Mummy! Swimming! Mum!
- Swimming? - Swimming!
Hello!
- Come on. - I can see!
And it's Thorburn through the centre!
Barbara!
- Mummy, I was swimming! - I saw you!
- I saw you swimming! - I can swim, I can swim now!
I'm not going in there again. It's too cold!
Yeah, well, let's get your dress on.
Oops. Wrong way round.
I was swimming, Mummy, wasn't I?
Of course you were. I saw you.
It's nearly 30 years since my mother died.
She was younger then than I am now.
And I still look up to her.
Barbara?
It was the finality of it.
Like a judgment.
I failed her in some way.
I should have been able to stop her.
To save her! That's what haunts me.
Hey.
You were just a wee girl.
I was nine.
It's not your fault! How could it be?
How do your children feel, do you think?
Well...
they've got their mother.
That's just the way it is, Barbara!
I only have one poem of hers,
that she gave a copy of to Andrew, once.
It's in her own handwriting.
What, Andrew gave it to you?
Not so long ago. He kept it all that time.
And he wanted me to have it.
I still think of her as my elder, my model.
She loved being out in a storm.
It was her element.
Dispatch News!
Aye, cheers.
Barbara?
Greta!
Greta?
Oh! Wendy.
Planning a trip?
You're miles away already.
I was in a dream.
You're not sleepwalking, are you?
Are you alright?
Yes. I am.
Wasn't that storm a beauty?
God, no!
I got out of it as quick as I could and into Crawford's!
Come on with me to Andrew's. I'm going there now.
- To Andrew's? - Mm.
How can I go to Andrew's? What, barge in?
When he hates so much to have his work disturbed?
I always go round there around now.
In fact, I'm late. Come on.
Is he painting you again?
All the time. Again and again.
I'm his only model.
Me and the roof outside the window.
The roof?
Oh, it's the start of a whole new series of paintings,
that's my guess.
Andrew's my model. In a different sense.
My only mentor.
The one person I rely on.
You've no idea how I rely on Andrew. He's my guru.
Have you any idea how Andrew hates to be relied on?
Barbara? You've stopped talking. Why?
Why have you stopped?
I'll go on listening all night if it'll do any good.
Hey. You have got the right man.
A well-known perfect listener.
Why not just listen because it's me?
Why does it have to be because you're so good at it?
I am listening because it's you! What else?
Look...
go on about your mother.
Rare visitor!
You're soaking!
Where did you find her, Wendy?
She was out in that storm!
Oh, here, take that jersey off, as well.
I was lost, and Wendy found me.
Are you OK?
Right as rain.
I'm in my element.
Oh! But I have disturbed you. I wouldn't for the world.
Take a look. Nothing much to see yet.
Barely begun.
I love this place, Andrew.
I do like the way you live.
Oh, aye, everyone goes on about the way I live and how lucky I am.
You would think it was something quite beyond them.
It is beyond most of us.
You don't go for...
inessentials.
I need everything else, as well.
My house, Jim, making meals, taking the children to school.
I need my domestic life to...
hold me down a bit.
To keep your feet on the ground?
Yes.
Domestic life would kill me.
Are you trying to say I can't have both?
You can't have both.
But I must! I need both.
I have to have both.
Wendy went out and phoned your dad? Why did she do that?
She seemed to think there was something wrong.
What happened today?
I was... by myself.
Beside myself.
That was...
all.
I've been having such...
dreams lately, Andrew.
It's like...
like the sea.
And sleep.
It's like the sea.
Connecting everything.
I wake up, and I write things down straight out of my sleep.
Solitude then.
In the middle of the night.
Peace.
Like today in the gale.
Oh, where's...?
Where's my notebook?
You have to look after yourself.
I can't, always.
The trouble is...
I'm torn between languages.
You don't have that problem in painting.
How not?
Did you see what he's doing now?
Other people paint landscapes, Andrew paints roofscapes.
Between times, I'm painting Wendy in dance costume.
- Or no costume. - Ah, well,
that's when I'm at my least abstract.
The dance poses, though, are in costume.
I like the very tender ones he's done of you,
but I can see what he means about roofscapes.
Ah! Jim!
Good to see you.
Oh, and you've come to the right place
if it's your wandering wife you're looking for.
Here she is.
So, what's up?
Oh, we're alright. Everything's alright.
Greta got caught in that storm.
I didn't get caught, I was enjoying it.
Tea, Jim?
Aye, she got a thorough drooking in a real downpour.
Thunder and lightning, the whole caboodle.
- Didn't you hear it? - Oh, sure.
Er, the lights went out at the office.
It's like the wake now. The wake after the storm.
Everything's calmed down now.
Wake?
That's one of my words.
Yours would be the wake of a boat or waking up in the night.
Or any kind of aftermath.
A wake for the departed, wailing and moaning.
Well, that's another.
You see? What a word.
So, er... you're alright, then?
I couldn't be better.
This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news.
Further H-bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean
have shown satisfactory results.
A committee has been formed for the control
of industrial and other uses of atomic energy.
At today's meeting of the United Nations,
the Soviet representative left the meeting as a protest
against the speech made by the Indian delegate.
The price of bacon will rise
by a ha'penny a pound from tomorrow.
A woman in Perth, Australia, has given birth to quadruplets.
I just hate the news.
The Soviet representative left today's meeting
of the United Nations...
I would like to have a baby.
Barbara, I didn't know.
What in the world have we been so at odds about, then?
- Oh, but... - Why didn't you say?
Don't think about it. We couldn't possibly!
Oh. Well...
that's it.
That is not it!
You mean that is not it, that is not it at all.
Of course, I do admire the way Andrew lives.
And yet, Jim...
What do you think you were doing? I...
I don't understand you, Greta.
How could you be so inconsiderate?
- What do you mean? - Worrying people like that!
What do you think you were doing?
Worrying who? Who was worrying?
Well, me.
A-A-And Wendy.
When she phoned me at the office.
Did she?
Well, I didn't know.
Well, there was no need.
Oh...
I see!
Well, what did she say?
Just that... that she thought I ought to come round.
I didn't know what to think. And then there you were,
just as if nothing was the matter at all!
Well, nothing was the matter.
Well, I felt a fool, being sent for!
Wendy couldn't have understood the thrill of being out in all that.
Can't say I do, either.
I'm sorry.
Please don't leave me out of things.
Chocolate cake!
Can I have it?
A big bit for me!
Is it the heredity you're afraid of?
Stop analysing me, Philip!
You're my friend, not my analyst.
Oh! "Friend" now, is it?
I thought I was your lover.
Great words, you use.
What is it?
She says "delirious".
But Mrs Kemp's an alarmist. You've said so yourself.
What if she's right this time and he really is ill?
Yes, yes, er... You'd better go.
- You'll only be sorry if you don't. - You're right.
I need to go.
What is it, Mummy? Is it Grandad? Is he ill again?
- Will he die? - Shh.
Can I come with you, Mummy, to see Grandad?
Next time, darling.
She flew north the same day
and then got some friends with a motorboat
to take her out to where Grandfather had gone to live.
Oh, thanks.
The day's getting a wee bit overcast.
It's fine.
You didn't take sugar.
Cheers.
I remember it all exactly as she told me it.
- Bye! - Bye!
Mrs Kemp?
Mrs Kemp, is that you? Come up!
Och, aye, it's you, lass.
Hello, Father.
My, am I glad to see you!
Is there nobody in the house with you?
Mrs Kemp will be coming in again, aye.
Are you by yersel'? Is Jim and the bairns no with you?
Not this time.
How are you now? Mrs Kemp said in her wire that...
I was fair wash yesterday.
But I'm good bit better today.
But I'm dry. I'm needing a drink.
Ah-ah-ah-ah, a dram!
Are you allowed whisky?
"Allowed"?
- What does the doctor say? - Doctor?
Oh, I'm having no doctor.
And now you're here, I don't need a doctor.
Let's get you up.
Oh, I'm right glad you came, Mrs Thorburn.
He was worse yesterday, you know?
- Far worse. - He's not too bad now.
Delirious. And he wouldn't have the doctor.
I hope you don't mind me sending for you.
- Oh, no. - He talked such nonsense!
What's all the whispering about?
Would you like to come in and see him?
Ach, women!
Well, then!
How are you feeling now, Mr Kelday?
Better. I'm better.
Och, that's right.
I'll bring you fresh milk the morn.
There's butter in the pantry.
I baked him some scones yesterday,
but he wouldn't have them.
It's kind of you to do so much.
Och, anybody would do what I do.
I'm very grateful.
Go home, do, Ida! Greta's here.
The lass is tired and she's needing a rest.
I know. And I'm needed home, too, so I'll go.
Goodnight, then.
Bye.
She's been awful good to me. You mustn't mind her.
But... but go you to your bed
and get some rest.
Are you sure you're alright?
Goodnight.
Shoo!
Cat, get down!
Come here.
I was bringing the breakfast up to you!
Breakfast upstairs? Oh, never.
No while I can walk down.
Mrs Kemp must have been in before I got up
and left this new bannock and some milk and eggs.
Eggs? There's no need to leave me eggs.
I have plenty eggs from my own hens.
I threw them some oats. What time do they get properly fed?
Time? Oh, any time.
When I mind on!
I see your mother in you.
No!
Oh, it's grand having me lass home.
Why have we never spoken about her very much?
We never do.
I don't know.
Maybe it's been just...
too difficult.
It still is.
You were at your studies, and Donald,
he was still at school, and I just...
I just couldn't.
I lost something by leaving home.
But you have your own home now in Edinburgh.
- I know. - And I've got me home here.
I don't like you living here all by yourself.
You're not fit for it now.
Could you not move back into town and be looked after?
Oh, town's no use to me. I'm fine here.
Well, have someone living in here, then.
Oh, no fear! Somebody keeping me in order?
Some niminy-piminy, "Ooh, that shouldn't go there."
I'm no wanting that!
Have a drop more, Dan.
Billy Spencer's car is coming down the road.
- Oh, hello, Dan! - Hello, Greta!
Good, we'll get some sense out of him.
Dan here can never get his stories straight.
Do you still keep bees at Fea, Dan?
Oh, yes, I do that. And I mind you as a biddy bairn,
no three year auld, doon on your hunkers,
watching them going oot and in the hive.
And you'd have stayed there all day.
I was fascinated. I loved them.
And I never knew they might sting me!
And they never did. But it was a wonder.
Oh, here, I have got something for you.
This is for you to take home wi' you.
Oh, Dan!
Oh, when I heard you were here,
I kent that was the very thing you would like.
None for me, Dan? I like clover honey, too!
Oh, thank you, Dan! This is precious.
Come in, Billy! There's a dram for you here.
- Hello, Greta! - Hello, Billy.
- Dan. - Alright?
How's the man? I heard you were dying!
Och, so I was, but I didna.
I'm alright noo.
Oh, that's the way of you. Here's your health.
Here.
Right fine you have your daughter home. She'll look after you.
Billy, you'll ken the yarn aboot Willie o' Bindatoon at the Airy wedding.
What was the way o' it?
Oh, yes, I believe I heard that one, indeed, boy.
It was in the wartime.
- Were you no there, boy? - Oh, I was there that time.
- I was at that wedding! - You were there?
- How could you be there? - I was!
It was one time we were all out staying.
Oh, except you.
You were no there, Sam, but it was a right laugh, anyway.
Ken I was no here! It was the wartime!
I was in the drifters on the prow!
The way I heard!
Well, what is the story? Why can't I hear it?
What's all the fun?
They'll no tell me the story.
It was Willie.
Willie o' Bindatoon at the Airy wedding.
Och, he had shame for once!
In his best suit.
When she was a wee girl and her mother was alive,
they lived in the town, and it was all very different.
What kind of business did he have there?
Ship's chandler. Marvellous shop.
Full of things for fishermen and boats.
And for bigger ships, too.
I remember being in it when I was very wee,
and he seemed to me so powerful!
With all the lovely things to sell.
Thanks.
Donald.
I wish I'd known my grandmother Kelday.
Do you ken this is called a mermaid's pool, Greta?
What if I could see her now?
Is there really a mermaid, Grandad?
Well, that's what they say, but I canna say I've ever seen one.
Come on now, it's time to go!
Grandad?
Do no greet, me biddy bairn. You're safe wi' your old grandad.
And the tide won't be in for a while.
It really happened.
We used to get told all that going to bed.
Some bedtime story!
Oh, Jim!
I wasn't really in any danger in the cave.
And I was quite used to being in there.
Donald and I used to go in by ourselves later,
when we were a bit bigger.
I loved the mermaid's pool,
but I got a terrible fright that time, to see the water coming right in,
och, though there was plenty of time to get out.
I think it affected my mother as much as me.
I thought it was all in the dream.
The dream you keep having, Greta,
when you wake up making those despairing noises.
Oh, here they come!
It is a dream now.
But it wasn't then.
This is where my mother died.
You should be here, Jim.
You shouldn't have come here.
I had to.
I wouldn't go down there.
It was something we did.
It's safe enough on a day like this.
She was taking a risk.
I know.
She was swept off the rocks.
And she'd always warned us about the backwash.
There it is!
Oh, there they are!
Look!
Oh! The beauties!
Would you believe, darling...
this tiny flower...
will grow only on this wild clifftop...
and nowhere else in the whole world?
Try to transplant it...
and it just dies.
I love it so much!
They'd met when she was a student
and still in a state of shock after her mother drowned.
And when they first got married, it was in that post-war time
they all talk about.
Awful strain, it must have been.
Everyone had to queue for things, like fish, even.
And once she was in a queue where a girl fainted,
she'd been waiting so long.
It's another world.
It's coming back, though.
No!
Ah, look! It's a tree!
Sunday walk, watching the sea, going for a drink later.
I like this.
Oh, I wish I could paint.
I'd love to paint the sea.
Paint the sea, eh?
Did you see that sort of photographs what's-her-name did,
trying to capture the sea?
Those photographs? I saw them.
Photographs are no use for this. I've tried photographs.
Oh, you've tried photographs, have you?
Have you tried words?
You must have ink in your veins as well as the sea in your blood.
Wool in my blood, more like!
From my shepherd ancestors in the Borders, Philip.
My Thorburn side.
Philip! Barbara!
Barbara! Philip!
Come on up!
It is!
Hello, Roger.
Is this really your idea of fresh air and exercise for a Sunday afternoon?
Well, the kids are down on the beach with the dog,
and that'll do for the lot of us.
Come on, get in out the wind.
Talk about muzak!
Don't you like this?
It's, you know...
Oh, no, no, no, outside, I meant.
Er, you two married now or something?
You looked very married, strolling along there.
No knot has been tied. We're the same as before.
We're not really the marrying kind, Roger.
Ach, who is? But we get married just the same.
Hmm.
I'm flying!
I can fly!
I like coming into town with you, Daddy,
and I like it when the boys don't come with us.
Where are we going for morning coffee?
Same place as last week?
OK. But not until we get shoes to fit you first.
She'd better bring me something a lot nicer than this.
Here's the girl now.
I'm not wearing that.
But you can't tell till you try it on, dear.
They might be the very thing on. Just try it.
Never.
♪ If you loved me ♪
♪ Half as much as I love you ♪
♪ You wouldn't worry me as much as you do ♪
♪ You're nice to me... ♪
♪ Else around... ♪
♪ Only build me up to let me down... ♪
I know now.
♪ Missed me... ♪
I know what it is.
It's not just finding an identity, not that.
♪ Stay away half as much as you do... ♪
Forget I'm my mother's daughter.
I'm me.
♪ Be so blue... ♪
- ♪ If you only loved me ♪ - Me!
♪ Half as much as I love you... ♪
How could it be that, really?
Not the whole of it, anyway.
You're not listening!
What did you say?
You weren't listening!
Well, tell me again.
It was Aunt Effie's house, my dad's Aunt Effie.
And we had it all to ourselves!
She'd gone off for a six-month trip to New Zealand,
and we could stay any time we wanted.
It was great for that Easter, a wee beach all to ourselves.
One... two... three...
Four... five... six...
Seven... eight... nine...
Ten... eleven...
Twelve... thirteen... fourteen...
Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen...
Eighteen... nineteen... twenty...
Twenty-one... twenty-two...
Twenty-three... twenty-four...
Twenty-five... twenty-six...
Twenty-seven...
Thirty-eight... thirty-nine...
Thirty-seven...
Thirty-eight...
Thirty-nine!
There's one.
What's in there? Can you hear anything?
I hear the sea! Listen!
Go on, listen, Mummy. Put it up to your ear.
Yes, I do hear it, dear.
I hear what you heard.
I hear the sea.
Those boys will get their shoes and socks wet.
Fergus! Tom!
Fergus, Tom, come on.
Come on, let's jump on the seaweed and make it pop.
Wait for me!
- What are you doing? - We're popping the seaweed.
He was to come down at the weekends, but...
he hadn't managed the first, and the second seemed doubtful.
And then, Philip, in the middle of the night...
Can you imagine?
- It wasn't me, it was Tom! - I wasn't doing anything.
You wakened her. What a fright to get, eh?
- It's the middle of the night. - Mummy!
Did she...?
Was she...?
Could she...?
Daddy's here, Daddy's here!
Whose car have you got, Daddy?
You know Mr Fraser at the garage? It's his.
Are you gonna finish dressing, you two, or go back to bed?
Back to bed.
In you go. Good boys, ooh!
There we are.
Mummy!
Shh, now.
Where's Mummy? How can she still be sleeping?
Mummy's...
I'll tell you, erm...
But go to sleep now.
Get some sleep before we drive back to Edinburgh.
I don't want to go back to Edinburgh.
Shut your eyes, Tom. That's a good boy.
You've been very kind, Mrs Brodie.
It's what anybody would do.
I'll have to see to these bairns.
Mrs Brodie was the neighbour who came in
after two fishermen, going out very early, had found my mother
near the edge of the sea, floating in her nightdress,
out below the house where we were staying.
Barbie, Barbie, Barbie.
My own wee Barbie.
My very own wee townie girl.
I don't know how it happened...
That's it, Barbara, hey?
Whether it was sleepwalking...
she'd been known to do that.
Or...
Philip, I still can't bear to think it.
That she...
- Walked into the sea? - Yes.
In her sleep.
Well, it doesn't seem possible.
The cold water would wake her up.
You'd think so.
No-one could comfort me then.
He was the only one.
His wee girl.
And I knew what he meant, his wee townie girl.
Only his.
You don't see a lot of him now, though. How's that?
We've not so much patience with each other nowadays.
Thanks.
Is it because he married again?
Oh, no! I get on fine with Kirsten. She's a gem.
It's him I've really lost touch with, since he moved to the Borders.
Success story there.
It was a good move. He has his own business,
and it's as if he never wants to leave the place.
So...
That's Greta Kelday's story?
Nothing to be added.
Her "story"?
Story, yeah.
With a beginning, a middle and an end. It all happened.
It's not just a story to me.
Because, you see... I knew her.
And it's my story, too.
Well, maybe I'm a bit jealous of that.
Jealous?
Yeah. I don't come into any of that.
Oh, but you do!
When I talk to you about it, it helps me understand.
What is there to understand?
Your mother or your grandmother, that's all gone.
You're more of a mystery.
- There you go. - She still haunts me, though.
Why did she do it?
Even if she was just sleepwalking?
It's not terribly uncommon. The sea can be horribly tempting.
It draws you in. Have you never felt it?
Have you never felt, looking down over a cliff,
how you'd just like to go right in?
No, I haven't, and don't you do that! I'm not having that.
Don't worry, I won't get sucked in.
I'm my father's daughter.
Landswoman. Townie. Remember?
Cheers.
I couldn't do anything like that.
Sorry.
Do you remember the cosmonauts and their giant step for mankind?
It was nothing like that, but it was a giant step for her.
One minute alive, playing with your children,
and the next minute...
Walking into the sea?
Just taking a step of your own so big, so definite, that...
it was like stepping onto the moon.
Or into the sea.
As long as you don't take your giant step away from me.
Stay with me.
I want to.
No moon-steps for me.
I'd really like to...
read more of her work.
But where's all the rest of it?
Well, I'd have to ask Kirsten what happened to any papers
that were in the old flat. It's years since they left.
What, you mean it might all have been thrown out?
Well, I was never sure he really valued it.
I mean, really, for what it was, and...
We were too young, too unaware, so...
Was there never anything published?
Only in the Scotsman.
And in one or two poetry magazines.
I could find the Scotsman ones.
And the magazines will be in the National Library,
we can get to see those.
We can easily trace all the published poems, Barbara.
Shouldn't be a problem.
Excuse me, couldn't spare some change, could you?
- Put it in the tin. - Oh, sorry.
I'll try and come back...
Nae bother. Thanks very much.
- Is that it? - Hang on.
Erm...
We need something on the easel.
Mm...
Er, do you need to see what it is?
No, no, just the back.
- That do? - Mm-hm.
Mm...
Don't you usually wear an overall of some kind?
Oh, that's good!
I like that!
Colour splashed all over it.
Memories of paintings past.
And the paintings yet to come!
Paintings present are all at the exhibition.
You know, I'm flattered by the idea of this retrospective,
but doesn't it make me seem like dead and gone?
Everybody knows you're very much here.
Erm...
I need a special one for the catalogue.
- And they want... - I know.
The window. Brilliant.
And me looking out at my roofscapes. Am I right?
Well...
Erm...
Yes, but it's quite appropriate, don't you think?
Couldn't we do without that?
Mm...
No, it's too much. Could you turn it over, Andrew?
The gold side?
Ah, yes, that's better.
You're by no means dead and gone.
Or dead and not gone.
A-ha!
What are you so pleased about, then?
- I got a really good one there! - Good girl.
OK, that's fine for now. Just put it down there.
Oh, yes!
Eurgh!
Tsk!
I thought a lot of your mother, you know.
Oh, but... you were her guru!
- Guru? - I've always heard.
Who told you such a thing?
It can only have come from her.
Such a loss.
Excuse me, do you think Mr Cunningham could sign this for me?
We start at the very top, OK?
Oh, a dancer! Oh, now, I remember her.
Oh, she was good!
What was the name...
- Hi. - Just one, thank you.
And a catalogue.
There you are!
The same pattern again and again, roof after roof.
Permutations... variations.
And those romantics...
- Superb. - Absolutely superb.
It's great to see them all together.
Thank you.
You know, we've both always supported you.
Yes.
So, they came back again!
You should get good write-ups from those two.
Ach, they were both full at the opening.
I know!
So was I, mind you.
- Andrew! - Andrew!
Wow!
I had no idea of your range!
- They're terrific! - Yes, tremendous.
Seeing them all together, they're terrific!
I'm bowled over!
Thank you.
Come on, let's go somewhere. I've had enough of this!
- I may not be back, Eileen. - Aye, alright.
All exactly the same! I ask you!
But that's what they are, Mother. Roofscapes!
It was really great tonight. Take care.
- Penny for the guy, sir! - Penny for the guy?
Come on, penny for the guy!
I haven't got a penny for the guy. I haven't got any, I'm sorry.
- Penny for the guy, sir? - 50p, go on.
- Let somebody else have some. - No.
OK. Bye
Gave me a real fright, that...
What's the occasion?
It's... how she left it. I just closed the window.
It... it's a poem.
It's a poem she'd started.
There's, um, only...
We're going home.
Come on. Will we go now?
I don't want to go. I have to be here tomorrow.
Don't go today, Daddy.
Come on, Fergus.
♪ Hear us, O Lord ♪
♪ From heaven Thy dwelling place ♪
♪ Like them of old ♪
♪ In vain we toil all night ♪
♪ Unless with us Thou go ♪
♪ Who art the light ♪
♪ Come, then, O Lord ♪
♪ That we may see Thy face ♪
♪ Thou, Lord, dost rule ♪
♪ The raging of the sea ♪
♪ When loud the storm ♪
♪ And furious is the gale ♪
♪ Strong is Thine arm ♪
♪ Our little barks are frail ♪
♪ Send us Thy help ♪
♪ Remember Galilee ♪
♪ Amen. ♪