Etive, p.1
Etive, page 1
Copyright © 2023 Ronald D Morgan
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, long-standing institutions, agencies, public offices and incidents portrayed in it, whilst at times based on historical figures, bodies and events, are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or localities is purely coincidental.
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To the brave men and women who gave their lives so that the rest of us could have our freedom and to those who returned but suffered so much with PTSD. War had changed their lives and those around them forever!
As Laurence Binyon, the English poet, wrote in his First World War poem, For the Fallen:
‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.’
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
One
The nightmare
Laura cried out, begging her. “I want to see my baby.” Through her tears, Laura could barely make out the blurred vision of the lady in her room, her matronly presence enforced by her staid sense of dress.
Laura was bereft. She felt her heart had been torn out. Her head pounded, her eyes swollen from the constant crying. The lady sitting on her bed stood, before walking to the table by the small window. She poured a glass of water from a ceramic jug, her back to Laura all the time. She kept talking to Laura, calmly but firmly, then returning to the bedside, she placed the water on the bedside cabinet.
Taking hold of Laura’s hand, she said softly, “I am sorry, I am so sorry, but it was for the best!” Then, without emotion, she dropped a bombshell, sharing the shattering news, “Your baby didn’t live.”
With that, Laura’s staring eyes were wide and wild with fear, disbelief and anger, before she screamed, “Nooooooooooo.”
Laura restlessly tossed and turned in her bed, her blonde curls, damp with perspiration, pressed against her forehead. “Noooooo,” she screamed, as if in great pain and with that, awoke startled and disorientated as she sat up in bed and was relieved to see she was in her own small room at the Scottish boutique hotel where she worked. Her heartbeat gradually slowed as she looked around at the comfortable, familiar room. She was alone; her breathing eased. “Thank God,” she said out loud, finally realising it was all just a nightmare.
Laura shuffled into the bathroom, splashing cold water onto her face, her tall frame bent to witness her stressed visage in the mirror, her blue eyes positively bloodshot as she reflected on the content of her very real terrors of the night.
Flashes of the unsettling dream came back to her. Laura could still see the lady, recalling she wore a mustard-coloured twin set of a matching jumper and cardigan, offset by a string of pearls, a brown tweed pencil skirt and brogues. She was probably in her mid-forties. Her short brown hair gave her a stern look and her manner was matter-of-fact, almost officious, a little like a headmistress.
Still rattled, she reflected on her dream. She searched the corners of her mind for any little morsel of information, but all she seemed to keep hearing was the mystery lady repeating softly, “Your baby didn’t live.”
Laura could not remember any more of the dream, no matter how hard she tried.
Showered and dressed, Laura headed downstairs to reception, but still her nocturnal picture show perturbed her. For some reason, she kept thinking about the lady in her room and especially her brown laced-up shoes, something from a bygone age which an older lady, perhaps a grandmother, may have worn.
“Good morning, Mrs Draper,” said Laura to a guest who was heading for the breakfast room. Laura settled behind her desk at reception, shuffled some papers and tried to put her disturbing night behind her.
Arisaig House was set in the West Highlands and could be reached by rail and road. Many used the road to the Highlands from Fort William at the end of the glens and headed for Mallaig, a ferry gateway to the Isle of Skye and the Western Isles.
Surrounded by ancient woodland and beautiful coastline with lots of scope for scenic walks and punctuated by idyllic beaches, Arisaig House had terraced gardens and a tennis court. Arisaig House was quite simply in a very tranquil and secluded spot.
Arisaig House and the area had a fabulous history which Laura was well aware of, as her job was also to help market and extol the virtues of this fine house, which had been refurbished to a high standard but sympathetically so.
History was all around. On 20th September 1746, following the failure of the 1745 Jacobite rising and the defeat at Culloden, Bonnie Prince Charlie left Scotland for the Isle of Skye and ultimately France from Borrodale Beach, sometimes referred to as ‘Prince’s Beach’, just below the house, which could be approached over boggy land. The cave in which the Prince took refuge on his last night in Scotland could be found within a stone’s throw of where Arisaig House was now. Just to the west, across the meadow at Borrodale House, which the English troops searched without finding him, the original home of the Macdonalds, who gave haven to Bonnie Prince Charlie, was razed to the ground in 1746, but its splendid, much bigger, replacement was still imposing and dated from the 19th century.
Over one hundred years later than the original Borrodale, in 1863, FDP Astley, a wealthy industrialist from the Midlands, commissioned Philip Webb, the ‘Father of the Arts and Crafts Movement’, to build a shooting lodge amid this spectacular West Highland scenery and to include terraced gardens, which gave birth to Arisaig House.
But it was the knowledge that during the Second World War, Arisaig House became the headquarters to the Special Operations Executive, who took over the area to run paramilitary training to prepare agents for missions in Occupied Europe, that was troubling Laura’s mind this morning and kept bringing her back to her dream, almost as if she had been transported back in time. Arisaig and its environs were a draw for many tourists, especially those with an interest in WWII, and a dwindling number of returnees who were once associated with Arisaig House and other houses and lodges like Garramor, Traigh House, Camusdarach Lodge in the area, having served here.
The remoteness and wild nature of the Lochaber peninsula and the neighbouring islands and many lochs no doubt brought it to the attention of the Special Operations Executive and the desire for training their operatives on tough terrain, with the benefits of its seclusion from prying eyes. It was soon closed off to all but military and authorised personnel and the few locals who lived in the area.
Laura had worked at Arisaig House for a few years now, following her university degree in hotel management and a few other jobs where she had gained experience. Laura tended to live in when she was working. The three-hour drive each way to her home in Comrie, where she still lived with her mother, Elise, was a bit too much, given the vagaries of the Scottish weather. It was springtime and the tourists would soon be descending on Scotland in their droves as Easter approached.
Not that it mattered for Arisaig House, as even though it was very expensive to stay here, it always managed to have a high occupancy rate all year round; a credit to the owners and Laura.
This somewhat understated property was in a glorious setting, and people liked the seclusion and comfort of Arisaig House. Not far down the road, the pretty village of Arisaig was a real tourist honey pot, sat on the shore of the sheltered Loch nan Ceall, not far from the port of Mallaig and gateway to the Isle of Skye, Inner Hebrides and other Western Isles, or going east, not far to the highest mountain in Scotland, Ben Nevis, and the litt
Arisaig’s collection of largely white-painted buildings dotted between the harbour and the line of the road to Morar was situated on an inlet on the Morar peninsula at the western end of the legendary ‘Road to the Isles’.
The rocky coast bordering cool blue seas and white sand all added to making the village a great base for exploring the incredibly scenic surrounding countryside. The views out to the islands of Rhum and Eigg were amazing, and the beautiful sunsets were a photographer’s dream.
Laura felt blessed but then contemplated it would not be long before the midges became a darn nuisance, but that was not what was bothering her; she could not help but feel her dream, whilst disconcerting, was related to her in some way. As if disturbed by a sixth sense, she was perturbed.
Whilst Laura was happy to be here and enjoyed her job, she yearned for a change. After all, she was approaching thirty years of age.
Due a weekend off, the next morning, Laura headed back to her home in Perthshire. She enjoyed her drive home and listened to a Celine Dion album, singing along to The Power of Love. As she came beside Loch Earn, she smiled to herself. Not long until she was home now in the little village of Comrie, a picturesque little village which sits in the middle of Glen Lednock and Glen Artney on the River Lednock. It was once famous for weaving and as a town used by drovers as a staging point to cross the river and utilise some refreshment and rest at the local hostelries, before driving their cattle and sheep onwards to market. Comrie is a combination of Gaelic words, meaning coming or running together. Its population is barely over 2,000 and it feels like everyone knows everyone and their business! Laura loved it!
Before long, Laura was entering through the door of her childhood home. Her mother came down the hallway to meet her, hands in yellow rubber gloves as she was doing a little spring-cleaning. After they had hugged each other, Laura dropped her holdall in the hall and they retired to the kitchen for the obligatory cup of tea.
“How is work?” enquired her mum.
Somewhat distant, Laura said, “Yes, fine. Busy, of course.”
“What’s bothering you, Laura?”
Laura looked at her mum without replying.
“I am your mam. I can tell something’s not right.”
Laura smiled knowingly. “It’s just a couple of nights ago, I had this dream.”
After Laura had explained what she could remember, her mother, head on one side, just said, “It’s just a bad dream, probably something you have read or seen on the television mixed up with lots of other images.”
Plaintively, Laura said, “It is more than that, Mam. It seemed very much like it really was me or something and someone very personal to me. Mam, it got me thinking. I never met my grandparents. What were they like?”
“Well, I never met your father’s parents, they had passed on, but my parents were very caring. They had me late in life and always seemed old to me. Don’t get me wrong. They did what they could for me and loved me, and I wish they could have met you.” Smiling, she sat with her hands wrapped around her teacup, exuding a love that invisibly enveloped Laura and comforted her.
“Where were they from?”
“From the Isle of Skye, where I was born, at Neist Point.”
“Why didn’t you have any brothers and sisters?” enquired Laura.
Turning her back on Laura, Elise boiled the kettle again. “Another tea?”
Laura nodded. “Yes, please.”
Sitting back at the table, Elise took her daughter’s hand. “I was adopted, Laura, way back in 1943. Things were tough back then, but my parents, Tam and Mary Macrae, were salt of the earth and took me in and gave me a wonderful life. They couldn’t have children, so for me, I guess I was a blessing and they doted on me.”
“That’s nice to hear how much they cared for you, Mam. I didn’t know you had been adopted, which makes their care and love even more special. I know they died before I was born so, after their departure, did you stay on the Isle of Skye?”
“After my parents passed, I did for a short while, staying with my dad’s sister, but soon I moved to the mainland and got a job in a house as a scullery maid here in Comrie.”
“Were you ever told who your biological parents were, Mam?”
“Alas, no. It is so long ago now, a lot of water has gone under the bridge.”
“Aren’t you curious to know if your real mam and dad might be alive?”
“Yes, I am, lassie, or I was, but why rake up the past and perhaps open old wounds?” said Elise with resignation and a sigh.
“Did my dad know you were adopted?”
“I do believe I shared that with him. Your father was such a good man, Laura.”
“I know, Mam, I miss him dreadfully. I cannot believe he is gone, taken so young. Where did you meet Dad?”
“Oh! I am not sure, maybe a ceilidh in Comrie one Christmas.”
“Was it love at first sight?” said Laura, raising her eyebrows and smiling.
Elise hesitated. “Shall we say your dad grew on me.”
“That’s not very romantic,” jibed Laura with a smile. “As you say, he was a good man.
“Do you mind if I make some enquiries about who your real mam and pa may have been?” said Laura, returning to her interest in her family ancestry.
“Feel free. I doubt if you will find anything out,” said Elise with a shrug.
“Do you still have any relatives anywhere?” said Laura, all excited.
“As far as I know, my pop’s sister is still alive, and last I heard still living in Glendale, a few miles inland from Neist Point, but I have lost touch with her over the years.”
“That’s great, Mam. Let me have her last address and next day off I have, I will drive onto Skye and try and find her.”
Elise nodded and, waving her hand dismissively, said, “Come on, go and unpack. I will make some lunch!” Elise began clearing the cups away.
Two
In search of a grandmother
A week later, Laura took the famous ‘Road to the Isles’ and caught the CalMac ferry from Mallaig for the short thirty-minute crossing to Armadale on the Isle of Skye. She had pondered driving further north to Kyle of Lochalsh and driving across to Skye via the bridge, but it was a lengthy detour and she didn’t want to waste time. She just wanted to relax and let the sea breeze blow through her hair and fill her lungs, full of excited trepidation for what she might find out in Glendale, assuming her great-aunt was still alive, or, if this sister to her Grandfather Tam was not around, if anyone else knew anything of Tam and Mary Macrae, her mother’s adoptive parents.
As close as Skye was to her place of work, this was only the second time Laura had been, and she had never been to her mother’s birthplace on the far west tip of the island. Laura anticipated it would take about seventy-five minutes to drive the winding road from Armadale where the CalMac ferry had docked. It was a cool and clear day, as spring comes a little later to these northerly latitudes of the British Isles, and she had a great view of the awesome Cuillins, the mountain range with peaks approaching 1,000 metres. The roads were quiet and she wished she had time to go walking in this area but comforted herself with the thought, Maybe another day.
Right now, her focus was on Janet Macrae, a spinster she had never met. Laura decided to take a break for a cup of tea and a snack in the large village of Dunvegan to gather her thoughts. Seeing the sign on the wall ‘Skye’s oldest bakery’, how could Laura not take advantage of this temptation? Even better, the Dunvegan Bakery had its own little café, which was old-fashioned and bijou but where the bakery goods were all freshly made. An older lady took Laura’s order. She couldn’t resist the carrot cake, which she justified as a treat and decided to forget her waistline. She needed the sugar rush, as she was full of trepidation. Would she indeed find her great-aunt? What might she discover? Lots of ‘what ifs’, and somehow that made her fatigued.
