Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Epilogue
- Author’s note
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
‘I meant to ask last night,’ Anna said. ‘Has there been a landslide in the village? There are houses in Crovie that look as if they might have been hit by one.’
‘Yes,’ said David, ‘that was terrible. It was a couple of years ago now. There was a huge storm off the coast. We got off lightly, considering – it could have been a lot worse. The council keep talking about earthworks to shore up the rest of the cliff, but no one in the village can really see how that would be possible.’
‘Neither can they, evidently,’ Glynn added, ‘as they’ve gone very quiet about it for the past year.’
Anna frowned. ‘That’s a bit of a worry, isn’t it?’
‘Well, it is,’ David agreed, ‘and there have been other, minor landslips since. But Crovie has been here for centuries and has survived a lot worse. The great storm of 1953 washed away whole houses all along this coast and Crovie was no exception. You’ve probably noticed where one of them was – there’s a gap next to one of the larger cottages? There used to be another house there, but it was so damaged it had to be taken down. The storm was pretty much what killed the last of the fishing in the village. They lost so many boats and it was too small a community to get back on its feet. Tragic, really.’
‘The Fishergirl’s Luck must have been there in 1953,’ Anna said.
‘Oh yes, it would have been,’ Glynn nodded. ‘And Bren would have been in it, too, I bet. I doubt she even noticed it knocking at her window.’
‘Did you know her?’
‘David more than me,’ said Glynn. ‘I met her a few times – enough to know she was a force to be reckoned with, though to be honest one meeting was probably enough to see that. She was already a wee old lady with silver hair by the time I knew her, but still formidable. One of those stalwart grannies you think is going to soldier on forever. I wish she had. She was one of the last links to Crovie’s past, really.’
‘I remember her as I was growing up,’ said David. ‘She never seemed to look any different. She was always smiling, always had a piece of tablet in her pockets for us children. Right up until the last few months she used to walk to the harbour to meet Old Robbie as he brought in her shopping from Gamrie. May we all be as spry as Bren MacKenzie when we’re in our ninety-fifth year.’
‘I’d love to know more about her.’
‘Talk to Old Robbie,’ Glynn suggested. ‘He’d be happy to tell you stories about her.’
Anna sucked in a cold breath. ‘Oh, I think I’ll be avoiding Robert MacKenzie until I move on,’ she said.