“SIIIIS!”
“Oh man, is that Flora? How fat has she gotten? Is she recognizable?”
“Widen the doors!”
Flora shut her eyes.
“Shut up, you guys!” she said, horrified and yet relieved at the same time. If they were being rude to her, they couldn’t be too furious. Right?
First, her brothers Innes and Fintan came tumbling out of the door, Innes tall and pale like her mother, broad built and handsome. He’d been married, briefly, and spent as much time with his young daughter as he could manage. Next to him was Fintan, slender, dark, and nervous. And finally, behind them, Hamish, who was utterly huge and did most of the heavy lifting. Innes covered the heavy thinking, more or less.
Her father wasn’t there, Flora noticed.
The boys mock-embraced her, and she mock-cuffed them. They were as awkward as she was, she noticed.
The farmhouse was old and rambling, its dark passageways leading to small rooms here and there. With a good sledgehammer, it could have been absolutely exceptional, with uninterrupted views down to the sea across their own land—sheep and cows were their main concern: hardy little short-tails that weren’t great for eating but produced strong, soft wool that went to the looms of the other islands and the mainland alike, making high-quality knitwear and blankets and tartan; and the cows were wonderful milkers.
On a good day, both the bright blue sky and the deep green fields looked to be full of little fluffy clouds. Closer to the sea, the land turned sandier, and there was seaweed and a few ropes of mussels.
Flora took a deep breath before she followed the boys inside.
For a second, her heart felt heavy. Then, as she stepped into the cold hallway, she was almost knocked over by a huge, hairy, slightly croaky woofing thing.
“BRAMBLE!”
The dog had not forgotten her; he was utterly thrilled beyond belief to see her, leaping up and down, weeing slightly on the flagstones, and doing his best to engulf her in his delight.
“Someone’s pleased to see me, at least,” said Flora, and the boys shrugged, “Yeah, whatever,” then Innes asked her to put the kettle on and she gave him the finger and put her bag down and looked around her and thought, Oh Lord.
Chapter Seven
If anything, it was worse than she’d expected.
The large kitchen was at the back of the house, overlooking the bay; it got any rays of sun there were to catch. Inside, it was as if a clock had stopped. Dust lay on the surfaces; spiders frolicked happily in the corners. Flora put her handbag down on the kitchen table, the same huge table that had seen fights (sometimes physical if the boys were in a mood); Christmases with grandparents and aunts and uncles from all over the island; schoolgirl dreams; tear-stained homework; big games of Risk when the weather stopped anything but basic animal care; canned soup when the storms came and the snow sat and the ferries couldn’t get over; impassioned debates about Scottish independence and politics and anything else that crossed their minds; their father sitting quietly as he always did, reading Farmers Weekly and demanding to be left in peace with his bottle of ale in front of the fire after tea, which was always at 5 P.M. They went to bed early.
When Flora had left, she had been perfectly happy to leave that table behind, with its timeless rhythm of her mother’s stews and casseroles and roasts and soups and breakfasts and plowman’s lunches. Her brothers grew ever bigger and noisier, but life never changed, never moved on. The boys stayed at home, more or less, the dinners kept appearing, and Flora had felt so stifled, stifled by the pheasant that popped up around November, by the same chipped blue and white mugs on the mantelpiece, the spring daisies and the Christmas peonies.
She had flown, not wanting to be weighed down as her mother was by the seasonal thrum of being a farmer’s wife; the endless staring at gray skies and wheeling birds and dancing boats.
Now she looked at the table, piled high with dirty cups and old newspapers, and felt the grains of her life written into it, unerasable, simply there.
When her mother had come home for the last time, the boys heaved one of the beds out of the spare room downstairs into pride of place by the big window in the kitchen. The legs squeaked on the heavy flagstones, but at least that room was always warm and cozy, and she could see everything that was going on. Nobody said, as they carried it in, what it was: a deathbed.
The previous day, Flora had returned, flying up from her probationary year alone and practically friendless in a scary new city, horrified at the speed of the diagnosis her mother had kept from her own family all year.
Saif, the local GP, had popped over that morning to make sure she was organized with drugs—it was only palliatives now, painkillers. There was meant to be a strict regime as to when she could take them, and how many. Both the local nurse and Saif quietly asked Flora not to quote them on this, but to give her as many as she wanted, whenever she wanted them.
Numbly, Flora had nodded her head, as if pretending she understood, as if she had the faintest idea what was happening, staring at them in horrified disbelief. Then she had stood, shoulder to shoulder with the boys as they brought her mother home for the last time.