The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Key role for Robert
“I was very interested to read the article about German maps and aerial photographs of Scotland during the Second World War,” emails James Christie of Perth.
“After 1st Airborne Division liberated the Norwegian city of Stavanger in 1945, my father was fascinated by reconnaissance photographs he found in a German air base. One of the photographs clearly showed his family home in Waverley Terrace, a few hundred yards from the docks in Dundee, an obvious target.
“My father Robert took part in the search of the German offices because he had been taught German so well at Morgan Academy. He served in North Africa and Italy before taking part in the Battle of Arnhem and then the liberation of Norway.
“He was used as an interpreter and to interrogate prisoners, which helped him achieve fluency. I have photographs which show him with his back to the camera, passing on orders to German naval officers and U-boat crews in Stavanger on VE Day. He may have been only a 21-year-old junior NCO but his command of German meant that he had a key role in the surrender of German forces.
“His father, also Robert, having served in the Royal Field Artillery’s Dundee Battery on the Western Front during the First World War, also did his bit in the Second World War. He was a sergeant major in a Royal Engineers searchlight unit, part of the Forth Bridge defences that were so effective, as your article notes, that the Luftwaffe named the Firth of Forth ‘suicide alley’.”
On Tuesday, the sun shines more or less all the way as Daisy drives to Garve and, when she opens the door to Auchenblae, the big room is very warm. Already there’s a certain familiarity about it, and that surprises and pleases her. Maybe it’ll be easier to spend the night in the house now.
It smells of beeswax, as though the sunlight has woken the scent of polish from the oldest pieces of furniture. It’s been a long drive and she’s glad to be here. She’s not sure how Cal can go back and forth to Glasgow so regularly, let alone trek across Scotland in search of antiques every week. But then he has a comfortable car.
It would be nice if there was a dog like Hector to greet her. Maybe I’ll get a dog of my own, she thinks. A dog that needs a home. But what if I go back to Glasgow? She has to keep reminding herself that if she sells Auchenblae, she will be able to buy a bigger flat or even a town house, like the one Cal lives in, at the back of the Botanics.
Hidden painting
They look neat, well-kept and comfortable. Not only do they have gardens of their own, but they have the whole of the city’s botanical gardens beyond. And in that case, a dog would be no problem at all.
She takes the portrait of Lilias out of the cupboard where she hid it away, wrapped in silk. As she props it up, she notices that the back is firmly corded for hanging. Somebody had loved it enough to want to see it all the time.
She scans the wall and finds a large portrait photograph of a solemn man with a huge moustache, perhaps Viola’s father or grandfather. She’s curious about him, but he isn’t immediately engaging. She takes him down and hangs Lilias in his place, well out of direct sunlight.
Cal might not approve. He thinks the portrait is a treasure, too valuable to risk. But what’s the point of a treasure if you can’t enjoy it? Why should it be hidden away, or worse, kept out of sight in a bank vault. She faces the portrait while she eats a sandwich for lunch. Lilias gazes out at her. A sunny girl. Warm and golden, she inhabits the room and brings it to life.
She’s finishing her tea when her phone vibrates. It’s a message from Cal. “Are you back? Do you want to borrow the dog?”
She grimaces at the phone and ignores it. Instead she hauls her suitcase up to her mother’s old bedroom (I’ll have to stop calling it that, she thinks) and starts to unpack her clothes. Then she opens the wardrobe door and finds to her consternation that it is already full. She had been too overwhelmed to investigate properly last time.
The thought of a cell, without possessions or ties to the world, is beginning to seem very attractive. She’s weighed down with things. She never imagined it would be possible to feel this way, but she can understand how people walk out on their world in the desperate desire to be somewhere else, to become someone else. Perhaps that’s what her mother felt.
Perhaps the snug van and the goodlooking man, who had played the fiddle like the devil, had been all she wanted in her life at that moment. The house had been too much for her to bear, with an ageing and possessive mother. Rob must have seemed like an unlikely knight in shining armour, coming to her rescue, but she must have known that Viola would never approve. It had come down to a straight choice and, against all the odds, Rob had won.
She drags out an armful of things and dumps them on the bed. They’re on a mixture of wood and wire hangers, a few of them empty. Had these once contained the handful of clothes Jessica had packed in a holdall and taken with her when she fled house and island together?
Evocative scent
The old carpet bag had lain under one of the seats in the van for years, and after that was stored in a cupboard at the top of the wardrobe in her father’s bedroom. He never used it, but could never bring himself to get rid of it either.
The clothes smell faintly of a sweet but slightly astringent scent. She recognises ylang-ylang, which she has always liked. She puts the fabrics to her face and sniffs, making herself sneeze. They’re dusty. But the scent catches her throat, so evocative is it of her mother. The van used to smell of it all the time, her mother’s scent and the joss sticks she burned as well.
She sets the clothes down and crosses over to the dressing table that must have seemed old-fashioned even when Jessica
New and fashionable
31 was young, kidney-shaped with a triple mirror, chintz skirts around the bottom and a matching stool. There it is, a halfbottle of White Musk perfume oil, in the familiar early 1980s Body Shop bottle: simple, no frills. She rubs a little into her wrist.
Initially it seems to have gone off, but within minutes, it is surrounding her with the evocative fragrance of Jessica May. Rob and Daisy used to buy the scent for her at Christmas time, going into the shop together, trying things out, laughing. The silk scarf they had tied to the wishing tree had been faintly scented with it as well. Back when Jess was young, though, the summer when she met Rob, it must have been new and fashionable. Something girls talked about.
Daisy sits down among the heap of clothes, determined not to cry. There are worn jeans, shirts and T-shirts. There’s a traditional navy blue winter coat in heavy wool, and a green waterproof. But then she uncovers several pretty dresses: one is high-waisted with pink flowers on a turquoise background and there’s a madly romantic maxi dress with puff sleeves.
It’s closely fitted on the bodice, with a long flared skirt, in a blue and white print like a china teacup. The dresses remind her of the Indian cotton gowns from the late 1700s she has seen in museums, which was surely the intention of the designer.
Once, there had been a consignment of six antique gowns and associated trims in the saleroom and, if Daisy had been able to afford them, she would have bid on them, but her wages didn’t stretch to such luxuries, and her father wasn’t in funds at the time.
They might have fitted her back then, although she has put on a bit of weight since. Not so much that she won’t get into these dresses, though. Jessica had been quite voluptuous until illness made her lose weight. These look like they will fit.
She faces the portrait. Lilias gazes out at her. A sunny girl. Warm and golden, she inhabits the room and brings it to life