bunch of sky-blue forget-me-nots into Mairi’s hands, tied with a length of ivory ribbon. She said nothing, just turned back, holding Daisy’s hand in hers, and walked slowly up the path to her door.
I glance across at Mairi. She’s walked down to the water’s edge and she stands with the posy in her hands, watching the waves. I stay back, letting her have her space as she remembers the night that Hal was lost and Roy was saved. At last she fumbles in a pocket for a hankie and raises it to wipe the tears from her eyes, and I walk across the shingle to stand at her side.
‘Thank you for coming here with me,’ she says, turning towards me with a smile. ‘I’ve never been able to face coming back before now. But it’s good to be standing here with you, remembering the ones we’ve lost. Your mum was amazing that night. She worked tirelessly, doing what could be done for the survivors. She took care of me, too. After we found Roy and took him to the hospital, she was the one who insisted on coming back twice more so we could keep helping with the rescue. I was shattered – seeing Hal’s body and thinking we’d lost Roy as well was one of the worst moments of my life. But Flora made me keep going that night, and I knew it was the right thing. Even though we couldn’t save Hal, there were others who needed our help. Some of them were boys like him, as young as eighteen. In places we had to feel our way with our hands, because in the storm and the darkness it was impossible to distinguish the oil-covered bodies from the rocks.’
It’s hard to imagine that night on a summer’s day like this one, with the pink heads of the sea thrift nodding in the breeze and the sun warming the stones. But if I close my eyes, I can see the rescuers stumbling blindly through the storm: crofters, soldiers and sailors alike joining in the desperate search, the scene lit from the point above us by the headlights of the vehicles parked there.
We make our way to the far end of the cove and Mairi carefully places Bridie’s posy on the rocks at the water’s edge. Then, with a nod, she takes my arm and we turn away. As we go, I glance back to where the waves are already reaching for the brave little bunch of flowers whose pale ribbon flutters in the wind.
We walk back in silence from the headland where Mum parked the ambulance that night, along the rough track to where I’ve left the car at the end of the road. Mairi gazes out one last time towards the rocks of Furadh Mor and then opens the car door.
‘Right,’ she says with a little more of her usual brightness and briskness, ‘I don’t know about you, but I could do with a cup of tea and a cuddle with wee Daisy.’
‘Thank you for showing me that,’ I say. ‘It really helps, you know, you and Bridie telling me more about Mum’s life before I was born.’
She nods. ‘I know. Even though it’s so painful, grief is something we have to go through sooner or later. There’s no way round it, no way to avoid it. That’s something we all learned in the war. You go through it. But if you have a friend or two to walk along that path beside you, it helps you to bear it.’
I absorb her words as I drive back along the shore of the loch. She’s right, I realise. In their different ways, the friends I’ve found here are helping me shoulder the burden of my grief as we walk the path together. It helps to know they’re by my side.
As we push open the door of Bridie’s cottage, the sound of singing greets us.
‘Step we gladly, on we go,
Heel for heel and toe for toe,
Arm in arm and row on row,
All for Mairi’s wedding.’
Bridie’s teaching Daisy the ‘Lewis Bridal Song’, clapping along to keep the time.
‘Oh an oh,’ sings Daisy, laughing as Bridie bounces her on her knee.
‘Here they are, look, your mammy and your Auntie Mairi.’
‘Mam a Ma,’ agrees Daisy, reaching her hands towards me. I scoop her into my arms and give her a cuddle, but then she wriggles to be let down and toddles over to the coffee table where a large photo album lies open.