No Safe Anchorage
Page 25
“Of course,” Tom replied not knowing what else he could say as he thought about Louis’s parasitic relatives and compared them with his own family.
Iain was middle-aged now, a respected citizen and businessman. His half-breed children had turned out well. They had inherited their mother’s toughness and were able to straddle both the white and the native worlds as she did. And Emma, of course, the only sister he knew and whom he loved dearly, despite her tendency to disapprove. A little slower now but always hospitable and capable she was the one who anchored them to the community. Even his dreadful old landlady, Mrs. MacKenzie had been tamed by her relentless kindness. One or two widowers had sought Emma’s hand but she was too independent to be hobbled by matrimony.
Louis’s sigh interrupted his reverie. “Maybe I didn’t escape the lighthouses after all. Books send out a light over the waters, too. My father would have snorted at such a fanciful idea. Maybe an old sailor would too?”
Tom smiled and shook his head.
“I’ve been living in the South Seas for a number of years now. I shall never return to Scotland, but I would like to visit it again in my imagination.” Louis’s tone was wistful.
But how much longer can your stock of oil last? Tom wondered, when you are blazing so fiercely, consuming your fragile body?
Louis spoke, almost as if he could read Tom’s thoughts, “I keep thinking about Widow MacKenzie on her remote island, tending her lamp for all those years.”
Tom waited, expecting him to finally refer to his stay there as a child.
Louis’s face flushed. There was a fevered expression in his eyes,
“Are you feeling unwell?” Tom asked.
“No, but there’s something tugging in my memory, a sail flapping in the wind. I feel I know this lady and her island, but how? I would only have been a wee boy when my father was building the lighthouse on Rona.”
“Did he ever take you with him on his visits?” Tom asked.
“Not generally. My mother wouldn’t allow it because of my health.”
Tom was too much a respecter of secrets to probe further. He waited while Louis frowned, his gaze turned inward.
“I do remember kindness there. And being ill, lying under a counterpane and hearing stories. And being on a ship.”
He glanced up and Tom couldn’t stop his face stretching into a smile.
“You? You were the sailor. Are you home from the sea?” Louis muttered.
“Pardon?”
“It’s from one of my poems. I can’t remember writing it. It’s lived in my mind forever.” He shook his head, as if to rid himself of trapped thoughts, buzzing and bumping on the edges of his mind.
“My home is in Samoa now. How about you? Is Cape Breton your home?”
“I believe it is. It’s only now that I’m so far away that I know where my home truly is.”
“So you will return there. To a safe anchorage.”
They shook hands and Tom left to start his long journey homeward.
Note to Reader
Thank you for buying No Safe Anchorage. I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have a few moments, please feel free to add your review of the book at your favorite online site for feedback. Also if you would like to know about other books that I have coming in the near future, please visit my website www.lizmacraeshaw.com or e-mail me at lizmacraeshaw@outlook.com for news on upcoming works.
Sincerely,
Liz MacRae Shaw
Glossary
bodach—old man
cailleach—old woman
dùn caan—flat-topped hill on the island of Raasay
Eilean an Fhraoich—Heather Island
eilean tigh—island with a house
Garbh Eilean—Rough Island
isean—chick, term of endearment
Loch a’Bhraige—Loch of the Upper Bay
machair—meadow above the beach
sasannach—Englishman
Sgeir nan Eun—Bird Skerry
sgitheanach—Skyeman
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