Daughter of the Tide

by Leah Fleming

  She was nervous about going back to the old house where she had been both happy and sad. At least pushing Hew in the go chair would give some solid support to lean on. He would be the distraction with his sandy gold curls, but it would remind Johanna of what she had lost and Minn didn’t want to hurt them by parading a baby in front of them. Perhaps Peggy would be persuaded to mind him for a couple of hours.

  She dressed with care in a heather tweed suit and warm cashmere jumper in a soft shade of blue and matching scarf. It would be cold and draughty in the Crannog. Her gabardine was splattered with salty mud and stains but it would keep out the chill. Harry was taking the hired car so she would have to walk, as she had done all those years ago.

  How strange it was coming back as a parent, feeling almost middle aged and staid in her brogues with her hair whipping her face in the wind. After nearly a week on the island she still felt a stranger, an off comer, a visitor politely welcomed but kept at arm’s length. They knew all her history and the islanders were suspicious.

  Peggy told her the rumour was that the Lennoxes were coming to buy the Crannog, and Harry’s sudden arrival only confirmed this theory.

  ‘Why should we buy the Crannog?’ she said, amazed at such an idea.

  ‘To pull it down and make a hotel or live in it in the summer,’ Peggy said, fishing for facts. ‘So it’s not true then?’

  Minn shook her head and smiled. Islanders never change, but she had changed. Once upon a time when she was scrubbing out the stone pantry floor and picking up Lady Rose’s smalls she might have dreamt of buying it to lord it over everyone just to prove that the Macfees were as good as anyone, but those days were long gone.

  Now she would be happy to put in proper sanitation in the old cottage, running water and electricity, smarten it up as a holiday home for the summer months; but it still belonged to Niall and Mima and was only on loan.

  What was happening to her plan to stay here and put the children in school to test how she could live simply without Harry’s money? It was fading fast in the harsh reality of life without running water and comforts. Harry was doing his best to be attentive and had not touched a drop since his arrival. He was sober, thoughtful and the children were happy to see him. He was keeping his end of the bargain but what about her?

  All she could think of was seeing Ewan again, holding his hand, feeling the grip of his fingers, looking into those dark eyes and wondering if he still found her attractive. It was wrong, it was ignoble, it was not fair on his wife, but she felt the pull of him even now and her steps quickened to the gates of the house so carefully avoided until this moment.

  She was struck by the stone grandeur of the old keep, a fortress jutting out on stilts from the little loch by its side. It had been won on the turn of some roulette wheel in the eighteenth century but its origins were steeped in the violent history of the island. There were thick castle walls at the heart of it but the outside was softened by rebuilding in the Georgian style, elegant sash windows that were a devil to clean from the inside and four flights of stairs, each step of which she had known from their splinters and creaks.

  It would make a fine hotel suitable for sailing and fishing and shooting, but dependent on ferries and air and decent weather. She thought of how Pitlandry nestled into the woodland, grew out of the landscape, but this house was the tallest on the island and could be seen for miles, standing sentinel like a barracks. She would not want to live here.

  She walked up the gravel path slowly, taking in the loch and the overgrown garden. The paintwork was flaking on the windows and the door was in need of some good oil. Pulling the ring bell, her heart thudding with anticipation, she stood on the steps trying to look composed.

  It was Johanna who came to the door, smiling, older, paler, thinner but still the factor’s daughter, the upright head girl of their schooldays.

  ‘Do come in.’ She paused, looking behind her visitor. ‘You’ve not brought your children?’

  ‘Harry came earlier than we thought,’ she lied. ‘He wanted to take them both out. Hew is quite a handful at the moment and needs a sleep,’ she lied again as she was escorted though the familiar front hall to the main staircase, where there were blank spaces and no portraits. It had seen better days, she thought, thinking of how once there were bowls of flowers and sparkling paintwork.

  As if reading her thoughts, Johanna smiled. ‘It must look very different. It was the officers’ billet and after the war lay empty. The art foundation rented it for students and as you can see they’ve bashed it around a bit.’

  Minn glanced around still nervous. There was a charm about its shabbiness, the smell of cigarette smoke, bashed leather chairs, the dull panelling on the walls and the remains of art work lying around. It had a lived-in, relaxed look as if all the frosty corners of the Struther family were knocked away.

  She followed Johanna as she climbed up to the drawing room on the first floor, where Ewan would be waiting no doubt.

  ‘Are you staying long?’ asked Johanna as she opened the door.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She smiled back surveying the room at a glance. ‘Harry will have to go back to his business, of course, and I can’t keep Anna out of school too long.’ Minn paused. ‘I had forgotten how wonderful the view is from here.’

  She rushed across the empty room to peer out of the window. She fingered the same old brocade curtains lined with hand-woven blankets to keep out the draughts. How she had struggled with those shutters when she was small. She turned expecting Ewan to walk through the door but no one came and Johanna sat down, poking the fire.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering where Ewan is?’ She looked up at her guest. ‘These artists sometimes don’t know what day of the week it is, never mind the time. Ewan is hopeless. He won’t be long and then I’ll bring some tea.’ She smiled and the corners of her mouth twitched.

  Minn could sense the tension, the embarrassment and the gaps in their polite conversation. She hardly knew Jo Mackinnon. They’d never mixed in the same circles when they were young, and there was that night before the war… She was older and cleverer. She went to college and was a teacher. The only connection they had was Ewan and he was late. Johanna was cross and trying not to show it. It was up to her to put his wife at ease.

  ‘This must be a wonderful place for artists to study,’ she offered. ‘Are you staying through the winter?’

  ‘Just until New Year. Then we hope to go abroad again to Paris. There’s so much Ewan needs to learn. His training has been very bitty what with the war and everything. I am just holding the fort in the school until Miss Ferguson recovers from her operation. You’ll recall Betty Ferguson in the school; she went away to Glasgow to train as a teacher at Jordanhill.’

  Minn nodded politely, recalling a little shrimp of a girl in glasses with a crooked leg who was always into her books.

  ‘How’s Ewan?’ she braved. ‘I hear he is doing well with his art.’

  ‘Ach, you know Ewan,’ Johanna sighed. ‘He lives his life like a clenched fist, in and out like the tide, always full of ideas. He gets cranky when he’s not working. I expect that’s where he is now, up to his boots in mud, stuck on a rock sketching.’ Her laughter was brittle and false.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your miscarriage,’ Minn offered, feeling the tension mounting in both of them.

  ‘It wasn’t a miscarriage,’ she whispered. ‘It was a stillbirth, just one of those things. We were in Italy. Andrew is buried there. They say time’s a great healer but…’ Johanna was trying to swallow back her emotion. ‘Oh, where is the damn man?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I upset you by asking. Perhaps I’d better go, perhaps another time is better. I don’t want to intrude. It was very kind of you to invite me considering…’ Minn rose to leave but Johanna barred her way.

  ‘Considering what, Minn? Considering that it’s Ewan you want to see not me. It’s you two who are the friends. We were hardly to be bosom friends were we? How I hated you over the years for le
tting him down like that, hurting his feelings. You bewitched him on that night of the regatta and then you dropped him for the Lennox heir,’ she snapped.

  Minn stepped back in shock. ‘It wasn’t exactly like that. Didn’t Ewan tell you?’ She paused, seeing the look of confusion on Johanna’s face. He had not said a word about Harry’s deceit.

  Johanna continued. ‘He came to me limp and broken in Glasgow and I was there to comfort him. Don’t think that I don’t know I was second best. I’ve felt your presence in his canvases, in his dreams. Following an artist isn’t easy. They’ve no interest in mundane chores; it’s living out of a suitcase, always on to the next idea, the next scene. Perhaps if we’d stayed here Andrew would have lived. A child might have changed him.’ Jo was staring out of the window down the empty path.

  ‘You have everything and still you come back for more. No wonder Ewan is staying away from the power of you… I’m sorry,’ Johanna cried. ‘I’ve been so rude. I don’t know what came over me.’ She pulled out a handkerchief to cover her tears. ‘I can’t let you leave after such a tirade… since the baby I’ve not been myself.’ She sat back on the sofa exhausted by her outburst.

  ‘Let me make you a cup of tea. I know the kitchen like the back of my hand,’ said Minn. ‘There’s not a nook or cranny of this place I’ve not swept, dusted and polished.

  ‘One of the reasons I came back on this whim was, like you, I’ve not been myself since I had Hew. There’ve been problems at home. I needed to get away. Life isn’t smooth waters even when there’s the cushion of a few bob in the bank, believe me. I had no idea you would be here. It’s not true, you know. Ewan loves you, he told me as much. You are a good wife to him. I would have been a selfish demanding cailleach.’

  She sped downstairs, shaken by Jo’s outburst. The tea was laid out in the kitchen, easy to find, with its familiar cupboards and floors and scents. She carried the tea with trembling hands on a tray as she had done for Lady Rose.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Minn. I never meant to say any of this,’ Johanna apologized. ‘When did Ewan tell you about me?’

  ‘Tears are better out than in, my doctor tells me. Ewan phoned me after Mother died to apologize for not attending the funeral. We spoke on the phone and that is all,’ she lied with conviction. ‘I’m sad of course that I won’t get a chance to see him. There was one little matter I did want to clear up but it can wait.’ She smiled, sipping the tea. ‘It was like old times bringing the tray up here, but I’m sad to see the china’s seen better days.’

  They made polite chatter, glanced at the old photos carefully displayed, worked their way up the three-tiered stand of scones, tea bread and fancies until Minn glanced at her wrist watch and made to leave.

  ‘Thank you for being honest, Johanna. Not everything you think is true. I have my side of the story but it’s better to let the old dog slumber. Ewan and I share the blame for Agnes’s death and we’ll have to live with that for the rest of our lives,’ she tried to explain. The rest of their history was not for sharing. ‘Good luck and safe travels.’ She reached out for Johanna’s hand. ‘It was kind of you to ask me in. No one else on this island has bothered,’ she said.

  ‘They’re afraid that you’re too grand now for us,’ Johanna said. ‘You haven’t changed you know, not deep down, and I’m sad that Ewan couldn’t be bothered to give you the time of day. It is his loss,’ she added.

  *

  Minn sobbed all the way back to Kilphetrish, great gulps of tears. How could he be so cruel? There was unfinished business between them. How could he still stir her heart like this? Why had he humiliated her in front of his wife. Why was he afraid to face her? She stopped suddenly in her tracks. Only the heart sees clearly, she thought. In another time and place Jo and I could have been friends not rivals. There was only one reason why Ewan was avoiding her now and Jo knew it too. The power between them was still there.

  *

  ‘How could you let me down like that?’ Jo screamed at her husband when he arrived ten minutes after Minn walked back down the drive. ‘What’s your excuse this time?’

  ‘None. I told you I’d no mind to meet that woman again,’ he snapped. ‘It was all your idea so I left you to it.’

  ‘And what a fool I made of myself, breaking down in front of her, blaming her for ruining your career, losing our baby, spoiling this island,’ she sniffed.

  ‘You did what? You hardly know the woman! Damn and blast you, I just want some peace and quiet to get on with my work and you stir up a hornets’ nest. What’s got into you?’ Ewan was furious, guilty, ashamed and embarrassed all at the same time.

  He had spent the afternoon lurking in the studio watching the clock until he was sure the Lennox woman would have left for Kilphetrish. He was not proud of his action but it was for the best all round.

  ‘You think I don’t know what a spell Minn Macfee holds over you? I wanted to show her who was boss here. I wanted you there by my side to prove that you are mine now, but without moving a finger after six years she has you running scared, so scared you can’t even put on an act and give me some support.’ Jo was sobbing. ‘How do you think that makes me feel? It’s not over between you and her and it never will be until you do something about it. She has a part of you I can never share and you cut me out of your feelings.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jo. Come here. I didn’t think. If only you’d said what you were feeling.’ Ewan gathered her into his arms.

  ‘It’s not what you think. When I see Minn I see Agnes and the war and other things I’ve never told you about. She’s part of all that and I want to shove it all in the past not dig it up again, but I see I’ve been a coward and I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry is not enough, Ewan, not this time. Now’s your chance to sort it out in your head and give us all a chance. Let it all go and face her, for my sake, for our sake, for our future’s sake,’ Jo cried into his chest.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ he said, puzzled.

  ‘Oh but it is, Ewan. It’s her or me. I can’t share you with her any more,’ Jo sighed.

  ‘But I’ve not seen her for years. How could she threaten us?’ he asked. They were treading in dangerous waters now.

  ‘She’s in your head and your heart, in everything you create I see her influence. I can’t compete with your dreams unless I know what they are. You have to choose. Take her with you and get off this island and set me free to find my own life or let her go and bring all of yourself back to me.’

  He had never seen Jo like this before. Her eyes were steeled, icy with fury and pain. How had it come to this when he had done nothing but stay away out of courtesy? How had he got it so wrong?

  The very act of avoiding a confrontation with Minn was the one thing that confirmed to Jo that he still preferred the past to the present, and it wasn’t true.

  He loved Johanna and he had loved Minn but they were different loves. How could she ask him to destroy his muse? It was like asking him to stop painting and drawing and destroy his imagination.

  ‘Tell me what to do, Jo,’ he asked. ‘I would never hurt you.’

  Jo shook her head and stared up at him. ‘If I have to tell you that then what hope is there for us?’ She turned and left, banging the door.

  Ewan stared out of the window watching the dark clouds banking up over the sea. Storms were gathering for a flood tide. It was too late to do anything about it now.

  Five

  Kilphetrish

  The storm raged for two days and nights. Minn had forgotten just how the Atlantic Ocean could rattle the island to its very foundations so that few trees could stand the gales and the houses grew with their backs to the west like tombstones. No one could stand against its power or sail over water or fly in the air and the planes were grounded and Harry felt trapped and restless, eager to take them back south.

  He insisted that they hole up in the Phetray Hotel together, fearful the roof of the cottage might collapse.

  ‘It’s been there for a hundred years o
r more. Houses are built to stand up to the weather here,’ Minn argued, but for the sake of the children she left the cottage and enjoyed her first decent bath for days.

  They played tiddly winks and Ludo and paper games. Anna was full of pent-up energy and wanted to race around the shore but it was too windy for her to be let out. On the third day the storm eased and Harry went racing to book them tickets for Glasgow but the flights were still cancelled and he could hardly contain his fury.

  ‘Of the islands in all the world, why did we have to land up here? This is the most godawful dreary place on earth. No wonder you wanted shot of it,’ he snapped.

  How could she tell them that she had enjoyed the storm, the windows battered by rain, the howling gale in the chimney. It was part of her childhood, complete with smoking chimney and soot and stew over the fire.

  Together they were safe, a family once more, and she could shove all thought of Ewan’s rejection out of her heart for a few hours.

  If he could not be bothered to give her a minute of his time then she could not be bothered to write to him about Anna. Two could play at that game, but Johanna’s words stung her for being half true.

  Once she knew Ewan was on Phetray she had wanted to see him for old time’s sake… ‘Auld Lang Syne’. She found herself humming the tune. ‘Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind…’ she sang to herself and then stopped.

  ‘Go on, Mummy, sing us another song,’ pestered Anna as they amused themselves around the piano. She sang the ‘Skye Boat Song’, ‘We’ll Mak the Keel Row’ and ‘Road to the Isles’.

  Hew clapped his chubby hands and tried to join in and Harry stood back silent.

  ‘It’s time you took those lessons in Edinburgh, Brodie Lennox. I shall organize some soirees for my clients and you can sing for your supper,’ he laughed.