He pulls away, hurt. Then he shakes his head and picks up his jacket. He turns to go, hesitates, looks back at me, the expression in his eyes wounded.
‘I’m not trying to rescue you, Lexie,’ he says. ‘I’m trying to love you.’
I surface through layers of troubled dreams, trying to make sense of the sounds that have woken me. There’s been a week of calm weather and so the sudden storm that’s blown in while I was sleeping is bewildering, howling like a banshee as it flings itself at the walls of the cottage with a fury that seems to have come out of nowhere. There’s another sound, too, steadier and more insistent than the wind and rain. At last I realise it’s the ringing of the telephone and a surge of alarm grips me. It’s the middle of the night. Who on earth could be calling?
I bump into the door jamb, jarring my shoulder as I hurry downstairs and snatch the receiver from its cradle, sending up a quick prayer of thanks that Daisy hasn’t been woken by the din.
‘Lexie, is Davy there with you?’ It’s Bridie, her voice pitched high with panic.
‘No. I haven’t seen him for a few days.’ Not since the night I said such hurtful things to him, but I don’t tell her that.
‘He went off in the boat yesterday. Said he was heading out for a couple of days’ fishing while the weather was good. It was forecast to change but not this fast.’
Her panic is catching, pulling me in, and my mind starts to spin in a whirlpool of fear.
‘Did he say exactly where he was going?’ I ask, trying to keep calm so I can think more clearly.
‘No. Just that he’d be out at sea. Oh, Lexie, what should we do?’
‘I’ll call the coastguard. See if they’ve heard anything from him on the radio. He may have gone into Gairloch or be sheltering in Gruinard Bay. If not, I’ll tell them he’s missing so they can put out a search. I’ll phone you back as soon as I’ve spoken to them.’
I’m still on the phone when Bridie arrives at the front door, unable to bear waiting alone. She’s soaked to the skin, having cycled through the storm, and I hand her a towel to dry her hair. She starts to shake uncontrollably.
‘It’s all right, Bridie,’ I say, sitting her down on a kitchen chair, trying to calm her, although I feel anything but calm myself. ‘They’re putting out a search for the Bonnie Stuart. His last radio contact was from just this side of the Shiant Isles – he said he was heading for home ahead of the storm.’
I try hard to stay calm and to push from my mind an image of the Blue Men of the Minch, those malicious storm kelpies, slithering out of their caves in the cliffs along the edge of the islands, intent on snatching sailors from their boats and pulling them down to their deaths beneath the surge of the hungry waves.
I hold Bridie’s hands, but can’t stop their trembling. ‘Something’s not right,’ she insists. ‘I can feel it.’
Her fear is infecting me. I see Davy in my mind’s eye, his grey-blue eyes clouded with hurt when he left the cottage the other night, and I hear an echo of his quiet, sad words beneath the roar of the storm: I’m not trying to rescue you, Lexie. I’m trying to love you. I have a sudden vision of the torn and twisted remains of the lifeboat on the beach at Black Bay, and I know I have to do something, anything. I can’t sit here knowing he’s out there somewhere.
‘Bridie, stay and look after Daisy for me, would you? I’m going to go to the point.’
She nods, as if this is the sensible thing to do in the middle of the night with a force 10 gale blowing. But then we both know, without saying it, that if he’s coming back from the Shiants he’ll be heading into Loch Ewe past Furadh Mor.
‘Take his Land Rover,’ is all she says. ‘You’ll be able to get along the track. Be careful, Lexie.’
I nod, tucking my pyjama trousers into my wellies and grabbing Mum’s coat from the hook. As I fasten it, my fingers brush against the sweetheart brooch which I’ve pinned to it, and the feel of the silver beneath my fingertips gives me a little jolt of courage, reminding me that Mum made this same journey on a storm-lashed night all those years ago.
I pull up next to Davy’s Land Rover, which is parked in front of his house, the keys left in the ignition as usual. The engine splutters once, twice, then turns over and I shove the car into gear. The clutch takes a bit of getting used to and I jolt on to the road, the driving rain hammering on the metal of the roof. I wrench on the steering wheel as the wind buffets the vehicle, trying to blow it into the ditch. Thankfully there’s no one else out on the road tonight. I glance up to the heavens, wishing there was at least a glimmer of starlight to keep me company, but the storm clouds have blotted out the constellations that Davy pointed out to me the other night. Without them, how can he find true north? I just pray that the compass on the Bonnie Stuart will be pointing out a steady course against the wildness of the sea.