The potatoes began to bump and rumble in the boiling water. Mary reduced the heat, then sat at the table, chewing at her fingernails. She was thinking about Emma, her thoughts swooping and circling around this brand-new absence. Until last night, her daughter had lived next door. She had been right there. Now she was in Lerwick, and soon, it seemed, she would be much further – a flight, a sea-crossing away. The thought of Emma gone was difficult. The thought of her unhappy, alone, was difficult. Emma’s sadness was indistinguishable from her mother’s. Mary wanted to reach out and hold her as though she were six years old again, as though she’d fallen and hurt her knee, as though there were something, anything, that a mother could do. But there wasn’t. Her daughter was not a little girl, and she didn’t need Mary’s assistance. Not now. She made her own decisions, her own mistakes, and her mother had to sit back and watch, as helpless as a child beside a sobbing parent.
Mary had seen Sandy arrive this morning, but she hadn’t gone out to say hello. She’d stayed inside all the time he was there. Not because she was angry. But because she was afraid, somehow, to involve him in her sadness. The sympathy she felt for him hadn’t yet extricated itself from her own sense of loss, and there were questions of loyalty still to be answered, or at least to be asked.
She stood up to check the potatoes again. She was worrying too much. She always worried too much. She took it all on, these doubts and fears. David would shake his head when he saw her like this, frowning, fretting, wasting her time. She was always fearing the worst, he said, and perhaps he was right. The worst hardly ever came to the worst. Today was a bad day, and tomorrow might be too. But there would be better days soon, she knew that.
The front door closed again, and she heard David in the porch, taking off his boots, hanging up his jacket, unzipping his boilersuit. Now he’d be rolling up the sleeves of his jumper in preparation for washing his hands. She heard him sigh, then the bathroom door closed. She took the potatoes off the hob and drained them into the sink.
They didn’t speak much during the meal, and they didn’t say a word about Emma. They just ate and were grateful for each other’s company. They would talk later, Mary knew, when the day was over and tiredness drew them closer together. She stood up and took the plates away. David sipped at the glass of water in front of him.
‘Do you want tea?’ she asked.
‘Aye, dat’d be splendid.’
Mary set the kettle on and opened the fridge. She paused, gazing in the door, bothered by something. It took a few seconds to return to her. ‘Oh shite! I forgot! Maggie phoned at lunchtime. She was running out of milk, and I promised to take a pint down to her. That was hours ago. She’ll be cursing me now.’
‘No lik dee ta forgit,’ said David.
‘No, it’s not.’ Mary shook her head and grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge. ‘I’ll go now,’ she said. ‘I won’t be long. Can you do the washing up, please?’
David nodded. ‘Aye. An Ah’ll put da kettle on ageen when du gits hame.’ Mary smiled and headed for the front door. She picked up her gloves from the table in the porch, then went out to the car. The night was clear and cold, and as good as could be hoped for at the end of October. An ocean of stars turned above the valley as Mary drove down towards Maggie’s, at the end of the road. Her headlights carved through the darkness, hiding everything beyond their reach.
Maggie was old – she was coming on for ninety now – and had no family close enough to look after her. A sister, Ina, lived in New Zealand, and a niece, too. But she’d had no children herself, and her husband, Walter, was long dead. She did well for her age. Her health had mostly been good, and she didn’t need much help day to day. But she was not as independent as she wanted to be. David had taken on her croft more than fifteen years ago, when she lost the heart and the strength for it. He’d known Maggie for as long as he’d known anyone. He grew up in the valley, as she had done, and he looked on her not exactly as a parent, Mary thought, but as much a part of his own life as if she had been, in fact, his mother. Most days, one or other of them would look in on her, check that she was okay, see what she needed. David kept her updated with his work on the croft, and Mary related any gossip she could find worth sharing. Maggie still liked to hear ‘da news’, as she called it. She liked to know that lives were encircling her own.
With her thoughts still elsewhere, Mary didn’t notice until she pulled up outside the house that something wasn’t right. Usually it was lit up like a ship after dark, since Maggie never turned anything off as she went from room to room. But tonight it looked empty. Mary was relieved when she stepped out of the car to see a single lamp glowing through the living-room window. Maggie would be there, she thought, asleep in her chair beside the fire. But when she opened the front door and went in, shouting, as she always did, ‘Hi aye, it’s only me,’ she found the living room empty. She turned on the main light in the hallway and climbed the stairs. She knocked quietly on the bedroom door, then opened it to look inside. The room was empty, the covers turned neatly down. She went through the house, opening each door in turn, but Maggie wasn’t at home.
Mary tried to think of the possibilities. When they’d spoken earlier, everything had been fine. There had been no talk of anyone coming to pick her up, and no car had driven down the road in hours. Maggie herself gave up driving years ago, so she couldn’t have gone anywhere herself. It seemed inexplicable. Mary went out the front door again and looked up towards Terry’s house. The light was on there, and she drove the hundred yards or so, knocked and walked in. As she entered, Mary realised she was panicking. Terry was in the living room with Sandy, drinking beer, and at first she just looked at the pair of them, then around the room, as if the old woman might be there somewhere, crouching in a corner. When she spoke, she felt her lungs clutch.
‘Have you seen her?’ she said. ‘Maggie, I mean. Have you seen Maggie?’
‘Not recently,’ said Terry.
‘Nor me,’ Sandy added. ‘Well, not since this afternoon.’
‘This afternoon? When this afternoon?’
‘Aboot three o’clock,’ Sandy said. ‘She was in the park by the beach, not far fae the hoose.’
‘And you didn’t see her coming back?’
‘No, I just happened to look at that time. I didn’t see her ageen. I just assumed she’d gone hame.’
‘Well she’s not at home!’ Mary’s voice was louder than she’d intended. ‘We need to look for her,’ she said.
‘Is du sure dat’s necessary?’ Terry asked.
‘No, I’m not sure,’ Mary said. ‘I don’t know. But I think so. I’m going to call David.’
The two men put their boots and coats on and followed Mary outside. She shivered as the cold air clawed at her cheeks and hands.
It was only a couple of minutes before David’s pickup came down the road, and the three of them stood beside the gate in silence, waiting to be told what to do. Mary could smell the alcohol from them, and though it made no sense, she found she was angry at their irresponsibility. Drinking! Tonight of all nights!
David pulled up alongside the house, shut off the engine and opened the door, but he didn’t get out. Sam, his old Border collie, sat in the footwell of the passenger seat, mouth open, ears up. David grabbed three torches, clicking them on then off again, one after the other, just to check. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let’s hae a peerie look. She’s likely geen oot wi a freend somewye, but we’re mebbie best ta see. An if shu’s no hame afore twalve, Ah’ll gie da coastguard a ring, see whit dey think.’
He turned to Sandy. ‘So, du saa her in da beach park?’ he asked.
‘Aye, she was mebbie halfway across