The Winter Sea

He was tall enough to simply reach and pop the coins into the slot. I’d need to stand on a stool when my turn came.

Jimmy said, ‘I’ve gotten some food in fer ye. Bread and eggs and milk, like, so ye winna need tae bother wi’ the shops the morn.’

‘Thanks,’ I told him, touched that he’d have taken so much trouble. He’d cleaned the place as well, I noticed. Not that it had been dirty before, but now it was decidedly dust-free, and smelled of soap and polish. Once again I felt that sense of something settling round me like a shawl around my shoulders, as though I’d found a place where I could rest, and be at home. ‘It’s really lovely, all you’ve done.’

‘Na, na,’ Jimmy shrugged, but his voice was pleased. ‘If ye need onything ata, just speir. I’m nae far awa.’ He glanced around, and seeming satisfied with everything, announced, ‘We’ll leave ye tae yersel, quine. Let ye get a bit o’ rest.’

I thanked them both a final time, and said good night, and saw them out. I was about to close the door when Stuart stuck his head back round, and told me,

‘Incidentally, there is a phone, just over there.’ He pointed, making sure I saw. ‘And I already know the number.’

And with one last charming smile he withdrew again, and left me on my own to latch the door.

I heard their footsteps and their voices on the path as they retreated, and then silence. Just the rattle of the windows as the night wind struck the glass, and in the space between the gusts the measured crashing of the waves along the shore below the hill.

It didn’t bother me to be alone. I’d gotten so I liked it. Still, when I’d unpacked my suitcases, and made myself a cup of instant coffee in the kitchen, something drew me to the armchair in the corner, by the table with the telephone, and made me dial the number that I always dialed when I was wanting somebody to talk to.

‘Daddy, hi,’ I said, when he picked up. ‘It’s me.’

‘Carrie! Good to hear from you.’ My father’s warm voice jumped the miles between us, sounding close against my ear. ‘Hang on, I’ll get your mother.’

‘No, wait, it’s you I called to talk to.’

‘Me?’ My father, love me as he might, was never very comfortable with talking on the phone. A few minutes’ small talk, and he was ready to pass me off to my more chatty mother. Unless, of course, I had a…

‘Family history question,’ I said. ‘David John McClelland’s wife. The one who moved with him to Ireland, from Scotland. What was her last name? Her first name was Sophia, right?’

‘Sophia.’ He absorbed the name, and paused a moment, thinking. ‘Yes, Sophia. They were married about 1710, I think. Just let me check my notes. It’s been a while since I did anything with the McClellands, honey. I’ve been working on your mother’s family.’ But he was well organized. It didn’t take him long. ‘Oh, here it is. Sophia Paterson. With one “T”.’

‘Paterson. That’s it. Thanks.’

‘What got you wondering about her, all of a sudden?’

‘I’m making her a character,’ I said, ‘in my new book. It’s set in Scotland, and I thought that, since she comes from the right period—’

‘I thought your book was set in France.’

‘I’ve changed it. It’s in Scotland, now, and so am I. In Cruden Bay, not far from where Jane and her husband live. Here, let me give you the address and number.’

He noted it down. ‘And how long will you be there?’

‘I don’t know. The rest of the winter, maybe. What else do we know,’ I asked, ‘about Sophia Paterson?’

‘Not a lot. I haven’t found her birthdate, or her parents, or her birthplace. Let’s see…according to the family Bible, she married David John in June of 1710, at Kirkcudbright, Scotland. I’ve got the births of three of their children—John, James, and Robert, in Belfast. And her burial in 1743, the same year that her husband died. I’m lucky to have that much. It’s not easy to find details of a woman’s life, you know that.’

I did know, from long experience of helping him track down our family’s records. Once you got back past the mid-1800s, women seldom rated more than an occasional notation. Even churches often didn’t bother listing what the mother’s name was, in their registers of births. And newspapers would only state ‘The wife of Mr So-and-So’ had died. Unless there was money in the family, which there rarely was in ours, a woman’s life left scarcely any mark upon the pages of the history books. We were fortunate we had the family Bible.

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m just making up her life for my book anyway, so I can make her any age I like. Let’s just imagine she was twenty-one when she got married, that would make her birthdate…1689.’ I did the math. It also made her eighteen in the year my story started, which seemed just about the right age for my heroine.

A muffled voice said something in the background, and my father said, ‘Your mother wants a word. Did you need anything else on the McClellands, while I’ve got the files out?’

‘No, thanks. I just wanted Sophia’s last name.’

‘Make her nice,’ was his only advice, lightly given. ‘We don’t want any villains in the family.’

‘She’s the heroine.’

‘That’s fine, then. Here’s your mother.’