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.
Her aunt and uncle had never spoken about it outwardly, but she knew deep down they thought about it too. Knowing how hard it would be with both families on Barra living side by side for hundreds of years; neither able to just uproot and move somewhere else. So, with no way of going back, Lizzie would have to do that for herself. She loved her aunt and uncle but now it was time to find her own way.
Going to London to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force had been a noble reason for leaving Scotland. No questions needed to be asked, even if her own reasons for leaving were very different. She wanted, of course, to help the war effort. She could have chosen to join the volunteer effort in Scotland. But she had secretly hoped to be posted to London, and she had been. England’s capital city was far enough away for her to get some distance between her and her past, but there was also another incentive, the huge secret she hadn’t even shared with her family.
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by her aunt Marion, who placed a breakfast plate down in front of her. Hot crispy bacon, fresh eggs, and her aunt’s home-made bread made her mouth water. As if alerted by