The Skylark's Secret(85)

Flora sank to the ground and Bridie rushed to her side, wrapping her in her arms and rocking her as she keened, her cries as wordlessly plaintive as the curlew’s on the shore.

Then Lady Helen took a step towards her husband’s body and Iain hung his head again, unable to look at her.

‘No.’ The word was spoken with a firmness that brooked no dissent. For a moment the only sound was the hush of the waves on the sand, as even the curlew fell silent.

All heads turned again towards her ladyship. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘There has already been enough loss. There will be no more. This was an accident, Iain. A tragic accident.’

‘But . . .’ he began.

‘No,’ she said again, silencing him. ‘There were two of you there to witness it, you and Flora. His gun misfired. We all understand that, don’t we?’ She looked around at the small crowd that had gathered, the members of the tight-knit crofting community who shared one another’s lives. The bruise on her cheekbone was a dark shadow against the whiteness of her skin. There was silence, then a few faint nods.

She reached down and held out a hand to Flora. ‘Come, my dear, get up off that cold ground. You’ve had a terrible shock. And in your condition you need to take extra care.’ Tenderly, gently, she pulled the shawl around Flora, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. ‘Let’s get you into my car. I’ll drive you home, Iain. Bridie, you come too.’

She drew herself up to her full height and looked round commandingly at the assembled company. Her voice, usually soft and slightly hesitant, was strong. ‘Mr Carmichael, Mr McTaggart, would you be so kind as to lead the pony back to Ardtuath House? And could someone tell Doctor Greig to come as soon as he can? Thank you. I shall be waiting.’





Lexie, 1979




It’s a bright, blustery late spring morning and Daisy and I are visiting the churchyard to inspect the stone with its simple lettering, which is now in its place on Mum’s grave. We’ve gathered a bunch of wildflowers from the hedgerows around Keeper’s Cottage – ox-eye daisies, red campion and meadowsweet – and tied it with a twist of wool from Mum’s sewing box. I think she’d like that. Daisy carries a separate little posy of her own. We set them beside the headstone, next to the one that bears the names of Mum’s father, mother and baby sister. I trace the incised letters, rubbing away a little of the lichen that has begun to encrust the older stone.

Daisy toddles around busily, picking tufts of bog cotton to add to our offerings. I sit on the mossy ground and watch her play, the sunlight setting her halo of rose-gold curls aglow. Among the sombre grey stones in the little churchyard, her vitality is a welcome reminder that life continues.

I extract a few of the daisies from my makeshift bouquet and put one on my grandfather Iain’s grave.

‘Thank you,’ I whisper. ‘She and I wouldn’t be here without you.’

Then I clamber to my feet and take Daisy by the hand to walk across to the Mackenzie-Grant memorial. The stone angel keeps its eyes lowered, praying for the souls of those it watches over.

‘And well you might,’ I tell it. ‘He was a bad ’un, Sir Charles Mackenzie-Grant, even if he was my grandfather.’

Then I take another ox-eye daisy and place it next to the inscription bearing my father’s name. Alexander Mackenzie-Grant, lost at sea. ‘I wish you’d lived,’ I whisper. ‘I wish I’d known you.’

Now that Mum’s stone is in place, his name and hers face each other across a sweep of windswept hillside above the silver loch that was their home. The place where they shared the happiest days of their lives. It’s not much, but at least it’s something. And I know their story will be kept safe here, among the community that nurtured them as it nurtures me and my child.

I remember Mum putting her flowers on this grave. I’d always assumed they were for Alec. But perhaps they were for Sir Charles as well. Perhaps they were her way of saying she forgave him. Iain and Sir Charles’s names face each other, too, I realise, just as the two fathers faced each other up there on the hill that day for a split second, before Iain fired the shot that saved my life before it had properly begun.

Daisy hums to herself as she continues to toddle between the stones of the graveyard, laying strands of purple vetch and heads of bog cotton on each one.

I wonder where Lady Helen’s memorial is – my grandmother. Mairi and Bridie have told me that she was killed at the very start of 1945, in the final months of the war. With the Allies in Europe by then, I suppose everyone assumed that London would be a safer place. But they hadn’t reckoned on the final desperate acts of retaliation by the Nazis, who had developed deadly V-2 rockets that could be fired into the heart of England’s capital from Germany, with devastating effects. On the morning of 3rd January, Lady Helen Mackenzie-Grant had just arrived to start work as a volunteer at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. She was one of those killed when a rocket struck the north-east wing of the building without warning.

As I trace my father’s name chiselled into the polished granite memorial, I think that Lady Helen’s name should be here as well, rather than – presumably – on a headstone in a lonely graveyard somewhere in London that no one ever visits. I vow that next time we come I’ll bring a proper posy to lay at the feet of the angel, in her memory. I wish I’d known her, too.