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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Sinclair was the child of my mother’s brother, Aylwyn. Aylwyn had married—far too young, everybody said—a girl called Silvia. The family disapproval of his choice unhappily proved well-founded, for, as soon as she had borne her young husband a baby son, she upped and left the pair of them, and went off to live with a man who sold real estate in the Balearic Islands.
After my mother died, as if Sinclair on her hands was not enough, she had offered to give me a home as well.
The grandmother
“It won’t work, you know.” “Why shouldn’t it work?” “Because if I leave Jane here with you for any length of time, Elvie would become her home and she’d never want to leave it again. You know she’d rather be at Elvie than anywhere else in the world.” “Then for her sake…” “For her sake, I’m taking her with me.”
“Sinclair and I are going to walk the Lairig Ghru.”
Mountain pass
The loch, blue with reflected sky, was flecked with small scuds of white foam, and the mountains opposite were no longer veiled in mist, but clear and sparkling, bruised with great sweeps of purple heather, and in the morning’s crystal air, I could trace every rock and crack and corrie that led to their swelling summits.
bothy
Basic shelter or refuge
And I couldn’t take a job, because I’m not qualified to do anything.” “You could be a secretary.” “No, I couldn’t. Every time I try to type it always comes out red.” He said, “You could get married.”
How offensive is this?!?
went up a dark staircase, nicely decorated in sludge green and mud brown,
😜
“And do you know what our grandmother said?” “No.” “She said, ‘But, Sinclair, that’s where you are mistaken. Elvie means nothing to you except as a source of income. You’ve made a life for yourself in London and you would never want to live here. Elvie will go to Jane.’” And so this was how I came into it. This was the final piece of the jigsaw and now the picture was complete. “So that’s why you want to marry me. To get your hands on Elvie.”
Ah, the cad!
It was October now, the afternoon cold and quite motionless. Not a breath of wind stirred the last few remaining leaves from the trees. The loch, reflecting the grey sky, was still as a sheet of silver, the hills beyond bloomed softly, like plums.
