Christmas at the Edge of the World

Now it was all a mass of dead plants and frost-tipped nettles; Laurel saw a few skeletal-looking raspberry bushes but not much else. It made her sad, wondering if Eilidh was getting too old to take care of her garden the way Laurel remembered her doing, knowing where everything was, letting it spring up naturally even as she tended to the plants with a loving gentleness. She had to be over eighty by now.

Laurel sighed as she sat on the cracked slate step that served as a back stoop, tucking her knees in and balancing her mug on top. If Eilidh were here, would things be better? The cottage would have been warm, at least, and Eilidh would have welcomed them with hot chocolate or soup or maybe even both. Or perhaps the tiffin she used to make, bursting with raisins and marshmallows and chocolate chips.

It all made Laurel feel terribly homesick, like a child longing for her mother. She hadn’t had a mother since she was eight, but she’d had Abby, and Laurel missed her now, more than she had let herself in many, many years.

Why had Abby gone off to university and basically never looked back? It was a question Laurel had stopped asking long ago because she was afraid she didn’t want to know the answer. Abby had been everything to her after her mother had died—mother, father, sister, friend.

With a dad who didn’t know what to do with two young daughters and was always working on shifts, Abby had stepped up and been as good as a mother. Laurel remembered snuggling with her in bed on cold winter mornings. Abby detangling her hair so patiently before school. Making tea—beans on toast with extra cheese, her favourite. They’d eat it together while watching Blue Peter on the telly.

But all of that had changed when Abby had gone to uni in Sheffield when Laurel had been thirteen. She’d come back a bit at the start—Christmas, Easter. But by her second year she’d felt like a ghost, always studying, working, or going on cheap student holidays with her friends. Life had become Laurel and her dad—meals eaten in silence, an affection she trusted rather than felt, a loneliness she’d got used to, a hurt she couldn’t bear to acknowledge.

But she felt it now, and it made her ache in a way she didn’t want to. Why, Abby? And what on earth is going on with you now? Do I even have the right to ask? To know?

Laurel sighed. Perhaps when Abby came out of rehab they’

d be able to reconnect again, even if she couldn’t imagine it now. Or perhaps she could find something different, with Zac. He was her nephew, after all. They ought to have some sort of bond. And in just eight days’ time it would be Christmas, Laurel’s favourite time of year—a time for family, for forgiveness, for fresh starts. Why shouldn’t they have all three?

The cottage might not have turned out to be what either of them had expected or wanted, but it was theirs for the next two and a half weeks, and they would have to make their own merry Christmas, starting now. They’d make their own silver lining, instead of hunting around for it.

Her bottom was freezing from sitting on the cold slate, and so Laurel headed inside, switching on the kettle to make another mug of coffee before she braved the shower, woke Zac, and then they headed over to find Archie’s farm in the hope that he could somehow put their little world to rights.

Of course, nothing about that optimistic plan went smoothly. The shower was ice-cold, making Laurel whimper as she washed one body part at a time, unable to bear any more than that.

Then she tried to wake Zac, who saw no reason to get up since there was nothing to do.

“We’ll go for a walk,” Laurel said bracingly. “We need to find Archie’s farm, and I’m hopeless at directions. I need your help, Zac.”

Her only response was a grunt, but when Laurel went downstairs to make toast, she was gratified to hear a few thumps from upstairs, and a few minutes later Zac emerged from the narrow stairs into the kitchen, looking grumpy but at least there.

Laurel presented him with two slices of toast thickly slathered with chocolate spread, as she knew he liked it. He muttered something, which might actually have been thank you, and Laurel’s heart lifted.

“Did you see the view from your bedroom window?” she asked as she sat across him at the little table, their knees nearly touching underneath. He grunted, and she continued determinedly, “The sea is amazing. When I was little, I stayed in that room with your mum. We both loved it here.”

Zac glanced up from beneath his shaggy fringe, his expression suspicious. “She never mentioned this dump to me.”

She was not going to be stung by that remark. “Yes, well, it was a long time ago. We stopped going when I was eight—your mum would have been fourteen.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Why?” Laurel stalled for time, because she didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t know the answer, and she decided honesty was best. “I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth. Eilidh—who owns the cottage—is my mother’s aunt—her mother’s younger sister. When my mum died, my father didn’t take us anymore. It was never an option.” Not even discussed, as far as she could remember, but of course she’d been so young. She must have wondered or asked about it, but she couldn’t remember now. “My mum—your grandmother—was from here, you know. Her parents ran a B&B in Kirkwall.”

“What happened to them?” Zac sounded surly, but at least he’d asked.

“They died when my mum was a teenager, a car accident. I never knew them. Eilidh took her in, and acted as a mother to her, even though she was only twenty herself.” Which had made her relationship with Eilidh all the more special. It made her sad to think she’d let it slide these last years.

“I’m not surprised your dad didn’t take you back here.” Zac pushed away from the table, his plate littered with chocolaty crusts. “Who would want to come to this place?”

“Well, I did, for one, and so did your mum. We loved it here.” Of that she was sure. Her memories might have become a bit sentimental, but she knew she wasn’t making that part up. “But if you’re finished, why don’t you take your plate to the sink, and then get your coat and boots. We can head over to Archie’s farm.”

Zac looked as if he wanted to protest, and Laurel braced herself for a sneer or silence—either was possible—but then, to her surprise, he simply took the plate to the sink and then stomped off to the hall to fetch his coat and boots.

Five minutes later they were outside, breathing in the fresh, salty air, the only sound the crying of the circling gulls and the distant, mournful bleat of sheep. Gently rolling hills of tufty grass stretched in every direction, the sea a twinkle in the distance, the terraced hills of Stromness visible far along the road. It was beautiful, in a bleak and remote way, and Laurel loved it. She breathed in deeply, reminded of how coming back here had once felt like coming home. And it could again.

“Right.” She looked around, wondering what Archie had meant by paddock—everything was grassy fields. She saw a few sheep in the distance, and decided to walk towards them. Presumably they were his. “I think we should go this way.”

She turned right from the cottage, away from the road, cutting through a muddy field towards another one dotted with distant sheep.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Zac asked in a bored voice, and Laurel nodded towards the sheep.