The Skylark's Secret, стр. 8
‘Sorry about your mum,’ he says at last. ‘Is everything okay in the house? I know Bridie’s been in to check a couple of times. But if you need a hand with anything, just let me know.’ He glances past me as he says this. His expression flickers and I sense that his attention has been caught by something behind me. Looking round, I realise it’s the sight of the gin bottle standing next to a half-empty glass. I know what he must be thinking. And at this time in the morning, too. Then I catch sight of the kitchen clock and see it’s later than I thought – nearly ten. But even so . . .
I look back at him defiantly. ‘Yeah, that’s not what it looks like. It’s about as far as I got with supper last night.’
He shrugs. ‘I’m not judging.’
Aye, right. I give it half an hour, tops, before that titbit is fed back to Bridie.
‘Anyway, enjoy the squatties. If you’d like more ever, I’m out most days with the creels. Leave me a message on the jetty.’
I relent a little, realising how ungracious I’ve been. ‘Thanks, really. I’ll enjoy these.’
‘No bother. Well then, be seeing you around.’
I watch as he strides back to a Land Rover parked at the side of the road, whistling a snatch of a tune as he goes. He has the broad shoulders and loping gait that are typical of a fisherman. I recognise the song as it’s the one Mum used to sing so often. He gets in and starts the engine, glancing briefly back towards the cottage and raising a hand in salute as he pulls away.
I tip the flat remnants of last night’s drink into the sink and stow the gin bottle away in a cupboard. Then I stash the bag of squat lobsters into the fridge, and find that I’m humming a verse of the song he was whistling, which is now running on a loop in my head. I even try a few words of the chorus: ‘Will ye gang love . . .’ But I stop when my voice cracks with emotion.
Something stirs in the depths of my memory. Maybe there was something familiar about those slate-blue eyes of his, but I can’t quite place him. I reach to grasp at dim thoughts, but they dart away, just beyond my reach, slippery as fish.
I fill the kettle from the tap and set it on the stove to boil. As I take the old brown teapot down from its place on the shelf, a breaker of grief crashes over me, knocking the breath from my chest. Mum’s voice seems to fill the kitchen around me, singing that same song, and I hug the pot to my heart.
‘Oh dig my grave both lang and deep
Put a bunch o’ roses at my head and feet
And in the middle a turtle dove,
Let the people ken that I died o’ love . . .’
She always had a pot of tea on the go, forever bringing me a mug whether I wanted it or not. But the sight of that old teapot makes me realise that they were never just cups of tea she was giving me. They were some of the punctuation marks that helped make sense of our story together – those little pauses and connections that I took for granted. Those cups of tea were just one of the ways she let me know she loved me, several times a day.
With the words of her song still echoing in my head, I go through to the sitting room and take the photo of my dad off the mantelpiece. His dark eyes are unfathomable, hidden in shadow in the picture, which is the only one I have of him. His name was Alec Mackenzie-Grant, he was in the navy, and he died before I was born. But I know little else about him. When I’d pester Mum to tell me stories of him she always spoke of his kindness, of how he’d loved her and how he would have loved me had he known me. But when I pushed her to tell me more, when I asked her about his parents – my grandparents – and his life as the laird’s son up at the big house, she’d been evasive. She’d always change the subject, saying, ‘Did I tell you about the time Alec and your Uncle Ruaridh went out in the boat to catch mackerel and saw a basking shark?’ And although I’d heard the story a hundred times, I’d let her tell it again.
It was only as I grew older that I realised how hard it must have been for her, contemplating the life she might have had as mistress of Ardtuath House and perhaps regretting the life she’d not been able to give me. And so I learned to stop asking those questions, which only made her look so sad. But I always wondered about my dad – who he really was and why Mum was reluctant to talk about his side of the family. Her stories were of the innocence of childhood, an innocence that the tides of war must have swept away. It’s understandable that there were things she wanted to protect me from, things she wanted to forget. But now I regret not asking her again. I regret not knowing their story. I regret that it’s a part of my own story that is now lost to me.
I set his picture back in its place, next to the one of my mum. I don’t even have a photo of the pair of them together and that thought saddens me even more.
The kettle whistles as the water comes to the boil, calling me back to the here