After the session, I help Elspeth carry some of the paraphernalia back to her house, hanging a bag of instruments from the back of Daisy’s pushchair. She rescued it all from the jetty when I abandoned it there on the day of the accident and it makes more sense for her to continue to store it at her house, where there’s more space than in the cottage, and it’s nearer to the hall.
‘Will you come in for a bite of lunch?’ she says when we reach the yellow door. But Daisy is looking worn out after the morning’s excitement, so I tell her we’d best be getting back so I can feed her and put her down for a nap.
Elspeth nods. ‘The sunshine and fresh air will do her good on the walk home, put the roses back in her cheeks again. Take care of yourself, Lexie. We’ll be seeing you again soon.’
Daisy waves a chubby hand and I turn the pushchair, heading back in the direction of Keeper’s Cottage. As we go, I sing to try and keep her awake, not wanting her to be lulled off to sleep before I’ve given her lunch, and she joins in here and there, happily kicking up her feet when we get to the chorus.
When we reach the house by the jetty, our voices are joined by the sound of whistling, the tune tone-perfect and each note as clear as birdsong. Daisy stops singing and chuckles instead as Davy’s head pops up from behind the tangle of honeysuckle that scrambles over the fence in front of his house. He’s on his hands and knees, picking wild raspberries from the canes that have woven themselves into the hedge.
Our meeting is a little awkward, as we haven’t seen each other since the accident. Perhaps he’s been avoiding me. Or perhaps I’ve been avoiding him. I’ve been intending to call to thank him properly, but haven’t quite got around to it yet.
‘Hello, you two,’ he says, getting to his feet and brushing the earth from his knees. ‘Jings, it’s grand to see the pair of you back safe and out and about again. Been busy making music, have you?’
I reach over the hedge and hug him tight, lost for words for a moment. ‘Davy, I . . . Thank you. Thank you so much for what you did.’
He smiles at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling, and shakes his head, making light of my gratitude. ‘I’m so sorry it happened. I should have been watching more carefully.’
‘It was my responsibility to watch her, not yours.’
‘Well, I’m very glad she’s none the worse for it now.’ He reaches out a finger and strokes her cheek.
‘Go bat?’ says Daisy, pointing hopefully towards the jetty. Her accident doesn’t seem to have dampened her enthusiasm for the sea one little bit.
‘I’ve already been out this morning,’ he tells her, offering her the bowl of raspberries. She takes one and looks at it thoughtfully before putting it in her mouth. ‘Took the Bonnie Stuart out beyond the point and caught a lovely wild salmon.’
‘Sam,’ replies Daisy approvingly.
‘But we’ll go out in the boat again one of these days, shall we, when the wind’s a bit quieter? It’s still a bit fresh today.’
‘That’d be great,’ I reply, as Daisy is too busy reaching for another raspberry to answer herself.
I fish a tissue out of my pocket and wipe the wine-coloured juice from Daisy’s fingers. ‘And now I’d better be getting this one home for her lunch. Sorry, though, she seems to have polished off most of your pudding already.’
‘Bye, Daisy,’ he says, shaking her sticky hand in his. ‘Be seeing you, Lexie.’
I turn the pushchair towards home. ‘Okay.’ And I smile. ‘Be seeing you, Davy.’
And as we head on our way along the road, the wind carries with us the faint strains of someone whistling ‘The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie-O’。
Flora, 1942
The Scottish summer never usually seemed to last long enough, but that year it felt interminable to Flora, Mairi and Bridie. They tried hard to be thankful for the calmer weather and longer days, knowing that these were things that would make life on board ship a little easier for Alec, Roy and Hal and the thousands of others who sailed the restless northern seas. But when the three of them were together, they could confide in one another the secret longing they shared for the summer to end so that the winds of autumn would bring their men back to Loch Ewe.
Flora was thankful that her duties kept her so busy. She and Mairi had been selected to be given some additional basic medical training and they were spending more time driving the ambulance that they’d been allocated, working as a team. They knew the roads around the loch like the backs of their hands and made almost daily runs ferrying the ill and the injured back and forth between the sick bay in the base at Mellon Charles and the hospital at Gairloch.