So, I have to admit, I’m intrigued at the prospect of looking through the albums and poring over pictures from my mother’s and Uncle Robbie’s past. There’ll no doubt be pictures of my grandfather too, a dimly remembered figure from my childhood who died when I was seven. I remember the long drive north from London for the funeral; a draughty Scottish church; my mother sobbing, my father unable to console her; shortbread and orange juice at Granny Ella’s house afterwards. We didn’t stay the night there, although there were lots of spare rooms. ‘I’d rather stay at Robbie’s,’ I’d heard Mum telling Dad, her voice suddenly too high and too loud . . .
I drag my attention back to the here and now, seeing my grandmother’s expression which is a mixture of questioning and invitation.
‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ I smile at Granny Ella and she beams back with relief.
‘I was hoping you’d say that! Here are the first two tapes, and I got Robbie to buy a second one of these gadgets so you can play them back at home.’ She puts a lumpy envelope on top of the albums in the box. ‘And, Kendra, tell it your way. Take my words and the pictures and write it properly. Use that talent of yours. So that others can read it and understand.’
I nod again slowly, once more aware that there’s an underlying urgency in what she’s saying.
Suddenly aware, too, of the two pairs of eyes that are on me, appraising me expectantly: Ella’s own and, from the photo in the book on my lap, those of my mother as well.
PART 1
1938, Île de Ré
A girl stood on the jetty, watching as the ferry that would carry her across to the island ploughed steadily through the blue waters towards her.
Setting down the cream leather travelling case, she slipped her jacket from her shoulders, releasing herself from the confines of its neat tailoring and letting the warmth of the French sunshine caress her skin. Her arms were pale after the long northern winter and there’d been no spring at all to speak of that year; she felt like a butterfly, emerging from its slug-like chrysalis, suddenly discovering its wings and spreading them wide to soak in heat and light and colour.
A breeze – the soft breath of the wide Atlantic Ocean that extended to the other side of the world beyond the low-lying island – lifted her honey-coloured hair where it fell over her shoulders, cooling her neck and her flushed cheeks.
It had been a long journey from Edinburgh, full of new and exciting experiences. She’d have been tired if she weren’t so nervous at the prospect of meeting her hosts, and the approaching ferry was now bringing that hurdle ever closer. On the overnight sleeper to London, Mother, who – despite Ella’s protestations that, at the age of seventeen, she could manage perfectly well on her own – had been chaperoning her as far as the boat train, had slept the sleep of the just in the other berth. Her slow regular breathing mingled with the clatter of the wheels over the rails and the occasional startling roar of another train passing in the darkness.
But Ella, who was used to the silence of her bedroom in the leafy suburbs of South Edinburgh, had hardly slept a wink. Not that she’d cared. She had been too excited, her head too full of the journey before her, the summer abroad stretching in front of her like a promise. So she had lain, swaying in her narrow bed with its stiffly starched cotton sheets and grey woollen blanket with LNER stitched on it in red, and practised French phrases in her head. It was one thing to have been top of her class at school, earning approving nods from Mademoiselle Murray, but Ella suspected that her teacher’s accent had had a strong twang of Morningside about it. French had certainly sounded very different on the gramophone records that Mother used to play, smiling dreamily as she listened to Maurice Renaud sing and reminiscing about the time she’d seen him perform when she’d stayed in Paris as a young girl. ‘You know, Ella, it’s essential to spend time in a country if you really want to be able to speak a foreign language,’ she’d declared. ‘Not to mention being able to understand the culture.’
And so, last Christmas, her mother had written to her old friend Marianne Martet to enquire whether it might be possible for Ella to visit for a week or two.
‘Even better than a fortnight in Paris, she’s inviting you to come and spend the whole summer with them at their holiday house on the Île de Ré! Six whole weeks with the twins! Imagine, you’ll be speaking French like a native.’
Ella was secretly a little disappointed. She’d been looking forward to the promise of the sophistication and elegance that Paris held, having pored over the Picture Post’s feature on the famous World Fair, which the city had hosted the previous year. She’d never even heard of this island. A consultation of the heavy World Atlas showed that it was one of a few tiny slivers of land that looked as if they’d been chipped off France’s Atlantic coastline and fallen into the sea. But still, an adventure was an adventure, especially for a girl who’d never been further than Fife before now.
The planning had taken weeks: visits to Jenners for a holiday wardrobe which included three bathing costumes, a suite of new undergarments, and fittings for several light, cotton dresses, prettier than any she’d owned before.
‘You’ll need to keep well covered up with your fair colouring,’ Mother had fussed. ‘And don’t forget to wear your sun-hat all the time, otherwise you’ll get freckles and then you’ll be sorry!’
Father had presented her with the little travelling case the day before she left. ‘I’m told every young lady who travels to foreign parts needs one of these,’ he’d said with a smile. The key, which she wore now on a ribbon around her neck, unlocked the brass fittings to reveal a shot-silk interior of the deepest cherry red, which held several silver-topped bottles and jars and a brush-set with a little oval mirror, each item held in its place with fine leather straps. There was just room for her night things and the few spare items she’d need for the journey. Everything else had been carefully folded, wrapped in tissue paper and packed into the big suitcase.
The ferry slowed as it neared the jetty and there was a bustle of activity suddenly in the port. A deck-hand carried her suitcase on to the boat for her, giving her an appreciative glance over his shoulder as she picked up her smaller case and followed him on board. A man with a beret settled a crate of clucking chickens in the shade of the wheel-house and smiled at Ella as he sat down on the hard wooden bench that ran around the edge of the boat. And then, with a shout and a wave, the ropes were cast off and the ferry began its return journey to the island, the turnaround fast to make the most of the tide.
Ella went to stand near the prow, looking out towards her destination, a pale smudge of land which lay low amongst the waves. In a storm it must almost get swept away, Ella imagined. Mindful of her mother’s warning words, she clamped one hand firmly on to the straw hat that shaded her face from the sun as the breeze strengthened a little across the water and threatened to snatch it from her head and send it bowling away over the waves. She licked her lips to moisten them and tasted salt.
The sky was a heady blue overhead – very different from the Edinburgh grey that she was used to – and she tipped her head back to follow the trajectory of a sea-gull as it soared high above.