The Winter Sea

‘Oh, aye? So you’re a writer? Should I know you?’

‘Do you read historical fiction?’

‘Not since I left school, no.’

‘Then you likely wouldn’t know me.’ Holding out my hand, I told him, ‘Carolyn McClelland.’

‘That’s a good, fine Scottish name, Maclellan.’

‘Well yes, except we spell it wrong. My family are Ulster Scots,’ I said, ‘from Northern Ireland. But my ancestors did come from Scotland, way back. From Kirkcudbright.’ I pronounced it ‘Kir-COO-Bree’, the way I’d been taught. My father was an avid genealogist who spent his spare hours buried in the history of our family, and I’d learned from a young age the varied details of my pedigree, and how the first McClelland of our line had crossed from southwest Scotland into Ulster. That had happened, now I thought of it, about the same time as the story I was writing now, in the first years of the eighteenth century. A David John McClelland, it had been, who’d up and moved to Ireland, and…who had been his wife? Sophia something.

With an idle frown, I wrote that first name down beneath the others on my page.

My seatmate, watching, said, ‘I like Sophia, for a name. I had a great aunt named Sophia. Remarkable woman.’

I found myself liking the name, too. It had a nice ring to it. If only I could remember the surname…no matter, my father would know it. And he’d be pleased beyond measure if I used our ancestor’s name in a novel. So what if she’d lived on the wrong side of Scotland and likely had never seen Edinburgh, let alone Slains? She’d lived at the right time—her name would be right for the period, and I’d be making her life up, not writing biography, so I could put her wherever I wanted.

‘Sophia,’ I said. ‘Yes, I think that’s the one.’

Satisfied, I folded the page and settled back to watch the window, where the coastline was just coming into view.

The man beside me settled back as well, and asked, ‘You’re writing something set in Scotland, are you? Whereabouts?’

‘Just up the coast from Aberdeen. A place called Cruden Bay.’

‘Oh, aye? Why there?’

I didn’t usually talk work with total strangers, and I wasn’t sure what made me do it now, except maybe that I hadn’t had enough sleep, and his eyes were engagingly warm when he smiled.

Whether he actually found it all interesting, what I told him about Slains and the failed Jacobite invasion and Nathaniel Hooke, or whether he was just a practised listener, and polite, I couldn’t tell. Either way, he let me go on talking till we’d landed, and still chatting, he walked out with me, waiting while I got my bags, and helping with the heavy ones.

‘It’s a good place for a writer, Cruden Bay,’ he said. ‘You know Bram Stoker wrote the better part of Dracula while staying there?’

‘I didn’t, no.’

‘Aye, it was your castle, Slains, and not the one in Whitby, that inspired him. You’ll hear the whole story, I’m sure, from the locals. You’ll be there a while, did you say?’

‘Yes, I’ve rented a cottage.’

‘In the wintertime? That’s brave of you.’ We’d reached the rental car counter, and he rested his arms as he let down my suitcases, frowning a bit at the length of the line-up in front of us. ‘You’re sure that you won’t let me give you a lift?’

It was tempting, but my parents had long ago taught me that taking rides with strange men, even friendly ones, was not a good idea, so I said, ‘No, that’s all right, I’ll manage. Thanks.’

He didn’t push the point. Instead, he took his wallet out and shuffled through its contents for a scrap of paper. Finding one, he clicked a ballpoint pen. ‘Here, write your name on that, I’ll look for your books next time I’m in a shop.’ And while I wrote, he added, smiling, ‘If you write your number down, as well, I’ll come and take you out to lunch.’

Which I found tempting, too, though I was forced to say, ‘I don’t know what my number is, I’m sorry. I don’t even know if there’s a phone.’ And then, because his face was so good-looking, ‘But my landlord’s name is Jimmy Keith. He’ll know how to get hold of me.’

‘Jimmy Keith?’

‘That’s right.’

He gave a smile so broad it fell just short of laughter, as he bent to pick up both my suitcases. ‘You’d best let me give you that lift, after all. I’m not so big my father wouldn’t skelp me if he knew I’d left you here to hire a car when I was heading north myself.’

‘Your father?’

‘Aye. Did I not say my name, before? I’m Stuart Keith.’ He grinned. ‘And since it appears that you’ve taken the cottage where I like to stay, so you’re making me sleep on my father’s spare bed—and a very uncomfortable bed it is, too—then the least you can give me is company during the drive,’ he concluded. ‘Come on.’

And having no argument, really, for that, I had little choice left but to follow.

CHAPTER 3

HE DROVE A SILVER Lotus, sleek and fast, and drove it recklessly. I found it hard to focus on the things that he was pointing out as we went whizzing past.

‘Of course it’s all changed since the big offshore oil rigs went in, in the seventies,’ he said. ‘Not that I remember what it was like before then, I’m not so old as all that, but the area’s been built up, with the people coming north to work in Aberdeen and Peterhead. And we’ve got the golf course, and the beach. The golf course is a good one, it draws a fair number of tourists. Do you play?’