by Gwen Moffat
‘That’s right.’ Madge took a whisky from Hamlyn. ‘What did you do?’ she asked Lindsay.
Lavender had gone rigid. For the second time in twenty-four hours, Miss Pink walked across the room and sought solace in the vista of the Cuillin.
*
After dinner she joined Betty and Madge at the table in the window.
‘Was anything said about Terry today?’ she asked of Betty.
‘Why, yes.’ The other paused, then said confidentially, ‘She’s been an awful nuisance. In fact, she’s cleared off.’
Madge looked at Betty but said nothing. Miss Pink said, ‘He beat her up badly last night and she took refuge with Colin Irwin.’
Betty stirred uneasily. ‘Well, that’s her story. He did tell us she’d shacked up with Irwin, but as for beating her up: when they got back to the tent it was she who attacked him. He had to throw her out to protect himself.’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘No, and I don’t want to. I know her type.’
‘Have you seen her?’ Madge asked Miss Pink with interest.
‘Yes.’
‘George always knocks his women about; he’d be hard put to it to find one more stupid than himself and he resents anyone who’s more intelligent.’ She considered her own words. ‘He kicks the rock when he can’t get up a climb,’ she added.
Betty, who had been smouldering during the first part of this, was suddenly deflated. ‘That kicking business,’ she said earnestly, ‘He’s so furious with himself.’
‘I know.’ Madge agreed with the obvious. ‘He’s immature.’ She turned to Miss Pink. ‘So what will Terry do now?’
‘I hope she’ll stay with Irwin, at least for long enough for him to try to instil some values into her.’
‘She’d be all right with Colin,’ Madge agreed.
‘The trouble is,’ Miss Pink said, looking at Betty, ‘Irwin’s going to Sligachan for two days.’
The other frowned but it was Madge who responded. ‘George isn’t going to go across to Largo while Colin’s away. I mean, if he’s thrown her out, he doesn’t want her. He’s not neurotic, you know. I expect she got too much for him.’
‘Just what do you mean by that?’ Betty was belligerent.
‘She’s too sexy.’
‘Do you think that’s all George wants?’
‘You weren’t listening; I was saying the opposite. He doesn’t want it.’
‘Oh, you’re impossible!’
Betty got up quickly and flung out of the room.
‘Got her on the raw,’ Madge remarked. ‘Silly woman. Nice climber though.’
‘Do you always say what comes into your mind?’ Miss Pink asked, between awe and amusement.
Madge gave a little snort of appreciation. ‘Why not? I’ve got my hands full just living—or rather, making a living. I can’t be bothered to think as well.’
‘Like Terry,’ Miss Pink murmured.
‘Not quite.’ The guide was dry. ‘She’s not making a living—poor kid.’
‘Why “poor kid”?’
‘Well, she’s cut out for trouble, isn’t she?’
‘Not necessarily. I think she’ll make a go of it with young Irwin.’ Miss Pink looked at the other defiantly but surprised at herself for getting worked up about this.
Madge grinned. ‘You’ve got to keep that kind on a collar and chain. I don’t give much for Colin’s chances if he’s going to leave her for two days after only just meeting her.’
Chapter Five
Her glimpses of the Sron had unsettled Miss Pink and although a scramble along the crest of the Cuillin was great fun, she knew that she would be even happier were she to reach the top by way of a rock climb. Maynard perceived this and before she went to bed an invitation to climb tomorrow had been made and accepted.
So the following morning they tramped up Coire na Banachdich and climbed the easy Window Buttress of Sgurr Dearg—a puzzling choice for it was a short route on the side of the mountain, but one which was explained when they were lunching on the summit under the Inaccessible Pinnacle. Maynard said diffidently: ‘Madge wants to do the South Crack; would you care to have a go?’ Miss Pink glanced at the expressionless guide and knew that it was the client who had set his heart on the route.
‘I have a dim memory of something overhanging for a hundred feet,’ she countered cautiously.
‘The pinnacle leans back,’ Madge told her. ‘It’s nearer seventy feet than a hundred and it’s got holds.’
‘I’ll watch you first.’
‘Watch me,’ Maynard said ruefully. ‘That’s more to the point.’
It was an interesting performance and it possessed a significance which she was to remember afterwards. There was a casual intimacy between the climbers which was intriguing because it was more the activity to which the intimacy referred, rather than an emotional relationship.
Although Madge was obviously the superior they worked as a team and Miss Pink realised that the guide had an unexpected grace. It was evident from her familiarity with the holds that she could have climbed the route solo, yet as she placed her slings, clipped in her rope and, watching it fall, caught her second’s eye—throughout balanced on small holds above a deepening drop—she had the air of accepting the man as an integral part of this delicate machine. There was a mutual illusion of dependence, but on her part, assumed. It put a gloss on her ability.
Maynard followed, struggling a little, his breathing audible to the watcher on the ground. Then she tied on and, with a sinking stomach, stepped into the crack.
It was not so steep as she’d imagined, and all the holds were there so long as she didn’t panic and miss them. Like Maynard, she had trouble with a bulge at thirty feet where she was forced to leave the spurious security of the crack and emerge on the smooth wall but otherwise the climb was a matter of striking a balance between the need to proceed slowly enough that she had time to find the next hold, yet not so slow that her strength gave out. She reached the top exhausted, trembling, and glowing with achievement.
Madge continued to surprise her. When Maynard was taking photographs of hazy depths framed between gully walls, and trying to find the right filter to bring out the inkiness of Loch Coruisk against its sunlit shore, Miss Pink voiced her trepidation. He was like a heedless child, scrambling one-handed above the tremendous drops.
‘He won’t hurt,’ Madge chided. ‘You worry too much.’ She caught the other’s glance and smiled. ‘You can’t worry in this job.’
‘What about your responsibility?’
‘Don’t know if it’s ever been defined, as to limits. So far as I’m concerned, when the client’s off the rope, providing he’s adult, he’s responsible, not I. Can you imagine me, now, calling across to him not to get too near the edge? How many clients would I keep that way?’
‘You might save some.’
‘If they’re that daft, they can be spared.’
‘You’re a hard woman, Madge.’
The other sighed. ‘You thought that last night. That was because of Terry getting into trouble.’ She turned candid eyes on Miss Pink. ‘So she gets knocked about by fellows and will have two or three kids before she’s twenty: what can you do about it? Why waste your energy on her?’
‘You seem to be looking at it from a biological point of view: basically, survival of the fittest. But on that basis, she’s definitely worth helping because of her beauty and her health.’
‘That’s nothing. She’s got no brain.’
‘Oh come! Just because she was infatuated with Watkins! She’s learned her lesson.’
‘Rubbish. She’ll be bored with Colin within the week and she’ll go back to George or, if he won’t have her, to another guy who’ll knock her about. She’s made for it—like battered wives. Surely you’ve come across those?’
Miss Pink nodded sadly. ‘But it’s her youth; that’s what’s so shocking.’
‘Well, her age,’ Madge demurred. ‘She’s experienced enough.’<
br />
‘Hardly.’ The tone was firm. ‘She may have had more sexual adventures than many mature women but she’s too young to have learned anything from them. That’s her tragedy.’
‘But not mine.’ The guide’s face was set and surprisingly angry. She stood up. ‘I have to look for a cache.’
‘A what?’
‘A place to hide some food. I’m going to do the ridge when I can get a couple of days to myself.’
The whole range: seven miles long, with twenty peaks, was a test of endurance for mountaineers. Miss Pink accompanied the guide like an interested terrier, peering with her into holes under rocks, sniffing out a place that would be recognisable in mist. Some distance away was a tall rock shaped like a man and rather larger.
‘That stands out in cloud,’ Madge observed. ‘I always mistake it for a person.’
They scrambled across to this bollard and found a place where food might be cached under a slab about six feet from its base.
‘If I roll a stone against the opening, no one will know anything’s inside.’
‘Would climbers steal food?’
‘They’d take anything. Some of them live by stealing.’ She seemed to have recovered her spirits.
They descended to Glen Shira by way of the splendid headwall of Coire na Banachdich: a place where Miss Pink had never been before, and when they reached the floor of the corrie and looked back, she was awe-struck.
‘How did we come down? It’s all rock. I never realised we were on such a wall.’
‘You only see the walls looking up,’ Madge reminded her. ‘We zig-zagged down the ledges.’
‘She knows the way,’ Maynard said. ‘She can do it in cloud—and in the dark.’
‘Anyone can,’ Madge pointed out. ‘It’s only a matter of experience—’ She grinned at Miss Pink.
‘Of knowledge,’ Maynard corrected. ‘Not necessarily of this ground, but of any mountain terrain. It’s also a matter of knowing one’s limits, and after that: concentration, keeping your cool. A guide doesn’t panic, right?’
Madge shrugged, too sure of herself to be embarrassed.
‘You’re never worried?’ Miss Pink asked casually as they turned to the glen.
‘No, not really.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Not up here.’
*
Miss Pink entered her room and crossed to the window. Largo’s door was open and a naked figure lay on the grass in front of the cottage. A man was approaching from the direction of Rahane. As Miss Pink watched, he stopped, the sunbather sat up, then rose and went indoors. The visitor could be Willie MacNeill.
Terry emerged wearing jeans and some kind of pink top. The man approached now and the two of them went inside the cottage. Miss Pink thought the whole episode was an amusing display of etiquette.
She ran her bath. After a few minutes she noticed that Largo’s chimney was smoking thickly.
She went down to the cocktail lounge to find all the residents assembled. Lavender tried to corner her and draw her out on the events of the day. Who had climbed with whom? When Miss Pink had made it plain that they had all been on one rope, she was pressed as to the order in which they’d climbed. She found Lavender’s obsessive jealousy tiresome, and eventually managed to address herself to Hamlyn, demanding details from him of the Cuillin traverse. But he failed to come to her assistance; on the contrary, he added fuel to Lavender’s fire by mention of ‘constricted stances’ and laboured jokes on the embarrassing situations which resulted when strangers of mixed sex were in close proximity above big drops. Lavender plucked restlessly at her neck.
Miss Pink moved to join the Lindsays, who stopped talking at her approach. Betty said, on a high false note: ‘We were wondering how long the heat wave would last.’
Andrew Lindsay went to the bar.
‘Poor love.’ His wife’s glance followed him and her eyes were shifty. ‘His ulcer’s bothering him.’
Miss Pink commiserated and wondered what was wrong. He was drinking double whiskies: strange treatment for an ulcer. Maynard, who had been looking out of the window with Madge, came across and asked if Miss Pink would accompany them to Sgurr nan Gillean the following day. She declined, not wanting to confine them to her own standard. To her mind, the South Crack had been a flash in the pan.
Madge said idly, ‘I wonder what Colin did today? There’s nothing hard to do at that end.’
‘Such arrogance,’ Maynard reproved. ‘Everything is hard on the Cuillin.’
Betty caught Miss Pink’s eye and remarked ambiguously, ‘So she’ll be alone tonight.’
Madge turned from the window. ‘I might pop over there this evening.’
Her words were clear in a sudden silence and Lavender said spitefully, ‘You do that; you can compare notes.’
Maynard walked out of the room.
‘It must be nearly feeding time,’ Betty said, and gave an inane giggle.
Madge stared at Lavender as the other woman lit a cigarette. Miss Pink asked with simulated interest, ‘Are you out to break the record for the traverse of the ridge?’
Madge gave a deep sigh and turned blank eyes on the questioner. ‘No.’ She opened her hands and stared at the palms, then turned them over and clenched the fingers tightly. She spoke like a somnambulist. ‘I’m fit; I want to stretch myself.’ She grinned emptily at Miss Pink. ‘That’s it,’ she said brightly, ‘it’s getting my teeth into something, you know? One gets bored with routine.’ She yawned, raising her hand to her mouth belatedly, her eyes on Lavender. ‘’Times I get sick of people.’
*
During the evening the residents disappeared. Over dinner an intense conversation between the Lindsays developed into an argument which led to a quarrel with Lindsay walking angrily out of the dining room and Betty hurrying after him. They were halfway through the pudding and didn’t return.
The Maynards didn’t go to the lounge for coffee and Miss Pink and Madge were left to themselves. Even the guide stayed only long enough for politeness’ sake and then excused herself. Miss Pink remembered that the other had said she might go to Largo. Reflecting that Watkins could put in an appearance at any moment, she said goodnight to Hamlyn and went upstairs. It was eight-thirty. There was a light in Largo. She wished she knew what Watkins was doing.
*
The following morning Madge and Maynard left early, and even the Lindsays’ party had gone by the time Miss Pink was ready to set off for what she anticipated would be a gentle walk along the coast. She was struggling into her rucksack straps when Colin Irwin came hurriedly across the lawn. He didn’t reply to her greeting.
‘Where did she go?’ he asked.
Miss Pink’s stomach contracted. ‘Terry? She was there last night. When did you get home?’
‘I just got back. The place is empty. She hasn’t even left a note.’
‘Has she taken her things?’
‘Yes, everything.’
‘She must have left either late last night—after eight-thirty when I saw her light—or this morning.’
‘She didn’t walk out of the glen this morning or I’d have seen her on the road. I got a couple of lifts round. What happened was that my client caught some kind of a bug; he was up most of the night. He came over to my tent this morning and cancelled today so I came straight here once I’d had some breakfast.’
‘If you came back by road, you could have missed her if she walked to Sligachan across the moor.’
‘She’d never have done that. It was the way she came in on Saturday and she only had sandals. She had to go bare-footed then, and she cut her foot. Besides, she was frightened of that moor; she didn’t like being on her own in the hills. She didn’t mind empty houses.’
Miss Pink looked at him sharply. ‘I’ll come across to Largo with you; we can’t talk here. There might be something you’ve missed. . . . Madge Fraser meant to go over last night. If she did, Terry may have told her where she was going. Madge has gone to Sgurr nan Gillean today.’
‘I
know. I passed Maynard’s car on the road. They waved.’
He was very unhappy. Miss Pink said, ‘Terry gave no indication at all that she might be leaving while you were away?’
‘None. Did she go back to Watkins?’
They stopped and stared at each other, then looked towards the camp site. Tacitly, they changed direction and walked rapidly through the trees towards the sea. She thought that if she hadn’t been with him, Irwin would have run.
They found Watkins’ tent closed. Irwin called: ‘Terry?’ in a hopeless voice and unzipped the entrance. Inside there was only the cluttered squalor that they had found on the first occasion and no sign of the girl nor her belongings.
They walked slowly across the dunes towards Largo. At the ford they met Willie MacNeill driving the tractor with the hydraulic shovel on the front. He stopped when Irwin waved him down.
‘She was there yesterday,’ the young crofter shouted above the engine. ‘She didna say she was leaving.’
‘What time—?’
Willie throttled down. ‘It was getting on: evening time, I’d say. Six-ish, closer to seven, maybe . . . She was after giving me tea. . . .’
Miss Pink walked on, her feet dragging in the thick sand of the track. There were little waders on the tide-line but although she had brought her rucksack, she did not feel like using her binoculars. Behind her, Willie revved the engine, and Irwin came loping after her.
‘You heard that?’
She nodded. ‘What’s Willie doing over here?’ she asked.
‘There’s a strike of Council workers so Rahane’s emptying the camp bins; got to get rid of the rubbish quickly in this hot weather.’
*
The interior of the cottage was dark, and furnished only by squatters’ standards. In the living room there was a small ship’s stove with a flue leading into the chimney, two old car seats and a scarred wooden table. An oil lamp hung from a hook on a beam. There was a camp cooker and a canteen of billies on the window sill among a clutter of packaged foods, old newspapers and rocks. The fire was out, the billies were clean, and there appeared to be no trace of the girl.