Daughter of the Tide

by Leah Fleming

  ‘He was mending a rather splendid Lagonda, if I recall correctly, a ginger-haired chap. He told me all about your engagement to the air force chappie.’

  ‘You’re talking double Dutch!’ Minn was shouting down the phone. ‘I was never engaged to a pilot! Who told you this?’

  ‘Harry, the chauffeur. It was he who told me all about the Battle of Britain hero, Roddy Lennox.’

  She could hear the sneer in his voice. There was another silence.

  ‘I think you’ve made a mistake, Ewan. Roderick Lennox died in the Great War. Harry is his younger brother. I married Harry eventually, when you never came. And did Harry tell you I had a child by his brother too? Oh God, the bounder! I knew he could bluff, but this… it takes my breath away!’ Minn’s voice was trembling as she tried to make herself understood. ‘And you believed him? I wrote to you and waited and waited but you didn’t come. I thought you didn’t care. Oh, Ewan. He’s cheated us. He must have taken the telegram and waited for you. Then he told a pack of lies and when I was low he pounced. He asked me to marry him.’

  The phone line began to crackle. She was trying to grasp what Ewan was saying.

  ‘Sorry, Minn, my timing was always a bit off… I was frightened of getting in the way again like I did with Ken. After Ken’s death… Do you blame me? I just thought it better to disappear. He took me to the station and saw me off. I fell for his story hook, line and sinker! I thought he was a good chap going out of his way to do me a favour.’

  ‘The only favour Harry ever does is for himself. Oh, Ewan,’ she pleaded. ‘I can’t believe it. You were in Pitlandry and I never knew it and here’s me thinking you didn’t care. I never stopped hoping but I thought you no longer remembered all our promises,’ she whispered, thinking fast. All the years rolled away and she could see them together once more alone on the shore.

  ‘I’ve always loved you, Ewan. Harry could never make me feel what I felt for you. These years have made no difference, have they?’ There was no stopping her now.

  Ewan’s voice was shaking as if he had been taken by surprise. ‘But we’re both married now, Minn. It alters things. Johanna is a good wife to me and there’s a baby on the way.’

  ‘I know and I bet she’s not a bit like me, is she?’ Minn answered, shocked at her own desperation. ‘After what we’ve both heard we can’t just leave it like this, can we? Harry has lied and cheated. I owe him nothing. How could he do this to us?’

  ‘Because he loved you and bagged you for himself. He was ruthless but he’s got what he wanted now,’ said Ewan, and his answer sounded final. She was too angry to let him go.

  ‘All these years he’s let me think ill of you, making it easy for me to give in to him. If I’d known you were still waiting I’d never have married him. You must believe that!’ she cried down the phone.

  ‘But you did marry him, Minn, and I thought I was doing what was best for you. He suggested that the Lennoxes could give you all the things I couldn’t so I let you go. It seemed the fairest thing to do after Ken. His shadow has loomed large over our lives. I never want to destroy anyone again.’

  ‘Shush! Walls have ears here! If only you’d trusted me. I wrote because I had so much to tell you about us, so many things to explain,’ she pleaded, pacing up and down and around the phone cord, banging her hand on her head.

  ‘Where does the baby fit into all of this, or was that another figment of his vivid imagination?’ said Ewan.

  The moment had arrived at last to tell him the truth about Anna.

  ‘I was coming to her. Oh, Ewan! She’s such a beauty… I want to tell you about her but I want to tell you face to face. Meet me at the beach tomorrow morning. No one will see us. I have to tell you about Anna,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s wise, Minn. I don’t want trouble… It’s been over for us a long time now.’

  ‘It can’t be over for us, we’ve something binding us together for ever. You have to understand about Anna. I want to explain it all. Surely you still feel something for me deep down… please, for auld lang syne!’ she was pleading.

  ‘You’re distraught… It’s your mother’s death affecting you. Once we walk down that road there’s no saying where it will end… in tears and guilt like the last time, or have you forgotten?’ His voice was trembling too.

  ‘You sound so hard and cruel. It wasn’t my fault Harry messed up our reunion. My head is bursting with regrets. You’ve no idea what the past few days have dredged up for me, and now this,’ she pleaded. ‘Just come to our traigh tomorrow morning, please.’

  ‘But if you’d truly wanted me, Minn, you’d have kept on waiting and turned the Lennox fellow down. If you truly loved me you’d have not left one pebble on the beach unturned until you had traced me. I think that Harry’s offer was always too good to turn down. Look at you. It is said you are a lady now with fine furs, a queen on the island.

  ‘It’s been noticed, girl, how you never brought your daughter to see your mother but kept away for fear of getting her shoes muddy. There are many eyes and ears on Phetray who’ll be telling the truth and shaming the devil. You took Harry’s offer as you took poor Ken Broddick’s offer. I realized a long time ago that you and I were not meant to be.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps it’s our punishment for what we did to Ken. There’s no going back to the way we were. We’ve both changed. Johanna is a good friend and I won’t betray her loyalty, however many promises you and I made in the past, Minn.’

  ‘But it’s not fair. I waited when you went missing. I waited for you after the war,’ she argued.

  ‘Not for long enough. You’ve always liked your comforts, and the temptation of an easy life was just too much. So go back and enjoy all your comforts. It’ll make this disappointment more bearable,’ he sneered.

  How could Ewan be saying these words?

  ‘Go to hell Ewan dubh, you black heart! Why did you ring me then? Was it just to taunt me with all of this? It’s not fair!’ Minn was sulking, her lips pouting into a tight ball.

  She could hear the laughter in his voice. ‘If I could see how you’re sounding it would no be a pretty sight, Minnie Macfee! You made your choices and we’ve all got to live with them as best we can. Go back to Harry the chauffeur and wring his neck or squeeze him dry. It’s far too late for us now.’

  ‘But I have to tell you about Anna…’ Minn was screaming down the phone. ‘Come to the beach tomorrow,’ she ordered, but the phone had gone dead.

  How could that man say such things, insult her with such venom when her mother was not cold in her grave? Where there was hate there was also love, she mused. Perhaps he was as shocked and stunned by her presence on the island as she was by his. He wanted her to flee from its shores but she was going to go to their beach for auld lang syne and he would come.

  She tossed in her narrow bed listening to the sound of waves pounding on the shingle. He must come. What they had to say to each other must be said face to face. Ewan was no coward. He would come and she would feel his arms around her once more and the scent of his breath. This was their special island and he had always belonged to her here.

  She ate no breakfast and walked along the coastal path in the wind and the rain. Her shoes were soaking in the boggy machair but Minn drew strength from fresh air. It was a longer walk than she recalled and she was tiring but she could have made her way blindfold such was her confidence that he would be waiting there once more.

  Beach of the singing winds was calling them both, carrying their old loving promises across the air into the ocean. Today Ewan would hear the truth at last and they could begin afresh putting all the past misunderstandings and mistakes behind them.

  She could hardly wait to see his handsome face, and he would see how sleek and smart she was, how well dressed in a cashmere suit and furs. How grown up she now was.

  She waited on the sand by the edge of the sea watching the roaring waves and listening to the howl of the wind through the rocks. She waited by the iron gate on to the
machair and found the boulders where they had first made love. She waited and waited until she knew it was time to walk back for her luggage but still Ewan did not come.

  Later, as she hung over the rail of the steamer chugging out of Kilphetrish harbour to plough its way back to Oban in the choppy winter sea, she wept. The seagulls screeched overhead as the islanders waved off the boat in time-honoured fashion. There was no one to see her humiliating departure. There was no one left who cared if she ever returned.

  In her belly were the first quickenings of life like the flutter of butterfly wings. ‘New life flies with its own wings,’ Mother had once said ruefully, but she would be carrying this child now with little joy.

  How could she ever forgive Ewan’s cowardice? How could he walk away from meeting her? Perhaps he now thought her foolish and extravagant, vapid and shallow. Perhaps he no longer desired her, thinking her fickle and mercenary in marrying for money. Perhaps it was true. There was a fatal weakness in some of her decisions, but it was his staying away that shamed her most. Was he afraid to see her?

  How could she have thrown herself at him so eagerly after all these years? The bond between them was shattered and for Ewan there was no going back, for Jo’s sake. He was an honourable man and she was a faithless woman.

  Now she was leaving Phetray with a cold steel plate of armour round her broken heart. Never would she return to this shameful island and all the broken promises. Her throat was dry and her voice had cracked when she had tried to sing a funeral elegy for Mother. No love song would ever pass these lips again, she thought. Her ears would be deaf to the siren sounds of music.

  She was after all a bastard child, not of Phetray, but some mongrel mixture born of such a cruel mating. That must be another secret.

  Minn turned away from the retreating grey shore to face the open sea ahead. From now on she was going to live life to the full as Harry’s lady. With a vengeance would she see to it that he gave her everything she desired in payment for his treachery.

  Never would she tell him of this discovery, but it would lie between them in the sheets like a brick wall.

  *

  Ewan paced around studio half the night. You must be off your head to make contact with her after all these years, he thought. Why was he considering meeting his old love on the Traigh gaodh nan seinn? Only a fool would meet that sea cailleach again.

  He was ashamed of his outburst over the telephone, words spoken in anger to a woman still in the throes of grief. Hearing the shock of her revelation about Harry Lennox’s treachery had slowly dammed the torrent of his own spite. They had both been duped by this man’s cunning deception. Now he must be strong for both of them and walk away from temptation, turn his back on her pleadings, to the awful truth of their betrayal without a backward glance, for Johanna and their baby’s sake.

  He had slammed down the phone on Minn in fear, not hearing out her story about her bairn. In truth he had fled from her voice, from the power of her presence on the island and her eagerness to meet him once more. The impact of that smile would never change. He would be as helpless as on the very first day that they had met.

  She was a dangerous woman, he argued to himself, a magnetic force, pulling him like the tide into treacherous waters. There was his wife to consider. He loved Johanna’s gentle ways, and there was a new life to prepare for. Johanna was the one who had comforted his disappointments, built up his confidence, stuck by him in college, supporting them financially in this time.

  Surely he was man enough to face that siren and stand firm by his principles and walk away from her wiles. Surely old friends could be sensible and rational and considered in all their actions when they met. What was the harm in bidding her farewell one more time?

  He woke early to do the morning chores, seeing to the fire and the stove as usual, combing the beach for firewood along the shoreline. He often took his sketchbook to the far end of the island to capture a scene, to finish off some detail. Johanna was feeling sick and rose slowly in the morning to ease her discomfort. She would not worry if he left her for a few hours. It was after all her suggestion that they contact Minn before the funeral.

  He had stayed away from Eilidh’s funeral and the burial out of respect. Surely there was no harm in visiting Minn now to pay his respects.

  Deliberately he rode out on his bike in the opposite direction from their appointed meeting place. He took his sketch pad out to the north shore to the circle of standing stones to catch the morning light on the gnarled stones, to sketch in the final details for a study of rocks and fortresses he was making. He listened to the gulls screeching and sipped from his hip flask, gathering courage before he would face his old lover for the last time.

  Time always flowed freely when he was at work, and it was only when he saw the light had shifted that he paused to glance at his watch. It said ten o’clock but he could tell by the sun that it was nearer midday. He shook his wrist but the minute hand was still. The damned thing had stopped and he hadn’t noticed. He had only the sun to go by and he was late, far too late.

  He should have been relieved that fate had intervened once more to prevent their meeting, but Ewan was cycling like the furies towards her, along the flat tracks that curled and turned through farm yards to find a short cut, carrying the cycle over the bogs and marsh land, heading ever westwards towards the beach of the singing winds.

  Perhaps she would still be waiting. Perhaps it was not as late in the day as he feared. On he cycled into the wind that tore at his flapping windcheater and baggy corduroys, pushing him backwards not forwards.

  Now it was imperative that he made the rendezvous with Minn, imperative that they make one final farewell and finish the business between them begun so long ago. Puffing and winded he sped down the hidden valley, but knew in his heart she was long gone. He heard the distant hoot of the steamer leaving Kilphetrish harbour and sat down with his head between his hands.

  Alone he faced the grey-green crashing of waves pounding the shore, flinging their spume in a welcome spray. The sea did not care. The sea was a fickle mistress of fortune, swayed by moon, wind and tide. The sea had taken their dead and not thrown back the evidence, and the sea had stolen his little sister without mercy and crushed her on its rocky heart. In his fevered brain Minn and the sea were one and the same to him.

  For days after her departure he hunted on the shore for a sighting of Minn while knowing in his head that she had left the island for good. He took his sketchbook down to the water, walking for hours, sifting through ideas for a large seascape upon which he could express all his anger and sorrow, a canvas on which to vent his frustration and fury in some meaningful madness.

  He must work through the night to erase Minn Macfee’s hold on his heart, making huge waves to drown out her face from his mind for ever. With the help of whisky and cigarettes he saw before him a terrible sea hag with gorgon hair and grasping claws. Then the vision changed into a beautiful mermaid sunning her body on the rocks, luring him towards her with siren songs; the arching waves were in her hair and the sea in the colour of her eyes. With this vision came the terrible sight of shipwrecks and the broken bodies of mariners flung on the white sand. Agnes drowning, her body bloated and her eyes picked clean flashed before him. Life and death, lust and love, passion and betrayal were in his brushstrokes that night.

  As dawn rose it was finished. Ewan looked upon the sight of his creative wrath and was satisfied.

  Part of him stood back to admire the effect. It was rougher and more alive than anything he had ever painted before. There was a new confidence to his style with a careless but powerful use of colour. There was something new growing from all this hurt and he liked the effect. He would experiment again with the same textured effect.

  This painting would never be for sale but would lie hidden, its face to the wall of his studio, gathering dust, as a warning: a constant reminder of the futility of love. It would not be for public viewing. He could never inflict the grief of his lost
passion on anyone, especially not Johanna. She would be hurt by these feverish outpourings if she knew how much loving Minn was his muse. Minn would always have a corner of his heart but her face must be turned to the wall.

  The canvas was laid to rest covered in brown paper on the shelf where it must stay to remind only him of his own frailty, weakness and his lost love. It was signed and dated. The title was scribbled on the back of the canvas: Traigh gaodh nan seinn. Beach of the singing winds. 1948.

  This canvas would be the first born of his grieving and Ewan would insist that after his death it must be burnt and the ashes scattered with his own at sea. Perhaps now he would find some peace.

  Five

  Pitlandry, 1950

  ‘You ought to be doing something with that voice of yours, Mistress Lennox,’ whispered the choirmaster, Archie Carswell, after the rehearsal in Pitlandry parish church. ‘It’s far too good for this wee choir. I know someone in Edinburgh who’d loved to take you on. It’s a solo voice, a Kathleen Ferrier voice lying undiscovered in this backwater,’ he sighed.

  There was much talk about the discovery of this Lancashire woman whose prodigious talent was taking the operatic world by storm.

  ‘Thank you, that’s most kind of you, but no thank you, Archie. Coming to the choir each week suits me fine. What would I want with singing lessons?’ Minn brushed off his compliments with a weary smile.

  ‘With respect, I disagree,’ Archie argued. ‘A voice like yours should be used, stretched and trained to give pleasure to others not stuck in a pew and brought out only Sundays.’

  ‘Now when would I be getting time for trips to Edinburgh with two children, a house to run and husband who’s too busy for his own good?’

  ‘Mr Lennox is in London again?’ Archie asked with deference, and she nodded. ‘I’d love you to do the Introit solo for ‘Lead me Lord’.

  ‘I’m not sure, since Hew was born… I’m not sure,’ Minn sighed, torn between her lethargy and wanting to please Archie to stop him pestering her again.