Sea of Memories (Page 29)
‘And Grandad?’
‘Oh yes, he carried on his work. I didn’t know what he was up to a lot of the time; it was too highly classified. He stayed on at Arisaig, but he’d come through to Edinburgh whenever he could and we’d meet up for tea dances at the North British Hotel. When I introduced him to my parents, of course they thought he was just marvellous too. We courted. We had fun. Life went on, despite the war. In some ways it was more concentrated, more intensely lived because of the risks and the threats that were always there in the background. I loved him very much. And not just because he’d saved my life. I loved him for the handsome, brave, funny man he was.’ She pats my hand. ‘And a jolly good thing it was too. Your mother and Robbie wouldn’t be here otherwise, nor you, nor Finn. A very good thing all round.’
I open the pages of the photo album on my lap, to their wedding photo. Ella turns to stroke the leaves of the lilies in the vase beside her. ‘I had these in my bouquet on that day too, see? Oh, how the scent takes me back . . .’
1945, Edinburgh
Angus and Ella were married in the church that her family had always attended, at Holy Corner, on a bright Saturday morning in late May, just a couple of weeks after VE Day. It still felt as if the whole country were celebrating, as if their wedding were part of the joy that continued to resonate around the world at Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. They emerged from the church into a cloud of confetti thrown by friends and family, which settled like wind-blown petals on the folds of Ella’s lace dress and veil.
In the car that was taking them to the wedding breakfast, she brushed a leaf of confetti from Angus’s khaki uniform and kissed him on the lips. He took her hand in his.
‘Alright, Mrs Dalrymple?’
‘Very alright.’ She smiled, giving his hand a squeeze.
‘You look so beautiful, my Ella. Thank you for making me the happiest man alive. The proudest one too.’
The car pulled up in front of the North British Hotel and he stepped out, then offered her his hand. There was a smattering of applause from the small group of passers-by who’d paused to enjoy the happy spectacle of a couple of newly-weds in the May sunshine.
She took his arm and the hotel doorman stood to attention as they crossed the threshold.
‘So, here we are again, Mr Brown. Little did you imagine on that day when you interviewed me that you’d end up saving my life and then marrying me,’ she teased him.
‘Actually, I did,’ he smiled down at her. ‘The marrying you bit, at least. I have to admit, it crossed my mind.’
‘Well that’s very impressive forward planning! But then that always has been one of your strengths.’
‘Ready?’ he asked her, inclining his head towards the Palm Court, where the wedding party awaited them.
‘Ready,’ she replied. And together they stepped into the room full of cheering friends.
They honeymooned at Arisaig, staying in one of the croft houses that was empty, temporarily, now that the commando training unit was being disbanded.
Those two weeks were some of the happiest days of Ella’s life. They walked along white-sand beaches with the sweeping backdrop of Hebridean islands; they took a boat out to explore quiet bays beneath Rum’s soaring peaks, watching stags roam across the hillside and eagles glide against a cerulean sky, sailing back with the setting sun behind them, accompanied once by a school of porpoises. Angus caught mackerel, which Ella cooked on the peat-fired range in the cottage, and they sat together, late into the evenings, talking and reading. And at night, they lay in each other’s arms, luxuriating in the miracle of a future filled with love and hope now that the war in Europe was over at last.
‘I think I’d like us to have two children,’ Ella whispered to him in the darkness, her head nestled into the perfect dip between his shoulder and his chest. ‘A boy and a girl.’
She felt him nod. ‘And they’ll both be as intelligent and as beautiful as their mother,’ he whispered back, turning to her again.
On the final day, they wandered down to the shore, stopping at the red postbox by the side of the road so that Ella could post the card she was sending to Caroline on the Île de Ré. It was a postcard showing the beach at Arisaig, and she’d scrawled on the back of it ‘On honeymoon! Here’s our new address . . . Hoping to hear from you soon. Much love, Ella (Dalrymple!)’
‘One of the best things about the war being over is having the post running properly again,’ Ella remarked. She’d written a long letter to Caroline on VE Day, and it had felt such a luxury to be able to tell her friend all her news from the past years and to feel confident that, this time, it would reach her, eventually, on the Île de Ré. She hadn’t had a reply yet, but maybe there would be a letter waiting for her when they got back to Edinburgh, and she hoped it would bring the good news that Marianne had returned to them and that the three Martets were together on the island; the news that the family could, at last, travel together to visit Christophe’s grave, so far away from the island on the other side of France, to lay flowers on it and to grieve there. She tried to shut out the doubts – the memory of Marianne’s face appearing to her when she’d been lost in the woods that night in France; the horrendous stories of what the Allies had found when they entered Poland and liberated the so-called work camps there. Surely gentle, beautiful Marianne could never have ended up in one of those terrible places?
Continuing down to the beach, Ella was lost in thought as they wandered along the shore-line, stepping over gleaming ribbons of kelp that had washed up here and there on the high tide.
Angus paused, stooping to pick something up. ‘Here you go. A memento of two perfect weeks.’ He placed a double white clamshell, still hinged in the centre, into her open palm.
‘Ella? Are you alright?’
She shook her head, smiling through the sudden tears, which she blinked away, letting the westerly wind dry them. ‘Sorry. It reminded me of something.’ She stroked the shell, turning it over to admire the perfect smoothness held within its curves. ‘Someone I once knew told me that these are called Neptune’s lockets.’
He examined her face minutely, reading the faint contraction of pain in her green eyes and the sadness that lay just beneath the surface of her smile as she remembered.
After a long moment’s silence, he cleared his throat. ‘Do you want to talk about him?’
She hesitated, torn. Then took his hand in hers. She was still holding the shell he’d given her in the other hand as they began to walk again. And as they walked, she told him about her first love, awakened on an island moored in a sea of light, where she’d discovered freedom and beauty and a whole new sense of what really mattered in this world.
When she’d finished, he turned to face her, still holding her hand in his. With the other, he drew back a wind-blown strand of her hair and gently kissed her forehead.
‘I see. I’m sorry. And now I understand it all a little better.’ He touched the shell which she still held. ‘So . . . Neptune’s locket.’
He put a finger under her chin, raising her face to his, and looked deep into her eyes, as though searching for a truth there.
‘Do you think there could be a space for me in the other half of it? Because that is what I want, Ella, more than anything. I don’t want to try to replace him – how could I compete, in any case, with the man who gave you the Mona Lisa?’ His eyes creased in a smile, then grew serious again. ‘But do you think, perhaps, that there can be room for me too in your heart? Alongside your memories of him?’
She stood on tiptoes and kissed his lips. ‘Of course, Angus. You’re there already.’
And yet, as they turned and walked back towards the little white cottage, she realised that as she’d spoken those words her gaze had dropped and then she’d looked away, to the south, towards an island that lay a thousand miles distant.
House-proud and anxious at the same time, Ella ran her duster over the mantelshelf, giving one last glance around the room to make sure everything was neat and tidy for her parents’ first formal visit to the apartment that Angus and she had moved into on their return to Edinburgh. Her father had helped them to buy it, a flat in Marchmont looking over the Meadows, and they’d spent the summer evenings once Angus returned from work renovating it, removing faded and peeling wallpaper and replacing it with a more modern print, and painting the stained old woodwork a bright white gloss. After months of work, it was now ready for her parents’ inspection and Ella was a little nervous, not sure whether they’d approve of the modern look they’d chosen.
But she had no such fears where Angus was concerned. Both her parents adored him, the son they’d never had. ‘And that’s without knowing that you saved my life!’ Ella laughed. They never talked about the details of what had happened to anyone. Ella knew that there were other things that Angus couldn’t discuss, even with her, and she accepted that it went with the territory. If anyone asked how they’d met, they simply said, ‘We worked together during the war.’
Angus was peeling potatoes in the kitchen. She kissed him on the cheek and he reached out a dripping hand and pulled her to him, caressing the slight roundness of her belly through her apron. ‘Is the sproglet going to behave itself for its grandparents’ visit do you think?’