‘What’s his name?’
‘Johnnie North. He’s really fit and all the girls in my year are in love with him. We’ve met each other a couple of times in the woods, shared some rollies. But . . . he’s a bad boy, you know?’
‘I do know, yes,’ I murmured, wondering why so many women were eternally drawn to the type of male who would use and abuse them, when the nice ones – and there were a lot of nice ones – sat on the sidelines watching and wondering why they couldn’t get a girl.
‘Actually, I don’t think he really is bad, he just likes to pretend he is so he looks cool in front of his mates. When we’ve been alone, we talk about really deep stuff,’ Zara continued. ‘He had a difficult childhood, y’know? Underneath, he’s really vulnerable and sensitive.’
I glanced at Zara’s dreamy expression and realised she’d just answered my question: every woman who fell for a bad guy thought that he wasn’t really bad at all, just misunderstood. Worst of all, they believed they were the only one who understood and, therefore, could save him . . .
‘We got really close last term, but all my mates say he’s just interested in getting into my pa—’ Zara stopped herself and had the grace to blush. ‘You know what I mean, Tiggy.’
‘Well, your mates might be right,’ I replied, amazed at Zara’s openness. At her age, I’d never have dreamt of talking about sex to a ‘grown-up’ – especially one I hardly knew. I drew Beryl to a careful halt and felt the tyres skid slightly on the frozen snow a few metres away from a log cabin tucked into a crevice. The mountains rose in an elegant arc around us, the isolation both eerie and spectacular. We climbed out and walked towards the cabin, the freezing air biting at every centimetre of my exposed flesh. I pulled my scarf up over my nose because it actually hurt my lungs to breathe the air.
‘Wow, it must be minus ten out here. How does Chilly survive?’
‘I s’pose he’s used to it. And now he’s got his cabin, he’s okay. You wait here,’ Zara said as she paused outside the door. ‘I’ll go in and tell him he has a visitor but that you’re not from the social services.’ She winked at me, then walked across the snow and disappeared through the front door of the cabin.
I studied it and saw that it was well constructed from sturdy pine logs, one piled up on the other like the older skiing lodges on the mountain slopes in Switzerland.
The door opened and Zara peered round it. ‘You can come in now,’ she called to me.
I walked across to Zara. Stepping inside, I was relieved at the blissful blast of warm, smoky air. My eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room – the only light came from a couple of oil lamps and the flickering of the flames in the woodburner. Zara grabbed my hand and led me a couple of steps towards a worn leather armchair set in front of the fire.
‘Chilly, this is my friend Tiggy.’
A pair of bright, nut-brown eyes peered at me from a face so wrinkled it resembled a road map of a sprawling capital city. I realised the strong smell of smoke wasn’t coming from the woodburner, but in fact from a long wooden pipe that hung from the diminutive man’s mouth. With not a hair on his head and his deeply leathery skin, he reminded me of an ancient monk.
‘Hello, Chilly,’ I said as I took another step towards him and offered out my hand. He didn’t offer his in return, only continued to stare at me. As he did so, my heart began to beat faster. I closed my eyes to steady myself and an image appeared in my mind’s eye; I was in a cave staring up into the eyes of a woman. She was whispering softly to me as smoke drifted across her face from somewhere nearby and I was coughing and coughing . . .
Then I realised I was coughing. I opened my eyes and staggered slightly, bringing myself back to reality. Zara caught my arm.
‘Are you okay, Tiggy? The air’s pretty rancid in here, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, my watering eyes fixed on Chilly’s. I couldn’t seem to drag them away, even though I wanted to.
Who are you to me . . . ?
I watched his lips move as he muttered something to me in a language I didn’t understand, then beckoned me forward with his bony finger until I stood only a few centimetres away from him.
‘Sit down,’ he said in heavily accented English, pointing to the only other seat in the room, which was a roughly fashioned stool set near the woodburner.
‘Go ahead. I’m happy on the floor,’ Zara said as she grabbed a pillow from the brass bed to soften what was just bare concrete below us.
‘Hotchiwitchi!’ Chilly exclaimed suddenly, his bent clawlike forefinger wagging at me. Then he threw back his head and laughed as if he was delighted. ‘Pequeña bruja!’
‘Don’t worry, he’s always talking gibberish in English and Spanish,’ muttered Zara. ‘Dad says he speaks some of the old Romani language too.’
‘Right,’ I said, though I was pretty sure Chilly had just called me a witch.
Chilly had finally disengaged his eyes from me and was refilling his pipe with what looked like moss. Once it was lit again, he smiled at me.
‘Speak English or Spanish?’
‘English and French, but only a little Spanish.’
Chilly clucked in disapproval and sucked on his pipe.
‘Have you been taking the pills the doctor gave you?’ enquired Zara from her pillow.
Chilly turned to look at her with a mixture of mirth and derision in his eyes. ‘Poison! They do try to kill me with that modern medicine.’
‘Chilly, they’re painkillers and anti-inflammatories for your arthritis. They help you.’
‘Use my own ways,’ he stated as he raised his chin to the wood-cladded ceiling. ‘And you will too . . .’ He pointed to me. ‘Give me your hands,’ he ordered.
I held them out as asked, palms up, and Chilly took them in his own, his touch surprisingly soft. I felt a tingle in my fingertips that grew stronger and stronger as he traced the lines on my palm and gently squeezed each finger in turn. Finally he looked up at me.
‘So, your magic is in these,’ he declared, indicating my hands. ‘You help the small creatures of the earth . . . los animales. This your gift.’
‘Right,’ I said, casting a puzzled glance at Zara, who merely shrugged.
‘Bruja power. But not complete, because your blood not pure, see? What is it you do, Hotchiwitchi?’
‘You mean my job?’
He nodded and I explained. When I’d finished, he looked at me and clucked.
‘Wasted. Your power here.’ He gestured towards my hands and my heart. ‘Not there.’ He pointed to my head.
‘Oh,’ I said, offended. ‘Well, at least my zoology degree helps me understand animal behaviour.’
‘What use the statistics and the paperwork and the computer machines?’ He waggled his bony finger at me again. ‘You choose wrong path.’
‘Did you eat that turkey I brought down yesterday?’ Zara butted in, seeing my obvious distress. She stood up and walked to a corner of the cabin to open an old dresser, which contained a number of dented tins and a mish-mash of crockery.
‘Sí. Bleurgh!’ Chilly made sick noises. ‘Old bird.’
‘Oh well, today it’s turkey soup.’ Zara shrugged as she took a tin bowl from the dresser, filled it with soup from the flask she’d brought with her, added bread and a spoon and took it over to him. ‘Right, you eat that and I’ll go and get you some more wood.’ Picking up a log basket, Zara left the hut.
I watched Chilly slurp up the soup mouthful after mouthful as if he wasn’t even tasting it. When he had emptied the bowl, he put it down beside him, wiped his mouth with his forearm and lit up his pipe again.
‘You feel the Spirit of the Earth, sister?’
‘Yes, I do,’ I whispered, surprised that, for the first time, I understood exactly what he meant.
‘“Is it real?” you ask.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘I will help you trust it before you leave here.’
‘I’m not thinking of leaving Kinnaird yet, Chilly, I’ve only jus
t arrived!’
‘That’s what you think,’ he cackled.
Zara appeared with the basket of logs and dumped them next to the woodburner. Then she took some Christmas cake out of a tin and the whisky bottle she’d stolen from her father, which was already a third empty, and poured some into a tin mug. ‘There you go, Chilly,’ she said, setting the whisky and cake on the small table next to his chair. ‘We’ve got to go now.’
‘You,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘You come back soon, okay?’
It wasn’t a request, it was an order, so I shrugged noncommittally. We said our goodbyes and walked back to Beryl across the freezing earth. I felt very strange – floaty – as if I’d had some kind of out of body experience. Whatever and whoever Chilly was, he’d seemed to know me, and despite his rudeness, I felt a weird synergy with him too.
‘The problem is that he’s very proud,’ Zara chattered away as we drove back. ‘He spent all of his life taking care of himself and now he can’t. Dad’s even offered to put in a generator down there for him, but he refuses. Beryl says he’s becoming a liability and taking up too much of our time, that for his own sake he ought to be in a care home.’
‘She told me,’ I answered, ‘but the trouble is, Zara, now that I’ve met him, I understand why he wants to stay where he is. It would be like taking an animal out of its natural habitat after a lifetime of living in the wild. If he was carted off to a town, he’d probably be dead within a few days. And even if he did set the cabin on fire by mistake or have a heart attack, I’m sure he’d prefer to go like that rather than be stuck in a centrally heated nursing home. I certainly would.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Anyway, he seemed to take to you, Tiggy. He invited you to go back and see him. Will you go?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘I certainly will.’
6
Early the next morning, keeping to my side of the bargain, I met Zara in the courtyard and we walked down with a basket of meat to see the cats. I didn’t think it would do any harm – there had been further snowfall overnight and any sensible animal would be buried deep inside its cosy nest anyway.
‘Right,’ I said as we stood on the path above the enclosures. ‘From now on, as quiet as you can, okay?’
‘Roger, boss,’ Zara whispered, saluting me. We slithered down the icy slope to the first enclosure, where I unlocked the gate and threw the kill inside.
‘Molly? Polson? Posy? Igor . . . ?’ I called them, and with Zara tailing me, we walked around the other enclosures throwing food into each one and chatting to my invisible friends. When I indicated with a shake of my head that they weren’t coming out to play, Zara refused to leave.
‘Five more minutes, please? Can I try calling them?’ she begged me in a whisper.
‘Okay, why not?’ I shrugged.
She stood up and walked toward the nearest enclosure. Lacing her gloved fingers around the wire fencing, she pressed her face against it and called the cats’ names. I followed her around the enclosures as she spoke to them and waited, then suddenly I saw a movement in the box that Posy favoured.
‘Look, it’s Posy,’ I hissed, pointing to the box shrouded in undergrowth.
Sure enough, a pair of amber eyes glinted at us from the gloom.
‘Oh. My. God!’ Zara whispered in excitement. I watched as she fixed her eyes on those of the cat and blinked very slowly. ‘Hi, Posy, I’m Zara,’ she said softly, and to my utter surprise and delight, Posy mimicked her and blinked back. Then there was a sudden sound of feet crunching on snow and the cat immediately retreated.
‘Damn!’ swore Zara. ‘I thought she was about to come out.’
‘Maybe she was,’ I said as we retraced our footsteps up the hill to see who had scared the cat off. There, at the top of the slope, was Charlie Kinnaird.
‘Dad!’ Zara scrambled up towards him. ‘I just managed to coax one of the cats out and then she heard your footsteps and disappeared,’ she said in an exaggerated whisper.
‘Sorry, darling. I came to see the cats too,’ Charlie whispered back. ‘And to see you, Tiggy. Maybe we should go up to the house where it’s warmer and we’re actually allowed to speak?’
Charlie smiled at me and I felt my insides melt like snow in the sun.
‘Well, here you all are!’ A loud voice came from up above. I looked up and saw Ulrika walking along the path towards us. ‘I thought these animals were out of bounds to everyone except you?’ Ulrika pointed to me. ‘You are honoured,’ she remarked as Charlie and Zara scrambled up the rest of the slope ahead of me. ‘I was shooed away a few days ago.’
With her hands on her hips, her height and her vantage point above me, Ulrika reminded me of an angry Valkyrie.
‘She only brought me because I begged and begged and wore her down, Mum,’ Zara said, trying to placate her.
‘So, I must go on my hands and knees and also beg you next time?’ Ulrika spoke lightly, but as she looked down at me, her eyes were hard and cold.
‘Come up to the house with us, Tiggy, and have a coffee and a chat,’ Charlie suggested as we all headed back towards the Lodge.
‘Sorry, darling, but I’ll need you to drive me to Dornoch to visit Lady Murray. She’s expecting me for coffee at eleven. Maybe another time, Tiggy?’ Ulrika suggested coldly.
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll pop across to the cottage when I’m back later,’ Charlie said. ‘I want to give you those grant application papers and also talk to you about bringing European elk onto the estate in the spring.’
‘Okay. Well then, bye Zara, bye Ulrika,’ I said, and beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the cottage.
‘Wow!’ I breathed as I slumped onto the sofa.
‘What’s “wow”?’ Cal asked me as he came into the sitting room with a slice of toast.
‘Ulrika Kinnaird,’ I sighed. ‘I get the feeling she doesn’t like me very much.’
‘I don’t think she likes anyone very much, Tig. Don’t take it personally. What’s she said tae you?’
I explained what had happened and Cal laughed.
‘Whoops,’ he said, ‘I think you’re off her Christmas card list for the next few years. Ulrika doesn’t like tae be left out of anything, especially when it’s tae do with her husband. Mebbe she’s just really insecure, y’ know?’
‘Maybe she’ll tell her husband to fire me.’
‘The Laird really rates you, Tig, don’t worry. Now, I’ve got tae go. Her Majesty has requested I shovel the drive o’ snow and lay down some salt so she won’t fall flat on her precious wee arse.’ Cal winked at me and left the cottage.
*
‘So did the Laird make it round for a cuppa and a chat?’ Cal asked me when he arrived through the door at eight that night.
‘No, he didn’t,’ I said, pouring Cal a glass of whisky and handing it to him.
‘Right, mebbe he got caught up with other things.’
‘Perhaps, but it’s not a million miles to walk over from the Lodge to tell me. I sat in here all day waiting for him.’
‘Aye, and they were in at the Lodge all right; I saw their car come back around three. C’mon, Tig, don’t look so down.’
‘Well, as he’s definitely not coming now, I’m going for a bath.’
There was only lukewarm water, and I lay there pondering whether Chilly saying I’d be leaving soon had anything to do with the blonde Valkyrie appearing this morning.
There was a sudden rapping on the bathroom door. ‘Tig? Are you out yet? We have a visitor.’
‘Er, nearly,’ I said, pulling the plug and stepping out. ‘Who is it?’
I held my breath for Cal’s reply, only hoping it wasn’t Charlie Kinnaird. I really didn’t want to emerge into the sitting room in my ancient blue woolly dressing gown, and have to dash to my bedroom to retrieve my clothes.
‘It’s Zara an’ she’s in a bit o’ a state,’ he hissed.
‘Okay, coming,’ I called through the door.
When I opened it and wa
lked into the sitting room, I saw Zara sitting on the sofa, head in her hands. She was sobbing loudly.
‘I’ll leave you ladies to it.’ Cal raised an eyebrow and left.
‘Zara, what’s wrong?’ I said, sitting down on the sofa next to her.
‘Dad promised we could stay until the day before Hogmanay, but now he’s saying we’re leaving! Two whole days more that I could have spent here, and now I have to go back to Inverness!’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. A man came to the house this morning and had some kind of big argument with Dad. I didn’t dare go downstairs, but I could hear them yelling at each other. Then Dad came upstairs and told me we were going home. And I don’t want to go!’
‘Do you know what the argument was about? Or who the man was?’
‘No, he wouldn’t say.’
‘Zara, darling,’ I said as I circled her in my arms. ‘I’m so sorry. You just have to remember that it’s really not long until you’re eighteen, and then if being at Kinnaird is what you want, no one can stop you.’
‘Dad said I could spend my whole Christmas holiday up here if I wanted to, but Mum won’t let me stay on. She hates it here.’
‘Maybe the estate’s just not her kind of life.’
‘Nothing is her kind of life, Tiggy.’ Zara sighed, her expression a picture of weariness and despair. ‘She’s always saying she’ll be happy if Dad does this or that, like take her on swanky holidays with money he hasn’t got, or buy her a new car or a picture she likes because that’ll make it better. But it doesn’t ever. She’s just a really unhappy person, you know?’
As I sat and stroked Zara’s silken hair, I knew that even though she might be exaggerating due to dramatic teenage hormones, I’d seen enough of Ulrika to understand that she was a difficult character. And it suddenly struck me that even though I’d been adopted and had lived under the care of a woman employed by my adoptive father, and had often secretly dreamt of being the beloved child of two married, biological parents, I’d idealised the thought. I had no experience of warring parents. Never once at Atlantis had I heard Pa Salt and Ma have an argument – we had been brought up in total tranquillity, and for the first time I acknowledged how rare that actually was. What Zara was experiencing was what lots of other friends of mine at school had said they had gone through too. We sisters had lived in a fantasy of perfection in our fairy-tale castle, certainly in terms of our two ‘parents’. Of course, the saving grace of our childhood had been that there were six of us. Harmony had certainly not reigned supreme between us. Someone was always falling out with someone else, and normally that ‘someone else’ would be my baby sister, Electra . . .
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