Page 29 of Coming Home to Winter Island
But where to start?
Chapter Fourteen
I open the door of the front room, wondering if it’s warmer outside. My breath looks like clouds in front of my face. I think about Joe and the band and their Indian takeaway Christmas dinner and wish even more that I was there. Even though we never make a fuss about Christmas, suddenly being so far away makes me miss our ‘no fuss’ Christmas.
Joe always says Christmas is just a massive marketing ploy, a way to make people spend money. Then I think about Fraser Gillies and his family going to the pub after church. That isn’t about money. It’s about spending time with the ones you love, and the community coming together. Those Christmases with my dad weren’t about the presents; they were about being together, playing games and sharing music. It might be a marketing ploy in Joe’s eyes, but then he doesn’t really have much to do with his family, so maybe he can’t see it as anything else. His brother’s a successful banker with a family of his own. His parents run their own party supplies business, specialising in office parties and baby showers, party decorations and accessories, and it’s a busy time for them in the run-up to Christmas, so they always holiday in the Caribbean over the festive period itself. I think it’s why Joe is so focused on work: he likes to be able to keep up with his family.
I think again about Fraser Gillies and his family, wondering if that’s what Christmas on the island was like for my dad...and could have been like for me, if things had been different. I quickly shake the thought and throw myself into the task in hand.
Best to be methodical, I think, rubbing my freezing hands together, letting the cold distract me from my musings about Christmas. I’ll start downstairs, working from the front of the house to the back. Then, if I don’t find anything, I’ll search upstairs. I take a deep breath of air so icy it hurts my lungs, then pull open the cupboard door to one side of the fireplace. Reams of paper, unopened envelopes and photographs tumble and slide over my feet.
‘It’s here somewhere.’
‘Uh huh,’ Lachlan is standing in the doorway, one arm across his body, the other hand seeming to touch the corner of his mouth, possibly hiding a smile there, which has lit up his eyes.
I glare back at him. ‘Best we make a start then!’ I say, nodding to the cupboard on the other side.
‘Indeed,’ he agrees, but he doesn’t seem to be in any rush.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘It’ll be quicker with two of us looking. Though if someone had given him a hand before now...’
‘Yes, if someone had been here to help out...’ he retorts, and I bite my tongue, knowing he’s right. It wasn’t his job to do it, but then I’m not sure it was mine either. ‘In fact,’ he continues, bending to pick up a pile of papers and starting to go through them, stacking them in piles and throwing the rubbish into the empty fireplace, ‘where have you been? What do you even do for a job?’
‘I told you, I’m a singer, a full-time singer.’
‘A singer?’ He nods, impressed. ‘And where do you... sing?’ I detect a hint of scepticism in his voice. But then that seems to be a fairly common tone when he’s speaking to me.
‘Wherever I can. I mean...I don’t just stand up and sing. I’m a professional.’ I cringe at my own words. ‘I’m in a band. We play gigs, and hopefully we’ll land a record deal and tour really soon. And then I do a bit of solo stuff, lounge singing at a big restaurant and hotel, and sometimes weddings. Though once we sign to a label, I won’t have to do that.’
‘Aren’t you...well, isn’t that for youngsters? I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but wouldn’t it have happened by now if it was going to happen?’
I stop sorting through papers and stare at him. ‘You don’t have to be young to be a performer. I’ve been doing this all my life. You don’t just decide to sit down one day to be a pianist, for instance, and immediately play Mozart. You have to work at these things. I’ve been working at this for years. It’s my time.’
We fall into silence and go back to working our way through the papers, scrunching up anything that looks redundant – old envelopes, out-of-date bills...way out of date. It looks like the distillery struggled for some time, judging by the red reminders. We’re kneeling either side of the fireplace on the threadbare rug, the cold, hard flagstones beneath digging into our knees. I grab an old tapestry cushion, as worn and faded as the rug, but it helps a little. I can see my own breath in front of me, and despite my thick fingerless gloves, my hands are freezing.
After a while, Lachlan gets up and leaves the room.
Typical! I think scratchily. Leaving me with all these papers. But it has to be here somewhere. It must be. Everything else is! I tug at a box stuck at the back of the cupboard and pull it out, spilling papers everywhere. When I open it, I see that it’s full of photos. I flick through them and see pictures of my dad, and of Hector. There are some of the distillery too, with the workers standing in front of the red-brick building. Tears fill my eyes. The family I never knew, and the father who isn’t here.
I look through the photographs of my dad. There’s one of him down on the beach, the beach where we ate oysters and drank gin this morning. One of him in school uniform. No doubt the start of term, just like he used to take a photograph of me every September in my new uniform. And another of Christmas, beside a huge tree in the hall here, the whole family dressed in their smart clothes. Hector has his hand on Dad’s shoulder. What happened? How have these memories been forgotten? What would it have been like to have a place like this to visit, with grandparents holding open their arms in welcome? To come back here with my dad?
What would Dad have made of Joe? I find myself wondering. Would he have been pleased about our relationship? What would it have been like to bring Joe here? Then I think about Joe’s collection of expensive shoes, and his smart wool coat, and smile at the thought of the dogs greeting him. Joe likes five-star hotels and thinks that’s what we should be aiming for in life. I don’t think he would have warmed to Teach Mhor as the family home. I smile again at the thought of him trying to drink gin from an oyster shell and asking for the nearest hotel. Joe is much happier in a chic city bar than somewhere like here. He likes comfort. He even bought me Egyptian cotton sheets for my birthday one year, because he likes to sleep in the best he can. I’m not sure that he would ever have fitted in here.
I quickly put the lid on the box of photographs and on the thoughts they’re raking up, and try to run through some songs in my head, just to keep on top of the set. Suddenly Lachlan reappears with an armful of logs and smaller pieces of wood and drops them by the hearth. Then, without a word, he lays up the fire, kindling first, and sets light to the paper, slowly feeding on the bigger logs until the fire is roaring. The heat makes me feel better. He leaves the room again and returns with a plate of sandwiches and two glasses of wine.
‘I’ve made some for Hector, too. We’ll eat properly later. You’re welcome to join us,’ he says crisply.
The door opens and in walks one of the Labradors, the younger of the two, come to see what’s going on. He jumps up onto the big sagging sofa and settles down to watch us work. I reach over and help myself to one of the sandwiches, biting into the thick home-made brown bread. Inside is soft smoked salmon with a crunch of black pepper. It’s heaven. I sip my wine.
‘How’s the salmon?’ Lachlan asks.
‘Gorgeous,’ I say, my hand over my full mouth.
‘Caught and smoked myself.’ He nods towards the back of the house, and I have to say, I’m impressed. I’ve never tasted anything like it. Then he tosses another log on the fire and looks straight at me. ‘So, you’re a singer,’ he says, and I sense a little devilment in his tone. ‘How come you’re not singing? I’d’ve thought it was a busy time of year.’ He tosses more papers onto the fire. ‘Oh, there are some photographs here. You might like them,’ he says, and puts them to one side.
I swallow and look at the pile of photographs, not sure if I want to see any more of the life that shut me out.
‘I’m...I just need to rest my voice. I’m on my way to a healing centre in Tenerife. As soon as I finish here. Then I can get back to my band. We’re hoping that things are about to happen. There’s been an A&R woman interested in us.’ I fall silent. I hope she’s still interested. And then the bigger fear surges up in me again, like a monster waking from its one-eye-open sleep and rising to its full, scary height with a roar: I hope I can still sing.
