Lady Helen caught her wrist as she passed. ‘Flora, dear, go home now. You’ve done more than enough. I’ll manage the rest.’ She spoke discreetly, her words soft beneath the guffaws and shrieks of laughter as Sir Charles regaled the table with another of his fishing anecdotes. From her beaded reticule, she slipped a small brown envelope into the pocket of Flora’s apron. ‘Here, for all your hard work today.’
Flora shook her head, trying to hand the envelope back, but Lady Helen held a finger to her lips, gently shooing her away.
‘Thank you,’ Flora said, keeping her voice low, too, understanding that this gesture was not something that would have had Sir Charles’s approval. It was intended as an act of kindness, but at the same time it made her feel even more wretched about the role she’d been forced to play in the evening’s proceedings. ‘The pie’s in the warming oven and there’s a jug of cream in the larder to go with it.’
With a nod and a gentle pat on her hand, Lady Helen dismissed her and she hurried back to the kitchen. Before she left, Flora scraped and washed up the fish plates and cutlery. The rest would have to wait for Mrs McTaggart, who’d be coming in the next morning to make the breakfast, but she left everything as neat as she could.
She fished the brown envelope out of her pocket and then folded the sheet of cream writing paper containing Lady Helen’s instructions around it. With a stub of pencil she wrote, Thank you, but I was pleased to help. She tucked it under the cake slice that she’d set on the table for cutting the pie, so that Lady Helen would be the one to find it.
Carrying her apron, Flora quietly closed the back door behind her and walked down the drive to where the path led into the pines towards Keeper’s Cottage. A pair of tawny owls called softly to one another in the trees. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the moonlight and she took several deep, grateful breaths of the night air. At the turning, she paused for a moment, letting the slight breeze cool her face and neck, and glanced back towards the house. Behind the blacked-out windows, she could just make out a glint of candlelight, and another gust of uproarious laughter silenced the quiet conversation of the night birds for a moment. Then she turned her back on Ardtuath House and her face towards Keeper’s Cottage, where she felt she belonged.
Lexie, 1978
Daisy’s tucked up in her cot by the time Davy arrives for supper and, for a change, the sitting room in Keeper’s Cottage feels almost like the sort of place two adults could have a civilised evening together over a glass of wine. I’ve packed away the toys and put the picture books on a shelf, and I’ve changed out of my jeans and baggy jumper, digging a skirt out of the wardrobe and a long-sleeved T-shirt out of a drawer.
As I prepare a bowl of garlic mayonnaise to accompany the squatties, which I’ve cooked and heaped on to one of Mum’s dishes, I try again to remember where Davy fits into the life of Aultbea. I have a jumble of indistinct memories that I stored away in a corner of my mind when I left for London, like the jumble of belongings stashed up in the attic. Something tugs insistently on a strand of those memories, trying to untangle itself. Even after our outing on the boat, I’ve still not been quite able to place him. But there’s been a familiarity in his eyes and an assumption of friendship in his manner from the first day he appeared on my doorstep, dispatched there by Bridie.
I hear the door of his Land Rover slam and then there’s a snatch of his habitual whistling as he comes up the path to the door, which I open before he has a chance to knock.
He hands me a mandolin-shaped bottle of Mateus Rosé. ‘The finest the shop has to offer,’ he says with a grin.
He settles himself in one of the armchairs and crosses his long legs. ‘This is nice,’ he says, looking around at the room. ‘It still feels like your mum’s, but Daisy and you have made your mark as well. Last time I was here, Flora was sitting where you are now, pouring me a cup of tea.’
‘It was good of you to visit her.’
‘Ach, I did no more than any of the others. Bridie was here the most, of course. If she spotted a job that needed doing she’d let me know and I’d come and fix it for Flora. She was a lovely woman, your mum. I always felt no matter how much I did I could never repay her kindness to me and my brother when we washed up here in the war.’
Those memories shift and stir, becoming clearer as the mud that clouds my mind begins to settle a little. ‘You were evacuees?’ I ask.
Davy nods. ‘Stuart and I were sent with about thirty other kids from Clydeside. We were billeted with a couple in the village. When the war ended we went home.’