Chapter Two
Ezzie had finally found time to complete checking the stock of Christmas decorations for the public rooms and ordered fresh ribbon and extra Christmas swags online, when Thea popped her head around the office door. ‘Can I get a lift home?’ When the days were long in summer, Thea would walk home through the copse, but in winter that gravel path was lonely and pitch-dark.
‘Absolutely.’ She smiled at her petite sister, bundled up in a green fleece beneath her waxed jacket, with a woolly hat pulled over her dark hair. Her work boots were a snug, waterproof black.
Thea, who’d started work at Rothach at the same time as Ezzie, came in and flopped into a chair, rubbing her hands. ‘I love Skye when it’s frosty and there are icicles everywhere, but I also love your car’s seat heaters.’
‘They’ll barely have time to warm before we reach the village,’ Ezz objected.
‘Warmer than my bum after a day outdoors,’ Thea confided.
Ezz protested. ‘Eww!’ They laughed as she closed down her computer, put on her black coat and changed into boots, as her office shoes weren’t much protection against a frosty evening. Thea just did up the buttons on her waxed jacket.
Outside, they crossed the courtyard, mindful of the uneven paving. The outside lights would dim automatically at six, leaving just enough illumination for anyone moving between the hall, staff accommodation and the car park behind the big wooden-framed greenhouse. On the way home sometimes, Ezz liked to switch off the lights and wait until she could see a million, billion, trillion stars, glittering down. Maybe she’d add silver star-shaped decorations to her online order tomorrow. They’d look amazing dangling from the pendant lamps in the public rooms.
As she beeped her car open so Thea could get in while Ezz scraped glistening white frost from the windscreen with a satisfying rasping noise, she wondered how the Larssons would like Rothach Hall in winter, with just six hours of daylight. It was a big change from summer, when dawn came at four and daylight lasted till around ten p.m. The pattern might be similar to Sweden, but here they were on holiday, with leisure hours to fill. The cinema was an hour’s drive away in Portree, and the only McDonald’s on the island was Murray McDonald’s Vehicle Repair Garage.
She scraped her windscreen then scrambled into the driver’s seat, gave the wipers a couple of swishes to clear the last sparkles of frost, and took the service drive through the back of the estate, headlights flitting across bushes and seed heads wearing glittering white jackets. She followed the drive past the playthings that saw few children clamber over them in winter, and the Nature Garden Café that, until spring returned, would only open between ten a.m. and three p.m., mainly for local meet-ups like Knit ’n’ Natter and Rhyme Time. Strings of flickering white lights outlined the café door and a row of illuminated icicles hung from the roof.
‘Pretty,’ Thea observed. ‘But I prefer the real icicles Jack Frost hangs all over Skye in winter. We had a lovely home in Suffolk with Mum and Dad and their crazy musician friends dropping in all the time, but I adore Skye. And if I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have met Deveron.’ Satisfaction rang rich in her voice.
‘You and Dev are sickeningly loved up,’ Ezz teased. Actually, she couldn’t have been happier for her little sister now Deveron, a seasonal gardener at the hall until a couple of months ago, had moved into Thea’s pretty, thistle-purple cottage. Not wishing to highlight that Thea’s newfound happiness meant Ezz spending more evenings alone in her Chapel Road home, she responded to Thea’s other comment. ‘If it wasn’t for that car accident in Suffolk, we’d never have moved here.’
‘Ugh. Don’t rake that up.’ Thea made a cross with her fingers, as if warding off a vampire.
The automatic gates opened, allowing the car to turn onto Manor Road, which villagers referred to as ‘the road above’, and it was indeed higher than the village cradled in Rothach Bay. Ezzie drove cautiously as frozen puddles edged the road and there were no streetlamps. Amongst the scrubby hedgerow, her headlights picked out an outcrop of rock decorated with a curtain of icicles. ‘We’re forecast a particularly chilly winter on the island this year. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but Skye seems to have become more wintry in the past few years.’ Ezz steered around a curve.
‘I’d better get on with digging up the dahlia tubers in that case.’ Then Thea’s phone buzzed, and she fished it out as Ezz turned right into Low Road marked Rothach Village , slowing for the undulating, mainly single-track lanes where shrubs lolled over stone walls. She smiled at a yellow notice reading ‘ Border collie crossing ’, though she’d yet to see a dog in the road, and an honesty box beside a tree stump where, in summer, someone sold eggs and garden produce.
‘Valentina’s texted. She wants to FaceTime us both as soon as possible.’ Pleasure rang in Thea’s voice. But then her tone altered. ‘I hope everything’s OK.’
Ezz glanced at the dashboard clock. It wasn’t yet six p.m. ‘Now?’ Low Road became Chapel Road, and she drove past her own front door. The landlord had painted the cottage ‘dawn blush’. Ezz thought that whoever had named the gingerbread colour had never witnessed the soft pink of a Skye dawn. Electing to avoid the steep slope of Creag an Lolaire as rivulets frequently froze across it, she bore right to Bridge Road.
‘I’ll ask.’ Thea tapped her phone screen. She was easily overwhelmed by dense blocks of text or long forms, so short phone messages were more her style. Ezz negotiated the humped stone bridge, then the slope up Glen Road and into Loch View. Thistledome, Thea’s cottage, stood at the top. In daylight, you could see over the cottage roofs to the crystal waters of Rothach Bay far below. In the darkness, the view was of the star-strewn sky above a spangling of streetlights, dwindling to the pinprick mooring lights of boats wintering in the shelter of the bay.
Ezzie drew up outside Thistledome, its cheerily lit windows suggesting that Deveron was home, just as Thea received another message. ‘Valentina says now’s good,’ she reported. ‘Maybe she’s working from home. She doesn’t usually leave the office this early.’ Valentina was a lawyer in a big corporation and worked long hours, racing home to spend time with six-year-old Barnaby and usually only starting dinner once her beloved boy was safely in bed. Even then she worked on emails while it cooked.
Spectres of illness or similarly bad news assailed Ezzie, but she kept them to herself as she hopped from the car and scurried up the path behind Thea, huddling into her coat as the freezing air nipped her skin. The front door opened, and a bundle of pearly grey fur and bright eyes greeted them with a joyful, ‘Arf, arf!’ Daisy, Thea’s noisy little dog, who Dev had rescued in the summer, considered herself the guardian of Thistledome.
Behind Daisy, a male voice boomed in a Scottish burr, ‘Come here, yer scrumptious woman.’ Then, as the tall, dark, curly-haired owner of the voice came fully into view, he added in sheepish, more natural tones, ‘Oh. Um, hello, Ezz.’
‘Hi, Dev,’ Ezz returned with a broad grin, crowding into the brightly lit home so she could shut the door on the frigid evening. ‘Sorry to play gooseberry. Hello, Daisy!’ Ezzie waited out Thea and Dev exchanging greeting kisses by fussing the little fluffball, who looked as if she might have a healthy dose of poodle in her pint-sized make-up. Ezz had once scandalised Thea by observing that Daisy was like a dust bunny with legs and ears.
Finally, Thea broke away from Dev, and the little dog abandoned Ezz in favour of treating her beloved mistress to a wiggle-dance of joy.
‘I’ll make coffee,’ said Deveron, and Daisy promptly changed allegiance again to scamper along with him. It could have been that Dev held a special place in her heart after he’d scooped her half-drowned from the burn last summer – but more likely, it was the mouth-watering smells emanating from the kitchen.
Thea took Ezz into the tiny lounge, where flames danced cosily in the woodstove, and they shared the sofa while Thea set up FaceTime on her phone. Seconds later, Valentina appeared on the screen in a blouse and skirt, her dark hair swept up. Straightening her hair was one of Valentina’s things, as if no one would take seriously a female lawyer with natural ringlets. None of the sisters looked remotely like the others, each being separate adoptions, but they didn’t need to be connected by blood. They were connected by their hearts.
‘Are you all right?’ Ezzie demanded, at the same moment Thea asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
Valentina’s dark eyes twinkled. ‘Am I not allowed any good news?’
‘Spill it then,’ Ezz demanded, instantly relieved. ‘I put a meal in my multicooker this morning and it’ll be turning to mush.’ She and Valentina were the sisters who occasionally sparked off each other, though most of that had been left behind since they’d lost their mum and dad.
Valentina beamed. ‘We’ve bought a holiday home. It’s something we’ve been thinking about. I sold some shares, which did unexpectedly well, and also got a salary bonus. I wanted to invest in property and have somewhere to rent out when we’re not using it ourselves.’
Ezzie stared. ‘Wow. That’s quite an announcement. But where compares to your three-bedroomed, two-bathroom apartment looking over Moray Firth in Rosemarkie Bay?’ When Gary had been head-hunted by a company in Inverness, Valentina hadn’t wanted to live in the centre, when there were pretty places just outside the city.
Valentina’s beaming smile only grew broader. ‘It’s number 1 Fishermen’s Cottages on the Quays in Rothach Bay.’
Ezz felt a jolt of delight. ‘ Here? Seriously? You’ll be here for holidays?’
‘Epic,’ Thea breathed. ‘That’s fantastic.’
Gary slid his face into view, wearing a conservative haircut and a wry smile. ‘I tried to talk her into somewhere warmer, preferably somewhere that wouldn’t need gutting and starting again, but she’s being stubborn.’
Valentina gave him a little shove. ‘Stop raining on my parade. I wanted that cottage.’
Ezz’s brain was ticking. ‘If you’ve bought it already, this has been going through for ages and you haven’t said a thing? Have you visited Rothach without telling us?’
‘Of course not. I’ve done video walk-throughs with the agent.’ Valentina made jazz hands. ‘Ta-dah! I wanted it to be a surprise.’
This time, Gary grimaced. ‘And she thinks she’s going to arrange all the building work remotely.’ His tone was sceptical.
‘She will,’ Ezzie defended her sister stoutly.
They chatted for twenty minutes, then Valentina checked her smartwatch. ‘I have to collect Barnaby from his friend’s house.’
A lot of husbands might have protested, I’ll go, darling. You chat with your sisters. But Gary, never the most thoughtful of men, just nodded.
Once the call was over, Ezzie retrieved her coat from the back of the sofa, her mind buzzing. ‘Won’t it be awesome that they have a place here? We’ll see more of Barnaby, as well as Valentina. And Gary,’ she added. ‘He didn’t seem excited for Valentina, did he? Maybe because she’s the one funding the cottage.’
Thea’s nose wrinkled as she followed Ezz into the hall. ‘He and his brother William were spoilt by older parents. They’ve grown up competitive and self-orientated.’
‘True,’ Ezz conceded. ‘It makes Gary a successful careerman but a less successful human being. Maybe he’ll be all the better for playing a supporting role this time.’ Ezzie popped into the kitchen to say goodbye to Dev and was soon picking her way down the icy path to her car, pausing to gaze at the neighbouring cottages sloping away from Thea’s, their pastel colours muddy in the golden glow from old-fashioned streetlamps.
It was impossible to pick out Fishermen’s Cottage down beside the rocky beach, but she still stared into the darkness and tried to fix the likely location in her mind. As the cottages stood right at one end of the bay, she usually saw them from the beach or from Harbour View. They nestled at the foot of the cliffs beneath Rothach Hall, on the Quays beside Causeway and Harbour View. No fishermen now lived in the row of four small residences, as far as she knew.
Ezzie hugged the knowledge that soon the sisters could be together more often. She climbed in her car and texted Valentina. If you ever want to work remotely from Rothach, I’ll help where I can with childcare on days off. Xx Barnaby adored the rocky beach, and Ezz, never having had kids of her own, enjoyed scrambling around with him. It would bring fun into days off that were often spent on solitary walks or even wasted on chores.
Then she eased her little yellow car down the frosty lanes to her cosy cottage feeling happier than she had for ages.