The Sister Surprise Abigail Mann (most difficult books to read TXT) 📖

a bit seedy, like getting off in a graveyard. Ross gets up and starts to clear the table.

‘Edinburgh is like looking at a huge, complicated tapestry. You get an overall sense of the picture, the bits you prefer more than others, but it’s hard to see where a version of you could be stitched into it. A place like Kilroch takes up a few square inches, but look at it closely and you can see each thread, where it crosses over, how it’s pulled together. You can appreciate how it works. The mechanics of it. How to fix the holes. When you step back, it’s not so impenetrable. It makes sense, because you’ve looked at the back, where all the loose bits are knotted together.’

Whilst he talks, my mind jumps to Mum. She’s always known how to stitch herself into a picture. If Dulwich is a tapestry, she’s the bloody thimble, always pushing things back into the right place. I’m the loose thread, trailing behind her. But what about when she was here, with The Earth Mamas? I know what she’s like, especially when there’s a good cause going. She can’t help it; she has to get involved. I’m evidence of that.

‘I think I get it,’ I say as Ross slots a dish into the rack on the draining board.

‘What do you think? Too douchey? The ramblings of a mad man?’

‘No, I think it’s good.’

‘You do? Fantastic. Hold on.’ He wipes his hands on a polka-dot tea towel and ducks through an archway, returning with a notepad and a pencil tucked behind his ear. ‘That solves the problem of Sunday’s sermon.’

Ross scribbles on a scrap of paper, pauses, and bounces the pencil against his chin as he scans down the page. My palms feel sweaty, which may have something to do with the overwhelming urge I have to be a rubber on the end of that pencil.

‘I’ve got to find a way to work in something about the oil rigs, seeing as it’s October. But I’ll come back to that,’ says Ross, pushing the notebook into the middle of the table.

‘I think Kian’s and Moira’s dads worked on the rigs. Is it an anniversary or something?’

‘Yeah, but not the kind of one you celebrate with balloons. It’s probably best if I show you.’

Chapter 22

Ross unlocks the door with an old-fashioned brass key and pushes it open. A cold draught sweeps through the gap, the smell of incense lingering in the air. He flicks the light switches and a row of fluorescent bulbs putter into life, illuminating two dozen pews. A number of display boards line the walls, the most colourful of which is decorated with small, cut-out hands outlined in felt tip and made to look like tropical turkeys.

‘It looks a bit fusty, but it’s the records that are interesting.’ Ross walks down the aisle. I let him linger at the front before following myself, if only to indulge in a silent fantasy about our fictional wedding day. ‘Hang on, let me take these back whilst I’m here.’

Ross picks up a small stack of books and tucks them under his arm, his shoes squeaking on the marble that paves a runway past the altar. I walk to the far side of the pews and scan the inscriptions along the wall. Lots of Alberts and Margarets, a couple of Lairds and a few old ministers are listed as ‘returned to their maker’. What you’d expect. Beneath a dusty St Andrew’s flag, a different memorial draws my eye; engraved words precisely set in stone too clean for it to have been there long. An array of flowers in cellophane wrappers are slumped in various stages of decomposition on the flagstones beneath. I step back and read:

Dedicated to the sixty-seven men who lost their lives in the offshore oil rig fire of 2001. Weary hours are past, for now you are at peace.

I scan the dates again. If our father was on the rig at the time, there’s a strong chance he was amongst those lost. There’s a crinkle of plastic as I nudge one of the bouquets with my foot. A small card slips out, a watercolour illustration of lilies printed on the front. As I bend down to read it, there are footsteps behind me.

‘Ah, you’ve found it,’ says Ross. ‘The Brodmore rig was just offshore. I heard about the explosion growing up, but it was abstract, far off. A fire in the middle of the sea.’

‘Why aren’t there any names on it?’ I ask. As macabre as it is, I want to see his name there in the stone. At least it would be something solid, something to hinge my understanding on.

‘They didn’t find everybody.’

‘How come?’

‘Have you seen the rig? What’s left of it?’

‘Yeah, a couple of times when it’s been clear across the harbour.’ I think back to the farmers’ market. Moira and I had our stall a few strides up from the concrete slipway that tipped down to the firth, beyond which the twisted oil rig skeleton sat claw-like on the horizon.

‘That’s it. It was all over the news. I didn’t make the connection until I got here. Kilroch is the closest village to the rigs, so most of the men who died either lived here or somewhere just beyond. That’s a lot of families who woke up without a dad, husband, uncle, you know? It’s like a chunk of masonry was lobbed in the sea; there are effects today that ripple back to what happened then.’

He points at the memorial. ‘Unemployment, empty houses, women who worked two or three jobs to plug the gap. This village is run by matriarchs, but it’s not happened without friction. It’s messy. Complicated.’

My hands feel clammy, but it’s not because I’m warm. I can see my breath; the church is so bloody cold. ‘What was complicated?’ I ask.

‘Well, maybe it’s a sign of the times; people’s attitude to the environment is different nowadays. The explosion came because of a