Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Once back home, Beth dumped the shopping bags on the draining board and lit the stove. By now the water should be hot enough for a bath. She prepared herself a meal of ready-cooked chicken and salad and put some frozen chips in the oven to cook. While she waited, she wandered through to her father's bedroom and stripped off his bedding. After making up the bed, she sat in front of the dressing-table for a few minutes rest.

Lifting her head, she caught her reflection in the mirror and imagined her child-face staring back at her. She had loved sitting here surrounded by her mother's things. Her perfume, her lipstick and rouge, her soft-smelling face powder in the box with the pretty lid.

'Mother of pearl,' Veronica told her, allowing the child to run her fingers over it. 'It'll be yours one day.' And she picked up her hairbrush. 'Let's brush each other's hair.'

The pleasant memory faded. Beth rubbed her eyes and rose to her feet.

Downstairs, she ate her meal, took a bath and dressed in her nightclothes. A glass of wine and the heat from the stove made her drowsy, the wind outside brought back fluttering wings of memory. In an effort to keep them at bay, she rubbed her hands together, lifted her guitar and began to strum. Her fingers were no longer as supple as they needed to be for professional playing. Andy was right to persuade her to buy the club. She began to sing, something she only did when she was alone. She chose a song she wrote years ago, the song which took her into the charts.

I wish I could go back to what I used to be

A simple little girl, so innocent and free

Somewhere along life's path, much has been lost and little gained

Somewhere along life's path, it has rained.

Frustrated by a voice that could no longer hit the high notes, she set her guitar aside, wiped her cheeks and poured another drink, emptying the bottle. Why did she keep trying to sing? Did she really think one day a miracle would happen?

Back in her other existence, singing was her world, filling up the empty places. And it wasn't just the songs; she revelled in the adoration of her fans and the applause that electrified her. She loved the life, the money, the parties, aah, the parties. And Lewis. Rat that he turned out to be. He swept her off her feet with his promises, his suave good looks, his flashy cars, his elaborate lifestyle, his guarantees of fame and fortune. He made her over and turned her into a star and she forgot her promise to Andy and Desmond to find them a job in the industry once she had her foot on the ladder. When she overtook Leo Sayer in the charts, it filled her with a false sense of her own importance. And then, one morning it hurt to swallow. The doctor warned her of the dangers of straining her vocal cords. He told her to cancel her next concert, her next tour, to stop smoking, and she ignored him, forcing the songs from her heart even when the very notes which gave her life caused shooting pains from ear to ear. Eventually she was diagnosed with polyps on her vocal chords. They coarsened her voice making it less than perfect. Encouraged by pressure from Lewis, she agreed to have the offending growths removed.

Hammond had a friend, a surgeon who, he said, once owned a practice in Harley Street, and she trusted his choice. But the knife did more harm than good. The damage was irreversible. She soon realised it had all been smoke and mirrors, none of it was real. She was a voice, not a person at all. As her fickle fans found another idol, Hammond dropped her for a new protégé, and Beth the pop star disappeared. When she caught him in bed with his latest conquest and he laughed at her hurt, she took solace in alcohol and drugs that filled the void as her dream faded.

One night, alone and drunk, nursing the feeling she had nothing left to live for, she called Andy.

'It's Beth,' she slurred, when he answered. There was a long silence.

'I understand you won't want to talk to me.' She hung up and started to cry in earnest. She lost everything, everyone. For a long time she stared at the bottle of sleeping tablets on her bedside cabinet. Then her thoughts turned to Berriedale and her father. If he'd only installed a telephone. But she could call the local hotel, they would get a message to him. She reached out her hand and as she did so, the telephone rang.

'Hello.' She pressed the receiver to her ear.

'Beth, where are you?'

'Andy... Andy I'm so sorry... you were right... I shouldn't have gone...' Her voice failed her and she dissolved into a new fit of weeping.

'Tell me where you are and I'll come and get you,' he said.

Gratitude overwhelmed her. Gratitude which still bound her to him after all this time.

The first night he took her home to his one-bedroom flat in Haymarket, he treated her as if she was made of glass. He gave her his bed and made up the sofa for himself. At the time he was working as a manager for a hardware store and singing in a dingy bar room at the weekends. He had had a lady friend, he told her, but that had recently ended.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll soon have you back to normal. Lots of sleep and good food. I eat most nights at the café on the corner. Mario makes the best pasta dishes outside Italy! Your voice’ll soon come back, you’ll see.’

‘It won’t,’ she said. But he ignored her, and gradually lost patience with her despondency.

A few weeks later, when he came home to find her still in her dressing gown, he heaved open the curtains and uttered a snort of disgust. ‘It’s about time you got yourself out of this state,’ he said. ‘I can’t go on keeping you for nothing. I promised the lads you’d come with us on Saturday night. And no more of this.’ He snatched the cigarette out of her hand and threw it into the bin.  ‘They don’t do your voice any good.’

‘I told you, I can’t sing.’ Wounded by his harsh words, she rose and pushed her fingers through her tangle of hair.

‘Won’t sing, you mean. It’s all in the mind, Beth.’

‘If that’s the only reason you took me back, I wish I’d stayed away.’

‘I’m beginning to wish that too.’ He stormed out of the flat slamming the door, and she didn’t see him for several days. When he did come back he was sheepish. ‘Look Beth, I told one of my friends about you. She thinks you should talk to someone, a professional.’

‘You spoke about me to a stranger?’ She couldn’t believe this.

He ran his hand over his head. ‘There’s the drinking too. And the nightmares.’

‘What drinking? I’ve never touched a drop since I’ve been here. And I’ve always had nightmares when I’m stressed, and you telling me I can sing if I try is stressing me no end.’

‘Come off it. It’s only a matter of time before you fall off the wagon and you haven’t had a decent fucking night’s sleep since you came back. And neither have I. Look, I’ve managed to get an appointment with a therapist. Not cheap, but it’ll be worth it to see you back to what you were.’

‘For God’s sake, will you listen. My vocal chords are damaged. My voice is weak. It’s not going to happen.’ She stormed into the bedroom, pulled her holdall from under the bed and started throwing her clothes into it.

‘What are you doing?’ shouted Andy, grabbing her arm.

‘You’re like all the rest. You just want me to make money for you. Well, get this through your thick skull, the golden goose is laying no more eggs!’ She jerked away from him.

His voice lowered. ‘Aw, come on. I didn’t mean it like that. Where are you going to go? Look, I won’t pressure you anymore, honest. Just see this doctor, what harm can it do?’

She suddenly felt the strength drain from her legs and she sank down onto the bed. It was true she had nowhere to go, and she did need help. Her life had become a mess. ‘And you’ll stop going on about me singing?’

His hand made a crossing motion on his chest, but his eyes remained unconvinced.

Doctor Madelaine, as she called herself, did help her. She even helped to convince Andy that Beth’s loss of voice was physical. But, as the layers of her past began to peel away, the nightmares became worse. It was then he decided the therapy was a waste of money.

She had been happy enough to leave, although it was against the advice of Doctor Madelaine. There was a door in her mind that she was scared to open, and without Andy’s support, she could not go there.

Finally accepting that her voice loss was permanent, Andy came up with the idea of the club and she welcomed it. It gave her the opportunity to surround herself with the life she was no longer part of.

She continued to write songs for a while, but unable to find a market for her stuff, she turned to poetry, deep meaningful lines into which she poured her heart and soul.

Lost in the past, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be comforted by the settling of the fire, the whistle of the wind outside and the faded music in her head.

Suddenly the eagle sat before her, his great wings folded against his sides, his eyes yellow. He did not speak, at least in the way Beth knew, with voices that splintered the air. His voice was the voice of the wind, the voice of the river running through the glen fast and furious with the swell of spring and melting snow.

'I am your friend,' he said. But she knew he lied. She knew he had come to seek revenge. He moved closer and the face filled her vision, the scent of the mountains filled her nostrils, and she heard the beat of his heart matching her own. The hooked beak brushed her shoulder. She closed her eyes waiting for the slash to her throat. It never came.

And then he had gone. She watched him spread his wings and rise into the sky, higher and higher, and the terror filling her heart slipped away. The wind was cold on her cheeks and she shivered, the loneliness of her early life closing in on her. 'Mammy,' she cried.

She woke with a start. The curtains, flapping like the wings of a bird, reached towards her. The rising wind filled the room. The window was swinging open. She rose and pressed it closed against the determined gale. Immediately behind her something crashed. She spun around, eyes flying first to the floor where a ceramic lady that had once belonged to her father's grandmother, lay shattered on the lino. Then her eyes swept up to the sideboard. A large, grey cat stood there its back arched, its ears flattened, its slitted eyes hard and yellow. Her body went soft as relief soaked through her.

'Puss,' she cried, holding out her hand. The cat lifted its round head, lowered its back, yet still eyed her suspiciously. Finally, as if deciding she could be trusted, it purred and meowed. She walked forward and he butted the offered hand.

'Sorry, puss,' she said. 'I've no cat food. But I think I've some chicken left over.'

The cat fell on the chicken as if it hadn't eaten for days. When she finally lowered herself onto the settee there was a sense of comfort at the warm body pressing itself against her leg, paws kneading her thigh, a contented rumble in the animal's throat. They had always owned cats when she was a child, and dogs. She had wanted a pet, but Andy was allergic to cats, and, living in a flat with busy working lives, it would have been unfair on a dog.

The window swung open again. The curtains streamed towards her. The cat arched its back and growled. Beth rose quickly, checked the latch, closed the window and checked the latch again. It seemed secure enough. A chill ran the length of her spine. She thought of James. She would go and see him tomorrow, see if he knew any joiners in the area; if she got locks fitted, that would do it, she thought.

As if compelled, she reached for her pad and pencil and started a new poem. 'To an Eagle.'

In dreams,

Gliding, poised,

Muscles straining,

Feathers unruffled against the wind,

Head angled.

Below, where grass shivers,

Scurrying innocence

Is marked for extinction.

Caught in the evil of your eye.

She reread it, drew a single line through it and started again. Once she was as happy with her words as she could be, she felt calm enough to search for sleep.

She woke early after a restless night and padded into the kitchen, checking the windows as she went. All were secure. Taking her coffee cup with her, she walked out into the early morning. The sun was soft, bright and low. The river dashed in ropes of white and pewter through the glen, between trees splendid in their autumnal colours. In the months of spring these hills would become a riot of yellow where the broom spread over the mountain. On a morning like this, it was hard to imagine the lashing storms of winter.

'I'll be away this afternoon,' she told the cat. ‘But I'll be back in time for tea.' She bent down and scratched behind one battle-scarred ear and tried not to think of windows that opened of their own accord in the night.

She found James standing at his front door looking down the glen. He was unshaven, slightly heavy eyes, and wore a cable jumper the colour of sheep’s wool. In the glen, the haar, a soft white blanket of mist that had crept landward during the hours of darkness, had not yet fully cleared. He glanced up as she approached. 'I never tire of the scenery round here,' he said. 'Every season a different picture. Come in, come in.' He led her into a large, littered kitchen with an iron range against the far wall, the furniture stately and old, reminiscent of another era.

James cleared away a pile of books from a chair. 'Sit down. Coffee? I was just going to make my first cup of the day.' Lifting a cafetière from the draining board, he rinsed it under the tap.

'Yes please,' she said.

'So what brings you here? Not that you're not welcome at any time.' He was looking at her over his shoulder as he spoke.

'I need to buy a car. Something reasonable. I wondered if you knew of anything?'

He set the cafetière down and crossed to his laptop on the table. There was a ping of Microsoft Windows loading. 'I'll have a look on Caithness.org. We might pick up something. Here,' he turned the screen to face her. 'Browse that lot while I get the coffee.'

She chose a couple of private sales that sounded promising.

'I'll take you there this afternoon. Milk and sugar?'

'Just milk. No need to take me. I can bus it,' she said.

'I insist.'

'And the catch on the living room window needs fixing. I wondered ...'

'I can look at that for you too.'

'I didn't mean... I wondered if you knew a handyman.' She shrugged.

'Right here.' He pointed to his chest.

'That's good of you. I'll pay of course.'

'Not at all. Just have dinner with me, okay?' He lifted his eyebrows.

'Sure. I'll even make it. I'm a fair cook if I need to be.' Why did she say that? With her cooking skills, he'd be lucky to get beans on toast.

'I'll look forward to it.' James' smile was wide and lit up his face. A smile she could trust. And she realised she was smiling too.

She turned her coffee cup around, serious now. 'James,' she began, 'when we were children, what do you remember about my family?'

'Not a lot. I remember you in school, that's about it.'

'There are things I need to know, things no one told me.'

'What things?'

'I don't remember much before my mother left. But there were photos in the house, photos I'd never seen before. A boy I don't know. I think I may have had a brother, maybe he died when I was young, but I've no memory of him.'

James shrugged. 'I don't remember you having a brother. We could ask my mother about your family. She lives in Lybster. We'll drop in when I take you to see the cars. Mind you, she's a bit forgetful now, tends to ramble on sometimes.'

Beth finished her coffee, rose and walked to the window. A roe deer stood in the garden outside and, without fear, he continued chewing and studied the face behind the glass. 'Bambi,' she said beneath her breath. She had forgotten the deer.

James came up behind her. 'He comes most days. I sometimes get red deer, and rabbits, lots of rabbits and hares. They seem almost tame, as if they know I wouldn't hurt them.'

For a long moment they stood like that, in silence, until, as if alerted by an invisible predator, the deer started and sprung away, leaving the garden empty. Beth's eyes flicked to her father's cottage nestled in the folds of the opposite hill.

'I'd love to meet your mother,' she said, turning back towards the room.

Nettie Anderson lived in a small bungalow, just off the main street in Lybster village. She was a round, warm woman who gave Beth a welcome that made her wish she could stay there forever. Shuffling rather than walking, she led them into a bright chintzy living room and served them tea poured from a china teapot into china cups with saucers. She brought out a matching plate of shortbread and chocolate biscuits. 'If James had told me sooner that you were coming, I'd have done a baking,' she said, eyeing Beth and frowning. 'You're awful pale and thin. Eat up now.'

'Mother, don't get personal,' said James.

Beth's slimness was a source of pride to her when so many women her age found it difficult to shift the extra pounds. 'It's fine,' she said to James, then looked at Nettie. 'This is lovely, thank you.' She couldn't remember when she'd last drunk tea from a china cup and she thought it tasted better somehow.

'James said you wanted to ask me some things. You'll have to speak clear though. Folk nowadays either shout or mumble.' She adjusted her hearing aid and it made a screeching noise. She grimaced and pulled it out. 'Just talk clear, I'm no deaf.'

Beth caught James' eye and he smiled indulgently.

She leaned forward and cleared her throat. 'Do you remember my family?'

'I mind Robbie MacLean. Quiet lad. He was called up when the war started. I mind seeing him in his uniform before he left. I was just a bairn at the time, no more than nine or ten. What a bonnie looking young man he was. His hair was red, like yours. All gone now I expect.'

'And later, after the war, do you remember my mother?'

'He didn't come back here after the war. They settled somewhere else for a while. They came back'... She stared at the far wall, 'about '53 or '54. Ach, My memory's no what it was.' She smiled, her eyes distant, lost in the past. 'I was aye good at figures. Top o' my class at school. But we never had the chances then they have nowadays. Could have gone further, you ken. Gone to university, my teacher said. But I had to leave school, gut the herring for very little pay. There were twelve of us. I was the youngest, the only one alive now. It was a hard life back then, but good, can't say it wasn't good.' She stopped, a smile tugged her lips. 'I married well.' She looked at James. 'He came here as a young man. All the lassies were after the new doctor, I swear, there was more illness all of a sudden than there ever was before! You look so like him, son. Many a time...'

'What about Beth's mother?' said James, bringing her back.

'Oh, aye, well, like I was saying, she was a right bonny lassie, your mam. You've a good look of her, except for your hair. I saw her in the shop sometimes. She kept you lovely, like a wee doll with your golden curls. Never saw you again once she left. Gladys Mitchell, that was your schoolteacher, she tried to take an interest, spoke to your dad, but he told her to mind her own business. They said he went clean to pieces after your ma left, let himself go right downhill. There was many that would have helped him, especially with the bairn, but he didn't want it. But he doted on you, though, I'm sure he did.'

Beth never felt doted on. She wet her lips. 'Do you ever remember a boy living in my house?'

Nettie shook her head. 'When your mam and dad moved here they only had the one bairn. That would be you.'

'So I was born somewhere else?' She stopped for a moment while she digested this. 'Have you any idea where we lived before?'

'I don't know, love. I'm sorry I can't help you more, but I hardly knew your family. Your granddad died and your dad came back to run the croft, I heard. We lived in Dunbeath by then. Your mam was from the city and I heard them say that she'd never really settled in the country.'

'Who would know? Is there anyone who was a friend or neighbour?'

'They were a quiet couple, kept themselves to themselves. No one knew much about them. Didn't want anyone to know.' She lifted her hand. 'Wait, she sang in a band. A Scottish dance band, just for a couple of months before she left. They said she left with the drummer. Oh, I'm sorry...' She put her hand over her mouth.

'No, no, go on. She... she sang? Are any members of the band still around?'

Nettie shook her head and gave a little laugh. 'Och no, for they were all a good bit older than her. The drummer, he was a younger man, came from the south. Never heard her myself, but they say she was very good.'

'What about the teacher, Gladys Mitchell?'

'Ach, sorry, lass, Gladys passed on last summer.' She set her hand on Beth's. 'I wish I could help you more. But come back and see me, I'll bake next time.'

'Aye, I'll do that,' said Beth, her face relaxing into a smile.

'Thanks, Mother,' said James. 'But we'll have to go. We're going to John O' Groats to look at a couple of cars. Don't get up, we'll see ourselves out.'

'I hope your dad gets better.' Nettie looked up at Beth. 'And do come back.'

Beth thanked the old woman again as they headed for the door, her mind already racing. All her life she ignored the need to find out about her past, never had the time anyway, why should she let it bother her now? Andy's voice came back to her.

'You don't need your family. What have they ever done for you? I'm here now, I love you and I'll never leave you.' 

Maybe he was right. She managed to deny any curiosity she might have had for most of her life, even gave up on therapy when the questions hit a nerve, and threatened to remove the ability to banish all thoughts from her mind. Some places were too painful to visit.

Andy never gave up on her, did he? Even after she fell hopelessly, madly in love with Lewis Hammond, so much so she would have done anything he asked of her and almost did. She believed he felt the same way about her until she caught him in bed with another up and coming starlet. That was the night she tottered on stage the worse of alcohol. Her voice was not only weak and hoarse from the operation, but slurred, the audience weaving before her eyes. She shuddered at the memory. There was no clapping that night, only jeers and boos. She had gone to her dressing room and trashed it.

'You okay?' James brought her back to the present. 'You were miles away.' He opened the passenger door for her.

'Yes, I'm fine. Someone walked over my grave.' She forced a little laugh, and wiped an unexpected tear from her eye.

John O'Groats had changed since she'd last been here. Chalets filled the field behind a shopping precinct, which appeared to have sprung up, flourished and died during her absence. The hotel where her father had once taken her for high tea was under renovation.

'Everything changes,' she said, as she stood on the shore looking over the firth towards the islands to the north, shivering under the onslaught of a northerly breeze. 'Come on,' she said, 'I'll treat you to a coffee, then we'll go buy a car.'

The car she chose, a small Punto, was in good condition and within her price range. She shook the seller's hand and wrote out a cheque, surprised that he let her take the Punto then and there, not waiting for the cheque to clear as would have happened in the city.

'I need to get some shopping on the way home,' she told James. 'I'll see you at seven for dinner.'

He saluted. 'I'll look forward to it.'

She stopped by the supermarket on the outskirts of Wick and picked up place mats, napkins, a set of plain wine glasses and a meal for two, easy to cook. With extra vegetables and another bottle of wine, who would tell the difference, she reasoned.

By the time she reached home, the sun was beginning its downward arc towards the west. Rays hit the windscreens of cars, a chain of sparkling diamonds tumbling down the opposite hillside.

Indoors she shivered. The old stone walls seemed to retain the cold in spite of the mild day. The feeling that the hand of fate was winding her in, bringing her back full circle persisted, and the promise she made to her father cemented the trap. Her main fear was that after life in the city, Berriedale would be unbearably lonely and bleak in the winter. Perhaps they could sell this place, get somewhere nearer town, but given the number of for-sale signs she had seen on the way north, she doubted if that would be possible any time soon. Then there was Andy. She knew what his reaction to her decision would be.

Forget your father. He never cared for you. I'm the one who has always been here.

A finger of guilt stabbed her, yet strangely enough, she felt a sense of relief to have a valid reason not to stay in Edinburgh. What was the matter with her? They'd made a good living over the years, and she was good at her job. The club had been her dream too, hadn't it? Suddenly she wasn't sure. It had been all too easy to let Andy make the decisions, to convince her that he knew what was best for her, to somehow repay him for the wrongs of the past. Yet being here, in this place, the place she once saw as a prison, she felt a sense of freedom that she had not experienced in a long time.

She pulled the Formica-topped table from the kitchen and set it up in the living room. Covered by a tablecloth and the place-mats, with a candle in the middle, it looked pretty good. After following the instructions on the packaging of the meal for two and putting it in the oven, she had time to tie her hair up and change her jeans and loose jumper for a slim-line skirt and pale green blouse. She used the straighteners on her springing hair and with a trembling hand, she applied some foundation and a slight touch of blusher. She never went in for heavy make-up.

James arrived promptly at seven carrying a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers. He was dressed in a tweed jacket, grey flannels and an open-necked shirt, and her heart gave a slight jump when she saw him. Smiling a welcome, she led him indoors. She went to the kitchen to get a bottle of wine and when she returned he was reading the poem she had inadvertently left on the sideboard. He looked up as she entered. 'This is damn good,' he said.

'I have more editing to do,' she reached forward and snatched it from his hand.

'You wrote it? Have you any more?'

She swallowed. 'Yes. I love poetry. I used to write songs, but they fell from favour. The first couple of recordings I made were my own. After that they made me sing stuff I didn't even like because it was 'a popular style'. Anyway, I find I can say much more with free verse.' She stopped, afraid of getting carried away by her own enthusiasm.

'Is that why you gave up singing?'

'No!' Her reply was sharp.

A look of concern crossed his face. Then as if he realised he'd hit a nerve, he changed the subject. 'I read a lot of poets, old and contemporary. And, believe me, this is good.' He indicated the page now lying beside her plate. 'Have you ever thought of having them published?'

'They're very personal, but,' she lowered her eyes, debating whether to confide, then, coming to a decision, said, 'I do have them published, but not under my own name. Now come on, the food's near ready.' Andy merely tolerated her passion for poetry, seeing it as a harmless pastime. She never told him about the publishing. He would not have understood. The payments were poor.

'What name? Maybe I've heard of you.'

She hesitated, then thought, what the hell. 'Clara Spears.' She cleared her throat.

'No! Really? God, you've only been hailed as the UK's answer to Sylvia Plath.'

Beth felt the heat climb into her face. ‘I wanted to be published because of my talent, not because I was well-known. That’s why I originally used an pseudonym. Now I like it this way. I don't want people to know who I am.' She grinned. 'You may feel honoured.'

James drew a finger across his lips in a gesture of silence. 'But one thing I've been wondering...'

She looked at him.

'Why don't you sing any more?'

'It's no secret. I had polyps on my vocal chords. I opted for an operation, which the surgeon botched. It was in all the papers at the time.'

'I would have been overseas then. But medicine has moved on, maybe nowadays...'

'No! I've learned to live with it.'

She lifted her fork and began to eat. No, she would not risk further operations, further disappointments. 'Which poets do you read?' She changed the direction of the conversation.

He smiled, leaned towards her and said,

'Tis time the heart should be unmoved,

         Since others it hath ceased to move:

         Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

         Still let me love!

She laughed and replied,

         'My days are in the yellow leaf;

         The flowers and fruits of love are gone;

         The worm, the canker, and the grief

         Are mine alone!'

'You like Byron?' he asked.

'Very much. Contemporary poems are fine, but they can't compare. Actually, my favourite will always be Robert Burns. Mind you, I hardly understand a lot of the words in the old Scots now. It's a pity our language is dying.'

Throughout the meal, they discussed poetry and the poets they liked, finding that their tastes in literature were remarkably similar.

Setting his fork and knife to one side, James complimented her on the meal. She smiled, neither confirming nor denying the fact that she had not cooked it herself. 'It's only a steak pie,' she murmured, lowering her gaze.

A brief memory crossed her mind. A memory of a time when a neighbour brought herself and her father a casserole dish of stewed beef and it had been so good that she'd eaten most of it herself. Knowing that the neighbour would ask Robbie later how he enjoyed the stew, Beth opened a tin of dog food and mixed it in with the remaining gravy. She watched, as he tasted it, watched his face screw up slightly, watched him nod, watched him finish the plateful.

'Maybe not her best effort,' he said, pushing the empty dish aside.

Beth was still grinning at the memory as she returned from taking the plates to the kitchen.

'I'm sorry my mother wasn't much help.' James refilled her glass.

'At least I found out I wasn't born around here.' She sipped her wine slowly. The first glass had made her mellow and she suddenly wished she had the means to play some background music.

'Did your parents never speak about themselves?' James said.

She shook her head. 'I asked my father once how they met.' She paused, remembering the flush of pleasure to have his attention. 'He'd had a good day at the lamb sales and a few drams before he came home, just enough to relax him.' She laughed at the memory. 'He came in, tripped over the dog, and ended up in the corner. He was all hunched up, looking at me, all guilty, as if he was a little boy and I was the mother.' She giggled. 'It was funny and we both ended up laughing. He didn't drink much.' Her voice trailed away and she became solemn. 'Now and again, when he was in the mood, I managed to get some information from him, but talking about my mother always seemed painful, even after all that time.' She fingered the stem of her glass and stared at the wall, as if she could see her life being played out there.

'They met in Bradford. They were both in the forces. He was demobbed, shrapnel in the hip. He walked with a limp after that. He never spoke about the war, but he had times when he would go into a mood for days.' Beth stopped and stared into the remains of the wine in her glass. 'I never wanted children. Was afraid. Afraid I wouldn't be able to cope and leave like my mother, or maybe... become disinterested like my father.'

'And you never married?'

She shook her head. 'Andy wanted to marry me and I even thought I loved him once, well, as much as I could love anyone, I guess. Maybe it was just gratitude. He took charge of the club, so I didn’t have to worry, he said. What about you?'

'Been married twice. Didn't work out either time.'

'Children?'

‘Two by my second wife. Boy and a girl. She took them away. They're grown up now. They keep in touch, but we're not close.'

'I'm sorry.'

'She met a guy from the States when the U.S. naval base was in Forss, up Thurso end, early warning systems in case someone in the Soviet Union got itchy fingers. I was doing my first stint in Africa. When the Russian threat was removed and the Americans went home, she left with him. Took the kids. I couldn't really blame her, me leaving her alone for so long, must have been hard. I went to Colorado to see the children once, but it was awkward. They look on their stepfather as their real dad.’

‘I vaguely remember the base. Do you keep in touch with your kids?’

‘Yes, but only via Facebook. Beth, why have you left it till now to find out about your past?'

'I always meant to try one day, but life was pretty hectic. There just wasn't the time.' She could not admit she was scared she'd be rejected again. She didn't want to face the fact that Andy's words fuelled her fear. 'My father's illness has forced me to realise that if I don't do it soon, I'll die without ever knowing the truth.' She turned to face James. 'Seeing him lying there. I thought... what if the same thing happens to me... and I'm lying trapped inside my mind never knowing. I'm so glad you traced me.' She laughed, embarrassed at her uncharacteristic openness. 'I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I hardly know you.'

'That's the best way, isn't it?'

'No, I should stop. Andy's always said it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.'

'I don't think you should. God willing, we'll have another twenty, thirty years of active life ahead of us. After all, sixty's the new forty.' He was watching her, his eyes kind. 'But you've got to lay the ghosts.'

Beth stared into the ruby depths of her wine. 'There was one time that sticks in my mind.'

'Go on.'

'It was summer, but Dad made me wear wellington boots. I hadn't wanted to put them on at first. I can still hear my father's words. "We're going through deep heather and you might disturb an adder," I remember him standing there, all brown and healthy looking. He was lean, he was always very lean. He was a handsome man. After that I didn't complain. I didn't relish being bitten by a snake.' A little smile played around her mouth. She cleared her throat. 'And then I saw an eagle in the distance. I remember clinging to Dad’s leg. I was afraid even then.

''Damn birds,'' Dad swore. ''Vermin, that's what they are. Killing all the game. How is the estate going to make money if there's no game left for the hunters?''

I started to cry and he picked me up. ''He might think you're a wee lamb and steal you away. I couldn't stand it if I lost you too.'' And he hugged me. I remember it especially because right then, I felt he would keep me safe.'

James reached over and covered her hand with his.

She enjoyed the feel of his skin next to hers. 'Maybe that's why I've always been afraid of eagles,' she said.

'You're afraid of eagles? How afraid?'

'Very. A phobia. All big birds in fact.'

'In that case, I think it would be something much more dramatic.'

James squeezed her hand, his eyes never leaving her face.

For a brief moment she wondered how he would react if she asked him to stay the night. Twenty years ago, he would have asked her already, she reflected, amused at her own thoughts. How long had it been since a man affected her like this? A brief memory of Lewis Hammond and how their affair almost destroyed her, rose unbidden. Just as quickly, she banished it back into the folder in her head filed under "mistakes best forgotten." Suddenly uneasy, she withdrew her hand from his and glanced at the clock. 'I'll need to get to bed soon. I'm going to drive to Inverness tomorrow and I want an early start.'

'You're not sending me away already? I haven't unburdened my soul yet.' He lifted his brows as if in a question.

'Okay, another...,' she checked the last bottle of wine. It was half-full. 'Another drink, then you really have to go.'

His long fingers played with the stem of his glass. 'Didn't you ever want to find your mother?'

'For years I dreamed I'd bump into her in the street and we’d immediately recognise each other. But all my childhood, she could've come back if she'd wanted me.' Her voice took on a raw edge. 'I tried to blot it out, tried to pretend I had no family. That I needed no one.'

‘Maybe she tried to get in touch when she sorted her life. How would she know where you lived after you left? You told me your father didn't even know.'

'I suppose you're right.' She stared at his hand, at the fingers on the stem of his glass, the short clean nails, imagined them on her skin, and immediately lifted her eyes. 'But he knew later, when I sent him my address. He didn’t reply, not once!’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘It's too late for regrets. It's doubtful if she's still alive.' But his words had the effect of cracking a shell, allowing some of the raw emotion to leak out. With all the effort she possessed, she closed that shell and sealed the edges. What was the matter with her? She was talking too much. Wanting too much. She drained her glass and looked at the clock.

'I've enjoyed myself tonight,' James said, standing up. 'Look, if the weather stays fine, how about you and I taking a hike up to Eagle Rock some day?'

'No!' the word exploded before she could stop it. 'No, I can't.'

He looked confused. 'I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?'

'No, it's just, well, I told you about me and birds.'

'I doubt if they'll come near us. It's just the name of a place. It's where the Duke of Kent’s plane crashed in WW2.'

'I know.' How could she tell him even the word 'eagle' filled her with an irrational fear? 'But you're right. I'm being silly.' She suddenly couldn't wait to get him out of the door, get it shut and bolted.

'Then we'll go?' He looked concerned.

'Yes, we'll do that.' She spoke without any intentions of going up a mountain and definitely not to a place called Eagle Rock. Tomorrow would be another day. Another excuse.

'And you'll come to my place next time? I make a mean curry.' He bent down and kissed her cheek and the warmth of his lips lingered. 'And I want to read more of your poems.'

'Yes, I'll do that.' She moved away, trying not to meet his eyes. 'Goodnight.'

She closed the door and hugged herself, simultaneously missing his presence and glad to be alone. She had almost opened up to him tonight. Draining what was left of the wine she leaned back in the chair. She would never find sleep now. Once more her thoughts moved to her father.

Looking back from her adult eyes, she realised how difficult it must have been for him. She, as a moody, sulky child, hadn't been easy. Then she hit her teens and was filled with angst and anger. If only he had spoken to her more, they might have been close. How could she have understood his reasons, his rage? How could she have made things different?

Her mind carried her back to the day she discovered both the seed of rebellion which had been germinating in her soul, and her love of singing.

Chapter Four

It had been early spring, 1973 and Andy McRae was trying to earn enough money to stay another year at university. His father died the year before and his mother was finding life hard. True he had the grant, but Edinburgh was expensive, especially so for students from the Western Isles who couldn't pop home easily at the weekends. He had been busking at the entrance to Waverley Station and doing fairly well, but tonight there was a young girl sitting in his spot strumming a cheap acoustic guitar which was slightly out of tune.

His first reaction was anger. This was a good spot and it was his. He was about to ask her to move on when she began to sing. Her voice was soft and slightly husky and unbelievably beautiful. She didn't see him. Her head was lowered. Her straggly reddish hair hung around her face, a woollen hat pulled down covering her ears and eyebrows. She wore jeans, wide round the bottoms and a parka over a loose shirt, a string of coloured beads around her neck. He stood there until the song finished, totally captivated. Later he would tell her he fell in love with her the moment she lifted her head and he became aware of a pair of grey-green eyes which held a wealth of sadness.

He wanted to say, 'Excuse me, you're in my pitch,' instead, the words, 'Your guitar needs tuning,' fell from his mouth.

'I know that. But I don't have a tuning fork with me,' she replied.

He sat beside her, opened his guitar-case and withdrew the fork, holding out his hand for her instrument. Wordlessly she handed it to him. Once he finished, she nodded a thank you and listened as he began to strum out a tune of his own.

Together they played, with him singing the harmony to her songs. After a while a crowd gathered and after each song there was applause. A couple of hours later, Andy set his guitar down. 'I'm going for something to eat,' he said, gathering up the tin with the money, meaning to share it.

She snatched at it. 'That's mine,' she shouted. 'I didn't ask you to join me.'

He immediately let go and held up his hands. 'Okay, okay, actually this is my spot.'

Her face reddened. 'You don't own a piece of pavement,' she snapped. 'And I was here first.'

'Fine, you keep it.'

Her lip wobbled. She trapped it between her teeth and lowered her eyes but not before he saw the tears shimmering there.

He melted. 'You're good. How do you fancy joining my group?' The words tumbled out without thought.

Her head rose, she sniffed and wiped her cheeks. Her smile was like the sun breaking through a cloud. 'You've got a group?'

'A duo actually. We're playing in a bar tonight. You could come with us.' It occurred to him Desmond would object, he should have run it by him first, but something vulnerable about the girl pulled at his heartstrings and he knew right then he wanted to keep her near. Furthermore, Andrew McRae was used to getting his own way. Desmond always gave in in the end. 'Where do you live?' he asked.

She shrugged. 'I just got here yesterday. I've no had time to sort something out.'

'Where did you sleep last night?'

'In the station.'

He bent down and picked up her rucksack. 'Come back with me. You'll sleep in my flat for now.'

Snatching at her rucksack, she faced him with narrowed eyes. 'I'll be fine,' she said. 'I don't need no boy to do me favours!'

'No strings attached.' He released the bag. 'You'd be helping me out by singing with us, really. We're musicians, my buddy and me, but we need a strong vocalist.'

She still looked wary. 'I'll no be able to pay rent.'

He laughed. 'With a voice like you've got, you will be, I promise.'

Desmond did object. Loudly. 'For God's sake, man. There's no enough room here for the two of us. And the group's just us, you and me.'

'I didn't want to come anyway.' Beth wiped her nose on the back of her fingerless glove, slung her rucksack over her shoulder and headed for the door. Andy got there before her, slamming his hand against it, holding it shut.

'You're staying, no argument.' He turned to face his friend. 'She can stay in my room, share my food.' His voice rose. 'But for fuck’s sake listen to her sing, man, just listen to her sing.'

Desmond turned away. 'I don't care how good she is. She'll be trouble. How old is she? She looks like jailbait. She's probably a runaway. I don't need any grief. My old man would stop my allowance, ' he clapped his hands together, 'Just like that.'

'Please, mate,' said Andy, ‘She's every damn bit as good as Marianne Faithfull, if not better.'

Desmond lifted and lowered his hands in a gesture of defeat. 'I'll listen. But then she goes.'

Beth swung her guitar from her back and strummed a tune they had not heard before. She began to sing.

You've come a long way from the mountains

Where the cold wind blows

And the sun don't shine

But somewhere in the future you'll find her

In a cold dark place,

Will she still chase

The dream she left behind her

By the time she finished, tears were streaming down her face. Andy would never have admitted it, but he swallowed a lump in his own throat.

Desmond opened his eyes wide. 'Wow,' he said. 'Where did you hear that song?

'I wrote it,' said Beth dabbing at the dampness on her cheeks. 'Did...did you like it?'

'Like it, I love it. Wow, girl, you are good.'

'Then she can stay?' asked Andy.

'Hold on there, I didn't say that. We're hardly making enough to keep ourselves, less if we've got to split it three ways.'

'I don't need paying,' said Beth. 'A place to stay and I'll busk for food. And... and I'll cook for you.' 

She didn't say then her speciality was toast. Toast with baked beans, toast with sardines, toast with sloppy scrambled eggs. She turned and glared at Andy. 'And I won't be sharing your bed!' she added.

Andy held out his hands, palms facing her. 'Bloody hell, I said my room, not my bed. No strings, remember?'

Desmond still looked undecided.

‘I’ll do the washing too.’

'Come on, man. Give it a try, what can we lose?' said Andy.

Desmond sighed. ‘The cooking bit sounds good.’

How were they to know then the limits of her cooking skills?

He turned to Beth. 'Welcome to the Andy and Des Duo. At least for tonight, it'll be Des, Andy and friend. We'll see how it goes.'

'Bloody terrible name,' said Andy. 'How about Andy, Beth and Desmond?'

'How about Beth and friends?' Beth immediately chipped in.

'I told you a girl would be trouble,' said Desmond, but he was smiling. 'Look, I'm agreeing to nothing. If we're booed tonight, she's out.'

That night they totally won over the audience at the World's End bar. A week later the bookings were flooding in. A month later, the boys gave up their studies to go into music full time. It was the days of rock n' roll, yet Beth refused to sing anything other than folk songs. 'My voice is wrong for rock and roll,' she said, and although they never hit the big time, they became well-known in their own field.

Andy poured himself a whisky, walked to the office window and looked down into the busy street below. Beth. He could still see her now as she had been then. She was never classically beautiful, but she had a spark which dulled any other woman in her company. Yet for all her bravado, he grew to see, beneath the façade, the vulnerable, frightened little girl who sang with tears pouring down her cheeks.

Over the years, her confidence in her own musical ability grew, but he would never forget that first night in the World's End bar.

'I can't go on,' she said.

'What?' Andy couldn't believe his ears.

She wiped her brow. 'All those people, I can't face them.' Her freckles stood out against her pale skin. Her lip trembled. 'I'm sorry. I can't.'

'What the hell now?' Desmond rolled his eyes and shrugged.

'You sang all afternoon, in the street for fuck’s sake! I persuaded Desmond...'

'That was different. Now there's... there's an... audience, and no one will listen. I need a drink.'

It was true, the audience had chatted all the way through the last act.

'Just leave her, man. Put her back where you found her,' said Desmond.

'I'll get you something. What do you want?' Andy felt his anger grow, bubbling under the surface. She couldn't humiliate him now.

'Vodka. And coke. A double.'

She took the drink with a trembling hand and swallowed it in three gulps.

'We're on,' he said. 'Now get out there or I’ll boot your arse.'

She looked at him with fear in her eyes and for a moment he thought she was going to refuse. She wobbled slightly as he shepherded her before him onto the stage. Another awkward moment as he started to strum. Beth stared at the floor, the microphone held unsteadily in her hand. Her voice started weakly, and as he glowered at her he saw a transformation take place. She lifted her head, her voice grew strong. Suddenly it was as if no one else existed. She sang for herself, wrapped in her own island, eyes and cheeks glistening. The crowd fell silent, and when the song ended, the applause could have lifted the roof.

As time went on, they grew restless. They found the confines of local gigs no longer satisfied them. They dreamed of cutting a record which would shoot them to fame. And then Lewis Hammond came into their lives. The man who was to rip their world apart.

Andy stomped to his desk and refilled his glass. He could well remember that time, the first time she left him. And he would not suffer a repeat performance now.

He had let her go then. He even forgave her, took her back afterwards. He gave a wry laugh. Lewis Hammond. He promised to make her into a star, but demolished her in the process. She promised to take Andy with her on the ladder to success, promised him he could be her manager, like Cilla Black and Bobby. How mistaken he’d been to trust her.

Lewis Hammond. Even now, the name made Andy's body tighten. And the pain of her betrayal still stung.

He had steadfastly followed her career. Her records reached the top ten, she sang on Top of the Pops. She was on her way up. Then came the botched operation that stole her voice. Lewis Hammond was reported as saying she was a liability and he’d washed his hands of her, and as quickly as she rose to fame, she faded like yesterday's news. Andy swallowed his pride and forgave her, at least with words. How was he to know her voice had gone for good?

When she returned to him, she was a shadow of the feisty girl she had been. Alcohol and drugs had dulled the pain of her loss and diminished her bank account. He brought her home and nursed her back to health. He asked her to marry him once, but she'd turned him down, swearing she'd never marry anyone. Nevertheless, he held her when she cried about things best forgotten, and finally convinced her that she needed looking after, looking after by him. Even then he believed her voice would return, that this was just a temporary setback, and this time he would manage her career. But he’d been wrong. She refused to even try to sing again in public. Accepting defeat, his ambitions changed direction. The royalties from her songs still arrived and she owed him.

That had been years ago. Since then they bought the club and became lovers, but he hated it that when he held her he sensed her distance, as if he possessed her body but never her heart. He often caught her with a faraway look on her face, a tear in her eye and he suspected she stayed with him only because he supplied the stability she craved.

They enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. Beth still had contacts. She booked many big-name bands which drew in the crowds. Andy McRae's club made him a name in the city.

His hand closed into a slow fist as his mind whirled, consumed with a new fear of losing her, hating that she had never really been his.

Glenda, an employee, a bit of an all-rounder, who helped him in the bar, Beth with the administration, and who ran the kitchen, moved past him, brushing him with her thigh as she did so, startling him from his daydreaming. She turned, met his eye and smiled.

'Penny for them,' she said, her voice low, seductive.

Andy rose from the office chair. He walked to the window and looked out onto the grey street. 'Have we got a group lined up for tonight?'

'I've tried a few, but they're all booked up. Look, I meant to ask you, my sister's boy is good on the guitar. It would be great if you would give him and his friends a chance.'

Andy sighed. 'We need a known name to pull in the crowds.'

'Darren's really good. It's the best I could do at such short notice.' She trailed a suggestive finger across his shoulder. Andy swallowed, felt his Adam's apple bob. He groaned and grabbed her hand. ‘Don’t do this. Business and pleasure, remember?’

She pulled her hand away from his, walked slowly to the door swinging her hips, and turned the key. 

‘The door’s locked,' she whispered. ‘Beth doesn’t deserve you. I could make you happy.’

He groaned. ‘No, Glenda.’

Bristling, she drew back. ‘What’s wrong with me? It’s not as if you’ve not cheated on Beth before.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with you, but I don’t shit on my own doorstep.’ His voice was gruff. He closed his eyes against the temptation. She was lovely, sexy, seductive, but he knew the dangers of playing with fire.

Chapter Three - Song for an Eagle

On the way to the ward, the sister told her that her father was awake and responding, but not to expect too much. 

In a side room, he lay as if he hadn't moved from the position he'd been in the day before. His face was as white as the pillow beneath his head, his mouth slightly open, a line of dribble on his cheek. He had a thin yellow tube attached to an arm and stuck down by a strip of clear, whitish tape, which puckered the papery skin. The tube threaded up to where a clear bag of fluid hung on a stand. 

The strong silent man who often carried her on his shoulders across the moors, who could shear more sheep in an hour than any crofter in the district, had gone and left this shell in his place. 

'Dad,' she said, touching his arm. The arm was cold and still as if he were already dead. 'It's me, Beth.' She lowered herself onto the chair and shook his shoulder gently. 

His eyes opened and for a moment remained unfocused, then flickered across her face. She took his hand. He became tense; the hand in hers began to shake.

'Nurse, nurse,' Beth shouted.

A nurse hurried over. 'It's all right, Robbie,' she said in a soothing voice as she checked his vital signs. 

'This is your daughter, Beth.'

He seemed to sink into the bed.

'Speak to him.' The nurse turned to Beth. 'He is responding. I'm sure he understands, knows you’re here.'

Beth wet her lips. 'Dad, do you know me?'

Cool fingers fluttered against hers.

'Is there something you want to say?'

His eyes scanned her face, but there was no hope in them.

'It's all right. I'm not going away again. There's so much I want to tell you.'

The fingers fluttered.

'You'll be able to do more tomorrow,' whispered Beth. 'I'm sorry I left you.' And she was, sorry they never talked, she'd never tried to understand. She stayed away because of anger; blaming him for all that was wrong in her life; blaming him for her mother leaving; blaming him for not caring enough to come looking for her. In any case her life had become so hectic, and somewhere at the back of her mind, she believed there would be time. A few days ago she received the phone call, and there was no more time.

'I was so busy,' she whispered, 'And angry, and I shouldn’t have been. When you're well enough, I'll take you home, look after you.' As she spoke she knew she would, for however long he had left.

She sat with him, telling him the parts of her life she was not reluctant to share, until she saw he was sleeping. 'I'll be back tomorrow, Dad,' she whispered. She kissed his brow. It was dry and cool.

Leaving the hospital, she turned on her phone. Andy. Three missed calls. She dialled her answering service.

Beth, where are you? Are you alright? Call me back as soon as you get this.

With a deep sigh, she punched in his number.

'It’s me,' she said, when she heard his voice.

'Beth. I've been worried sick.'

She quickly explained why he hadn't got through. 'And there's no service in the mountains, or patchy, so don't worry. I'm fine.'

'I won't manage up till the weekend. I'll come then, but if you need me, I'll just leave everything and I'll be right there.'

'No, no don't come up. I'm coping fine, honest. I'm just going to do some shopping and head back to the cottage.' She swallowed her irritation without knowing what irritated her. Andy was good to her, wasn't he? Had always known what was best for her, so why did she feel this way? Although she knew in her low moments the temptation to call him, have him hold her and tell her he would take care of everything, would be strong, she had no real desire for his cloying presence. Being on her own these last couple of days gave her a barely remembered sense of freedom.

'Beth, are you still there? I said, how's your father?'

She started.

'No real change. Look, Andy, I'm staying here as long as he needs me. And you don't have to be here, honest. We can't both neglect the club.'

'You're really fine aren't you? I mean you'd tell me if anything was wrong, wouldn't you?'

She snorted. 'I'm not crazy, Andy. And I don't have a problem with alcohol, whatever you say. In fact, I'm going to confront my ornithophobia. See, I can even pronounce that word now.' She laughed, a little too shrilly. 'I'm going to the Wild Life Park in the Black Isle and I'm going to get close up to some big birds, how's that?' The words fell into her mind as if from the air around her.

He gave a snort of derisive laughter. 'You?' And then he seemed to catch himself. 'Are you sure?'

'Certain, Andy, I'm fine.' Why did he always do it? Make her feel inadequate, doubt her own judgement?

'Call me the minute you need me, hear?'

'I will. Talk to you soon.' She rang off. No, she decided, she did not want him here. This was one journey she had to make alone.

Chapter two of Song for an Eagle

A man sat in the bus shelter studying a newspaper. He was slim, with the rugged face of the outdoors and his white hair cut close to his head. Looking up as she approached, he smiled. 

'Nice morning.' His voice was deep and soft and cultured.

She agreed as she sat down.

'I haven't seen you around before. Up on holiday?' He folded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm.

'I was brought up here,' said Beth, gazing into the distance, 'but I've been away a long time.' 

Why did she feel nostalgic? It had been her choice not to return until now. Realising she might appear rude, she turned her attention back to the man. 'I only returned yesterday,' she added. 'The road's much improved since I was a child.'

His smile was easy, fluid, his eyes bright, perhaps too bright for a man who was no longer young.

'Still a tricky bend.' He held out his hand. 'I should know you, then. I'm James Anderson. My father used to be the local doctor for Berriedale and district.'

'Elizabeth MacLean, Beth to my friends. Are you a doctor too? Doctor Anderson?' The name was familiar, and the voice, she’d heard it before.

A wider smile stretched his lips. 'I believe we've already spoken on the telephone. I was dragged out of retirement to act as locum for the local GP until a few days ago. I thought you should know about the old man.’

'Of course, Doctor Anderson. You contacted me to tell me about my father.' She immediately felt more relaxed. Even speaking to him over the phone had given her the sense that here was someone she could trust.

‘You weren't hard to track down.'

'Did you know him well, my father?' She hoped he had. There was so much she needed to know.

James shook his head. 'Only met him a couple of weeks ago when I took over from Dr Montgomery, but he spoke about you a lot.'

'That surprises me.' Beth fell silent for a second. If the doctor found her so easily, her father could have as well, had he wanted to. The bitter sting of his rejection still rackled.

'You grew up here, then?' she said at last.

'Until I was eight. Then I was shipped off to boarding school. I vaguely remember Robbie MacLean's wee girl.'

'I don't recall much about school.' She studied his face, searching for something to recognise. Her school years hadn't been a happy time for her. The names, Carrot-top, Jug-ears, Dumbo, still stung. 

'I think I do know you,' she said. ‘The doctor's son, a big quiet lad who came home for the holidays.’ 

She'd hardly noticed him. Thought of him as one of the 'posh' crowd, the crowd who wouldn't lower themselves to bother with the likes of her. And she didn't want him to remember her. The girl whose mother went off with another man, or so she’d heard it whispered, the girl no one wanted to be friends with.

'You were a bonny wee lassie, but awful feisty.' He gave a short laugh. 'I used to be afraid of you.' His gaze trapped hers.

'Afraid? Of me?' Surprised, she forced a smile, realising he could never understand how much she longed for friendship, how her anger had been her only defence. Thinking about the pain of her large ears, her frizzy hair, her freckled skin, she guessed he was being kind, that or confusing her with someone else. Self-consciously she tugged a strand of her hair, straightened this morning and already beginning to curl in the damp air. 'So you followed in your father's footsteps?'

'Sort of. I was a surgeon. Worked in Africa up until a few years ago. And you, you went on to be a pop star.'

She gave a short laugh, amazed he'd even heard of her. 'I had my fifteen minutes of fame, yes. I did okay for a while.'

‘I remember seeing you on the Old Grey Whistle Test on one of my trips home. I’d switched on to see Led Zeppelin, a favourite of mine, and there you were, appearing on the same show. You’d changed a lot, but I still recognised you right away.’

She smiled at the memory of that night. There had been a last minute cancellation, and Lewis, her agent, called her. ‘This is a good opportunity, girl,’ he said. Her throat was sore and it hurt to talk, but she went anyway.

 'My wife bought all your records. Do you still sing?' James was still talking.

So he had a wife? Had there been a glimmer of hope that he was single? What good would that have done her? Beth almost laughed at her own foolishness. She paused and looked away from him and down into the strath. 'To be honest I grew tired of the life. I'm quite happy to keep it low key. Plus, well, I'm no longer young, as you can see.'

 

'You're still a good looking woman.'

Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she tugged at her hair. Although she'd had them surgically pinned back many years ago, she still tried to hide her ears in moments of self-consciousness.

'We own a club, in the centre of Edinburgh. It does very well.' She spoke quickly to cover her unexpected embarrassment.

'We?' His eyes fell to her left hand where she wore no wedding ring.

I manage the musical side, hiring bands and acts. Andy, my partner, still plays guitar and sings during quiet periods and he takes care of the bar.' She didn't mention Glenda, the woman who helped with the day to day running of things. That name would have soured her tongue. 'We're not married, never saw the need.' She tried to keep her voice light, without a hint of bitterness.

The chill of winter already tainted the air and she was glad to see the bus appear at the top of the brae.

'You're going to Inverness?' he said as he followed her onto the bus and took a seat beside her.

'To visit my father,' she replied.

'Of course. How is he?'

To her horror her eyes blurred. 'I can't get over the fact he lay all night before the health visitor found him. If she hadn't come in...' She shook her head, unable to talk as emotion welled up, blocking her throat.

He set his hand on her arm. 'You're here now, that means a lot. He was a very private person.' James Anderson handed her a folded cotton handkerchief.

She nodded her thanks as she took it. ‘A real hanky. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anything other than tissues.’

'Call me a sentimental old fool,' he said with a slight laugh. 'My father always insisted he had a newly pressed handkerchief every morning. It was a joke between my parents. Guess I've inherited the same streak. I never did come to terms with the paper kind − unless I've got a streaming cold of course.'

She stared through the window, not thinking of handkerchiefs. How could she tell him about the regrets, the lost years. She wondered how much he knew.

'It would be so much easier if he was in a local hospital,' she said, facing James again. 'Why was he sent to Inverness anyway?'

'They have more sophisticated equipment there.' James took a breath. 'Caithness is a great place to live, but it has its drawbacks. If the powers that be had their way, everything would be in Inverness.' His voice rose, tense, angry. He rubbed his hands together and turned away from her. 'Don't get me on my soapbox about that one.'

'Do you live here now?' She changed the subject.

He cleared his throat and drew in some air. 'I came back when I retired. I bought the big house up on the hill.'

'The big white house?' she asked, imagining all those rooms.

'Aye, I always admired it. Luckily it was for sale at the time I returned. Do you intend to stay?'

'I doubt it. Is your wife local?' Tucking a stray lock of hair beneath her ear, she met his eyes. They were deep blue. 'Would I know her?'

'My wife? No, and I'm afraid the marriage ended many years ago.'

'I'm sorry,' she muttered, not sorry at all, and she couldn't understand why.

'Don't be. I'm not.'

'Caithness must be quite a change from Africa.' This was safer ground.

'I always meant to come home one day. Buy a boat, a few sheep. This place pulls you back.'

Beth knew what he meant. She'd never intended to return, yet these last few years, she'd begun to feel the same pull. Was that what happened when you grew older? She thought of an elderly couple she knew, always reminiscing, lost in the past, but couldn't remember what day it was. She suddenly realised James was still speaking.

'I'm picking up my car from the garage.' He rose to leave the bus as it drew to a stop in Helmsdale. 

'You know where I live. Give me a shout if you need anything.'

She watched him walk away, turning up the collar of his jacket. He was slim, broad shouldered with a sprint in his step that belied his years. He’d been friendly and his chatter had taken her mind off her immediate worries for a while. She found herself hoping to meet up with James Anderson again. Anyway, she convinced herself, it was only because she wanted to know more about her father, but guessed, as a doctor, he would be gagged by some confidentiality clause or other.

Settling back, she closed her eyes, and her mind took her across the years to the last time she'd ridden the bus south. The road had been longer then, more twists and turns, fewer bridges.

That day the bus did not appear to have any form of heating and she couldn't feel her feet. Her guitar was clutched on her lap, her woollen hat pulled down to her eyes and covering her ears, her long hair loose. She took out a packet of crisps, removed the little blue sachet of salt, emptied it onto the crisps and shook the bag vigorously. As she munched, she watched the passing countryside. It was raining, dull, slow drizzle, and the hills lay shrouded in grey. She tried not to think of her father's reaction when he read her note. He wouldn't be home until after seven and by then she would be in Edinburgh, probably sleep in the bus station, or get an overnight bus to London. Was there such a thing?

She heard his words in her head. 'Just like her mother. Just like her bloody mother. Well, good riddance, good riddance to both of them.' He would thump his fist on the table and pace the floor.

That day, she'd no real plan, but was carried away by the dream, the desire to leave the nothingness of her life and maybe, somewhere at the back of her consciousness, she hoped she would chance upon her mother. They would pass in the street, their eyes would meet and somehow, mother and daughter would instantly recognise each other. She banished the thought as quickly as it came. For years she'd tried to convince herself she hated the woman who abandoned her.

Raindrops sloped across the windowpane, tears ran slowly down her cheeks, she was aware of her heartbeat and of a churning in her gut, and her overall memory was that of fear.

The bus pulled into the station in Inverness jolting her from her reverie. To her surprise, her cheeks were wet.

A Serialised Novella

Hi folks.

I have decided, as a gift to my followers, to serialise my novella,
Song for an Eagle. I will post one chapter at a time, weekly.

Song for an Eagle

Prologue

When Beth was five years old, her mother walked out and never returned. The child had a memory of terror, terror of being left alone. She stood and watched as her mother dragged a suitcase from under the bed and opened it. She yanked at the drawers in her dresser and began to throw her clothes, make-up, a bundle of papers and her jewellery into the case.

'Mammy, please don't go,' said Beth, her voice so small it hardly made any sound at all.

Her mother bent down and kissed her cheek. 'As soon as I find a place to stay, I'll come back for you.' A horn sounded outside. Her mother stood up and looked around the room. 'This place is sucking the life from me.' She paused and gazed at her child. A single tear trickled down her pale cheek and then she turned and was gone. The door slammed behind her, caught in the wind that howled up the strath like a living thing.

It was already dark and rain ran sideways across the window glass. A skeletal tree dipped and swayed outside, its branches clattering against the panes, a monster's arms reaching out, trying to break in, trying to reach the child.

Her father had not come home for hours and, when he did, she was huddled in a corner with her arms wrapped around her knees, her body racked from crying. He started to go to her, then saw the note his wife left. He read it, cursed and without speaking to his daughter, opened a bottle of whisky. Beth's memory of that evening was indelible, locked inside, echoing down the years.

She waited for her mother, night after night, week after week, year after year and, somewhere deep in her heart, she was still waiting.

Chapter One

2014

Beth stepped off the bus at the top of Berriedale Braes under a sky piled grey upon grey. The first thing she noticed was the word, YES, painted in white on a towering rock on the hillside, a distance away yet plainly visible from the road. Someone else with their dreams in tatters, she thought. How long would it take for the letters to fade and be washed away by the force of time and elements? 
Longer, she though, than the dream of independence would fade from many Scottish minds. Personally she didn't care, hadn't even voted in the referendum. Andy had told her she had to vote an emphatic no, so abstaning had been a minor act of rebellion. She had little time for politics.

The bus driver set Beth’s case beside her, closed the door to the compartment and nodded at her feet. 'You won't get far up that road in those shoes, me girl.'

His accent was central London, startling her for a second, briefly reminding her of a time best forgotten. With a smile at being called 'me girl' by a man who was at least a decade younger than she was, she considered the rutted track before her and murmured, 'You're right. I should have remembered.' She opened her suitcase, removed a pair of flats and exchanged them for her high heels.

When she was five years old she would climb down from the school bus at this same spot and set out alone under an immense sky. The only sounds were the birds and the sea and the distant bleat of sheep. The same sounds that filled the air around her today.

Now, all those years later, a memory slammed into her mind with remarkable clarity. With the memory came a rush of fear. She swallowed and took several deep breaths. At fifty-nine years old, a successful businesswoman with a career behind her, or so she appeared to the world, she thought herself finally past the terrors of her youth.

Strands of hair blew around her face, the hair she hated once, but now the hair for which she struggled to find the same shade of red in a bottle. She lifted her guitar case, eased the strap over her shoulder and thanked the driver.

While he removed the rest of her luggage from the baggage section, she looked around. Wind turbines dotted the hills and the bay, where, further out, the faded shapes of oil rigs were hardly discernible in a gathering sea mist. Modern bungalows replaced many of the small, sturdy cottages which once clung to the hillside like limpets to a rock. More than one had a 'For Sale' sign in the front garden.

As the bus drove off, she stood for a moment, staring at the mountains to the south.

'Okay. Here goes,' she said to no one and, avoiding the branches of gorse that reached towards her stockinged legs, she set off along the side road to her father's cottage. Her case, balanced on its two wheels, jolted behind her, her steps in time with the beat of her heart. After so many years in the city, the mountains to the south, the burn coursing through the glen dashing its spray upwards as it met the resistance of stone, the snaking road winding up the opposite hill, were almost foreign to her, yet startlingly familiar. Memories leaked from the cupboard at the back of her mind, drifting in like the ribbons of haar that twisted up the strath in the world of her childhood.

The cottage where she grew up sat about one and a half miles from the bus route, along a neglected track which led through heather and bracken. By the time she reached it, she was out of breath and the sky began to miserably spit rain.

The key lay heavy in her hand and chattered against the lock like cold teeth. Only then did she realise how badly she was shaking. At last the door creaked open, filling the silence with a scream of dry hinges. The odour of decay came out to meet her. Nothing appeared to have changed since the day she left. The old range with a one-bar electric fire set in front; the gas cooker, splatterings of grease on top and down the sides; lino on the floor, the pattern missing in places, but still bright in the corners where no feet had trod; a moquette suite, one chair grimier than the others, the arms worn bare.

Now a layer of dust and evidence of mice coated everything, and the chill in the air, colder than outside, made her shiver. She wondered about her father living out his life in this cold box.

She should have come back sooner, should have come to see him when he was still well, not the emaciated figure she sat beside this morning in Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. The man she'd not seen for forty-two years before that.

Soon the house would be hers, the house, the ground, the memories she could no longer contain. She flicked a switch and the bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling threw its low wattage into the gloom. She went into the kitchen and gagged. Something had been left to rot. A half-empty tin of cat food sat on the draining board, mould growing on the surface. Opening the window to dispel the fetid air, she looked outside. The cat had probably found a home elsewhere by now, that or been eaten by foxes. Under the sink, she found half a bottle of bleach and set to work.

Some time later, satisfied the kitchen was now as fresh as it could be, given the state and age of the building, she closed the window. The whole house could do with a good seeing to, but her muscles were already beginning to ache and she’d broken two nails.

Her energy depleted, she ate the pot noodle she brought with her and drank a cup of instant coffee with powdered milk and no sugar. To someone used to eating meals cooked by a chef, it tasted vile. Then she went to the bedroom which was once hers. Inside, an onslaught of memories drifted within the shadows. Her single iron bed with the pink candlewick cover, her soft rabbit with the chewed ear sitting on top; the rose-flecked wallpaper, now yellowed at the corners and curling away from the plastered walls; the square of pink and grey carpet; her pine dressing table with the drawers that were difficult to open; the posters of Elvis, the Beatles, the Jackson Five, still tacked to the wall. Everything as she left it. But now, the room reeked of damp.

She stared at the bed. Probably a thousand crawling creatures had made their home there over the years. Beth crossed the landing to her father's bedroom and stopped, knuckling her eyes and filling her lungs with the sour air. Her father's bed was unmade, the indent of his head and a few stray hairs still on the pillow. She crossed to the cupboard and found clean sheets and blankets on the shelf where they always were. Somewhere in this house, she would find a hot water bottle, something to take the chill off.

On the second shelf sat a couple of tin biscuit boxes, slightly rusty at the edges. She lifted the first one and, taking it with her, sat on the bed and eased the lid off.

Surprised, she lifted a newspaper clipping, a grainy photo of herself at twenty-four, with the caption, Hammond Signs New Hopeful. Beneath that, she found every report of her life, her rise to dubious fame, her fall. She quickly set them to one side and picked up a note, the note she’d penned on a page torn from her jotter on the day she left.

Dear Dad,

I'm going to London. I want to be a singer, and I know I'm just a nuisance to you anyway. I'll write when I get settled.

Beth

She smoothed the paper. Why had he kept this? He hadn't come after her as far as she knew. She hadn't expected him to.

Underneath was the first letter she sent him, Edinburgh postmark, telling him she was well and she would never come home again. She had not added an address. Twenty years later she wrote another, one her therapist encouraged her to send.

'Build bridges with your father,' the therapist said. 'He can give you the answers you need to know.'

That time she had added an address.

He hadn't replied, but kept the letter. It was here, still in the envelope, the top edge jagged where it was torn open. She tried not to think of her disappointment as she’d checked the mail day after day. Perhaps she should have returned then, tried to put right the wrongs of the past, but she'd been vulnerable, scarred. Her career as a singer was over and nothing else mattered.

Then there were her school reports, the father's day cards she made, the drawings she did at school, black and heavy. He'd kept them all.

At the bottom of the box was a photograph of her mother sitting on the dyke outside, head thrown back, mouth open in a laugh, her dark hair loose and tumbling down her back. And another, herself as a baby in her mother's arms. Her mother was gazing down at her with an expression of adoration. She studied the image, trying to recall the face, the dark hair, the red lips. 

'Why did you leave me?' she asked. 'I needed you so much.' She thought her parents didn't love her, yet there was no mistaking the love in that photo. And her father, if she really was the burden she'd imagined herself to be, would he have followed her career so resolutely, kept every little memoir of her existence?

She removed the lid of the second box. The first thing she saw was a wedding photo of her parents, both in army uniform. Beneath that lay several snapshots, and a vision of a Box Brownie camera in her mother's hands flew through her mind. She picked up the picture of a baby in a gown assuming it was herself and turned it over. The name Michael was printed on the back. Michael? An unexplained frisson of fear worked its way up her spine. She shrugged it off. Who the hell was Michael?

Then another snapshot. This time of a boy of around five at her mother's side holding her hand. Quickly she leafed through the photos, photos she'd never seen before, and the boy featured in a lot. Michael aged one, Michael first day at school, Michael aged ten and Beth aged one. Michael sitting on an old-fashioned basket chair, a fat baby on his knee. Did she once have a brother? If so, why did she have no memory of him? Why had her parents never spoken of him? Why had her father kept these photos from her?

After that, the only images she found were a couple of her school portraits. Michael was gone. And her mother was gone, and there were no more Box Brownie snapshots.

She found her parents' marriage certificate, her grandparents' death certificates. Nothing for Michael or herself.

'Who are you, Michael?' she said, but the silent face with the frozen smile mocked her from the photograph. A stranger, telling her nothing. A creak came from somewhere. Her fingers tightened on the image, her spine tingled. She imagined another's eyes upon her. She spun around. The room was empty as she knew it would be. An old house, settling and creaking. She forced a laugh at her own nervousness. Nevertheless, she thrust Michael's photos to the bottom of the pile, rose and left the room, gently closing the bedroom door, trapping the past and her memories behind it.

Later, sitting beside a blazing stove, glass of wine in hand, she tried to relax. The gale was a lost soul crying in the chimney. The house itself seemed to take a breath and release it with a tremble. The wind sighed and whistled. A cloud of smoke billowed into the room. Loose branches slapped against the windowpanes making her jump. It was just like that other night, that long-ago night. The night her mother left. And once again, she was in this house, alone.

For a moment she imagined the face of an eagle through the glass. She blinked, shook her head, rose and pulled the curtains blotting out whatever was out there.

For years she'd clung to the therapist's words explaining her nightmares.

You have come to see the eagle as a symbol of bad luck. You saw one that day, and that night your mother left.

There was no eagle, she told herself. There never had been. It was no more than an imaginary entity conjured up by a lonely and unhappy little girl, an imaginary entity which grew and became something more, a vehicle for all the hurts of her young life. She set him free many years ago, released him, watched the imaginary eagle fly into an imaginary sky and take with him all her feelings of worthlessness. Why then, the constant sense there was more?

Leaning against the wall she counted each breath until her heart stopped racing. Perhaps she should not have come back, should have left the past where it was. Done what Andy told her to do. There was reasonable accommodation in Inverness for the family of patients, yet she'd been drawn here by the same invisible bonds from which she once fought to escape. That, and the need to face the demons of the past, to finally convince herself that she stayed with Andy out of choice, not because of the deep-rooted fear of being alone.

She poured herself another glass of wine and drank it quickly, waiting as the welcome warmth spread through her body. From the corner came a scratching sound. Mice, she told herself, or worse still, rats, and she wondered again where the cat had gone. Apart from keeping the vermin down, she would have welcomed its company. Folded on the sofa was a tartan rug. She pulled it across her knees.

After the sounds of the city, the cottage felt dreadfully isolated. She had grown used to passing traffic, human voices in the street outside; music from the bar room; shouts of drunken merriment. All at once she wanted to hear Andy's voice, wished she had, after all, asked him to come with her. She picked up her phone and, realising there was no signal, set it down again. Her father was ninety-three years old and lived all his life without a landline. The rug was thick and soft, and she guessed fairly new, and she snuggled within its folds and allowed herself to be lulled by the song of the wind.

She awoke, still on the couch, her head at a painful angle. The light outside was bright amber, the sounds were of the early morning; a seagull's cry, a bleating sheep, distant intermittent traffic. The empty wine bottle lay on the linoleum. She stretched, easing the cricks in her back, almost laughing at her fears of the night before. She glanced at her watch. Seven thirty. The cinders in the range still glowed, filling the room with a meagre warmth. Longing for a shower she went through to the bathroom to clean the bath. Brown water gushed from the hot tap, took minutes to clear, but remained cold. She had not thought to turn on the immersion heater. A wash-down was the best she could expect. In the kitchen, she switched on the kettle, mentally berating her father for not having the foresight to connect the water supply to the stove.

It occurred to her that if she was going to stay here for any length of time she would need a car. She'd left the Audi in Edinburgh with Andy. Two cars were a waste of money, he said, since he was on hand to drive her wherever she needed to be. For now, she would catch the early bus and spend some time by her father's bedside in the hope he would recognise her, if for only a minute. She wanted him to see her, know she was there, forgive her.