Bridge Of Hope

by Anne Douglas

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Josie Morrow and Lina Braid are the best of friends. But although Josie has an "understanding" with Agnus, Lina's brother, her mother has far more grandiose plans than for her to marry a local boy. She sees civil engineer Duncan Guthrie, a lodger in their Queensferry boarding house, as a much better catch, However, it is Lina who Duncan falls for, forcing her to break her promise to her childhood sweetheart in order to marry him.

Release date: April 4, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 432

Sample

A ferry was coming over from the north shore. Josie Morrow could see the cars lined on the deck, the passengers looking towards
the pier. She stood for a while with those waiting to take the next crossing, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Only the café
to have a cup of tea and maybe a word with Lina. Afterwards, she’d do the messages, as promised.


That June afternoon in 1954 was sunless, the Forth at South Queensferry a study in grey. Even the famous red of the railway
bridge spanning the mile of water to Fife seemed dimmed. As the expected rain began to fall, Josie tied a scarf over her rich,
mahogany-brown hair.


Lovely hair. Everyone said so. Such colour, such thickness! ‘My only beauty,’ said Josie, though she knew it wasn’t true.
There was a distinction about her face which had a beauty of its own. Not so instantly recognisable, perhaps, as her friend
Lina’s blonde prettiness but there all the same. And recognised by Lina’s brother, Angus. He and Josie had had an understanding
since he’d returned from National Service. Josie had been seventeen.


Now she was nineteen and still here. Hadn’t done anything, hadn’t gone anywhere. Hitching her shopping bag to her shoulder,
she pushed her hands into the pockets of her raincoat and stared at the ferry now docking at the Hawes Pier. Men were jumping
off, making the ropes fast. Soon the foot passengers would be streaming away and the cars driven off. Going where? Edinburgh. The south. Did it matter?
Somewhere different.


Angus was now working in an Edinburgh chemist’s shop, travelling to the city every day by train from Dalmeny station. He had
passed his pharmacy exams and one day would have a shop of his own. When they were married, Josie would work in the shop,
too, selling cosmetics and bath salts and that sort of thing. Which would be at least as interesting as helping her mother
run Ardmore, her boarding house in the Queensferry High Street. Sorry, guest-house. That was what her mother liked to call
it.


Watching the cars rolling away, Josie chewed her under-lip and wondered what it would be like to drive off into the blue.
Not just to Edinburgh, nine miles away. Not just to Angus, putting up pills and cough mixture, writing out labels in a careful
hand: ‘Take Three Times A Day After Meals’. What would it be like to keep going? Keep going, driving south?


Josie had only once been over the border and that was just to the Roman Wall on a school trip. She had never been to London,
never been abroad. But who had? She didn’t know anyone who had been out of the country except Callum Robb, Lina’s young man,
and he worked in a travel agent’s. But it was Callum who had told them that in only a few years’ time everybody would be able
to afford holidays abroad. They would buy a package and go in a group, Josie couldn’t believe it, but her eyes sparkled at
the idea. She’d go anywhere – in a package, in a parcel, any old way – just so that she got to see something new.


Yet she was fond enough of Queensferry, the ancient township where she’d lived all her life. The waters of the Forth, the
ferries, the wide arc of the sky … these were part of her. So was the bridge. With its viaduct and three massive cantilevered
sections, it had dominated the town since it was finished in 1890, and even before, in the long years of its making. But for
the Morrows it held a special significance. One terrible day in 1938, Josie’s father John, while working on painting maintenance, had fallen through the
girders and injured his back. He had never worked again except for light duties during the war at the Rosyth naval base across
the water in Fife. Though he had accepted the accident as the Lord’s will, his wife, Ellie, had never forgiven the amazing
structure that was the gateway to the north.


‘Eighth wonder of the world, they call it,’ she would cry. ‘All it’s done is take away our livelihood!’ Yet she knew as well
as anyone that it was the bridge that had put the two Queensferrys, North and South, back on the map. And the compensation
John Morrow had received, if it had not gone very far, had at least helped to equip the house they had rented to run as a
boarding house. So they had a new livelihood, or Ellie had, while John filled in his time with odd jobs and paperwork for
the local kirk, of which he was an elder. But Ellie still would not look out of the back windows of Ardmore if she could help
it. From those windows, if you twisted your head to the right, you could see the bridge.


There was a train crossing now, and Josie strained her eyes through the curtain of rain to see if she could see folk throwing
out pennies for luck, as they liked to do. Och, she could see nothing and was getting soaked! She shook herself and laughed.
Better get across to the café, then, before Lina saw her from the windows and thought she’d gone crazy.


It was said that Queen Margaret, wife of King Malcolm III, had founded the original ferry back in the eleventh century when
she’d crossed to Fife to see some holy man. Whether that was true or not, she’d given her name to the two Queensferrys that
faced each other across the Forth. And also to this little teashop close to the old Hawes Inn, where Lina Braid worked as
a waitress. The Braids and the Morrows lived next door to one another. Josie and Lina had been friends as long as they could
remember, had started school together, though only Josie had gone on to take the leaving examinations. Lina, who’d had a variety of jobs, had never
wanted further education, or a career. While Josie – she had her plans.


‘Looking for Lina, Josie?’ asked Mrs Tassie, the large, plump owner of the café, hurrying through her crowded tables. ‘Och,
we’re that busy – everybody’s come in out of the rain. Lina, Josie’s here!’ As Lina bounced out of the back room, carrying
a tray, Mrs Tassie added kindly, ‘Nae bother, Josie, we’ll fit you in somewhere. Your mam and dad OK, then?’


‘Fine, thanks, Mrs Tassie. Just out for the messages.’

‘Aye, and to have a bit of a break, eh? You’ll be kept on the hop, this time of year.’

‘We’re no’ doing too badly,’ Josie agreed. And thought: Makes a change.

‘Look at you, you’re wet through!’ cried Lina, who had set down a customer’s pot of tea and fancies and was now grasping Josie’s
arm. ‘Come away to the back, I’ll hang your coat up, and that scarf. You’ll have to dry your hair.’


‘Only summer rain,’ said Josie, allowing herself to be led into the back room where the tea urn was hissing in the warmth
and there was the delicious smell of fresh baking. Now that things were easier and rationing ended, Mrs Tassie made all her
own scones and cakes, which was one of the attractions of the Queen Margaret for Josie. Apart from seeing Lina and being fussed
over. Everyone here was a friend.


‘Wets you just the same!’ laughed Lina. ‘Sit yourself down. Mrs Tassie’ll no’ mind you coming in here.’

Lina’s creamy skin was flushed with the heat, her flaxen hair damp and clinging in tendrils to her brow. The only sister to
three brothers, she had always been a little spoiled, especially by her father, but he had died in the war at Arnhem and Lina
had then grown closer to her mother, Kitty. Of the three brothers, Angus, George and Bernie, Angus, the eldest, was her favourite;
she’d been thrilled when he and Josie formed their ‘understanding’.


‘Can’t wait to be your bridesmaid,’ she told Josie, her large golden-brown eyes glowing.

But Josie’s response was swift. ‘Come on, there’s plenty of time for that. No one’s talking about weddings yet.’

‘Not even me!’ Lina agreed.

‘Och, you’ve got Callum on a string.’

‘Must like it or he’d cut himself off, wouldn’t he?’

Is it that easy? Josie wondered.

Patty MacAndrew, another waitress, another girl Josie had known all her life, came flying in with an order for toasted teacakes,
and Mrs Tassie followed, to begin splitting the buns and heating the grill.


‘I’ll give you a hand,’ volunteered Josie, but they all pushed her back in her chair, giving her tea and buttered scones,
ladling out the strawberry jam.


‘You’ve enough to do back home,’ Mrs Tassie said sympathetically. ‘Bright girl like you should be away, studying or something.
Patty, Patty, here’s the teacakes! Now have you thought about teaching, Josie? I think you’d make a wonderful teacher. You
talk it over with your mam.’


‘Och, you know how it is, Mrs Tassie,’ she replied uneasily. ‘I did do that typing course, but Mum’s got nobody but me. Dad
can’t do much.’


‘It’s mebbe no’ for me to say, but your mam could surely get somebody in. Doesn’t have to be you.’

‘I suppose it’s easier.’ Josie bit into her richly buttered scone. ‘If it’s me.’

‘See you in a minute,’ Lina murmured, resting her hand on Josie’s shoulder before hurrying back for orders, and Mrs Tassie
said no more.


There was little time to talk, everyone was so busy, but the break had been very pleasant and now the rain had stopped and
the sun was struggling through. Josie, putting on her dry raincoat, said she’d better be on her way.


‘I’ll come round tonight, shall I?’ asked Lina. ‘We could go out, if you don’t mind me playing gooseberry to you and Angus.
Callum’s away.’


‘Away? Where?’

‘In Spain. Looking at hotels.’

Josie’s mouth twisted a little. ‘Lucky devil.’

‘Och, he calls it work! Well, shall I come round? With Angus?’

‘Yes, fine. Make it the usual time, when we’ve done the dishes.’

‘When you’ve done the dishes,’ Lina said smartly.


Outside the café, in the sunshine, it was a new world. Like a black and white film turning into Technicolor, thought Josie,
watching the tourists hurrying to snap the bridge in case the clouds came back. But the only clouds were small and white,
in a washed blue sky. Everything was standing out in relief – the great bridge, craft bobbing vividly, the distant shores
of Fife. And now another ferry-boat was churning towards the pier, painted sides starkly black and white, cars gleaming in
the sun, passengers putting up their hands to shield their eyes.


‘Lord, I’d better go!’ cried Josie. Her mother was cooking fish that night, Josie had to get potatoes for chips. But her spirits
were soaring as she ran down the long straight road that led to the High Street of the Royal Burgh of Queensferry. Like most
people, she always felt better in the sun.


The township that had grown up around Queen Margaret’s ferry had had a chequered history. At one time it had been a thriving
port. Trade had been good, money had been made, and merchants and sea-captains had built fine houses in the terraces that
rose above the main street. But though the houses had lasted, the trade had not. Queensferry had dwindled in status, in spite
of having become a Royal Burgh. It wasn’t until the coming of the Forth Bridge that it took on new life again. Some of that life still lingered, though the boom building time had long gone and the busy war years,
when the town was filled with soldiers and sailors, were pretty well forgotten too. There wasn’t a great deal of money around
in 1954. Certainly not coming the way of Ardmore.


The house was one of a pair built in the late nineteenth century in the centre of the High Street, its name from Islay considered
a little fanciful by Ellie. But then, what of Seafields next door? Where were the fields? Come to that, where was the sea?
The Firth of Forth was an estuary. But then that house had been divided into flats, its name didn’t really matter.


Both houses were three storeys high, solidly built of local stone, with good large rooms and basements. Ardmore, however,
looked rundown; it bore the signs of its Edinburgh landlord’s neglect. Seafields, as a conversion, had fared better, with
each tenant taking a share in the repairs, in painting and pointing and the upkeep of the roof.


When the Morrows first moved into their house in 1939, the Braids were already next door in their ground-floor flat. Arthur
Braid worked at the town’s distillery plant, the family wasn’t too badly off. But after the war, with Arthur gone and money
to find, Kitty had sacrificed her front room for a hairdressing salon where she permed and pincurled for reasonable prices,
and somehow fitted her family of four into the rooms behind. It was Angus who did the repairs for her, when he had time at
weekends, but John Morrow, who couldn’t of course go up ladders, always turned down Angus’s offers of help on principle. If
it was that Edinburgh fellow’s responsibility to look after the house, John argued, why should he no’ do it?


‘Och, Dad’s great on matters of principle,’ commented Josie. ‘While he’s talking, Ardmore goes down.’

‘Write another letter to the landlord,’ Angus advised.

But letters to the landlord brought only promises. One day, someone would come to mend the chimneys and the doors that didn’t fit, paint the window-frames, fix the bell-push. Until then, thought Josie, coming back with the shopping,
she’d just have to do what she could herself. At least inside the house was as neat and clean as she and her mother could
make it. Net curtains snowy, furniture polished, worn carpets brushed. Even the faulty bell-push gleamed with Brasso.


‘It’s no’ too bad once folk are inside,’ Josie said to herself, humping the shopping through the hall to the kitchen. ‘We’ve
just got to get them through the door.’


Just at that time, they were doing well. Because it was summer, people were booking up. All the rooms were taken, with the
exception of the best room, the first-floor back, which had a beautiful view of the Forth. They’d had a cancellation for that
only yesterday morning, which had resulted in bent brows and bad tempers all day, but looking at her mother’s sunny face now,
Josie guessed that something good had happened.


‘Josie, Josie, where’ve you been?’ cried Ellie Morrow, starting up at her entrance. ‘I’ve just let the first-floor back. Oh,
Josie, you should see the man who’s taken it! He’s like a film star. And a gentleman!’


‘Oh, yes?’ commented Josie, without interest. ‘Shall I get on with the tatties?’

‘No, no, Josie, listen!’

Mother and daughter faced each other in the long, narrow kitchen that was filled with light from its high windows overlooking
the water. This was the room where the Morrows spent most of their time, their living room being given over to the ‘guests’.
There were chairs by the stove that was always on because it provided hot water, a second-hand fridge clanking in the corner,
a great scrubbed table, and a gas cooker where that evening Ellie would fry her fish.


She was a slender woman in her late forties. Her eyes, a paler blue than Josie’s, were large and beautiful, her brown hair
thickly silvered. On her short imperious nose was a pair of shell-framed reading glasses which she now removed and waved, to emphasise her point.


‘Josie, I tell you, Mr Guthrie’s really handsome. Black hair, very dark eyes, that pale skin some folk have with that kind
of colouring. When he knocked on ma door and said he’d seen the Vacancies sign and was there a room, I didn’t know where to
look! I mean, I could tell at once he was a professional man. It was his accent, you see, and his manner – you’d never mistake
them!’


Josie, shovelling the potatoes out of their brown paper bag, gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t wish to be rude, Mum, but why’s a guy
like that taking a room here?’


Her mother flushed. ‘Well, you are rude, Josie, and very unfair. You know how hard I work to keep this house looking nice.’


‘So do I work hard, but I know very well we’re no’ the Caledonian Hotel. Who is this man? What’s he doing here?’

‘He’s a civil engineer,’ her mother answered eagerly. ‘He’s doing a maintenance survey of the bridge with some other engineers.
They’re booked into the Bell but he couldn’t get in, so he’s having his meals there and just wants room and breakfast here.’


‘That’s a relief. I was thinking I’d have to go out and get some more fish.’

But Ellie was already planning the excellent breakfast she would give Mr Guthrie the following morning.

‘As long as we have enough kippers,’ she murmured. ‘Though I say it maself, there’s no one cooks a better kipper than me.’
Suddenly her blue eyes were sharp. ‘Josie, if you see Mr Guthrie now, be sure to be polite.’


‘When have I no’ been polite to our boarders? I mean, guests?’

‘Well, I mean ’specially polite.’ Her mother hesitated. ‘He’d be – a good person to get to know.’

There was silence as Josie, turning round from the sink, easily read her mother’s mind. Then she laughed.

‘Angus is coming round tonight, Mum. With Lina. We’ll probably go out.’

‘Angus,’ her mother repeated coldly. ‘If you ask me, you see him too often, Josie.’

‘We do have an understanding.’

‘You’re too young to be thinking of getting married. Your dad and me’ve said that all along.’

‘And understanding just means you’ll get married some time, Mum, Not tomorrow.’

‘Aye, well, I hope that’s true. I’m no’ saying I’ve anything against Angus, he’s a nice enough lad, but —’

But you think I could do better, thought Josie, and felt a sudden rush of loyalty to Angus. As for the unknown Mr Guthrie,
she didn’t feel like being polite to him at all, never mind ’specially so.


There was a step in the hall and John Morrow came in, carrying the evening paper. He took off his cap and hung it on a peg
on the back of the door.


‘Could do with a cup of tea,’ he said, nodding to his wife. ‘All right, Josie? Get the messages?’

‘Fine, thanks, Dad. Yes, I got everything.’

John unfolded his paper and limped to his chair by the stove. At one time he had been a tall man, but since his accident he
had lost his height, had become crooked and frail. His hair, once as richly brown as Josie’s, had turned into a grey bush;
his eyes, dark-blue like hers, were shadowed with pain. Yet there were still signs in him of the handsome young man Ellie
McIver had married in the kirk that was central to his life. And his character was as the same as ever. Firm as a rock.


Ellie made the tea and Josie paused in her work to have another cup. Sitting at the table, her eyes looking nowhere in particular,
she said idly, ‘Know what Mrs Tassie said today? I’d make a good teacher.’


Her parents looked at each other.

‘What’s Beryl Tassie’s opinion got to do with anything?’ asked Ellie, after a pause.

‘She was just saying.’

‘Makes nice scones,’ John remarked. ‘No’ much good for anything else.’

‘Thing is, I agree,’ said Josie desperately. ‘I think I’d make a good teacher, too. I mean, I got ma certificates and Miss
Riley was always telling me I should go to college.’


Her father finished his tea. ‘Waste of time for a woman, having a career. Only have to give it up when she gets married. Who’d
take care of the bairns, eh?’


‘Aye, you have to think of that,’ chimed Ellie. ‘Bairns come first.’

‘They grow up,’ said Josie. ‘Then you can go back.’

Her father fixed her with a darkened gaze.

‘We let you stay on at school to do your exams, Josie, and then you did that typing course. Was that no’ useful?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She shrugged. ‘I type out the bills for Mum.’

‘There you are, then. Let that do you.’ John rose with painful slowness and laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘You know
your mother couldn’t have any more children after you were born. You’re all we’ve got.’


‘To help, you mean. Well, I think I do all I can!’

‘Nobody could do more,’ Ellie said warmly. She pressed Josie’s hand. ‘And we’re very grateful, pet. I don’t know what we’d
do without you, and that’s a fact.’


‘Supposing I do get married one day?’

‘To Angus Braid?’ Her father was unworried. ‘He’s a good lad. Good kirk-goer. You’ll be all right with Angus.’

‘But we might move to Edinburgh, you know.’

‘No, no, he’ll find a place here. He’s a Queensferry man, he’ll no’ want to move to Edinburgh.’

Josie stared from one parent to the other, from her father, complacently smiling, to her mother, frozen-faced. She leaped
to her feet and ran out of the kitchen, banging the door behind her. Again, her parents exchanged glances, but in a few moments
Josie was back and slicing the potatoes into chips without saying a word.


While Josie and her mother served high tea to their guests – the two ladies from Aberdeen, the hikers from the Borders, the
married couple from Glasgow – the Braids next door were having sausages and mash with baked beans and fried tomatoes.


‘This is no’ healthy food, Mum,’ said Lina (christened Paulina, a name she disliked and never used).

‘I notice you’re no’ leaving it,’ her mother retorted.

Kitty Braid was forty-six. She had green eyes and copper-red hair she coloured herself in her front room salon. None of her
children was like her in looks. They all had the fair hair and golden-brown eyes of her late husband, which suited Kitty,
for Arthur had been the love of her life. Most like him in character was Angus, on whom she leaned heavily, and though she
was fond of Josie Morrow and knew she would make a good wife, Kitty always felt a little pain around her heart when she thought
of Angus marrying her. Or anyone.


‘Should be having salad, though,’ Lina went on. ‘I mean, in the summer.’

‘Salad!’ jeered George, who was twenty and working at the local distillery. ‘Catch me eating salad!’

‘Catch me,’ echoed Bernie. He was sixteen and also working at the distillery. In two years’ time, he would have to leave to
do his National Service. Kitty thanked God every night that Angus and George had come back safely and that the terrible Korean War was over, but was already worrying
about Bernie. Now if she’d had all girls, she wouldn’t have had to worry. Or, would she? Eyeing Lina, who was looking as pretty
as a picture in a new cream dress, Kitty wondered.


‘There’s trifle to follow,’ she announced. ‘Suppose you’ll say that’s unhealthy too?’

‘Mum, stop teasing!’ shrieked Lina. ‘I never say no to trifle!’

‘Have to let the belt of that dress out, then,’ observed George. ‘Why are you all toffed up, anyway? Thought Callum was away.’

‘I said I’d go round to Josie’s. We might go out somewhere.’

‘You said what?’ Angus, who had been grinning with his brothers, was frowning now. ‘You know very well I’m going to see Josie
tonight. I ’specially want to see her tonight.’


‘I thought I could go with you.’ Lina was looking to her mother for support. ‘Why should I no’ come too? Josie said it was
OK. I mean, Callum’s away, I’ve nowhere to go.’


‘I told you, I ’specially want to talk to Josie tonight. On her own.’

‘Why?’ asked Kitty swiftly. ‘What’s so special about tonight, Angus?’

They all turned their eyes to him, watching his handsome face colour and his hand go up to push back his plume of fair hair.
Kitty felt that anxious little squeeze of her heart again. What was this news he hadn’t told her?


‘Nothing much,’ he muttered. ‘Mr Johnson just said he was thinking of retiring early and his son would be taking over the
business. He wants to expand, open another shop, take on a partner. Could be me.’


‘A partner! With Niall Johnson!’ Kitty’s fear vanished. ‘Angus, that’s wonderful!’

‘Nothing much?’ repeated George. ‘I’d say it was plenty. Will you no’ need some cash?’

‘Aye, I’ll have to get a loan.’ Angus’s broad brow was clearing. ‘Mr Johnson says he’ll speak for me at the bank.’

‘You should have told us all this before, when you first came in,’ said his mother. ‘We could have had a drink or something.’

‘It’s no’ certain, Mum, it’s no’ time yet for celebrating.’

‘You just wanted to tell Josie first?’

‘No, no – well – like I said, it’s no’ definite.’

‘We’ll leave it, then.’ Kitty stood up and began to clear away the dishes. ‘But you let Lina go round to Josie’s with you.
After all, the news is no secret now. And no’ definite, as you say.’


Angus glanced at his sister. ‘As long as I get some time with Josie on ma own, OK?’

‘OK,’ she answered blithely.

Upstairs at Ardmore, Josie was getting ready to go out. Her room on the top floor was scarcely more than a cupboard, but at
least she faced the back and had a view of the Forth. On her narrow bed were her old teddy, a china doll named Shirley, and
a rag doll named Rita. Pinned to the wall were a number of pictures of film stars she had cut out from magazines when she
was still at school; Stewart Granger, James Mason, Van Johnson, Gregory Peck. Along with these were a couple of framed certificates
for Sunday School attendance, and a text worked in cross-stitch that her mother had once bought at a sale. Josie was rather
fond of it.


‘The Path of the Just is as the Shining Light’, she would spell out as a little girl, and think of moonlight shining over
the Forth. Once she had asked her mother, who were the Just?


‘The righteous,’ her mother replied, and at Josie’s blank look, had expanded, ‘the good. Folk who do what is right.’

‘Oh.’ Would the moonlight be hers? Josie wondered. She always tried to do what was right. Did trying count?

Of late she had scarcely looked at the text, but sometimes she thought she should take down the film stars, get some proper pictures. After all, she was a bit old now for pinups.


That evening she was worried about her hair. Did it smell of fish? She brushed it hard and sprayed it with eau-de-Cologne
because there wasn’t time to wash it, then put on a cardigan over her pale green dress and decided she would do. Her father
didn’t approve of make-up and though sometimes she added lipstick when she left the house, she didn’t really need it. Besides,
she was only going for a walk with Angus and Lina, it wasn’t as if they were going to a party or anything, or even into Edinburgh.


She ran lightly down the stairs from the top floor, heels tapping on the linoleum – carpet, such as it was, didn’t start till
the first-floor landing – and it was there that she saw a dark-haired man in casual tweeds closing his door. The famous Mr
Guthrie.


Well, she’d promised to be polite. Josie smiled at him.

‘Hello, I’m Mrs Morrow’s daughter. Everything all right?’

He smiled back and she thought, yes, he’s handsome. Or maybe striking was the word. Those very dark eyes, the pale skin –
you’d have thought he’d be tanned, being out on bridges so much. But he was tall, a good deal taller than Angus, and her mother’d
been right about his manner. Cost a lot of money, a manner like his.


‘Everything’s fine, thanks,’ he told her, and his voice was like something on the wireless. ‘The view’s beautiful.’

He was looking at her with some interest and making no move to go. She felt a little self-conscious.

‘I – I thought you’d gone out for your dinner,’ she said at last, making towards the stairs.

He followed. ‘Yes, I’ve eaten. Came back for some notes I needed. I’m working this evening.’

‘Shame, it’s so fine.’

All the way down to the ground floor, she was aware of his firm tread following her. Was he noticing the shabbiness of the hall? she wondered. The faded distemper? The ancient hatstand that had to be propped at just the right angle, or it swayed
like the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Worst of all, the smell of fish that lingered everywhere?


Oh, Lord, her mother had appeared, pale blue eyes lighting up at the sight of the new guest.

‘Mr Guthrie, have you met ma daughter, then? This is Josie.’

‘We’ve introduced ourselves, Mrs Morrow.’ He gave a slight