Page 46 of Coming Home to Winter Island
I briefly turned my phone on to find a number of more and more frustrated, even cross, messages from Joe asking why I hadn’t been in touch. Was I on the way to the vocal retreat? I messaged back and told him I was fine. Then – and I can’t believe I did it – I told him I was finally on my way, and that I’d been informed there were no phones allowed at the retreat, so I wouldn’t be in touch for a while. I quickly shoved my phone away, feeling a sense of light-headed relief and, well, freedom.
I feel bad lying, but I know the truth really doesn’t make much sense. I was brought here to agree to a care plan for a relative I’d never met, and now I seem to be involved in crowdfunding a project to safeguard his future. I know I could leave at any time, but there’s something stopping me. I have to see this through. Not to mention the fact that I want to find out more about this place, about my dad and the family he left behind. It’s never bothered me before, but the island has started to work its way under my skin. I want to find the piece that seems to be missing in the jigsaw of my life.
I also texted the vocal retreat to tell them I’d been held up, and they cancelled my booking, telling me to rebook when I was ready. There was a text from Flora too, who said how much she’d enjoyed meeting us and that she hoped Hector would be able to take up his place by Candlemas, gently reminding me that she’d have to let it go to someone else if not. It didn’t seem the right time, in amongst the fun of preparing the crowdfunding page to ask Lachlan what was going on between him and Isla. Seeing Hector in the forest had been a very special moment, and I wanted to savour it.
This morning, Hector has emptied the kitchen cupboards of herbs and spices and is now sitting in the big living room at the back of the house with a cup of tea and the dogs at his feet, watching a flock of black and white birds with long orange beaks on the sandy bay shore. For a moment I picture the nursing home and its small, well-tended garden, and think how different Hector’s outlook will be there.
‘Here!’ says Lachlan, handing me a coat and boots he’s found in the newly tidied cupboard under the stairs. ‘You’ll be fine in these. You look to be your grandmother’s size.’ It takes me a moment to realise he’s talking about Mairead. My grandmother. I roll the word over in my head. ‘Now let’s go and pick some pine,’ I say, hoisting up the step ladder leaning against the wall and carrying it out to the car.
We drive out towards the forest where we were last night, with Hector wrapped up against the cold in the back seat with the dogs. Lachlan and I agreed it’s best we have him with us to keep an eye on him.
‘You have to be careful what kind of pine you pick,’ Lachlan tells me, as if teaching a group of students, and I don’t think I’ve seen him look this alive since I arrived. ‘The right sort can add great flavour, but the wrong type...’ He shakes his head. ‘Really we’d be better leaving it a bit, until the spring and the new growth, but...’ He looks sideways at me.
‘We have a deadline,’ I say firmly. ‘Candlemas. We need to complete the crowdfunding by then and put down a deposit to secure the room. That means finding the recipe and making the special edition bottles.’
He harrumphs, but good-naturedly, I think, making me smile as I turn away and look out of the window at the passing hedgerows and moorland, which is covered in a white frosting. The long grasses at the edges of the stream we’re following are coated in frosted patterns like crystals. Across the golden glen deer are running, and once more it takes my breath away. Lachlan glances at me as we bounce along the single-track road.
‘There are more deer than people on the island, you know,’ he tells me, and again his face is lit up.
‘And goats...’ I add, and he laughs.
‘Look up there,’ he says suddenly, and points up to the sky. I peer up at what looks to be a lone dark cloud in the sky, and then realise it isn’t a cloud.
‘Whoa! What’s that?!’
‘A sea eagle. They completely died out but were reintroduced in the seventies. We have a couple of nesting pairs here.’
‘Wow,’ I say, watching the huge bird circling above us in the cold, clear air.
I feel the car slow down.
‘Oh no...’ says Lachlan.
‘What’s the matter?’ I look away from the eagle. Lachlan is pulling on the handbrake.
‘There.’ He points up towards a rise on the glen. Two deer are facing off, and then start to lunge at each other with their antlers, like jousters. ‘Mating season is over, but those two just keep goading each other.’
‘Why are they fighting?’
‘They’re father and son. They’ve locked horns many a time and it’s a heck of a job to untangle them, I can tell you! They’re stubborn. Won’t let each other be. There’ll be no winner here.’ He looks at me, and then at Hector, wrapped up warmly in blankets in the back of the Land Rover with the dogs lying over him. ‘No good will come of it,’ says Lachlan. ‘Someone will get hurt, unless one of them gives in.’
He puts his hand on the car horn and holds it there in a long blast. Then he does it again, and the two stags finally jump away from each other and run off in different directions, dipping their heads, shaking them, and then lifting their heads and their front legs high. Neither has bowed to the other. They have both saved face.
Lachlan winds down the window. ‘Get over it, fellas!’ he calls, watching the two stags strut off proudly across the golden moorland. He shakes his head and puts the Land Rover into gear. ‘It’s really not worth it in the long run,’ he says quietly, looking back at Hector in the rear-view mirror.
‘Right, time to go and find some pine needles. And let’s hope they’re less prickly than the locals!’ He’s made a joke, I think, and smile widely. An actual joke! Relations must be thawing!
Hector walks slowly through the forest with the dogs, leaning heavily on his stick. He’s looking more sprightly than I have seen him since I’ve been here, I think.
‘So at this rate,’ says Lachlan, picking out a tree near the one with the engraving on it, ‘we’ll soon have all the ingredients for the gin and you’ll be on your way. He places the ladder against the trunk of the tree, just below the first of the branches. ‘Like I say, this would be better done in the spring, but no, some of us can’t wait until then. Need to be on your way. Have everything done and dusted and neatly tied up by the end of the month.’ He looks at me and I know he’s teasing, but still I respond.
‘I can’t stay here until the spring. I need to get back to work!’
‘Well hopefully this will be good enough for the first batch. But it’s always better to pick when there’s plenty of new growth around. And not take too much from any particular area. Leave enough so it will grow back.’
He looks up, his big canvas bag slung across his body. His swag bag, as I like to think of it. Only now I know he’s not stealing from the house, but foraging from the woods and grounds. I’m fascinated watching him. He takes so much pride in collecting and cooking food from the island, and I really admire his skill, though I know that when I get home it’ll probably be back to packet soup, pasta and toast.
‘And when it’s done and Hector’s place at the care home is secured, you’ll be free to move on too,’ I say tentatively, wondering if he’ll tell me about Isla. ‘Where will you go?’
