Читать книгу The Restless Sea - Vanessa de Haan - Страница 12

Olivia sits on a bench at the station. The heat is already almost unbearable. Her pale green travelling outfit is crumpled and creased. She fans herself with her hat. The din of people and trains arriving and departing has died down. Trucks and cars, horses and carts, troops and families have been and gone, churning up the dust, making it twirl in the warm air before it settles back in a thin layer over everything. In a way she is glad that she is alone, no longer at the mercy of the wandering eyes and nudges of strangers, like the impertinent ratings on the train who had frightened her with their whispering and pointing. She wishes Charlie, the officer who rescued her at breakfast, had got off here too, but he changed for the train to Thurso, taking his raucous charges with him. She feels comforted as she remembers his protective arm ushering her to safety, the aura of confidence. And then she smiles once more at what turned out to be a wonderful coincidence. Charlie’s godmother her aunt? Funny how one chances across these connections, but perhaps not so unusual among her class.

Olivia reaches to fiddle with the bracelet at her wrist, a nervous habit, but then her heart sinks as she remembers that she has lost it, and tears prick at her eyes. She feels so vulnerable sitting here on this bench in the middle of nowhere, travelling on her own for the first time, no handsome officer to protect her now. The fact that she has lost the one treasure that she owns makes her feel all the more so. Perhaps she left it at Stoke Hall, but she is sure she can remember clicking the delicate clasp together and pulling her cuff down over it yesterday morning. Maybe it came loose during the panic when the faulty siren went off at the station. And then there was that boy with the wild eyes … but that’s unfair – the kind of thing her mother might say. He only helped her find her way to the Underground. No. She must have left it at home. The thought of home, and her bedroom, with its pretty bedspread and her favourite lamps with the hand-painted flowers twisting up their stands, and Jasper, her old teddy bear, on the mantelpiece above the fireplace, and Nanny, who always knows what to do, and all the other familiar things she loves, sends a hot, thin tear sliding down her cheek.

She hears a cough and looks up, wiping her face with the back of her hand. The stationmaster is looming over her. ‘Are you sure I can’t call someone for you, miss?’ he asks.

‘Absolutely,’ says Olivia. ‘My aunt will be here any minute.’

He looks disbelievingly up the empty road. ‘Perhaps you got the wrong day, miss.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she snaps at him, immediately regretting it, but she is hot and tired and worried.

‘Maybe she’s driving slowly. To save on petrol.’

Olivia nods and tries to sit up straight and look as if it is a perfectly normal thing to be sitting outside a train station on one’s own.

Eventually a small car materialises slowly out of the haze and draws to a lazy stop outside the station. A sprightly old man with silver hair and a dour expression clambers out of the driver’s seat. His eyes narrow when he sees her, and he tips his head.

‘Lady Bowman?’ he says, with a strong accent.

The stationmaster appears again, and the driver becomes more animated as the two men exchange pleasantries in a language that Olivia does not recognise while the porter packs her cases into the back of the car. Olivia waits for them to finish. It takes a while; neither man appears to be in a hurry. The sun gleams on the car’s shiny black paintwork, the polished chrome of its radiator and the spokes of its wheels. She fans herself with her hat, and tries to look composed. At last the man is ready to go. He climbs straight into the driver’s seat and leans across to do the passenger door from the inside so that she must pull it open for herself. He sweeps a length of twine and a box of fishing weights on to the floor at her feet, where there is already a pair of galoshes and a rain hat. The car smells of rotten fish, and when she turns to look behind her, there is a creel dripping seawater all over the back seat; a straggle of grassy seaweed caught in the netting glistens at her. She shudders and faces forwards again, leaning her head against the side window.

The journey to Poolewe takes almost four hours. Four hours, and they pass not one other human being. Just a few lonely crofts tucked away in the folds of a hill here and there. The fine morning has become muggy, the air heavy, crackling with energy. Olivia stares at the scenery passing by: great bleak spaces of wilderness, long empty expanses of water. Her clothes stick to her, damp against the leather of the seat. In the back, there are small pale deposits of salt where the seawater dripping from the creel has dried. The driver does not speak. He stares resolutely at the road ahead, occasionally grunting when they bump over a particularly deep rut.

Olivia’s mind wanders. What an exhausting few hours she’s had. From the thrill of the station and air-raid siren, to the boy with the wild eyes at the station, and then Charlie, so handsome in his uniform, so gallant, off to protect the seas. Well, if he can face the Nazis, she’s sure she can face some Scottish solitude.

She sticks her hand out of the open window. Beyond her fingers, the desolate emptiness stretches on forever. She closes her eyes. The breeze pushes at her arm, cools her skin, blows in her hair. It reminds her of climbing out on to the roof at home, the view so different to this one: the neatly rolled grass court where the rabbits crouch, flashes of brown and white in the long grass at its edge; the cedars with their stately, sweeping branches; the cobbled stable yard with its bell tower; the pale dovecote next to it; the mottled doves, half-pigeon now, circling above.

At last they turn through an ornate pair of iron gates and bump along a potholed drive at the end of which is a large white house. Taigh Mor. Olivia scrambles out on to the gravel, glancing up at the smart black windows, and then across the lawn that sweeps down to an enormous loch surrounded by hills. The front door is wide open, but instead of Aunt Nancy appearing, Olivia is greeted by an elderly servant with hair that was once black but is now peppered with grey.

‘Your aunt sends her apologies,’ says the servant. ‘But she’s a wee bit tied up with unexpected visitors. She says Munro’s to take you down to the bothy, and she’ll be there as soon as she can.’

Olivia stares at the maid blankly.

The man who she assumes is Munro grunts as he opens the trunk and starts to unload the cases, handing two to her, by which she understands that she is meant to carry them.

‘Shouldn’t we leave them here?’ she asks.

‘Oh no,’ says the maid. ‘You’ll be needing your things.’

‘You mean I’m not staying in the house?’

‘No, no. Didn’t I say? You’re in the bothy. You’re very lucky. She doesn’t usually let anyone stay down there.’

The maid disappears back into the house. Olivia’s bottom lip trembles. Munro looks her up and down with disgust. She digs her nails into her palm. She won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

She traipses after him down a dry, rutted track covered in wispy, pale grass that soon becomes a tunnel flanked by twisted rhododendron bushes beneath thick woodland. The house disappears behind them. The air is cooler here, and birds and other creatures call warnings to each other as they trudge on. Olivia’s fingers ache, the blood squeezed out of them by the handles of the bags. A layer of dirt attaches itself to her shoes. They will soon be ruined.

Eventually, they emerge into the sunlight on another lawn that ends only a couple of hundred yards away at the shore of the loch. To their left is a small white cottage, bright beneath the dark Scots pines of the woodland behind.

Munro puts the bags down on the stone steps.

‘Is this it? Is this the bothy?’ she asks.

‘Aye,’ he says. ‘You go and have a look around. Take your time. We’ve plenty of it.’

Olivia climbs the steps. The door is propped open with a large pebble. Inside, it is cool compared to the thundery heat outside. It smells of flowers and the sea. Along the sills are old shells, stones, sea urchins, and driftwood that have paled in the sunlight over the years. To the left is a small sitting room that looks out towards the loch; on the right is a tiny kitchen warmed by a large range stove, and a bedroom that is just large enough for a bed and a dressing table, also with a view of the loch. Someone has blown the dust from the kettle, there are fresh sheets on the bed, the cupboards are filled with food, and the windows have been flung open. At the back of the cottage an old lean-to has been converted into a lavatory accessible through the kitchen; the other half acts as coal shed and wood store.

The entire cottage is smaller than the folly at Stoke Hall.

Munro is still standing on the steps, staring out towards the loch. The only sound is the rasp of water on the shingle and the whisper of wind in the leaves behind the bothy. What Olivia would give to hear a familiar noise: the whistle of the groom, or cook shouting in the kitchen, or Pike banging the gong for tea. She makes a noise, a half-strangled sob, and Munro turns to look at her, his eyebrows knitting together. He clears his throat. ‘Where would ye like to start?’ he asks.

‘I don’t want to start anywhere,’ says Olivia.

‘Would ye rather fish?’

‘No,’ says Olivia. ‘I don’t want to fish. And I don’t want to stay in this hovel. I can’t understand what I’m doing here. I just want to go home.’

He watches her without blinking, and then slowly shakes his head as she runs past him and back up to the house.

Olivia stumbles through the front door and across the echoing hall, wildly trying every door to every empty room until she finds the occupied one. It is a large drawing room with French windows opening out on to the lawn and grand views of the loch, the sea a sliver of silver beyond it. And there at last is her aunt, head bent over a table, deep in conversation with a couple of men. As her niece enters, Aunt Nancy looks up, a smile breaking across her face. ‘Darling girl,’ she says. ‘So sorry. We’re just wrapping up here …’

Olivia stops, suddenly self-conscious. She smooths the creased pale-green coat and pats her blonde hair. Her hat is lying somewhere on the floor of the bothy. She is out of breath, and aware that she is not entirely decorous before these men.

Her aunt bustles out from behind the table, extending her arms and clasping Olivia’s face in her hands. ‘Look at you! You must be exhausted. Have you found everything you need?’

‘I … Well …’

‘Did Munro show you how to light the stove? Don’t you love it? It’s my favourite place in all the world. So special …’

Olivia swallows, aware that the men are watching her. ‘It’s just,’ she says. ‘It’s just … so … so lonely.’

‘Such bliss.’

‘But couldn’t I stay here? I’d so love to catch up with you …’

‘There’ll be plenty of time for catching up. I can’t wait to show you about the place …’

‘But I really don’t want to stay down there. Isn’t there a spare bed here?’

Aunt Nancy’s smile is beginning to look a little worn. ‘There just isn’t enough room at the moment, what with Commander Shaw and Brigadier Worthington here.’ The men nod apologetically. ‘And more arriving tomorrow.’

‘But I’m your niece!’

‘And these are my guests …’

‘But what will I do? There’s no one to help me …’

‘There’s Munro …’

‘I don’t think Munro wants anything to do with me …’

‘Hush, hush.’ Her aunt is holding up her hand. She ushers her out into the hall. ‘Now what exactly is the problem?’ she asks.

Olivia starts to list. ‘There’s no bath.’

‘There’s a tin bath in the shed.’

‘How am I meant to fill it?’

‘From the tap.’

‘You mean with a bucket?’

‘You’re jolly lucky there’s running water. I had it put in especially for you. We used to have to fetch it from the burn.’

‘There’s no electricity.’

‘Did Munro not show you where the oil lamps are kept?’

‘I don’t know how to light a fire.’

‘Munro will show you.’

‘I don’t know how to cook.’

‘Then it’s about time you learnt.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I’ll take myself.’

‘The station is at least a twenty-four-hour walk …’

‘Surely Munro can give me a lift?’

‘No one will give you a lift. There’ll be petrol rationing soon, and besides, your mother has asked me to keep you here. Now pull yourself together. You’re making a scene. I can’t think what my sister is doing bringing up a creature with no idea how to think or do anything for herself. Do you know what I was doing at your age?’

Olivia does not reply.

‘I was driving ambulances in France for injured and dying men. You think living in a warm cottage by the side of a loch, where your family have sent you to be safe, is a hardship? I could tell you things that would fill your childish slumbers with nightmares. I could tell you how I watched your uncle bleed to death before I could get him home. And now here you are, in his home, safely. I do not want to hear such nonsense again. Now stand up straight and behave as a woman of your standing should. With a bit of bloody backbone and some good grace.’

Olivia swallows, shamefaced. She has only met her aunt a couple of times. She had been fooled into thinking that she was like her sister, Olivia’s mother, a quiet and kind, gentle person. But this steely creature whose young life was forged in that Great War is nothing like her. In the dark of the great hall, poor, dead Uncle Howard stares down at them through the gloom, handsome in his olive-green army uniform and peaked cap, painted into a frame from which he will remain for ever twenty-five years old.

Aunt Nancy pats her shoulder. ‘Now,’ she says. ‘I’ve said my piece and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s done and dusted. Come and have some tea and meet the brigadier and commander properly.’

Olivia hopes her cheeks will stop burning before she re-enters the drawing room.

After that first afternoon, Olivia resigns herself to this temporary new life. There is no time to mope: Aunt Nancy is determined that her niece will be useful, helping in the garden and on the farm now that all the young men have rushed off to join up. She soon has Olivia digging for potatoes with Greer the gardener, hauling creels in and out of the water with Munro, wheeling manure, drying seeds, not to mention plucking pigeons with the maid and cook, who she now knows as Clarkson. Her time in the bothy is spent reading through the cobwebbed copies of books on the shelves, learning by trial and error how to cook, how to keep the greedy stove going, and how to light a fire in the sitting room, how to wash her own clothes, how to refill the oil lamps, to make her own bed.

Then the first letters arrive from Charlie, and Olivia is hugely grateful to him, for her aunt seems to warm to her a little. She really doesn’t need Aunt Nancy to encourage her to write back to the young officer; she enjoys it, writing letters as though Charlie is a diary, a confidant. For although she is busy, she is terribly lonely. Her aunt is always preoccupied with visitors and paperwork – something to do with joining the FANYs again, as far as she can glean from Munro – and the local schoolchildren – of which there are only a handful – are all half Olivia’s age. The other neighbours are kind, but they are not companions, and she still does not speak Gaelic.

The letters she receives back from Charlie are her only friends in those long hours of loneliness. And they make Olivia appreciate her own situation all the more when she reads about conditions on his ship, and how he keeps a sense of humour about the horrible cockroaches that invade, capturing and racing them against each other. Of course she has no idea where he is, but she shuffles closer to the fire when he writes of the snow and ice, and how he has to be winched out his pilot’s seat after a flight, his hands stuck like claws until someone brings him a steaming cup of cocoa.

As the days pass, Olivia’s truculence begins to ebb. The world slows to the lazy chewing of one of the cows that watch her with liquid eyes from beneath their thick, curly brown hair. Munro has indeed taught her to fish, and how to catch shiny green prawns in the rock pools. She is captivated by things she never knew about: baby starfish no bigger than a fingernail, seals lumbering across the rocks, the sudden flash of a pine marten’s creamy chest.

She speaks to her mother on the telephone once a week, but she does not miss home as much as she thought she would; somehow the pull of the breeze sweeping in off the loch and down from the hills is hard to resist. Take today, for example. It is one of those blustery autumn days, the weather as changeable as her moods can be. This morning she was eating corned beef from the tin while the rain lashed against the window as she tried to play patience in the yellow glow of an oil lamp. Now she is following the tumbling, churning burn that careers down the hill behind the farm between the thick, sodden bent heads of bracken. She sticks to the rocky bits, using the boulders as steps. When she looks up, she has to narrow her eyes as the rain drives into them. When she looks back to the loch, far below, only the pale foam of whipped-up water delineates dark grey water from dark grey sky. She is drenched to the bone.

She is looking for Mac, who farms behind Taigh Mor. One of his sheep has got stuck, and she has been sent to help. She finally spots him, a small green figure in a flat cap crouched on the rocks like moss. The sheep is still stuck. The farmer isn’t surprised to see her there. He doesn’t even glance up. But Olivia is growing used to the quiet, calm manner of the locals – and in a situation like this, there’s no time for pleasantries. The banks down to the burn are steep here, carved into the hillside over thousands of years. The sheep has slipped and got wedged between some rocks. It is in an awkward position, about level with Mac’s head. It bleats in their faces, a loud, raspy, aggressive mixture of fear and confusion. Its musky fleece is heavy with the rain.

Mac shouts above the crash of the water, his voice thick and lilting like the burn in calmer times. She is quicker to tune in to the inflections now. ‘I cannae get behind, lassie,’ he says. ‘We need to tie a rope.’

Olivia looks up at the steep rock. The rain streams down her face and drips off her nose. Mac points further up, jabbing with his finger. The sheep gets noisier, the sound a hoarse bark. ‘You want me to climb up there and throw the rope down?’ she says.

Mac nods and gives her the rope. He looks so small and wrinkled, like a walnut. She heads away further up the hill, past a craggy rowan tree that marks a deep pool, and to the boulders above. Her feet slip with every step, and she has to be careful not to catch her ankle in one of the uneven, bottomless holes. It is steep, and for a moment her head spins. She is in the right place: from here she can see the top of the sodden sheep and Mac’s flat cap. She crawls out on to the rocks. They scrape into her knees, cutting through her flannel trousers. She lies down and inches forward to look over the edge. Mac and the sheep are directly below her. There is nothing to grab on to, just the weight of her body holding her to the ground. Her heart thumps against solid rock. She dangles the rope down. It takes a few goes, but she manages to feed it in behind the sheep, and Mac disappears to scrabble for the end underneath the creature. He reappears, gives her the thumbs-up, and then she throws the other end of the rope down to him and scrambles away from the edge, her hip bones grazed against the rock.

By the time she gets back, Mac has tied the rope around the sheep. They each take the rope in their hands and begin to pull. The rope burns, but, with a struggle and a grunt, the sheep is freed. It rolls on to the ground for a moment, a bundle of legs and wool. Then it stands up and trots away with a dismissive bark.

‘Ungrateful creature,’ says Mac, and they both burst out laughing, wiping the water from their faces, unsticking their feet from the squelching mud.

‘Will it be all right?’ Olivia asks.

‘Thanks to you, lassie.’ Mac smiles, and she can see his eyes are brilliant blue in the leathery face.

In the farmhouse, Mrs Mac says, ‘Stay for something to eat, won’t you?’ She offers Olivia a slice of cake and a cup of tea. She drapes a towel around Olivia’s back and rubs at her scraggy hair to soak up some of the rain. The simple movement touches something deep in Olivia. It is nice to be mothered.

‘Hard work out there without our boys,’ says Mac.

‘I think the girl will do just as well for now,’ says his wife.

Olivia smiles, pleased. ‘Where are your sons?’ she asks, her mouth full of fluffy sponge.

‘Moved away. Got wee ones of their own now,’ says Mrs Mac.

Mac lifts a picture down from the mantelpiece. ‘There we go,’ he says. ‘Callum and Angus and their wives and our three grandchildren, Mary, Hamish, and wee Gus. Taken in the spring.’

It is a fine picture. Callum and Angus are in their uniforms, their wives looking at them proudly, the children at their feet. ‘When will they next come to visit?’ asks Olivia.

‘Och. We won’t be seeing them for a while,’ says Mrs Mac. Her lips are set in a thin line. ‘Silly boys. They’re back with their regiments. They’ll be off to France any day soon.’

‘Now, now,’ says Mac. ‘We don’t know that for sure.’ Olivia is surprised to see that his hands are trembling as his cup rattles on its saucer.

Olivia drops in to Taigh Mor on her way back to the bothy. The rain has cleared, and now the bracken is shining yellow and orange beneath trembling aspen leaves that flash and flutter gold in the breeze. There are four shiny black cars parked on the drive in front of the house, all polished to perfection, the rain pooling in small puddles like ink on their bonnets. Leaning against one corner of the large house are four men, chatting and smoking cigarettes. The smoke curls white into the air. They stop to look at Olivia without interest as she crunches across the gravel, before turning back to their conversation. In the distance, the pale sea reflects the pale sky.

As usual, the heavy front door is open. Olivia walks slowly in. Like her own home down south, it is cool inside, but the wooden floors are bare of rugs, and the furniture is dark and dusty. There are antlers all over the walls, spiky and forbidding, and she suddenly longs for the light and airy bothy. Uncle Howard’s eyes follow her along the hall, still unused to seeing a youngster in the house. Olivia’s skin tingles; she is suddenly aware of her damp clothes, her tangled hair, her muddy boots.

There are nine men with Aunt Nancy in the drawing room, all with their backs to her. One of them seems familiar, with a jocular round face and a cigar, but he is probably simply a returning visitor, of which there seems to be a steady stream. Olivia would dearly like to know what goes on at these meetings, but has to be satisfied with evasive explanations about her aunt doing her bit for the war effort and reminding Olivia proudly of her role in France in the last war – which inevitably leads to memories of Uncle Howard and the end of the conversation.

‘Come in, darling. Come in,’ says Aunt Nancy, motioning at Olivia. Olivia points at her filthy feet, but Aunt Nancy shakes her head. ‘Don’t worry about those. These floors have seen far worse.’ She introduces Olivia as her niece, and Olivia is sure she glimpses a flash of disapproval as the men take in her mud-stained trousers and unkempt hair, but they are too polite to say anything before turning back to help themselves to one of Clarkson’s home-made biscuits.

‘Dreadful news,’ says Aunt Nancy. ‘It was the bloody Nazis that got into Scapa Flow. Can you believe it?’

‘You mean …’

‘Yes exactly. Those poor boys … Torpedoed! Charlie was up there too.’

‘How awful!’ Olivia’s hand goes up to her mouth.

‘No, no. Don’t worry. He wasn’t on board. But he was in the harbour. All those poor souls. You must write to him.’

‘I have.’

‘I mean carry on. It’s our duty to bolster the morale of men who are away fighting. Letters mean more than you can ever realise. Your Uncle Howard lived for them …’ She peters out. The men stir their tea awkwardly.

The round-faced man clears his throat and takes a puff on his cigar. It is clear that he wants to get back to business.

‘Well, you’d best be off then, darling,’ says Aunt Nancy. ‘I’m sure you have plenty to do.’ Olivia turns to leave, knowing when she is dismissed. ‘Oh’ – Olivia stops, her hand resting on the doorframe – ‘and don’t be alarmed if you see more ships in the loch. Scapa Flow is obviously compromised, and these chaps need somewhere else to hide their ships.’ The men stare at her. ‘Hush, hush, of course,’ says Aunt Nancy, putting her finger to her lips.

On the track back to the bothy, Olivia breathes in the autumn air. Out here, no one cares what she looks like. She makes the most of it, splashing through puddles that are orangey-brown, the colour of peat. On her right she is dwarfed by vast umbrellas of gunnera, still holding water from this morning’s storm. On her left, ancient rhododendrons line the steep bank, their twisted branches and trunks an impenetrable tangle. A myriad of birdsong echoes through the plants. At the end of the track, the view opens out again into the vista she has come to love. There is the bothy on the edge of the wood, its knobbly stone facade bright white against the autumn fire of yellow and orange and red. The bright flowers that surrounded the cottage in the summer are no longer colourful but drooping with seed heads of all shapes and sizes. The lawn that runs down to the beach is still lush and green. The loch is calm, just the dark breath of a sudden breeze rippling across it. As she reaches the steps of the bothy, some seagulls fly up from the water with worried cries, the droplets from their legs fracturing their clear reflections. Startled, Olivia turns to see what has frightened them, and, as she does, she catches sight of something that – even with her aunt’s warning – makes her breath snag in her chest. On the other side of the island, where the fishing fleet shelters by the village of Aultbea, a vast grey mass of metal rises out of the water. It is a British destroyer. Next to it, the fishing trawlers are mere specks. Olivia takes in the heavily armoured bridge, the fat funnel, the mast like a crucifix reaching up to heaven, the spiky gun turrets, the guns that seem to be pointing in every direction and from every part of her. This is what war looks like: cold and grey and forbidding. She shudders and goes into the bothy, closing the door firmly behind her for the first time in weeks.