Vee: Lost and Found Read online

  He looked carefully at Mrs Simpson, to check she was taking it all in.

  “Of course we also need to make sure Adrian doesn’t get ill from staying here, as I said yesterday. The army has said he can stay in our house.”

  “In Gairloch?” she asked.

  “Yes, just off the main road, but don’t worry, we’ll take good care of him.”

  By this time Adrian had finished tidying up his room and his bag, shoes and other small possessions were all in the hallway. John gave him the nod and he came into the living room. He thanked Mrs Simpson, smiled and shook her hand.

  “I hope you get well soon,” he said. “And thank you for letting me have the room.”

  Loading the car, John looked across: Nettie was at the window. She would miss the company, he knew, but she’d cope, just as she had before Adrian had arrived. He knew that she would still be there, at the window, as he left Mellon Charles and headed off though the base before turning right on to the Gairloch road.

  Twenty-five minutes later, as the Rover drew up to a halt outside the house, there was another face at a different window; or rather one face followed by another. He could hear the voices inside.

  “They’re here, Auntie Vee.”

  Then the door opened and Mhairi came to the door to welcome them inside.

  “Hello Adrian. Welcome to our home. I’m Mhairi, but you can call me Vee if you like. And this is Jamie,” she said turning to her right. “He’s been dying to meet you.” The two shook hands. “Jamie will show you where your room is. It’s not quite ready yet,” she whispered to him, “but Jamie’s keen to show it to you right away.” She smiled.

  John had already brought the kit bag from the car and Mhairi helped him with the small things which were left.

  “I see what you mean,” she said. “He does look a bit, well, weedy. Needs feeding up.”

  She lifted the (detached) front wheel from the bicycle while John dealt with the frame and the back wheel.

  “Did he say much in the car?”

  “Not really, just bits and pieces. I thought we’d be better taking things slowly.”

  This is not how things were happening two walls and a corridor away.

  “And this is my room. There’s a nice view of the loch.” (Cue: stand at the window and look out for a moment.)

  “This is a Spitfire I got for my birthday two years ago.” (Cue: hold it and make noises as you carry out a ‘sweep’ on the bedclothes.)

  “These are my soldiers. They are Highlanders.” (Check out the kilts.)

  “Over here these are my books. You’ve probably read most of them. I’m on ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ at the moment. (Be impressed!)

  It’s an exciting job, showing somebody your favourite things: that is why Jamie speeded up, though he was unaware of this himself. By the end, Adrian was struggling to make out parts of what he was saying, so when he had the chance to speak he made sure he did so slowly.

  “The room I’ll be in, Jamie, it is nearby?”

  “Oh it’s just along here, at the end of the corridor. “

  He opened the door and Adrian stepped inside. Single bed, small cabinet, two shelves; it was simple and uncluttered.

  “This is a great room,” he said. “Just the right size.”

  Jamie was delighted “After tea we can get everything sorted out and then….”

  “Well, Adrian, will this be alright for you?”

  It was Mhairi. “I hope Jamie isn’t tiring you out.” (She gave him a sly wink and he smiled in reply.)

  “It looks just perfect,” he said. “It will be lovely and cosy in here.”

  “John is putting the front wheel back on your bicycle and we were thinking it could be kept in the coalshed, which is a lot bigger that it sounds. Jamie can show you that later, when he’s introducing you to the chickens out the back. Everything else of yours is in the hall, at the foot of the stairs.

  “Would you be able to help Adrian bring it up?” she asked Jamie.

  He nodded.

  “We are going to have our tea shortly, in about fifteen minutes. Omelette with bacon and some potatoes. I hope that suits you.”

  Adrian smiled.

  “And don’t forget to show Adrian where the bathroom is, Jamie. Righto, we’ll see you in a wee while.”

  In the kitchen Mhairi began to cook the omelette whilst keeping an eye on the potatoes. John laid the table – everything as usual, plus one. Upstairs they could hear Jamie’s voice, explaining everything and the padding of feet going up and down stairs.

  “Jamie’s excited isn’t he?” said John. “I should probably have had a chat with him earlier, you know, to tell him to give Adrian a bit of space, not to crowd him or make a fuss. He doesn’t want to come across as pushy.”

  “That sounds very like the conversation that I had with him when you were away collecting Adrian. What you’re hearing now,” she directed her eyes upstairs, “that’s him trying to keep a lid on it.” She laughed. “He’s just so excited. It’s like having a big cousin suddenly appearing in your house, a cousin you’ve only ever heard about. He’ll be thinking about football, playing outside, bicycles- all the possibilities whirling around, banging into each other.”

  “He has a young sister, he told me on the way over. She still lives in Birmingham with their parents. She’s doing well at school. I didn’t ask about that; he simply said it. I got the impression they are quite close.”

  “He’ll be missing her then” said Mhairi. Pause. “Strange that he should mention she was doing well at school. It rather suggests that he didn’t.”

  “That was my impression- not that it bothers me. Intelligence is over-rated. I remember some of the medical students from Edinburgh; very clever but selfish and manipulative. They’re probably doing very well in Edinburgh: big practices; hobnobbing with the right people. For them, that’s what being a doctor is all about.”

  “Well I’m an impetigo sort of a girl, scabs everywhere. Nothing great to look at, but highly infectious.”

  “Can I check you over?” he said innocently, “just to make sure?”

  “Frequently Doctor, but later, after the boys are tucked up”

  They looked at each other. The boys. Already Adrian had been slotted into their thinking. Could something like this really happen so quickly?

  “This omelette’s ready. John, can you give ‘them’ a shout?”

  He went to the bottom of the stairs and called up. They appeared almost immediately. Hands washed, they sat at the kitchen table and the plates arrived. Adrian paused, and it suddenly struck Mhairi that this was more than simple politeness.

  “We don’t say Grace in this house Adrian, but if you want to say something…?”

  He shook his head.

  “Adrian,” she said, “Thank you for waiting.”

  John nodded and fired the starting gun by buttering a half slice of bread. It was early days, but a promising start.

  28 The Receipt

  2014

  Grace didn’t make an appearance in Lairg either: Sheila was more interesting.

  They drove straight to the B and B, a large detached house at the far end of the village, to book in and check out the room. It was exactly what they had expected, thanks to the website. After unpacking they headed along the side of the loch, with its strange duck-house on its own wee island, to the centre of the village. The restaurant was on the right and they were pleased to be eating inside since it was beginning to become chilly. It wasn’t a good time to be walking around with a fish supper in your hand. Aesthetically, of course, there never is.

  The surroundings were bright and cheerful as they sat and looked over the menu. For Tom it was also a reminder.

  “Oh, how much do I owe you from Lochinver?”

  “Can’t remember, but I’ll have the receipt somewhere.” He fished around in his wallet for a moment and handed it over.

  “I’ll get the drinks in while you work it out.”

  As the drinks
were being poured he had a fly look at Tom. Yes, something was definitely bothering him, and he knew what it would be. He collected the two pints and took them over.

  “Eight pounds ninety-five,” said Tom. “The venison and cranberry one was yours.” He already had the money on the table but he was still looking at the bill.

  “What’s this?” He pointed to a long number handwritten at the bottom of the receipt and turned it to face Alastair.

  “Nothing worth bothering about,” he said dismissively.

  “I’m just asking because it looks like a mobile number.”

  Alastair took a good draught from his pint, burped and looked at the receipt.

  “It is a mobile number. The girl in the shop gave it to me.”

  “I thought you were chatting her up. You seemed to be talking for ages. I wondered why you were writing something, you crafty bugger. I’m not surprised you had a fancy for her: she was gorgeous. But how did you get her number?”

  “Well, we got talking. She asked if I was just passing through and I told her I was in Ullapool for a couple of nights. That’s really all I said.”

  “And…? That doesn’t explain why you’ve got her number.”

  “Oh, she asked if I fancied meeting up for a drink. She stays in Ullapool apparently. Sheila- I think that was her name.”

  “God. That never seems to happen to me. I’d just go for it if I were you. She’s bloody gorgeous. Honest, I’d be quite happy just going out for a drink on my own, and there’s that interesting late-night bookshop. My mother always said I should read more. Just you go for it!”

  “Naw. She’s not really my type. I just took the number down because she wanted to give it to me.”

  “How can she not be your type? She’d be anyone’s type.”

  Alastair could see he was starting to get twitchy, so he continued. “No, I’m really not interested. I had a couple of Australian girlfriends a few years back- there’s lots of them in Edinburgh; students, barmaids. They are everywhere. They like to come to Britain for experience, a kind of working holiday.”

  Tom nodded agreeably. “That’s true. It’s a lovely accent, the Australian accent,” he said wistfully. “And I’ve heard they love kilts,” he said, imagining himself in one.

  “So they say,” said Alastair, “but I’m really not interested. They were hard work those girls. They’re very energetic down under.” He paused just long enough. “You know, like, in Australia.”

  “Oh, right,” said Tom, recovering quickly. Fidget. Twitch.

  “Must pop off to the loo before the meal arrives. Thanks for the cash.”

  A moment or two later, as he washed his hands, he watched a smile crossing his face in the mirror. He really hoped Tom didn’t try the number. Phoning Big Frank at Edinburgh’s leading supplier of exhaust parts to ask for an Australian called Sheila: it wouldn’t end well. But it was for his own good. It might stop him from trying too hard in future. Girls don’t like it when you come across as desperate.

  “Exhausting!” he told himself. “I should have said ‘exhausting’.”

  When he returned to the table the meals had been served, but the receipt had disappeared.

  29 A Sentry at the Gate

  Gairloch

  For Adrian Fallows, the transfer to the Macleod’s home in early June 1942 was to prove a life-changing event, though this would only be clear to him much later, looking back.

  He had grown up in Birmingham, where his father had been a sheet-metal worker in a car factory. Skills like these were much in demand, especially once the Midlands was gearing itself up for war production. In early 1940 his father shifted from the car industry to the new Spitfire factory at Castle Bromwich. The pay was much better, though the twelve-hour shifts were more demanding. It was a source of great pride, of course, knowing that your efforts were helping to produce such a wonderful, sleek machine.

  For many of his schoolmates there was a seemingly automatic transition from school life to factory work. For some, there was a strong family tradition of being employed in a specific trade or even in a specific trade in a particular factory. This was especially true in some of the older concerns, such as the BSA factory in Small Heath, which was churning out huge numbers of guns, bicycles, motorcycles and even armoured cars. Three generations of the same family would often work there, women as well as men.

  For Adrian, there would be no such family tradition. He hated the idea of working in a factory, serving the needs of the huge, crashing machines which stamped out parts. He did not warm to the heat of the forges. He was unmoved by the spinning of the lathes as they machined the gun barrels. He knew little of life, of the world outside Birmingham and the surrounding industrial areas, but there was one thing he was certain of: he would never be able to fit in. He had to get out and if he wasn’t smart enough to use education as the ladder, he would find some other way. That is why, in late 1941, at the age of sixteen, he joined the army.

  He knew he would miss his sister, Ellie, who was three years younger and shortly before he left he realised he would miss his parents too. His father had seemed genuinely proud of him, probably for the first time. It was a strange feeling for Adrian, feeling his parents were proud of him, but a good one and all of this told him that he was doing the right thing by joining up. Staying in Birmingham would bring only unhappiness. Whatever the army might bring, he didn’t expect it to be that.

  In May of the following year, after basic training and a stint on garrison duty in Carlisle, he found himself on a train to Inverness. This would be important work for the war in a quiet part of the country with lots of sheep.

  “You’ll fit in well there,” his sergeant had reassured him. “Just follow orders and keep your wits about you.”

  The train had been full of troops. Most of the naval personnel switched to the Aberdeen train at Perth, where some Wrens boarded for Inverness, thence to Achnasheen. They had been easy to talk to and many, he was pleased to discover, were going to Gairloch like himself.

  There was much talk of the Americans, now they had joined the war. The Russians were holding on, though initially Adrian had wondered who ‘Uncle Joe’ was. There was worry about the Japanese and whether or not they would move into Australia. Britain seemed to be powerless against the Japanese, who had been presented as figures of fun in the newspapers: short sighted, incapable of designing or making things for themselves. They could never be a match for a European army: that had been the belief. Singapore had changed all that.

  By the end of the journey by train and by lorry, Adrian felt he knew a lot more of the facts but that didn’t seem to tell him how the war was going, never mind what would happen next, or how it might all turn out in the end. Good things and bad things, he told himself. It could end with either. Whatever happened, he would try to do his bit. If everyone did that it might be enough.

  The actual ‘bit’ was on the main gate at Poolewe. It was sentry duty at first, though he soon became the messenger linking up the sentry post to the main administrative block. It was a short journey, so a bicycle was all that was needed. His ‘auxiliary role’, (that was how the sergeant described it) included ‘vittling and provisioning’, that is to say he collected sandwiches for the guard hut, flasks of tea in cold weather etc.

  It might not sound a very important role when considering the naval base as a whole and its function in the war, but huge enterprises often depend on the successful integration of thousands of bit players- and that’s exactly how Adrian could be described. He was good at it too- rather better than the others realised. He put on half a stone in the first month, though he still looked undernourished.

  Having proved to himself that he could eat sandwiches and cycle at the same time, he was confident that he could explain away his increase in weight.

  “It’s Mrs Simpson’s cooking.” That’s what he would say, not, “I make the ladies in the canteen feel sorry for me so they give me an extra sandwich and I have that before starting on some of you
rs.” He definitely wouldn’t say that.

  If he’d had the education or the wits he might have called it a quid pro quo: they took the mickey out of him without him realising (well that’s how he made it seem) and he quietly recalibrated their lunches..

  Mrs Simpson’s cooking wasn’t that great, in fact, but she was doing her best. In response, Adrian would do his best: making kindling, splitting and sawing the logs. Dr John was right when he told Mhairi he felt Adrian genuinely wanted to help Mrs Simpson. He was also right in his view that Adrian was essentially honest and trustworthy because, after all, the sandwiches were getting what they deserved.

  Life in the Macleod household, for he was treated like a member of the family rather than a lodger, was a much warmer experience than he was used to. The letter he wrote to Ellie and his parents at the end of his first week in the Gairloch house makes this clear:

  “They make me feel at home. I have a small well furnished bedroom. Mrs Macleod is a very friendley (sic) lady and she teaches in the primary school at the end of the road. Jamie is ten or eleven and he treats me like a big brother. This is a very good place……”

  Of course there were clear limits on what could be put into a letter such as this. There could be nothing about the exact function of the base, or of Adrian’s role within it, minor though that was; but the same was true of the information heading his way. The radio would mention air raids on ‘a Midland city’ but there would often be no mention of which city this was. The enemy had to be denied any information about the impact of a raid unless of course it could be presented advantageously; such as ‘Bombs fall on Coventry Primary School’ or ‘Fourteenth–century Church Destroyed’.