If you are reading this letter then you know now that you must live your life without me, but dream our dreams for me, colour the world with your creations and bear no bitterness in your heart that we are the unlucky ones. ‘What’s for you will no go past you,’ they say. The acid of bitterness corrodes away goodness and resolve. Fight it, my darling. I am so proud to have you as my anvil wife. I fear there will be trouble ahead for you but our marriage was made under heaven and no one can deny us that.

I wish I had more than a few paintings to leave you when I carry your priceless love with me into eternity and that first vision of you on the shore with the dogs, trying to look so cross with me. Press ahead with your plans, my darling, set the heather ablaze for me.

Goodbye, my own dear heart. My love for aye,

Rae

May 1949, Friday

You never love the same way twice, Netta reflected, weeping. No other love however strong could regain this first chunk of her heart. It was fortressed by a stone dyke in Rae’s letter. There had been a terrible price to pay for their loving. Now she felt Gus’s hand sliding into her palm.

‘I think you should go downstairs now, Gus, and play outside while it’s dry. I can finish off here. I’m fine now.’

‘But we haven’t found your photos yet and my head hurts.’

The boy shoved another box along the door and dust puffed out like smoke as sunlight from the tiny loft windows to either side of the roof shone down on the jumble. ‘What’s in here? Yuk!’ He held up a pair of lacy bootees faded yellow with age.

‘Put those down and go and get me a glass of milk if you want to make yersel’ useful, young man,’ ordered Netta in her no-nonsense voice.

He plonked on the helmet and saluted her cheekily. ‘Righty ho, Sarge!’

She smiled reluctantly, wiping away her tears and turning back to a box that had once held knitting patterns. She knew exactly what was in here and it would break her heart.

Ten Days in March 1945

There were rainbows and tears on Strathavar hill as Netta set off stoutly up the steep hillside, breathing breathlessly into the wind. Some things never change: the view over Wigtown Bay, the silver-blue sheen of water and grassy hummocks now torched with wedges of golden gorse edging the sandy machars of the shore. She sat on the stump of a rotten tree, searching for comfort in the familiar, and out of a leaden sky a rainbow arched down to the sea.