‘Come on, girl, sheep are fed. Let’s get ourselves in for something to eat. We need to get you to bed early tonight if you’re going to make that train in the morning.’
She nodded as she walked by his side, across the slate grey cobblestones of the farmyard, and towards the tiny farmhouse that was their home. She sat on a step to pull off her boots and looked out across the Highlands one last time. It had been a grey day, but all at once, the sun broke through the dark clouds as it started to set on the west side of the loch, its rays stretching out across the heathered banks, turning the loch into a sea of molten silver and illuminating the geese still foraging for their food before laying up for the night.
Yes, she would definitely miss this, but she had to admit her uncle was right. This would be a fresh start for her in a place where nobody knew about her past, for even though she’d been whisked away from the isle before she had started to show, there had been stories back home, and even here, as much as she had tried to hide it, people had known. And she’d felt not just the guilt of her decision, but somehow, she’d never been able to let go of the torment of what she had done. And not unlike the sheep in front of her, with their own indelible crosses on their backs, she had also felt marked forever with the pain and the shame.
As she entered the house, the smell of burning peat and the heat from the kitchen range stretched out its fingers to warm her frigid cheeks. Wandering into the kitchen to help her aunt with the stew, she settled her heart to enjoy the last evening that she would spend with her family.
As usual, the house was a hive of activity. Fiona and Margaret were squabbling over a game they were playing.
‘She’s cheating again,’ Fiona was yelling to her mother in the kitchen, one hand firmly on her hip, her face flushed red, as behind her Margaret’s guilty smile only confirmed the situation.
Hamish walked to the cooker and kissed his wife on the back of the neck. ‘Smells good, girl, smells good.’
Her aunt Marion pushed hair from her damp forehead as she pulled fresh bread from the oven and shouted back at the girls. ‘You two are going to have to grow up now,’ she remarked sternly. ‘With Lizzie leaving us you’re are going to have to do more work around here, so you had best try to learn to get on!’
Both Fiona and Margaret tried to plead their case to their father, who just shook his head, smiling, and dropped into his favourite chair by the fire to start reading his paper.
When the whole family finally came together to eat, Lizzie’s gaze lingered around the table. All the people she loved most in the world were right here. It was such a far cry from the home she had come from. She couldn’t imagine ever going back there. As she pulled off chunks of her aunt’s home-made bread and dipped it into the warm, salty stew, she studied them all, trying to capture the scene as a picture within her mind of each one of them. Just like this, gathered talking and eating, sharing and laughing, even of her cousins as they continued to bicker with one another. A picture in her mind she could return to whenever she needed to come home in her heart. Lizzie would remember them just like this. She would miss life on her uncle and aunt’s farm, but new things, bigger things, were waiting for her in the capital. And she couldn’t wait to see what they were.
2
The next morning Lizzie awoke, as she had so many times before, to the sound of nature outside her window. A loud chevron of geese was making its way across the loch, announcing its presence in a lengthy bellow.
The familiar sound comforted her as she stretched awake, her eyes drawn to the shafts of dusky sunlight that were creeping their fingers beneath her daisy curtains.
Lizzie studied them for a moment; she’d barely paid attention to them for years, but wanted to take in every detail of what was familiar on this final morning before she left Scotland for who knew how long.
The curtains billowed a little as a draught found its way through the cracks in the stones – part and parcel of living in a cottage that had been settling for a hundred years. As the daisies rippled, Lizzie smiled at the thought of her favourite childhood flower. She remembered as if it was yesterday her aunt bent over her ancient sewing machine, pins gripped between her teeth as she’d hemmed them to match a coverlet on Lizzie’s bed. Hoping to make her niece more comfortable in her new home. First to recover and then as an enticement to stay on and finish her last two years of schooling with them. When Lizzie had written to her parents asking to stay longer, her mother and father had not protested. Even though it had been her desire, it had still deeply wounded her how they had rejected her, and she knew in her heart of hearts they were terribly ashamed of her and her secret. In the time she had lived here, her aunt and uncle had never said a bad word about her parents, but there were knowing looks and quiet whispers when she had been out of earshot that had affirmed to her that they knew the difficulties she had left behind her on Barra.
As the smell of bacon cooking wafted up her tiny staircase, her view drifted towards the ceiling. Lizzie studied the sloping roof, painted in delicate lavender-blue, that when the sun bounced off it bathed the whole room in its cool, comforting glow. Her aunt’s mother’s dressing table and tiny wardrobe were across the room, her walls decorated with a couple of childhood paintings she had brought with her and some clumsy cross-stitch pictures she had tackled after arriving. In the far corner, her bookshelf was still filled with some of her favourite Enid Blyton books and on the floor was a rag rug she had made the last year in school. Everything familiar and reassuring. When she had arrived, her uncle had offered her the bigger room. But there was something about the attic room, with the creaking stairway to reach it, and the little door her uncle had to bow his head to get through; all of this made her feel cosy and secure. It may not have been the most significant bedroom, but it was the one that she felt the most comfortable in.
From outside, Bob’s and Chip’s happy barks alerted her to the fact her uncle was on his way to the sheep pen. Swinging her legs out of bed, she moved towards the window, and drawing back the curtains, looked outside. Uncle Hamish was staring out at the loch, as silver shafts of early morning sun rippled across it, bringing it to life. On the banks, fishermen were already making their way down to the edge to prepare for their morning catch.
Slipping on her dressing gown and slippers, she sauntered across her brown linoleum floor, making her way down the creaking stairway into the kitchen. Aunt Marion had already laid the table and had just started cracking eggs into the frying pan when she arrived. Lizzie slipped her arms around her aunt’s ample waist and gave her a hug from behind. The older woman responded by tapping her arm and turning around to smile at her niece.
‘Well, this is it, Lizzie. Are you all ready? Is your bag packed?’
Lizzie nodded and made her way to the kitchen table. From there, she could look out of the window and see her uncle, who was starting to open up the sheep pen. He called out to somebody to greet them. The farmer next door. People in Scotland had their farms side by side for generations; this farm had been in Marion’s family since the 1700s. When her uncle Hamish had met and fallen in love with her, he had left Barra to work her farm. First alongside Marion’s father and now alone. And once again, with a shudder, Lizzie remembered that this was one of the reasons she could never go home. As much as she felt a connection with the beauty of the island itself, she couldn’t spend her life so suffocated, knowing that Fergus was just next door. He had tried over the years to put things right between them, writing her long letters after the baby was born. But Lizzie had never been able to move on from the pain and the hurt of that one night and that one experience, and could never imagine going home to face her parents or Fergus.