Old age never comes alone, so they say. In a tiny fishing village on an island off the west coast of Scotland, Joe McLeod has become painfully aware of the truth of that saying, as his body succumbs to the ebb and flow of the decades.
Scottish men are dour and unfeeling, so they say. But they also say that still waters run deep, and although Joe’s body has let him down, time hasn’t washed away his memories, nor buried his passion for MaryBell, the love of his life.
You can’t take it with you, so they say. But when the needs of the present threaten to rip him away from his toehold on the past, Joe is faced with an overwhelming choice, a choice that will change lives on the island forever…
"WAKE UP, JOE, it’s time to wake up."
The sky was blue. That intense blue that glazes the heavens in glory on a perfect summer’s day when the sun is at its zenith and there’s not even a wisp of cloud in sight. Hardly a breath disturbed the languid air which was pregnant with possibility and heavy with expectation.
Lying on his back in the boat, Joe heard the sea slap quietly against the hull, and he became aware that the rhythm of his heart matched the pull of the tide, rocking him gently in its embrace. In the distance, seagulls mewed like a bagpipe lament, plaintively mourning lost chances, faded hopes or forgotten dreams.
Then other sounds intruded on this peaceful idyll. Slowly, his eyes tracked down from the acres of azure above him, and gradually, the wash of the waves was overlaid by the jarring thrum of feet passing in a corridor outside; the calls of the gulls merged with the electronic beep of a hospital monitor, and the sapphire sky blended into the high, sterile walls of a hospital ward.
"Wake up, Dad, it’s time to wake up."
The face beside him slowly came into focus. "MaryBell?"
"No, Dad, it’s me, Elizabeth."
Disappointment suffused him, and for a moment he grasped after the dream again, seeking the comforting vibrance of the past rather than the emptiness of the present.
But the hand on the coverlet beside him inched over and squeezed his own, and his eyes flickered open once more.
"I'll go tell the nurse you've woken up," she said.
