Chapter Three
Unexpectedly, Mats was enjoying the journey from Sweden to Scotland. It wasn’t a massive stride across the planet, but there were no direct flights. To make things easy on Alvin and Astrid, they were overnighting in an Amsterdam hotel, ready to continue on Saturday. Maybe Andreas would have chartered a flight – or maybe he had his own plane? – but that was a bit rich for Mats’ blood.
Josefin had taken the children to bed after burgers and fries, so now he and his mother were relaxing over their wine while around them in the lounge bar was the chink of glasses and the hum of voices. ‘This is restful.’ He raised his glass to toast her. ‘It’s not often that it’s just the two of us, unless we’re at the office or one of the production plants.’ Those caverns of ice, fish and stainless steel seemed far away already.
She returned his salute, the bar lights reflecting from the lenses of her spectacles as she settled deeper into her upholstered chair. ‘It’s good to finally step off the treadmill.’
He absorbed the comment. Grete had worked tirelessly at his dad’s side for decades. Erik was a workaholic, rarely seeing the need to recharge his batteries, but it seemed Grete was tiring of it. It was a change that was understandable, but out of character.
Casually, he probed, ‘Was Dad OK when you left?’ He wiped a condensation ring from the light wood tabletop that was in keeping with the beige and blue décor in the bar. They spoke in Swedish, though her native Norwegian was perfectly comprehensible to him. She’d been married to a Swedish man and lived in Sweden for so long that she used more Swedish words than the average Norwegian.
She pulled a rueful face. ‘He’s wounded because I told him that if he never retires, he’ll go to the next world directly from his desk.’ She took several sips of wine.
‘Oh,’ he said, inadequately, trying to imagine that conversation and whether Erik had been startled by his usually supportive wife’s blunt observation.
Perhaps the wine had loosened her tongue as Grete went on. ‘We used to talk about travelling in our retirement, but it’s never happened.’ She twirled her wine glass by its stem. ‘We’re so lucky. We own a mansion on a wonderful island and yet we hardly visit it. Your pappa and I spent a couple of weeks there in summer this year and the rest of you went elsewhere.’
His brows rose. ‘I didn’t take a holiday. I was getting myself sorted out after getting divorced.’
‘It must have been harder than it looked, then – a service moving you into that nice apartment you’ve rented.’ She smiled to show she was teasing.
Drily, he returned, ‘The upheaval was emotional. You haven’t been through a divorce.’ An urge hit him to check she wasn’t considering one. But what if she said yes? No matter his forty-six years, he really didn’t want his parents to split up. ‘But for me there was relief as much as sadness and disbelief,’ he admitted. ‘It’s nice not to have to consider anyone but Alvin and Astrid. Inger’s a bit of a princess.’
Grete looked troubled. ‘I wish she hadn’t gone away for so long. The children don’t understand. I’m afraid she’ll regret going dotty for Andreas eventually. He’s cocooned by inherited wealth, spending much of his life in indolence, whereas working for Larsson Fiskeri, earning everything you have, has made you a strong, balanced person. Same for Jonas and Maja.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Your father began with a fish stall and grew it into a successful organisation. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that he seems incapable of leaving it.’
Mats frowned, thinking of his dad, ruddy-faced, a shock of brindled hair, an enormous, booming, ‘Har, har, har ’ of a laugh, often at his own unsophisticated sense of humour. Mats hadn’t had any trouble choosing between the family firm and his children, but what if Erik had one day to choose between the company he’d nurtured and the wife who’d been with him every step of the way?
Would he get his priorities right?
Next day, they disembarked at Inverness Airport in the early afternoon. Astrid clutched a toy mermaid and Josefin’s hand. Alvin was tired of planes and rode in Mats’ arms. His hair, still the thistledown of babyhood, tickled Mats’ chin.
Ezzie Wynter met them outside the arrivals gate, impeccable in her dark coat over her suit and impressing Mats by giving the children wide smiles and saying, ‘It’s such a pleasure to see you back in Scotland,’ even before shaking hands with Grete, him and Josefin.
‘Hello.’ Astrid smiled sunnily, her fair hair waving about her head.
‘ Hall? ,’ Alvin echoed, after unplugging his thumb from his mouth.
‘We’re going to speak English a lot while we’re here, aren’t we?’ Mats reminded him gently, and Alvin obligingly amended it to, ‘Hello.’
Ezzie stacked their luggage on a trolley then steered it through the bright airport and out to the pick-up zone where the big grey Volvo that his parents kept at the hall waited. It was an overcast, windy day, and her blonde hair flew around her head as she pitted her slender frame against the vagaries of the trolley.
‘I can do that,’ he began uncomfortably, but Ezz just smiled, and as Alvin was now dozing in his arms, he couldn’t press the point.
However, when they reached the Volvo, Ezz halted, expression dismayed as she looked from the suitcases to the luggage box – which was clearly out of her reach.
‘No problem.’ He let Grete and Josefin get the children into their car seats then he slid the suitcases into the capacious box while Ezzie looked mortified. ‘It’s no problem,’ he repeated, hoping she’d be a bit less uptight about her duties.
Grete took the front passenger seat, Mats and Alvin settled in the middle row and Josefin and Astrid in the rear. Ezzie hurried to the driver’s seat. Alvin had briefly roused but dropped off again. As Astrid and Josefin were engrossed in a game involving the colours of cars, Mats texted Inger to reassure her that the children were safe then watched the countryside around the airport and the waters of Rosemarkie Bay. He checked emails until Alvin woke up and wanted entertaining for the remainder of the two-and-a-half-hour trip. Together they gazed out at beautiful scenery, where the road wound first between agricultural fields and then narrowed to carry them through craggy hills that, in winter, were little more than pine and rocks. Still stretches of water like Loch Luichart boasted a few sailing boats for them to talk about, even on a raw winter day.
As they neared the end of the journey he said to the children, ‘Watch out for the bridge. It takes us right over the sea and onto the Isle of Skye.’
Moments later Ezzie pointed through the windscreen at the graceful arches that gave way to an impressive arc against the blue-grey sky. ‘We’ll be going over in a moment.’ She drove competently through the busy little town of Kyle of Lochalsh, then swept left to take the bridge.
‘Boats,’ Astrid shouted as the Volvo climbed, while Alvin gleefully waved to vessels approaching the bridge from both directions, foaming the steely grey sea into white wakes. They crested the bridge and drove onto the Isle of Skye, passing the white houses of Kyleakin on their left and soon heading over the moor to the Sleat Peninsula.
Twenty minutes more then Grete called, ‘Here we are,’ from the front seat as they bumped over a stone bridge and up the drive to Rothach Hall. Winter had bared the branches of the deciduous trees dotted among pine and spruce, but otherwise it looked exactly as it did last time he’d been here, the summer before last. He’d forgotten how much grassy parkland lay either side of the drive, studded with stands of trees, before the formal area. There, the hedges and conifers of the knot garden were so neatly trimmed that they looked like sculptures. The walls of the walled garden rose up to the left and the south lawns to the right before, finally, they drew up before the curved steps to the grand double doors of a gracious grey-stone building with tall windows and a turret.
Ezz said, ‘Welcome back to Rothach Hall.’
Excited, the children couldn’t wait to tumble from the car. Mats had time to heave out suitcases and bags from the luggage box before catching sight of his little blondies racing away over wet grass, quick and cute in shoes that wouldn’t keep their feet dry. ‘Astrid, Alvin,’ he called, hastily thrusting the luggage box keys at Ezz as he and Josefin ran to corral the excited children and usher them towards the granite steps.
‘I don’t remember this place,’ Astrid shouted, bouncing up the stone steps like a kangaroo.
‘I do,’ Alvin shouted back, having to climb the steps one at a time.
Mats laughed. ‘You can’t possibly, Alvin. You were tiny.’
‘I do,’ he maintained, but giggled at his own fibs, blue eyes dancing, and tiny white teeth flashing.
Heart full for his little boy, Mats swept him up and did kangaroo jumps up the steps like Astrid, who instantly began to kangaroo down again.
‘Wait for me, I can’t jump.’ Grete laughed, hurrying after them. Josefin grabbed the children’s bags and followed.
Mats felt a surge of excitement as the group poured across the lobby and into the private quarters. ‘What do you think, Astrid and Alvin?’ he asked, gazing around the lofty interior flooded with light, its white paintwork gleaming.
Astrid was already running for the big staircase, one arm out of her coat and her hat behind her on the hall floor. ‘I’m going to see my room,’ she cried. She paused. ‘Which is my room?’
Mats raced after her, hampered by Alvin in his arms. ‘Wait, Astrid. We’ll find your room together.’
‘Wait’, ‘stop’, ‘slow down’ were phrases to which Astrid was deaf and she was on the first floor, trying to get into his parents’ suite by the time Mats caught up with her.
‘Astrid.’ He injected calm reproach into his voice. ‘ Wait. And do not use your feet to open a door. That’s not your room. I’ll show you where you and Alvin will sleep. Let’s walk nicely.’
He took each of his children by their hands – stooping because three-year-old Alvin was still tiny – and escorted them decorously to the room beside the turret, which he’d agreed with Ezzie would be the children’s. It was painted the pale blue of a winter’s morning. Astrid gave a delighted shriek and threw herself on one of the single beds. Alvin emitted an ear-splitting yell of his own and took a run onto the same bed.
‘This is my bed,’ Astrid declared.
‘ Nej , my bed,’ Alvin implored, eyes filling with tears as he gazed at Mats for support.
Mats encouraged them both off it. ‘I think I’m going to let Alvin choose his bed first, because you were a bit rude, weren’t you, Astrid? Which bed, Alvin?’
Alvin gazed around the tall, airy room with blue panels painted on the walls and blue curtains at the tall windows. The beds were identical. He glanced at Mats, then Astrid. Maybe out of contrariness or perhaps to appease his sister, he walked over to the other bed. ‘This one.’
‘That was nice of Alvin, wasn’t it Astrid?’ Mats asked gently.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, hurling herself back onto the bed she’d wanted all along.
Mats exchanged grins with Josefin, who’d followed with the children’s bags. ‘This should be your room through here, Josefin.’ Politely, he opened a white-painted door that led into a similar room but decorated in shades of yellow. ‘There’s a bathroom for you and the children across the corridor.’
Then he glanced out of the window and saw the big grey car still at the foot of the steps.
Ezzie Wynter was perched on a stool heaving the last suitcase from the luggage box, blonde hair and black coat flying in the wind. The rest of the baggage was neatly lined up at the top of the steps. Guilt stabbed him. There was he trying to instil a gracious attitude in his daughter, yet he’d thrust the keys at a member of staff without a please or thank you and left her to struggle when his height would have allowed him to reach the suitcases easily. That he’d been trying to keep the children in check wasn’t much of an excuse. He’d only needed to say, Josefin, please take the children while I see to the luggage.
Gravity took the suitcase she was tugging, making her teeter backwards. He drew in a sharp breath, a vision of a split head flashing before his eyes. Then, regaining her balance, she calmly stepped down from the stool and then carried the suitcase up the steps to join the others.
With a word to Josefin to keep Alvin and Astrid with her, he raced back down the way he’d come. But when he opened the door to the reception lobby, he found the luggage already in a neat line of green and grey, and Ezzie nowhere to be seen. The sound of an engine suggested the car was on its way to the parking area behind the building, so he assumed her to be at the wheel.
Annoyed at his own lack of consideration, he began to take each suitcase inside.
Ezz, after an inner debate, had elected to work the day after the Larssons arrived, though, before learning of the current visit, Sunday and Monday had been her planned rest days. Tavish had made himself available to the family when they were in residence and taken accumulated days off after they’d gone. This time the family was here for two months though. By the time the new assistant manager came to take work off Ezz’s hands the Larssons should be back in Sweden.
So, Sunday morning, she made one of her first tasks to fetch a sack barrow from the mud room to wheel the boxes of Christmas decorations into the downstairs public room, parking it in the doorway. Her phone was in her pocket, and she also kept a keen ear out for any member of the Larsson family who might call her name.
She glanced appraisingly around the lofty, panelled room, graced with furniture and paintings from earlier centuries. Glass cases held exhibits of lace, sketches, journals and other artefacts that Rothach’s long-ago occupants had left behind in dusty, damaged attics. Her first task was to put up a stand utilised only at this time of year. Its information card read:
Although present-day Rothach Hall loves Christmas, the hall’s history encompasses the Scottish Reformation in 1560 under the protestant leadership of John Knox. In the following decades, Christmas celebrations became associated with Catholicism and increasingly frowned upon. Christmas was banned by Scottish parliament from 1640 to 1712, and not widely celebrated for a further couple of centuries.
However, Christmas Day was declared a Scottish public holiday in the 1950s, and so now we’re happy to welcome our winter visitors with festive decorations in the public areas – but elegant and low-key to respect our long and diverse history.
After a moment to check the effect, she turned to a cupboard concealed in the panelling that provided her with a stepstool, and soon she was hanging silver stars from each pendant lamp, the words star of wonder, star of light from the ‘We Three Kings’ Christmas carol wandering through her mind. Once down from the stool, she admired how each cluster glinted in the light from the windows. Next, she used the tartan ribbon on the red baubles to attach them to Christmas garlands of artificial greenery and pinecones, then arranged them carefully on windowsills and atop glass cabinets. She didn’t know the age of the beautiful old panelling, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you stuck pins into.
As she worked, she mulled over whether she could manage some days off by asking Orla to be available to the family when Ezzie wasn’t. She’d suggest it. Grete was approachable and Orla capable.
In the quiet, she caught a squeak, a whisper and a scuffing of feet, and she glanced up. A faint footstep, then the two little Larsson children stood on the threshold of the large room, holding hands and regarding her through sea-blue eyes. A smile took charge of her mouth. With their wavy hair, they were like sweet little pixies. ‘Hello,’ she said, putting down a garland and joining them near the doorway so she could cast a quick eye over the contents of her sack barrow and check there was nothing there that could hurt them. ‘How are you today?’
The little boy, Alvin, gazed at the stars hanging from the lamps. ‘ Jul. Christmas.’
The eldest, the girl called Astrid, kept her solemn gaze on Ezz. ‘Alvin doesn’t like mash,’ she announced in her startlingly fluent English.
Oh-kay. Barnaby had accustomed Ezzie to gamely joining in conversation, no matter how apparently random, so she gave the subject due consideration. ‘Not even with gravy?’
Astrid asked her little brother a question in Swedish before turning back. ‘No. He likes fries.’
‘So do I,’ Ezz answered agreeably.
Alvin spoke up. ‘Chyckling. And reece ,’ he declared firmly.
Astrid giggled. ‘He’s trying to say chicken and rice, but he’s jumbling up Swedish and English words.’
‘Chicken and rice are good, too.’ Then, noticing that Alvin had a boot on one foot but only a sock on the other, Ezzie said, ‘You’re not going outside, are you? Because it’s frosty and your toes will turn to ice.’
Astrid shook her head. ‘We’re not allowed, unless someone takes us.’
‘That’s good.’ Even though the hall stood well back from the cliffs, there were woods and all kinds of places in the grounds for small children to get lost. Then she heard an exclamation and Mats Larsson loomed behind his children, tall, blond and fearsomely good-looking, his dishevelled hair just long enough to flop either side of his forehead. Ezz realised that his children’s eyes were the colour of a summer sea, whereas his were more of a match for the sea in winter. His self-assurance bore the gloss of money and education.
‘There you are, children.’ He sounded half annoyed and half relieved. ‘Do you remember what I said about not leaving the apartment without an adult?’
Astrid’s expression became self-righteous. ‘You said not to go outside. We’re inside.’
One side of his mouth tugged up. ‘I suppose that’s true. But I meant not outside the apartment.’
Astrid considered this. ‘This isn’t an apartment. It’s a house. It has upstairses.’
The corner of the mouth twitched again. ‘I was using “apartment” in the sense of one section of a building being separated from … Never mind. What have you been talking to Ezzie about?’
He shot Ezzie an apologetic look.
Astrid nodded emphatically at her father. ‘That Alvin doesn’t like mash. You told Farmor that Alvin didn’t like mash, and you were going to speak to Ezzie about it.’
Mats’ fair skin flushed. He took his children’s hands and drew them away. ‘OK, you could have left this to me, but thanks for your help. Say goodbye to Ezzie.’
‘Bye,’ they chorused obediently.
The trio vanished, Alvin asking something in Swedish and Mats replying in English. ‘Perhaps you can make Christmas decorations with Josefin.’ Then came the sound of a door opening and Mats raised his voice. ‘Josefin?’
Ezzie remained where she was, rerunning the conversation in her head. You were going to speak to Ezzie about it. A complaint already? Crap.
She’d begun returning cardboard boxes to the sack barrow when Mats reappeared alone, and still flushed. ‘Sorry that my children took it upon themselves to bother you. It’s just that Alvin’s got this thing about only eating food that’s clearly identifiable.’
‘Of course,’ Ezzie said, feeling her own cheeks heat. ‘Your mother requested neeps and tatties, but I should have asked if there were other requests.’ She paused. Then breaking the rule of not asking non-essential questions, because she really ought to be sure she understood what was being said, asked, ‘Sorry, but when Astrid said “Farmor”, did she mean your mother?’
When Mats smiled, his eyes creased and twinkled a bit like Grete’s. ‘Yes. Literally, it means father’s mother. In Sweden we differentiate between our grandparents – father’s mother, mother’s mother, mother’s father and father’s father. Farmor, mormor, morfar and farfar.’
Ezz followed this with interest. ‘Thank you. How incredibly practical. If you’d like to give me a list of favourite foods, I’ll make sure Gwen gets it.’
He’d resumed his usual complexion. ‘Mum had put plenty of Alvin-friendly foods on the shopping list, but didn’t think to tell Gwen about dinner. My children like most plain foods, really, especially fish.’ His thick sweater looked expensive, stretching over his chest as he thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘I think Skye has plenty of that? I’ve seen fishing boats chugging up and down the sound.’
‘Of course.’ She made a mental note of plain foods, especially fish and suppressed the urge to tell him all about the fertile inner sea between the east side of the island and the mainland, the Sound of Sleat at the south and the Outer Hebrides to the west. She’d developed a deep love of Skye in the nine years she’d lived here, but she was here to fulfil his requests, not chatter.
His gaze roved over the room behind her, now ready for any visitor who liked to be welcomed by pretty Christmassy things. ‘Very nice.’
Ezz thanked him with a smile, pretty sure he hadn’t come back to praise the Christmas garlands.
He hadn’t. ‘There’s something else I’m hoping you can help me with. A favour.’
She hesitated. A favour? She was an employee. How the hell was she supposed to answer that? She fell back on, ‘Of course.’
That silvery gaze rested on her as if detecting her reserve. ‘It’s nothing onerous. Josefin has been very good about spending a protracted time here, including Christmas, but there’s not much to entertain her. Would you take her to the village pub? From the couple of times I’ve been, it’s a friendly place.’
Ezz froze. He wanted her to take Josefin drinking ?
Frowning when she didn’t reply, he added, ‘In working hours, obviously. I’m not asking you to give up your time off.’
‘Of course,’ she repeated, summoning her professional smile, though her lips had dried. Should that have been Of course not ? She hesitated, feeling a hot rush of anxiety.
‘I’ll send her out to you.’ He glanced at his watch; a big-faced black smartwatch that screamed expensive .
‘Of course.’ Ezzie maintained her smile, not wanting her off-balance moment to be construed as prickliness as he turned to leave, and she prepared to carry boxes up to the public rooms upstairs. Well, actually … she did feel a smidge prickly at being sent to the pub – not because he was disposing of her time as that was what she was here for, but because a person’s relationship with alcohol could be tricky. No doubt he’d assumed that hers was healthy. Or, more likely, hadn’t considered it at all.
She tried hard to be the perfect employee, but now she was dealing with Mats Larsson rather than his straightforward parents. When she’d helped Grete and Erik through the formalities of the old manager’s resignation and then been offered the job, she’d felt she’d received the seal of employer approval. But Grete and Erik would tell you if you displeased them. What you saw was what you got: a self-made couple who loved their family and the business they’d built.
Their son Mats was different. She couldn’t read him, yet she didn’t feel she’d handled the last few minutes to his satisfaction.
Her job, which only days ago had felt both fun and secure, suddenly seemed a bit less of each.
The Jolly Abbot Inn looked like a big white cottage with a slate roof. The tables that stood outside in summer had been stowed away and a Christmas tree twinkled beside the black-painted front door. Most people would think the pub was a pleasant place to spend Sunday lunchtime, especially in working hours and at someone else’s expense … but Ezz was the only person in a suit. Rosamund behind the bar wiped her hands on her jeans and pushed up the sleeves of her knitted top as she teased Ezz. ‘My, we don’t get many office clothes in here.’
As Rosamund and son Brodie were Ezz’s neighbours, living as she did across from the pub here in Chapel Road, Ezz joked back, ‘I’m raising the tone. This is Josefin, the nanny from Rothach Hall.’
Rosamund beamed all over her round face. ‘Welcome, welcome, Josefin. What would you like to drink?’
Josefin chose wine, fitting right in in jeans and a marmalade-coloured jumper that went with her short salt-and-pepper hair, rosy cheeks and ready smile. ‘I like it here,’ she pronounced, nodding approvingly at the red banquettes that lined the white walls and the wooden tables and chairs in the centre. Christmas lights had been twined around the optics, so the ambers and auburns of whisky and brandy lent their glow to the clear liquids of vodka and gin. Josefin pulled a wry face, fingering the cutlery rolled up in napkins that was a precursor to the Sunday lunch they’d ordered. ‘But I do not understand what everyone says.’
Ezz tried to relax. The nanny seemed friendly and keen to make friends, which Ezz was too, now she thought of it. It certainly wasn’t Josefin’s fault that Mats had asked for her to be brought here. ‘Some people are speaking in Gaelic, that’s why. I understand that about forty per cent of the island is Gaelic-speaking, though I’m afraid I’ve never tried to learn. Your English is excellent, and everyone on Skye speaks that as well.’ Josefin had a Swedish accent, but otherwise spoke English perfectly. ‘Ah, here are my sister’s neighbours, Maisie and Fraser.’ Ezz waved at the octogenarians who’d just entered, rubbing their hands and well wrapped up against the cold, pausing at the bar to order drinks before ambling over.
‘May we join you?’ Fraser had abandoned the tam-o’-shanter he wore in summer in favour of a blue woollen beanie, and his long silver hair flopped out when he removed it.
Maisie wore a red fleece hat with ear flaps. When she pulled it off, the Christmas lights shone on her neat silver bun. She’d never wear her hair loose and windswept as Fraser did. ‘Hello, Ezzie.’ Her beaming smile took in Josefin, too, and Ezz again made the introductions.
‘Where’s your wee sister?’ Fraser demanded as he lowered himself creakily onto a vinyl-covered stool, his grimace suggesting that the cold weather had got into his joints.
Josefin looked interested. ‘You have family here, Ezz, though you are English and not Scottish?’ She sipped from her large glass of red wine.
Ezzie, who’d ordered orangeade, was glad Josefin was chatty, making her easy company. ‘Yes, Thea’s the head gardener at the hall so you might meet her there, even if she doesn’t come to the Jolly Abbot today. She usually works Monday to Friday in winter, when the grounds staff don’t need seven-days-a-week coverage. She lives at the top of the village in Loch View.’
‘I like this village.’ Josefin sipped from her wine glass again and smacked her lips appreciatively. ‘The houses are so many pretty colours.’
Maisie lifted her gin and tonic. ‘You’ll not find that commonly on Skye, because most of the houses are white. So far as I’m aware, only Rothach and Portree have the colours. My cottage is lemon yellow,’ she added proudly.
The level of Skye Ale in Fraser’s glass was going down rapidly. ‘Ach, it’s daft,’ he said irascibly. ‘My house is white, as tradition intends. And white’s cheaper than colours.’
‘Mine’s a sort of gingerbread colour. I’d probably choose pale green, if I owned my own house.’ Ezzie felt almost relaxed as their delicious-smelling Sunday roast arrived. As they ate, Maisie and Fraser set about educating Josefin on ‘Sleat’ being pronounced ‘slate’ and that Rothach was ‘Roth arsh ’, the ch not getting caught in the back of the throat as in so many other Scottish words.
‘I’m from the south of Sweden, and we have a similar sound in words like “usch”. It means “yuck”,’ Josefin volunteered between disposing of bites of roast potatoes and beef.
Ezz enjoyed her meal while Maisie and Fraser told Josefin about Fairy Glen at Balnaknock. ‘They say it’s where the fairies hide in the dells,’ Maisie expounded mysteriously.
‘Och, it’s a landslide that left a funny-looking landscape,’ Fraser contradicted.
Then the elderly pair told the tale of Flora MacDonald rowing Prince Charles Edward Stewart from Benbecula to Skye, disguised as an Irish maid called Betty.
Fraser wagged a horny finger in Josefin’s direction. ‘ That story’s no fairy tale. Clan MacDonald of Sleat, they lived at Armadale Castle and feuded with the MacLeods of Dunvegan.’
Her meal disposed of and a second drink drunk, Josefin looked hugely entertained as Maisie and Fraser continued to ‘blether’, as they would call it. Ezz soon began to wonder how long the social occasion was expected to go on. Should she suggest to Josefin that they wind it up? Or was a nanny so much like a member of the family that she’d expect to call the shots? When Mats had asked her to bring Josefin here he hadn’t set a time limit. Ezz would much rather be at her desk than in the pub, where everyone but her seemed to have an alcoholic drink. Having decided that alcohol had no place in her life even before she came to Skye nine years ago, she was becoming restless. She rarely came into the Jolly Abbot. But … maybe that was why she sometimes felt she lacked company? She put the thought away to examine later.
Finally, as Josefin ordered her third large glass of wine, Ezzie ventured, ‘Are you looking after the children later?’
Josefin only relaxed further into her seat. ‘No, I have the rest of today off.’ Her ruddy cheeks were even rosier now, and her eyes glittering.
‘Oh. OK.’ Ezz settled down to listen to Josefin tell Maisie how different Skye was to the seaport city of Gothenburg.
Then Thea and Dev burst in on a blast of cold air, cheeks rosy and eyes alight. Ezz greeted them gladly. ‘Here’s my sister Thea and her boyfriend Deveron. Thea, Josefin’s the nanny for Mats Larsson’s lovely children. He suggested I bring her here and introduce her to the village.’
One of Thea’s eyebrows twitched, and her dark eyes met Ezzie’s, clearly understanding Ezz’s discomfort over the assignment. ‘Great to meet you, Josefin,’ she cried. ‘I hope you like Rothach Hall.’
Soon, she and Josefin were chatting happily. After a while, Thea suggested, ‘Would you like to come with Dev and me while we walk our dog? We can show you the footpath through the copse in case you ever want to come down here without a car. The drink-drive rules are strict in Scotland.’ She glanced at Ezz’s feet. ‘Ezz isn’t wearing her walking shoes—’ ignoring the fact that Ezz’s home was only a few yards away so she could have changed her footwear in a minute ‘—so she’d better drive back.’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Josefin, flushed with bonhomie and shiraz. ‘I would like to.’
Barely sparing a quick ‘Are you sure?’ Ezz made good her escape, sending Thea a silent but heartfelt ‘Thank you,’ from the doorway before she whisked out.
She drove her yellow hatchback through the winding, narrow lanes. At Rothach Hall the family door was firmly closed, so she settled back at her desk.
Her first job was to phone Gwen. ‘Mats has mentioned the children’s meals.’
‘He talked to me,’ Gwen said comfortably. ‘Today, I’m to cook a plain meal for the children at about five p.m. Grete and Mats want stovies, later. Josefin and I will share getting the children’s meals through the week.’
‘Great, thank you.’ Ezz ended the call feeling like a fish secure in her own little pond again.
An hour later, Josefin traipsed through the lobby, waving to Ezz and looking rosily relaxed. ‘I’m back. Thank you for taking me.’
Waving back, Ezz returned, ‘You’re welcome.’
When nobody had emerged from the family area to request anything by five-thirty, nor phoned or emailed, she switched off her computer and was soon following the beams of her car’s headlights along the familiar roads home.
Indoors, she made herself coffee – she’d treated herself to hazelnut latte pods ready for Christmas – and curled up on one of her turquoise sofas to catch up with schoolfriends and past work colleagues on Facebook while she drank it. Once she’d commented on a skiing party in the Dolomites, a new baby and a winter wedding, she put her phone and empty mug aside. The boiler in the kitchen gurgled but, otherwise, the silence of the cottage pressed down on her as if to emphasise her solitude.
Glad that the village was so safe that dark, wintry walks weren’t out of the question, she jumped up and ran upstairs to change into fleece-lined jeans and her favourite boots. Back down in her hallway she pulled on her ski jacket, gloves and a purple hat and then set out into the dark evening. Heading down the steep lanes towards the sea, she enjoyed the refreshing sting of freezing air on her cheeks as she passed cottages lit from within like pumpkin lanterns at Halloween. Once in Harbour View, the streetlamps cast a net of light that allowed her to see the beach, where frost-spangled pebbles tumbled, and rockpools sported lacy edges of ice. Until she’d spent winters in Skye, she’d believed that salt water couldn’t freeze.
A row of cottages faced the beach, and a boat waited on worn wooden stands, its mast angling out from the tarpaulin. There wasn’t another person in view, which wasn’t uncommon in the village, especially in cold weather. She settled her hat more cosily over her ears and followed the bay’s curve to Fishermen’s Cottages, where Harbour View met the Quays above Causeway.
When she reached number 1, she halted, experiencing anew the joyful thrill of Valentina’s surprise announcement. She’d see so much more of her eldest sister now she owned a holiday home in the village. Although she’d seen the cottages hundreds of times, she examined number 1 with fresh eyes. It was the end terrace, closest to the rocks at the end of the Quays. A side window looked over Rothach Bay to the peaks of Knoydart on the mainland, which she’d seen dusted with snow earlier today as if from a giant sugar shaker. ‘It’s certainly a fixer-upper,’ she murmured to herself, surveying the tiny dwelling. In the light of the streetlamps, she could just about see that the cottage had once been pale blue, though much of the colour had flaked away. There was no more paint left on the wooden window frames or the door than there was on the walls, lending the place a neglected air. When she cupped her hands against the filthy glass, she could see only darkness, but on brushing encrusted salt from a wonky sign, she saw someone had once cared enough to bestow the name Overlook Cottage.
Fishermen’s Cottages were among the smallest in the village, under their slate roofs. They had no front gardens, though each boasted a rectangle of cobbles where she imagined past fishermen spreading their nets. A couple of decorative lobster creels stood outside the house next door, and its windows were brightly lit behind its curtains, as if to demonstrate to Ezz how cute and cosy Overlook Cottage could be with love and attention.
Impulsively, she pulled out her phone and called Valentina. ‘I know you’re probably busy, but I’m standing outside your cottage and feeling excited for you.’
Valentina’s laugh echoed down the line. ‘You ratbag, you’re making me jealous. Send me a pic.’
‘It’s pretty dark down this end of the bay.’ But Ezz held up her phone to take a view of the cottage. As she sent it, she commented circumspectly, ‘It needs a bit of work. Did you know it’s called Overlook Cottage?’
‘A lot of work – and no, what a charming name,’ Valentina enthused. ‘But look at those rotten windows.’ She was obviously studying the photos Ezz had just sent. ‘Some won’t close and two at the back are broken. The agent says we’ll be able to replace them, as long as we have the same style.’
‘You’ll have to buy a boat,’ Ezz announced solemnly. ‘And row out to sink your own lobster creels in the bay.’
‘Not likely.’ Valentina laughed. ‘Once the renovation’s complete, Overlook will be for us to relax in. I can’t wait to pick up the key. Actually, I was wondering … Could I stay with you on the weekend of the 23rd and 24th? Gary’s parents are hosting a gathering in Warwickshire because cousins and aunts are over from America. I could easily cry off that and let Gary take Barnaby.’
Ezzie’s heart soared at the idea of two whole days with her big sister. ‘That’s not even two weeks away! Do come.’ Then reality intruded and she added, ‘I might have to work chunks of the weekend, though. I’m not sure if I can get time off when there’s family in residence.’ Then she shivered, a sea mist stealing up Causeway and trying to slither its chilly fingers into the collar of her coat. ‘Brr, it’s getting cold. I’ll walk home while we talk. I’m ready for a hot meal and TV.’
‘Speaking of TV,’ Valentina said. ‘Are you watching My Ghost Kingdom , about adopted children and their birth families? The last one’s on tonight. I hadn’t even heard the term “ghost kingdom” referring to the adopted person’s imagined birth family, but I can relate. As a kid, I used to imagine that I shared blood with royalty or famous actors.’ She laughed. ‘Whereas I expect my parents were just ordinary people coping with an accidental, inconvenient pregnancy.’
Ezz began retracing her steps. ‘Compulsive viewing, when you’re adopted, isn’t it?’
Valentina agreed. ‘And heart-rending sometimes. Some birth mums were treated shamefully.’
Ezz skirted a particularly frosty patch of road that seemed to glitter a warning of its potential treachery. The village lanes didn’t have many pavements. ‘Although I take the reunions with a pinch of salt because they only seem to show the cheerful, successful ones, it’s fascinating watching people’s stories unfold. One minute I empathise with those who say their adoption affects their sense of identity but the next I side with those who say they’ve no need to know who created them. And that segment on the prevalence of teenage moodiness in adoptees made me think of Thea’s difficult patch at school. Is your birth family on your mind?’
‘Mostly I’m too busy to worry about it,’ Valentina confessed, ‘but it does float into my mind sometimes who my birth parents were. Why they didn’t keep me. Who my siblings and cousins might be – especially when Gary’s family has a giant get-together. He explains all these first and second cousins to me, and I don’t really get it. He and his parents can talk about family relationships for hours. It makes me aware that we don’t even have our adoptive parents anymore.’
‘I still miss Mum and Dad, even though they died when I was twenty.’ Ezzie crossed Harbour View and began up the dogleg slope of Creag an Lolaire, gasping when her feet almost shot from under her. Freezing sea mist could polish the ground to a glassy sheen. ‘Particularly lately, because I’m at a bit of a loose end,’ she confessed, turning right into Chapel Road and spotting the light that shone outside her cottage to welcome her home. ‘Well,’ she corrected hurriedly, not wanting to prompt a worried Valentina to call Thea to talk over Ezz’s isolation. ‘I might start dating again, but the last one put me off.’ She stopped to catch her breath. Above the mist, the moon rode in a star-bestrewn sky. Giggling, so Valentina wouldn’t get how much it had upset her, she admitted, ‘He had a bit of a quirk.’
Valentina’s tone sharpened. ‘Quirk? Or kink? He didn’t hurt you?’
‘No, no,’ Ezz soothed. ‘He was great at first and after a couple of dates I went home with him.’ She wasn’t coy with her sisters. ‘And then he announced he had special pleasures. Honestly, I just stared at him, because, you know … special pleasures? He said he liked to pretend he was an army officer, giving orders.’ She giggled, though it had been far from funny, being alone with Henry in his house as he tried to coax her upstairs. ‘When he said he called his man-part Major Magic, I left.’ She hoped she’d made it sound funny, because at the time it had made Ezz feel vulnerable and she’d driven home too fast in the dark, imagining him pursuing her. At least she’d never told Henry where she lived.
‘Ezz!’ Valentina sounded as if she didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled. ‘You will call the police if you feel threatened, won’t you?’
‘Yes, yes, lawyer sister,’ Ezz breezed. ‘Any minute now you’re going to ask why I can’t settle down with someone like that nice Ramsay I used to live with in Suffolk.’
‘I do feel slightly like that,’ Valentina acknowledged ruefully. ‘You’re forty-four and I want you to be happy.’
Ezz snuggled into her coat, cold yet unwilling to deprive herself of the enchantment of the dark, frozen evening. ‘Ramsay didn’t want to relocate when I wanted this job in Skye. You know that.’ And her doing something really hard, like giving up alcohol, had not received his support at all – a case of a hard drinker not appreciating a reformed drinker, she supposed. He’d felt criticised when she talked about not missing the hangovers or putting herself or others at risk during drunken escapades. For that and other good reasons, Valentina had never been told the full story of Ezz and Thea uprooting from the English countryside and replanting themselves on the beautiful Isle of Skye. They’d thought she’d be happier not knowing. ‘I don’t think Mum and Dad would have liked him much anyway.’
A fresh wave of nostalgia for their parents Maxie and Vince swept over her. Two musicians who’d adopted three girls and then had to leave them on the threshold of adulthood when something as mundane as a hotel’s faulty heating system had taken their lives. Her laughter deserted her. ‘We were so lucky. Mum and Dad put us at the centre of their busy lives. I suppose the advantage of being adopted is that the authorities check your potential parents are good people. With natural parents, you get what you get.’
‘Too right.’ Valentina sighed. ‘What if our birth parents are horrible? One of those stories on Ghost Kingdom was about a man who discovered his father had been a gangster.’
With a shiver, Ezzie took a step towards her cottage. ‘Nobody could live up to Maxie and Vince.’ The street lighting just here was sparse, letting her look up at a galaxy of stars, asteroids, comets, space dust and whatever else the Earth floated in, like a million diamonds flung on black satin.
Valentina was silent for several beats. ‘I get what you mean. Thea’s glad she’s found a birth parent now, but it wasn’t plain sailing, and it doesn’t mean our parents would be as OK as her mother Ynez. Even if we’re not the result of rape or incest, we were almost certainly dirty secrets. Our birth mums probably dealt with the emotional conflict decades ago and might not thank us for stirring it up again. Their current families might not know we exist, and by searching our birth mothers out we’ll expose their past disgrace.’
‘True,’ Ezz acknowledged.
Valentina went on. ‘I’m not sure I want to know that I was originally called Jessie or Mary-Anne or Nelly. I’m Valentina. Mum and Dad were my mum and dad. You haven’t applied for your original birth certificate either, have you? It’s the first step on a road that might lead anywhere.’
Ezz tugged her hood over her hat. ‘Agreed. But if I ever started the process, I’d treat finding my birth family like dating via an app. I’d exchange messages. Then maybe I’d chat on the phone. Eventually, if we all wanted to meet up, I’d do it in a public place so I could leave whenever I wanted. If they bothered me, I’d block them – like I blocked Henry. Without my home address, they’d no longer have access to me.’
‘Wow,’ Valentina said slowly. ‘You’ve thought about this.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve put a DNA testing kit on my Christmas wish list, but it’s mainly about health, because – as Gary’s mother Pearl pointed out – if there’s anything in my genes to be concerned about, it’ll affect Barnaby. And there’s also ancestry. Thea’s discovered she’s half-French, which is a nice thing to know. You’re so blonde, maybe you have Nordic forebears. I can be interested in where my ancestors lived without needing to meet any relatives the test might throw up.’ Then Valentina rounded off hastily. ‘Oops, Barnaby’s shouting for me. See you soon, I hope.’
‘OK, I’ll go home and get warmed up. Give Barnaby a hug from me.’ Ezz’s frozen toes were beginning to curl inside her boots, but before she finally turned towards her cottage, she lingered for one long last look at the night sky. She liked the stars and had downloaded an astronomy app in a fit of enthusiasm, where constellations like Cygnus were shown by dotted lines drawn between the stars.
She’d soon grown tired of the app but thought, fancifully, that she was like one of those twinkling stars within a constellation named Birth Family – part of something bigger, whether she acknowledged those lines or not. Other people shared her DNA. Out there. Somewhere. Valentina had Barnaby who looked like her and Thea had Ynez. I don’t have someone else with blonde hair, blue eyes and a pointy nose, she thought.
But then she shrugged. At various times of her life, she’d wondered about her birth family. She’d done nothing about finding them before and doubted she ever would.