times there was a lull when they would be laid up on the shore or tied to the jetty. They could be had simply by the asking, and a short hop across the water would take them to the various islands on the loch, the largest of which had ruins to explore and quiet places. She remembered Euan climbing one of the old trees, feeling his way along a branch until it snapped. The huge bruise on his forearm had taken some explaining when they got home.

  They made walking sticks from the hazel, whittling long spirals in the bark. Most of all they liked just to watch the world go by as they sat, hunkered down, invisible. She remembered once, an aeroplane flying low over the length of the loch: a seaplane, Euan had said, possibly on its way to Gairloch. It was the first aeroplane she had seen- an ugly, black, angular, noisy thing, though it captivated Euan nevertheless.

  All kinds of memories flooded back at the thought of Euan and herself as children in that place: the days they spent scraping the boat and rubbing it down with sandpaper- and with smooth stones when sandpaper ran out. Then it was the varnishing. This was their thank-you to the hotel.

  And then the darker thoughts came. She remembered the grief of her classmates whose fathers, uncles and brothers had been killed in the trenches or at sea. Worse even than that was the horror of seeing the wounded men, those with limbs missing and the horribly disfigured, at the unveiling of the War Memorial in Inverness. It would have been the same all over Europe, in cities, towns and villages. This is what the four terrible years had brought.

  Mhairi could still remember the newspapers with their long lists, and the banner headlines when the Great War had ended. Had Euan been even a couple of years older, he too would have been called up. They had been lucky. Many others had not.

  She looked across and, in the sleepy features of her nephew she could see Euan, his father. Only time would tell how lucky he would be and that, in part, still depended on his father, for Euan was missing. Mhairi remembered journeying mainly by bus from Fort William to Oban; a streamlined modern coach with panoramic windows that seemed ill-suited to the twisty, narrow roads it had to travel on. Almost inevitably, there were hold-ups, including a puncture.

  On approaching Oban she had felt an excitement she had not expected. Perhaps it was the thought of seeing Jamie, or just the idea of being with Euan, and Margaret, once again. Euan’s promotion had put the seal on three year’s work. His new position in the design office made his future secure- and the yard itself was attracting orders. The new treaties only seemed to place restrictions on the largest vessels- for yards specialising in the smaller types, the international tension was good for business.

  “I hope,” she said as she looked across, “I hope you will be lucky, Jamie.”

  Four days they had been missing now. A meal had been booked in the hotel (The Ossian) for six-fifteen, but they had said they would be back around four.

  “Five at the latest,” that’s what Euan had said.

  Mhairi had explained all of this to the police that evening. Living in Glasgow but being country bred, Euan wanted Jamie to know something of life away from busy traffic, the grime and poverty endemic to the city. These short breaks were his way of telling Jamie, “There’s more to life than this.”

  Previously, they had been to Dunblane- a three day stay at Easter in thirty-two. Now, for the first time, Jamie could be without his parents for a whole day, which is where Auntie Vee came in. The family holiday became the family reunion. For Mhairi, the prospect of a day with Jamie all to herself was the most appealing part of a five day trip which offered a rare experience of city life.

  The first day had seen them all go round the shops and spend time in the harbour. Mhairi looked across to the little green racing car. It was on the bedside table where Jamie had put it. In the growing light penetrating the curtains she could see the streamlined outline with the head of its tiny driver sticking up in the cockpit, like the top of a clothes peg. She smiled. That was probably exactly what it was. She remembered Margaret telling the shop assistant not to bother wrapping it. That was Jamie for the whole day.

  “How wonderful,” she thought, “to love something just like that; immediately and without reservation.”

  The following morning had been a rush to get organised. Margaret fussed around Jamie, checking everything he would be needing was laid out; telling him she knew he would be a good boy; reminding him how lucky he was to have a whole day with Auntie Vee.

  “And we’ll be back for tea with you later,” she had said. “We are going to eat in the big hotel that looks out to sea. Auntie Vee will show it to you.”

  Auntie Vee nodded and smiled, and not merely to please Jamie, but because of the way she felt. How lucky Jamie was to have a mother like that. The way Margaret spoke to him- it was almost seductive. Mhairi imagined for a moment how this way of speaking would change as Jamie grew up, modifying for every event in a seamless, controlled development.

  “No wonder Jamie loves her. I can see just why Euan loves her,” she thought, with a touch of envy even though she loved Margaret too.

  The actual event of leaving was managed in a way which put Jamie right at the centre. Margaret and Euan had on their stout walking shoes and their warm jumpers. The waterproof coats were in the rucksack which Euan slung over one shoulder as he knelt down to kiss Jamie. Mhairi then gathered Jamie up so he was sitting in the crook of her arm.

  After a kiss and a wee hug from Margaret, Mhairi held him tightly so he felt protected. Then together they said,“Goodbye Mummy,” and “See you later.” Jamie and Auntie Vee waved together and smiled together. Then it was back inside and enthusiastic preparation for a day in Oban: seeing islands offshore; watching the fishing boats and reading the letters on them; hearing the creak of the davits as they swung the catch on to the quayside. And lunch, and shops (and probably rain, going by that sky).

  It was almost four o’ clock before Jamie began to ask about mummy and daddy. Mhairi dealt with this by mentioning them more and more, talking about the places they would have seen on their walk.

  “Yes. They’ll be on the bus now.

  “What part of the day will you tell them about first, Jamie?

  What have you liked the most?”

  At first these reassurances worked on both of them, but quite quickly the act of reiterating them began to feel unsettling. By half-past four Mhairi was starting to worry, even though they were not actually late. Euan had said five o’clock after all.

  By half- past five, Mhairi was thinking of a bus breakdown. These things did happen quite frequently, after all, especially on these twisty roads. She really hoped the twisty roads would make a difference to the buses.

  “Surely they are bound to,” she told herself, “and these hills.”

  At six o’clock she left a message at the guest house- perhaps Euan and Margaret were going to go straight to the hotel restaurant. They walked along to check. She spoke briefly to the hotel manager. If no-one came by six thirty they would release the table.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to her. “These things happen all the time.”

  But these things did not happen all the time to Jamie, and he seemed to know that something was wrong even before they had reached the guest house. They were definitely missing.

  That’s when Mhairi told him stories about the buses and how they break down all the time; about walking home in the rain, in the wrong shoes.

  “Of course mummy and daddy have the right shoes, haven’t they. Yes, their toes will be warm and cosy. And they have their big coats.”

  And Jamie had told the policeman about the right shoes and the warm coats when they went to see if mummy and daddy had gone there whe
n they arrived back. Margaret would have been able to manage the conversation a lot better, Mhairi thought, as she tried to hop between Jamie’s enclosed little world and the needs of the authorities. They were to have been back by five, with a dinner reservation for six-fifteen which they would have been keen to make. And of course they wouldn’t have wanted to worry Jamie.

  Over the next two days, and in the course of three visits, Mhairi told them all she knew. They had talked about Easdale, on that first day in Oban, and bought a walkers’ map of the Kilmartin area. Euan was interested in a stone circle and nearby cairns. That made it more likely as their destination than Easdale. No, they had not had an argument. Yes, they had every intention of returning in the late afternoon. No, she was not aware of any friends they might have in north Argyll. In any case, they would want to be back for Jamie whoever they might have visited, wherever they had gone.

  For their part, the police had visited the bus depot and interviewed the driver of the nine o’clock bus heading for Campbeltown. Yes, he remembered the couple in their mid thirties who had boarded in Oban. He remembered dropping them off at Kilmartin. The woman had almost left her purse on the bus, and had to rush back down the aisle to retrieve it. She had been full of apologies and very embarrassed. The man with her had smiled at the driver as though to say, “Here we go again.”

  When Mhairi asked about the conductress the police pointed out that whilst these were present on buses when passenger numbers were high and stops frequent, on the rural buses the driver performed both tasks, so they had only one witness. Neverthless, they were convinced of the identity of the two passengers and the driver’s statement had confirmed Kilmartin as the likely destination.

  It was late in the afternoon of the following day (the third of the holiday) that the police visited farms in the Kilmartin area, just in case the couple had taken refuge there. An officer in Oban also telephoned the police stations in Tarbert and in Campbeltown- but there was no news. A full search of Kilmartin was carried out on the Thursday morning and when this turned up nothing, the search switched to Easdale.