foreign candy. Apart from the fact that her hair is now a white that’s as pure as the first snow on the hills, she looks exactly the same: warm brown eyes and a complexion as radiant as it was in her twenties.
She’s brought with her a pair of extremely cute pink-and-white-striped dungarees for Daisy and a large album of photos and newspaper cuttings. ‘Flora sent me these over the years. She always kept me in touch with all the local news. I thought you might be interested to see them.’ Despite all those years away, her accent still lilts with the soft inflections of the Scottish Highlands.
She and Bridie take it in turns to cuddle Daisy, who laps up the attention from her two surrogate grannies, charming them with her very own style of conversation.
‘Look,’ Mairi tells Daisy, ‘here’s a picture of your mummy when she was wee, making sandcastles on the beach. And here she is on her first day at the big school. See how smart she looks in her new uniform? And this is her singing a solo in the school show.’
‘Mum,’ Daisy says, pointing a chubby forefinger at the album.
‘Clever girl,’ coos Bridie, offering her a Liquorice Allsort, which Daisy pops into her mouth with a cherubic smile.
I’m fascinated by the photos, poring over them. My mother took these images, documenting my childhood. She put them into envelopes and sent them across the sea to the other side of the world, where Mairi kept them so carefully, lovingly preserving them in this album. It’s a little overwhelming, feeling this loved.
‘Here are some of Flora’s letters, too.’ Mairi takes a little bundle from her handbag, tied with a length of tartan ribbon. ‘I thought you might like to read them sometime.’
‘Thank you.’ I set them aside politely, although the urge to look through them immediately is strong – maybe they’ll offer more clues to whatever it is Bridie’s been keeping from me.
As if she can read my mind, Mairi says, ‘Bridie tells me you’ve been asking some questions about your father’s family.’
‘I have. I suppose having Daisy has opened my eyes a bit to what it must have been like for Mum, raising me on her own. She never said much about my dad. And neither has anyone else. I’m curious to fill in the gaps, so I can pass it on to Daisy when she’s older.’
Mairi nods, holding out her arms to take Daisy from Bridie to give her a rest and let her drink her tea. ‘That’s only natural,’ she says. ‘I know Bridie’s been telling you a lot about the war years, how our lives were turned upside down. I’m happy to tell you all I can remember. The album and those letters will be a good starting point. And then you can ask us any questions after you’ve had a chance to look through them. I’m here for a while, staying with my brother at the farm. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to chat.’
‘Thanks, Mairi,’ I say. ‘I’m grateful to you both.’
I go through to the kitchen to refresh the teapot and as I wait for the kettle to boil, I think how easy it will be now to put in place the missing pieces of my family history. As I come back into the sitting room, though, Mairi is murmuring something to Bridie, who is shaking her head vehemently.
They look up as I come through the door, falling silent, and it seems to me their expressions are a little guarded. They’re both quick to smile again, but I get the impression that those smiles are just a little too bright to be entirely natural.
Hmmm, I think. Perhaps piecing together my mother’s story might still not be quite such a doddle after all.
Flora, 1942
‘They made it safely! They’re on their way back.’ Bridie’s face was alight with joy and relief as she passed on the news to Flora and Mairi. A first lieutenant who worked in the wireless station had told her that the first of the convoys to leave from Loch Ewe had had a safe run to Murmansk, making it through the narrow corridor of sea between the Arctic ice and the north cape of Norway without encountering any enemy action from either the waves beneath them or the skies above.
‘They’ve still a way to go until they’re safe though,’ said Mairi, reluctant to let down her guard until she saw the ships back in the harbour with her own eyes.