Stormy Petrel Read Free Page A

learn. Mrs McDougall, how do I get from here to the cottage? I’m told it’s about two miles. I can easily walk to do shopping and so on, but I’ve got a couple of suitcases here now, and I certainly can’t manage those.’
    â€˜No worry about that. I saw your cases there, and Archie McLaren will have them into the Land Rover by this time. So will you perhaps be wanting a couple of bags, say, of coal to help with the fire? The house will be dry enough; there was a couple in it through the middle of May, and we have had good weather, but you would be better to stock up now for what next week might bring.’
    â€˜Yes, of course. Thank you very much. Two bags of coal, then, please, and the firelighters, and – yes, I think I’ve remembered everything else. Oh, about milk and bread. Can one only get it fresh when the ferry comes over?’
    â€˜We have fresh milk here from the farm, but you would be better to take some of the long-life with you. It’s a long walk from Otters’ Bay in the bad weather. Here it is. Two cartons, and it will keep a long time, even with no fridge. I don’t know if you have one over there . . . The bread comes with the boat. Will I keep you a loaf on Wednesday? And another at the weekend, or two then, perhaps? Mostly we make our own if we want it fresh. There, is that everything?’
    â€˜I think so, thank you. How much is that, Mrs McDougall?’
    She told me, and I paid her. A young man, dark, short, burly, in a navy guernsey and jeans and gumboots, came in and lifted the coal bags into the Land Rover beside my cases. I picked up the carrier bag where the postmistress had packed my groceries.
    â€˜I don’t imagine there’s a telephone at the cottage, is there?’
    â€˜There is not. There is one here, and one at the House, and that is all there are. And the one at the House is cut off since the old lady died.’
    â€˜The House?’ Somehow, the way she said it gave it a capital letter.
    â€˜The big house. It’s not far from you, half a mile along the shore, maybe. Taigh na Tuir, they call it. That means House of the Tower. There is a small island off the coast just there, with the remains of a broch on it. I suppose that is the tower that the House was named for. It was built as a shooting lodge in the old days, and then the Hamiltons bought it, and lived there most summers, but old Mrs Hamilton, she was the last of them, died this February, so it’s empty now, and likely to stay so.’ She smiled. ‘It’s not everyone wants the kind of peace and quiet we have on Moila.’
    â€˜I can imagine. Well, I’m all set to enjoy it, anyway. And I don’t really want a phone, except to make sure about my brother’s coming. So I’ll walk over here tomorrow and telephone him, if I may. What time do you shut?’
    â€˜Half past five, but if you want the telephone, then come to the house door. No, it’s no trouble, it’s what everyone does, and the cheap calls are after six anyway. Just you come. That’s it, then.’ She picked up the second carrier bag and saw me to the door with it. ‘Archie will see you into the house, and if there’s anything more that you need, you will let him know. And I’ll look for you maybe tomorrow. Goodbye. Look after the lady, now, Archie.’
    Archie was understood to say that he would. I got in beside him, and we set off. The Land Rover had seen better days, and once we had left the village street and taken to the track – it was little more – that wound up from the village towards the moorland, conversation was difficult. After one or two tries, met by a nod or a non-committal noise from Archie, I gave up, and looked about me.
    I suppose that there are very few places on Moila from which one cannot see the sea. The track, rough and strewn with stones, climbed, at first gently, through sheep-cropped turf bristling with