Daughter of the Tide
Page 26
She sensed with all her being that her place in a corner of his heart was secure, but there was space now for Jo to have the rest. Her own heart must be given to her family from now on. She was finished with passion and all that sensation. There would be no more of that.
The two of them were like the tide, ebbing and flowing, pulled endlessly back and forth but never quite returning to the same place, like sands shifted this way and that by the currents and the forces of the wind.
Nothing stayed the same unless it was dead. If only Ewan had drowned it might be easier to mourn his passing. She sighed. How could she even think such thoughts? But to know that they must live on without ever seeing each other again was the ache that would never go away. It was hard enough to know that Jo would have a lifetime to explore all the joys of this talented man while she must make do with Harry’s limited appeal So be it, that must be her choice. That was the price of Anna’s rescue.
They were yesterday’s children, marooned on shifting sands on separate shores. Anna and Hew were the future. They must come first from now on. They must not suffer. How could she ever have risked their happiness chasing after her own selfish dreams?
The weak sun was almost gone, with just enough light to torch the sea into a shimmering silver foil. The colours made her think of Ewan’s bright canvases. He would be free to fill his life capturing the beauty of the islands in his pictures. He would go on to greater things without her distracting him. It would be easy for him to forget her. But what about me? she cried.
*
Oh, Ewan, heart of my heart, my disease and my cure, our time is over. I will always love you but there’s no honourable life now for us to build on; no more letters or meetings, no re-entering into your senses, no taking you back into mine. It is over but the yearning for you will never go away. How can I bear to think of what might have been? We have to live with what is, and help to make what shall be.
Anna and Hew are my choice now. Harry and I will make the best of our marriage. There can be no more failure and lies. Oh, what am I to do if I’m not to limp through the rest of my life?
Fill the gaps, redirect your wandering heart back to hearth and home with all your mind and strength, learn to sing another song. There is always the comfort of Pitlandry waiting in all its autumn glory, there might be other children to suckle. She watched the shearwaters skimming over the surface of the waves.
There was something else, too, something that Moira Sanderson had said all those months ago about singing the songs of the heart, ringing in her ear.
Could she go back to Moira? Should she train her voice to sing the auld songs, the songs of the Gaels, to find solace in making music?
Sing the songs of the tide, the songs of the heart, songs of grief, the seagulls called. Take your passion and out of it will come songs of hope and love, for love is the sea without a shore; loving never ends. It would be a lonely journey, walking the pain and grief with invisible crutches.
Count your blessings, mo ghaoil. Children are a great distraction and solace. She smiled, hearing the lilt of her mother’s voice in the singing waves as she bent over the rails to hide her tears.
There was a life waiting across the water.
‘I’ll try,’ she whispered back into the wind. Just for now, though, she needed to be alone to practise carrying all these tormented thoughts with dignity. Minn turned her face towards the harbour with hope and began to sing:
‘Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly,
Blow the wind south o’er the bonnie blue sea…’
Glossary
buth – shop
bodach – old man
cailleach – old witch
caileag – girl
carageen – seaweed
dubh – black
machair – grassy shoreline
mo ghaoil – my girl
Teuchtar – Highlander
traigh – beach
Traigh gocidh nan seinn – Beach of the singing winds
Tir nan og – Land over the horizon; another world
uisge beatha – whisky
Acknowledgements
Readers who know the Inner Hebrides will recognize echoes of Tiree in the island I have called Phetray. I have stolen some of its beautiful scenery as a background but none of its history or people. Phetray is populated by fictitious characters and the wartime events there are of my own making.
I would like to thank the late Harold Smith for sharing his wartime experiences on a Scottish island and the late Donneil Kennedy for help with some Gaelic phrases.
About the Author
LEAH FLEMING worked in teaching, catering, running a market stall, stress management – as well as being a mother of four – before finding her true calling as a storyteller. She lives in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales but spends part of the year marinating her next tale from an olive grove on her favourite island of Crete.
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