Blake signed in with the hospital receptionist and made his way to his mother’s room. He gave the door a soft rap. A muffled reply came from inside. He opened the door a crack and then put his head around the corner. The large airy room was a hive of activity. Stinna Blake stood near the open windows on the far side, paintbrush in hand, surrounded by a family of colourful canvasses in various states of completion.
At the head of Stinna’s bed, one of the hospital carers stood stripping the linen. Blake recognised her but couldn’t for the life of him remember her name.
‘Morning, Dr Blake,’ she said in a buttery, south-western voice, her pleasant round face slightly flushed from her tidying duties. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a minute,’ she said with a warm, disarming smile. ‘She’s very talented, your mother.’ The carer threw Blake’s mother a nod from across the room. ‘She started very early this morning. Must be the light,’ she mused, plumping up a pillow.
Blake approached his mother and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. Stinna Blake was a small willowy woman with ash-white hair swept back into a ponytail. She was holding a sable paintbrush, and a smudge of ochre oil paint streaked her cheek. She looked at Blake strangely.
‘Hi Mum, how are you? I’ve just been talking to Sarah on the phone. She’s having a great time on the school trip. Remember I told you about it?’ Blake thought he saw some hint of recognition in her face, but it disappeared in a blink of her striking Wedgewood-blue eyes. As usual, she made no reply to his question. He searched her eyes, but her expression was blank and remote. Blake held her gaze for a moment longer, and then Stinna’s eyes flicked back to her canvas.
He stepped aside and his mother went back to work. She loaded the tip of her brush with aquamarine blue, and leaned into the canvas, her eyes shining with concentration. Tracing the outline of her lips with the end of the brush, she scrutinised her picture.
Blake smiled in recognition of the subject of his mother’s composition. He inched forward towards the canvas, his eyes restlessly taking everything in. It was a scene from his childhood, a landscape expertly executed from memory - a view from their old family home in Glencoe in the highlands of Scotland, where he spent the first ten years of his life.
The painting was a panoramic sweep of Loch Leven with the Pap of Glencoe and several other mountains in the background, viewed from the village of Ballachulish. Blake drew closer to the picture as his mother painted. It was a striking picture of one of the most spectacular and beautiful places in Scotland: rugged, brooding and full of natural beauty. However, what really took centre stage in Stinna’s picture was the dramatic sky. With swirling vibrant colour, she had managed to perfectly capture the breath-taking grandeur of the scene. From behind Stinna’s shoulder, Blake admired his mother’s fine brushwork and the way the light changed on the canvas.
He stood perfectly still and allowed himself a moment of reflection. His thoughts were transported back to his childhood, running free in the open moorland surrounding Ballachulish, scattering butterflies and bees in his wake. He blinked through his old memories, his mind drifting from one recollection to the next. For a fleeting moment, he could almost remember his mother’s voice. ‘There’s magic in those mountains,’ she would say to him and his sister as they played together in the garden.
A loud clatter suddenly drew Blake’s attention towards the bed.
‘Whoops,’ said the carer, retrieving a circular metallic object from the floor. Matter-of-factly she returned the intricate ornament to Stinna’s bedside table.
‘Be careful with that,’ said Blake.
‘Sorry,’ said the carer, re-examining the object in her hands.
‘It really should be in a museum.’
‘What is it?’ she said, wrinkling up her nose.
Blake pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed. ‘It’s an oil lamp from Mesopotamia.’
She looked blankly back at Blake. ‘Where?’
‘Modern-day Iraq,’ said Blake, drawing closer and picking up the oil lamp. ‘My father brought it back to Scotland.’
‘It’s pretty.’
Blake turned it over in his hands, and it glittered in the sunlight. It was inlaid with silver and gold and decorated with stars. ‘It was my father’s favourite piece,’ said Blake with a faraway look.
‘Iraq. What was he doing there?’
‘Archaeology, studying early religions.’
‘I’m Church of England, always have been, always will be,’ the carer said quickly, touching the small crucifix around her neck.
Blake rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Abraham, the father of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths, was said to have been born in Mesopotamia, and that’s where he received God’s covenant.’ He set the oil lamp back on to the bedside table. ‘Yes, it all started in Mesopotamia.’