Page 5 of The Scottish Island Inn

More and more, she started seeing waterfalls everywhere: small ones, huge ones, cascading down the rocky, grassy mountains that towered above the road.

Until she’d left Skye, Sorrel hadn’t even thought that waterfalls were such a special feature. She hadn’t thought that they weren’t everywhere else. But they weren’t. Not at all. It had been so long since she’d seen one that she felt herself welling up. She wound down her window and took in a deep breath of air: it felt like the first time she had taken a proper breath all day.

But there were some things that she hadn’t missed when she was away. Some things that ran too deep to heal.

The betrayal had come out of nowhere, and it had made it impossible for Sorrel to stay on Skye, the only home she had ever known. It had felt as though she’d had her heart cut out.

As she turned off the engine of her car in the small car park at the Balhennie Inn, Sorrel took another deep breath. She was home. But did she really want to be?

She had cut all ties to her family ten years ago. She had never intended to come back, but two life-altering things had happened that day. It was still the same day, she reminded herself, even though it felt like several days since she’d thrown Simon’s phone at the wall and left the house.

But she’d also come because Bluebell had begged her to.

Sorrel had never replied to her sister’s emails, but that hadn’t deterred her most resourceful sibling, who was ten years younger than her and possessed all the determination of a bull terrier. Bluebell continued to write to Sorrel, every month after she left, for ten years.

Sorrel had read every one of the emails: over a hundred of them, chronicling the ups and downs of the Balhennie clan. She had steadfastly resisted replying, though she had wanted to. But when the last one had arrived, she could read the despair in her sister’s words. I wouldn’t ask, but we’re desperate. I don’t want to be in this caravan when the winter comes. And we can’t lose the Inn. We just can’t.

Help us, please, Sorrel. Whatever’s keeping you away from us, please know that we love you. I know you still love us.

Sorrel stared up at the familiar stone walls and slate roof of the Balhennie Inn and felt the knot in her stomach tighten even further. She knew every inch of that building: she knew how it smelt in the morning when her mother, Catriona, made coffee; she knew what the texture of the walls felt like when you ran down the stairs to breakfast, trailing your fingertips along the uneven pebbling of the whitewashed stone; she knew every point where the floorboards squeaked when you snuck down to the kitchen at night to steal a slice of cake from the larder.

It was strange to see the Inn again after such a long time: at once, a wave of love engulfed her heart, alongside the ache of loss. It was so good to see her home again, so right, that she felt breathless with it.

But it was also heartbreaking to know that she had lost this. She had been away for such a long time, and even though she was here now, it was just a short visit. Her life on Skye could never be what it was before.

She would help her family because she still loved her sisters.

She would be here because she needed to be somewhere far away from Simon.

But this wasn’t her home any more. It couldn’t be.

Sorrel took a deep breath, got out of the car and picked up her luggage from the back seat.

She turned around to see her mother standing at the gate to the garden.

‘Hello,’ Catriona Balhennie said, with tears at the edge of her voice. ‘It’s good to see you, Sorrel.’

FOUR

Inside the caravan, everything was in chaos.

Instead of turning towards the Inn as they usually would, Catriona had led her to a large off-white caravan parked at a haphazard angle. Sorrel gazed at the Inn; it was her home, and it had been ten years since she’d been inside. Ten years since she’d walked into the busy, homely kitchen and smelt Catriona’s shortbread cooling on the long wooden counter. Ten years since she’d climbed the creaky wooden stairs to the room she’d shared with her sister Primrose.

Ten years since she’d found something out that made her feel like a stranger in her own house.

Sorrel tried not to let her feelings show, but she’d always hated mess, and it took all of her effort not to frown at the piles of dirty mugs on the sink, the half-unpacked suitcases on the floor and the laundry hanging on the backs of chairs.

‘Bit of a squeeze with four of us here, but it’s just temporary.’ Catriona was being breezy, but Sorrel knew her mother well enough to know that she actually hated not being at the Inn, where everything was organised to her liking. Catriona loved to say a place for everything, and everything in its place and sometimes even cleanliness is next to godliness as she slotted a plate in the right pile on the dresser, or wiped the kitchen surface clean. Catriona was always up with the lark, putting the bread on in the mornings, and last to bed, making sure the Inn was spotless.

This level of disorder must be torturing her, Sorrel thought. But perhaps it was also representative of everyone’s state of mind. Their lives had fallen apart overnight, too.

As she looked around, she also looked at her mother.

Catriona had changed. It had been ten years: of course she had. But there were lines around her eyes where there hadn’t been before. Catriona looked sadder, somehow; more weighed down. Her hair was different: it had used to be a dark blonde, and now she’d dyed it platinum. It was longer. She wore glasses. She was thinner. ‘I could do with a cup of tea, if there’s one going.’

‘There’s always one going.’ Catriona smiled at her daughter anxiously. There was so much unsaid between them. Do you trust me? Can I trust you? Are you still angry? Do we still love each other in the way we once did? Can we ever be as close as we once were? ‘Tea, I can do.’

Sorrel stood awkwardly, feeling isolated. It was home, but it wasn’t: she’d expected to walk into the warm kitchen, cats curled up by the fire and her mother cooking dinner on the large range stove. There was always the smell of freshly baked bread, which Catriona made for the guests every day, as well as baking buns and cakes. This was all wrong. Everything had been disrupted.