The Winter Sea

‘I just wondered.’ To soothe his pricked ego, I asked, ‘What about yourself ? Ever been married?’

Back on his own favorite subject, he shook his head. ‘No, not yet.’ And unable to pass up the chance for a play, he said, catching my gaze with his own, ‘I’ve been waiting to find the right woman.’

I didn’t swing at that pitch either. ‘How was London?’

‘Murder. It’s a busy time for us. I’ll be off again tomorrow night, to Amsterdam, and then from there to Italy.’

In scheduling at least he seemed to match my novel’s Captain Gordon, turning up just long enough to have an impact on the plot before he dashed away.

He started telling me about what he’d been up to in London, but I was only half-listening, trying to hold back a yawn that brought blood drumming loudly inside my ears. Stuart, not noticing, carried on talking, and although I tried from politeness to follow along, I was fading, and fast, as my long night of no sleep caught up with me. Resting my head on the chair back, I nodded at something that Stuart was saying.

And that was the last thing I really remembered.

The next thing I knew I was waking up, still in my chair, and the armchair that faced me was empty. The daylight had faded to dusk. As I moved, I discovered that Stuart was more of a gentleman than he would likely have cared to admit—he had taken a spare blanket out of the cupboard and covered me with it, to make me more comfortable. And when I made my way into the kitchen and opened the fridge, I discovered my half eaten fish and chips still on the plate, sealed with cling film, and waiting for me to reheat them for supper.

However irritated I had been with Stuart yesterday, there simply was no way that I could go on being mad at him when he did things like this. Nor could I muster more than faint exasperation when, a little later, Dr Weir phoned up and started off with, ‘I ran into Stuie Keith coming out of the Killie, and he said he’d left you fast asleep, and so I thought I’d best call first.’

Trust Stuart, I thought, to put his own twist on what had happened. But I was glad to finally hear the doctor’s voice.

‘I’ve been away a few days,’ he said, ‘visiting my brother, but I’ve done a bit of reading on the subject of genetic memory and I’ve found a few things that might interest you. I could come round right now, if that’s all right?’

It was more than all right. I’d been waiting to talk to him, wanting to hear his opinion on what I’d discovered in Edinburgh. There wasn’t anybody else I could talk to about it, really—no one else who’d listen in the patient, non- judgmental manner of a trained physician and be able to discuss things from the medical perspective.

I had the tea brewed by the time he arrived with a folder of what looked like photocopied pages from assorted books. And before he could tell me what he’d found, I told him my news about Mr Hall’s letter describing how he’d brought Sophia to Slains.

Dr Weir was delighted. ‘That’s wonderful. Wonderful, lass. I’d have never believed you could find such a thing. And it actually said that she came from the west, and that both of her parents had died in connection with Darien?’

‘Yes.’

‘How incredible.’ Shaking his head, he said, ‘Well, there you are. There’s your proof that you’re not going mad.’ He smiled. ‘You simply have the memory of your ancestor.’

I knew, deep down, that he was right. I even shared his obvious excitement at my find, but it was tempered by a sense of hesitation. I wasn’t sure I wanted such a gift, or knew the way to deal with all its implications. And my mind was still resisting the idea. ‘How could something like that happen?’

‘Well, it has to be genetic. Do you know much about DNA?’

‘Just what I see on crime shows.’

‘Ah.’ He settled in, balancing his folder for the moment on the broad arm of his chair. ‘Let’s start with the gene, which is the basic unit of inheritance. A gene is nothing but a length of DNA, and we’ve thousands of genes in our bodies. Half of our genes we inherit,’ he said, ‘from our mother, and half from our father. The mix is unique. It determines a whole range of characteristics: your eye color, hair color, whether you’re left- or right-handed.’ He paused. ‘Countless things, even your chance of developing certain diseases, are passed down to you in your genes from your parents, who got their own genes from their parents and so on. Your nose may be the same shape as your great-great-great-great grandmother’s. And if a nose can be inherited,’ he said, ‘who knows what else might be?’

‘But surely noses aren’t the same as memories.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s been discovered, so I’ve learned, that there’s a gene that plays a part in making people thrill-seekers, or not. My eldest daughter, now, she always loved a bit of danger, from the time that she was born. Always climbing, she was—we had to harness her to keep her in the pram. She climbed out of her cot, up the bookcases, everywhere. Now that she’s grown, she climbs mountains, and jumps out of airplanes. Where did she get that from? I don’t know. Not her environment,’ he told me, with a certain smile. ‘My wife and I are hardly what you’d call the mountaineering type.’

I shared the smile, imagining the gnome-like doctor or his wife suspended from a cliff by ropes.

‘My point,’ he said, ‘is that some aspects of our nature, of our temperament, are clearly carried in our genes. And memory, surely, is no more intangible than temperament.’