by Leah Fleming
Minn shuddered at the thought of all her deception and wrote a Christmas letter at once to Ewan begging him to come up north for Hogmanay before he made any further decisions. There was so much she needed to explain to him in person.
For once she let Harry drive her into Pitlandry village for the bus to Peebles where she could buy a few small gifts for Christmas. Knowing Ewan would be arriving soon kept all her nagging doubts at bay. This deception had gone on too long. It was ridiculous not to share her news with him.
Christmas celebrations were still something new for Minn, so different from their puritanical Highland celebrations. On Phetray there had been no Christmas, only a New Year ceilidh and some black bun. There was never any money for lavish presents and fancy food. She hardly knew how to make lavish preparations that first winter and had to ask Cook what was the done thing in a household. It was Edie Lawrie, the cleaner, who came to her rescue, telling her which greenery to bring in and hang up, where all the Christmas decorations were packed away. There was to be a party for Daisy’s children and someone would dress up as Father Christmas on Christmas Eve.
Soon Daisy Lennox would be arriving with her girls from London. Gil Chisholm, the gardener, brought in a large spruce in a barrel for their Christmas tree and it started to snow again.
Harry arrived bearing boxes of candles and wine and dried fruit, dates and walnuts, tiny oranges and a fruit called a banana, not seen since before the war. No one asked how he had acquired such luxuries. It was Christmas after all, and Christmas was a time for indulgence, Minn was learning.
Anna reached out to grab the candles from the tree, her eyes sparkling in wonder at the lights and tinsel. Minn had never seen anything so beautiful. There were even presents under the tree for Anna and Minn: a pretty dolly with a porcelain face and a cashmere scarf for the housekeeper. It was like watching one of those wonderful Hollywood film scenes coming to life before her eyes with log fires and tinsel, clinking crystal and the exotic spicy smells of the season. Nothing had prepared Minn for the pleasure of it all.
Daisy’s girls, Bella and Poppy, latched on to Anna as if she was their own toy doll. They fought over who was to push her along the paths and play with her until she was thoroughly spoilt and fractious. Minn wrote to her mother with all their news and promised to visit in the summer when the seas were not rough.
On Boxing Day she was even invited to the family charades party and stood back discreetly whilst everyone made complete fools of themselves, drinking wine until they were quite silly. When it came to the clearing up everyone suddenly disappeared leaving Minn to sort out the debris with Harry hovering behind her back, the scent of his cigar wafting around the room.
‘Black becomes you, Mrs Broddick. Although it’s a pity you have to wear it so often. I should love to see you in midnight blue satin and silver. I know someone in the trade who could kit you out perfectly.’
‘Mr Lennox, please, I’m the housekeeper not some fly by night. What would I be doing with midnight satin?’ Her words shot out like a bullet from a gun.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve touched a nerve. Just because we employ you doesn’t mean I can’t make a suggestion, does it?’ he said.
‘It depends what sort of suggestion, Mr Lennox. I find that work and personal comments don’t mix in my experience. I can finish all this myself, if you don’t mind,’ Minn replied with a frostiness intended to warn him off, but he didn’t budge.
Harry stood by the fireplace puffing his cigar, his foot on the fender rail observing her busyness. ‘I’ve been watching you… You’re just too perfect, too correct. You never let down your guard. If I didn’t know your references were impeccable I’d say you had something to hide.’
‘Oh, please!’ Minn bent her head to hide her red cheeks.
‘No! Hear me out, Mrs Broddick. It takes one to know one. I like the way you keep your own counsel so discreetly. You see in business you sometimes need a partner who knows when to speak and when to be silent. Your daughter does you credit. It must be hard bringing her up alone. I can see you are ambitious for her. If you and I were partners, in the strictest sense, of course, she would want for nothing: ponies, clothes, the right connections…’ he smiled, looking pleased with himself.
Minn put the tray of glasses down with a clatter to steady herself. ‘Why are you saying all this to me? What can you possibly want with a domestic except the oldest promise in the book? I may be an islander straight off the boat but I’ve seen enough in life there to know what’s what!’
‘Steady, old girl! Nothing like that, I promise you, but I do need a partner to take around to certain occasions, a bit of a decoy, decorative and discreet, who can help with my work, entertaining clients, putting them at ease…’ Harry was watching her reaction.
Minn looked him straight in the eye. ‘Do you mean as a spy? What are you up to on the black market? Is it something not exactly legitimate?’
‘Nothing terribly dodgy… let’s say just a few shades of grey: a few deals here and there that need a careful, delicate touch, a few palms greased along the way. Somebody wants a favour and I oblige with no middlemen to rake off half the profit. All strictly legit but on the QT…’ Harry pointed to his nose with a smirk.
‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to hurt my employers. They’ve been good to me and I like this position.’
‘Who do you think picked you up from the pile? Who do you think pays for all this, heating, rent, transport? Did you think it was done on my father’s war pension? Come on, Brodie. I chose the house and I want my parents to have every comfort. Do you think I’d risk their reputation? There’s so much business out there for the taking but it all takes time and delicate negotiations at dinners and soirées. All I’m asking of you is to dress up and be my guest. No strings, I promise. I gather there’s some Highland laddie waiting in the wings.’
Minn smiled with relief. ‘Yes, there is… someone I knew on Phetray, we were engaged once before the war. He’ll be coming up for Hogmanay. If I do help you it will be only for a short time. I’m not in the market for any other arrangement.’
‘No, of course not, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting such an outrageous arrangement. Strictly business. What could be better, Mistress Brodie?’ He smirked
‘Mrs Broddick, please, in working hours.’
‘Give me your measurements and I’ll see to the midnight satin.’ Harry continued to press his request unabashed.
Minn shook her head. ‘Thank you, I’ll see to my own wardrobe if you can find the coupons and the cash.’ If this was going to be the arrangement the sooner Ewan was in the picture the better.
*
The snow fell gently at first like plump feathers blanketing out the gardens and the paths, but Ewan did not arrive. She had arranged digs for him in the village in Edie Lawrie’s box bed. Minn waited for the post but there was no reply. She had found out all the connecting train timetables from the south just in case he needed transport. She waited first with impatience and then with desperation. Hogmanay came and went and still there was no word from him.
How could he not come when she’d called? Why had he not answered her letter? She wrote again in fury and her letter bounced back unopened and re-addressed: ‘Not known at this address’. She wrote to her mother to see if he had written there but there was no reply.
The snow kept falling steadily, blocking the roads and the rail tracks and cutting off Pitlandry House from its village and suppliers. Now came the battle to survive against ice and snow on a scale not seen in the district for a hundred years. There was no time to mourn Ewan’s desertion when there was a household to feed and keep warm. The drive was blocked and they shovelled a rough pathway until Harry’s equipment supply came in the nick of time with a metal snow plough attachment that could be stuck to the old tractor. Every day Minn drove it up and down from the cottage through the courtyard to the back of the house to clear a path to the fuel store and the coal house, and watc
hed with despair as their food supplies began to dwindle.
On bad days no supplies reached the house and Minn was forced to scour the larders and pantries for something to make warming broths and stews. All Mistress Lamont’s strict training came back into use as she gutted frozen poultry, pheasants and rabbits for the pot.
Mrs Lennox caught a chest cold and had to be laid abed downstairs by the fire. The doctor came out with snowshoes on his feet. Harry fought his way through the blizzards to relieve the siege with fresh supplies in an army jeep towing a trailer. Anna danced through the tunnels of snow to greet him and flung herself into his arms, fishing in his pockets for a lollipop. ‘Sweetie, Dada!’
Minn blushed at the child’s words. Oh, Ewan, where are you? What have I done? Have I left it too late? All those months I ignored your letters. Are you punishing me now? Have you given up on our passion, given up on our promises? Why shouldn’t you forget me when it’s all of my own doing!
Anna was growing too fond of Harry and Minn was wary of letting him too close to her. As the weeks expanded into months and years Ewan’s image was fading like a photo in the sun, blurring into a shadowy outline, and sometimes she could no longer hear the sound of his deep voice booming in her head.
Harry’s presence now disturbed the calm of their retreat. He was always there waiting patiently in the wings ready to pounce. Oh, Ewan, come back soon!
Two
April 1947
In the spring of 1947 Ewan Mackinnon returned to London.
He had not meant to stay in France for so long but when his bursary ran out he took himself down to the vineyards to help with the grape harvest. He had drifted through the autumn and terrible winter of early ’47 visiting all those who had helped him evade capture in ’43. Now as a free man he visited the forest haunts, paying homage to old friends in the Maquis who had been captured, tortured or shot, calling on those families who had risked their lives in making sure that he survived. Wherever he went he was pressed to dine and stay to talk over old times.
That first stay in France had altered the direction of his own career away from destroying bridges, rail tracks, gun turrets and killing men and towards creating pictures. He toured old haunts, sketching the broken fragments of warfare, bullet-strafed houses, execution posts, bloodstains and bomb sites, capturing the sorrow and the pity of war with his paintbrush. Now that the truth of the real Resistance had come out from the shadows he was able to verify and honour those brave souls mistaken for collaborators in the heady days after June ’44.
That first return to Phetray had been overshadowed by news of Minn’s marriage and the tragic events that followed their lovemaking. He’d vowed to stay away from the island for her sake to protect her from gossip and calumny.
Once his commission was finished, his tour of duty over he attempted to settle down into a training course, but formal teaching did not sit easily on this ex-commando, nor did the constraints of civilian life. It was not the way he wanted to learn his craft.
In truth he no longer knew exactly what he wanted to do. Only the thought of Minn eventually by his side kept him plodding at his formal studies but she was proving elusive and difficult to contact.
Why did she not write regularly or come to visit him? He was glad that she had broken free from the confines of Phetray for a temporary position in the Scottish Borders. Yet why was she so vague about her exact location and seemingly disinterested in the news that he had been awarded a minor bursary to help with tuition and the rent of a Paris studio? Did she no longer care about their reunion? Nothing was turning out how he had hoped. The chance to study abroad seemed the only answer to his restlessness and disappointment.
His mother had died while he was abroad and his father was now settled in a parish close to Inverness. There were few ties left on Phetray, just the occasional cheery letter from his old school chum Johanna Macallum, who was teaching in Glasgow. Johanna knew nothing of Minn’s departure and seemed surprised that his old sweetheart had left the island.
Ewan wrote one last letter to her last address telling Minn of his decision to go abroad and suggesting that she might like to join him. No one would care if they were lovers. Why did she not reply? He waited and waited and then left for France without a backward glance.
Two could play at that game, and he was far too wary to query her silence. Only when he returned to his London digs the following spring to collect his battered trunk from a student friend was he given a pile of mislaid letters; among them was Minn’s desperate letter written in Christmas 1946 begging him to come north for Hogmanay to Peebles by train.
His first instinct was to find a call box and make a trunk call but for the life of him he didn’t know the name of her employers. He sent a telegram to the post office at Pitlandry to be forwarded to ‘Mrs Broddick, Housekeeper at the Big House’ saying he was on his way. He bought a ticket at King’s Cross Station and sat on the platform dreaming of this long overdue reunion. Now there would be no one to hinder them being together.
Months of travelling had hardened his features, coarsened his skin, fleshed out his lean frame. Living on cheese and wine and good bread once more suited him. Only his clothes were worn to tatters; his corduroys baggy and smooth in the seat, his tweed jacket patched at the elbow and his thick beard made him look like a tramp.
As he peered excitedly out of the sooty window as the train rattled up the east coast towards the Borders, he knew Minn would accept him just as he was. He could not wait to see her face when he turned up on her doorstep with open arms and a knapsack full of drawings and a bottle of lovely perfume. The years in between would seem as minutes once they were together.
How could they have stayed away from each other so long? It was Ken Broddick’s accident that had forced this separation. For all he’d fought in dirty skirmishes on lightening raids, killing soldiers, traitors, the shoving of her husband’s body off the rock to the mercy of the sea was something he could not forget or forgive. They should have told the island constable and be damned. It was all his fault and the silence had gone on too long. This troubled his conscience.
Was this why neither of them was able to refer to that last meeting? Was it guilt driving this wedge between them, tearing them apart? They had punished themselves with silence for too long.
He was looking out over the grey North Sea coast with interest. It was no surprise that most of his artwork was haunted by the sea; that the upsweep of the waves, the swollen waters of Phetray found its way time and time again on to his canvas. The sea was his constant inspiration and his curse. He drew upon boyhood memories of canoeing along the coast; the rocky outcrop where Agnes had died was imprinted on his mind’s eye.
All the momentous events in his life had taken place close to the shore. From memory he could picture the changing colours of his own familiar seascape. One day he knew he would have to go back and face those distant shores, but not now. Now he was in the lush green borderlands of Scotland within sight of drumlin hills, cavernous gullies where the Tweed rolled down amongst the pines and firs and grazing sheep and cattle fed on green pastures.
It was an alien landscape to an Islander used to flatness, white sands and a stretch of ocean. As he sat on the country bus twisting and turning on his way to Pitlandry he thought only of Minn’s welcoming arms and the sight of her silvery mermaid hair. Now at last they could be together.
The driver dropped him off by the iron gateposts. He saw before him a long drive sloping down towards the river, lined by huge black poplar trees. Ewan strolled slowly down the lane sniffing the blossom, savouring the sight of the stone house nestling in the hollow, the roof of its one turret glinting in the sunshine. It was a scene straight out of a John Buchan novel: a ‘Huntingtower’ perhaps but he was no Richard Hannay in his shabby tweeds and knapsack on his shoulder.
No dogs barked at his arrival so he made for the tradesmen’s entrance, knowing his place in such an establishment. The courtyard was full of motorbike parts and a man
was tinkering with the engine of a Lagonda sports car. He looked up with a smile. ‘Sorry, old chap, Cook’s day off. No scraps today.’
Ewan nodded, realizing that the chauffeur thought him some tramp on the scrounge. ‘I’m Ewan Mackinnon, a friend of Mrs Broddick… she’ll be expecting me.’
‘Are you now?’ replied the chauffeur, looking at him more carefully. ‘Ah, the Highland laddie could it be? The wanderer returns. I think she was expecting you last Hogmanay.’
‘I didn’t get her letter,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been studying abroad. I’ve only just got back. Is she inside?’ Ewan found the man’s attitude vaguely patronizing and made for the door.
‘Sorry, no can do. You’re too late. She left for Edinburgh this morning on business. She was not expecting visitors.’
‘But I sent a telegram.’ Ewan looked crestfallen at the news. ‘I’ll find somewhere to stay for the night until she returns. I’m in no rush,’ he insisted, having come so far he was not to be fashed by a delay of a few hours.
‘So it seems, Pity… I think you’ve missed the boat, the bus and the train there… old boy. The Lennox family think the world of Brodie, you know,’ said the mechanic as he continued polishing the bonnet.
Ewan assumed he was talking to the chauffeur, and didn’t want to know his opinion of Minn. He was a bit too smooth and sure of himself, that one. He turned to the line of motor bikes. ‘These are old army bikes. You were in the army?’
The young man wiped his greasy fingers on a rag. ‘Tank Corps actually, but these are all surplus. Do you want to buy one? I can do you a deal. Mr Lennox can supply anything for the right price.’
‘I bet he can.’ Ewan sniffed, sensing some scam going on. ‘You work for the Lennox family then?’
‘You could say that,’ the man replied, eyeing up the suitor with suspicion. ‘What outfit were you in?’
‘Navy. Special Boat Squadron.’