Strangers at the Gate

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘The thing about Tuft that made me fall for her,’ Lovatt was saying. ‘Do you remember this, darling? It was Christmastime in Berwick. The last lovely family Christmas at Berwick, actually.’

  ‘Such silliness,’ Tuft said. ‘Finnie, can you believe Lovatt’s old empress of a mother was so horrified by Berwick station turning automatic – no more porters, no more ticket office – that she stopped spending Christmas with her dearest chum? It’s like something from Poirot!’

  ‘But, as I say, we were there that year,’ Lovatt went on. ‘Clambering through the demolition work on a perfectly fine Victorian railway building – you should see the place now, it would make you weep – and luckily you were there too, my sweet. And we were playing some silly parlour game. Stuff and Nonsense, it’s called. The object is to ask the deepest, most soul-searching question one can and to give the silliest, shallowest answers imaginable. I asked Tuft – we had only just met – what she would wish for, had she but one wish.’

  ‘Good question,’ I said.

  ‘And without a moment’s hesitation Tuft said she would wish for an even number of days in the week. Six or eight. Because then she could wash her hair every other day on the same days each time.’

  Tuft put a hand to her collar and batted her lashes. ‘I really meant it,’ she said. ‘I won on a fluke.’ She took a slug of her wine. ‘But that was all long ago now. Long, long—’ She stopped speaking abruptly. Lovatt was glowering at her.

  ‘Let’s not be codgers, Tuft,’ he said. ‘The way to stay young is to live for the moment. What’s the news of the day? Tell me more about these poachers.’

  ‘Finnie isn’t used to country life,’ said Paddy, like he was. ‘She thought she saw someone in the woods on our way up.’

  ‘There’s a pair of cottages down on the main road just beyond the lodge,’ Tuft said, ‘and both lots walk their dogs in our grounds. We don’t mind, do we, Lovatt?’

  ‘I rather like it. When I was a boy, a gardener lived in one and a housekeeper lived in the other. It’s good to think the current residents still feel part of things.’

  ‘That’s a generous attitude to take about people bringing their dogs to … in your garden,’ I said.

  ‘I’d say noblesse oblige,’ said Lovatt, ‘if noblesse oblige were the sort of thing one could still say.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Tuft. ‘That’s gone the way of all flesh. Good grief, you’d get bopped on the nose for that. The world has changed.’

  ‘For the better!’ Lovatt announced.

  ‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘That’s not the usual view.’

  ‘Oh, but, my dear!’ said Tuft. ‘It’s true. I had my handbag stolen from a public lavatory last year in Florence. I had hung it on the hook on the back of the door, you know? And some rascal reached over the top, grabbed it and ran off.’

  ‘How does that—’ Paddy began. But Tuft spoke over him. Lovatt was laughing silently, his shoulders shaking.

  ‘When I was a girl, I’d just have sat there in my modesty and lost all my traveller’s cheques and my camera. But, these days, one can absolutely just leg it after the thief with knickers round the knees and pee running into one’s shoes and no one turns a hair. That’s got to be an improvement, wouldn’t you say?’

  I nodded, speechless.

  ‘Although, speaking of knickers,’ Tuft went on, ‘I was trying to address a card to my godson the other day and I can never remember how to spell “Michael” so I thought I’d look at my label. And do you know? I wasn’t wearing a single garment from Marks & Spencer. Not one. Bra, pants, warm vest, petticoat, thick tights. And not a St Michael label among the lot of them. I googled it instead, of course, but what a rude awakening.’

  ‘That label’s long gone, though, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Not as long as my knickers last me,’ Tuft said.

  Paddy was beaming at me and I couldn’t help beaming back. Tuft Dudgeon was the dog’s bollocks. I loved it here and I loved him for bringing me. I loved Tuft. I loved Lovatt too. Some of it was booze. Because this pair were drinking on a Monday night like my parents only drank at Christmas. But it was mostly love.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Are you making custard, darling?’ Lovatt asked, pushing his empty dinner plate away. ‘Do Paddy and I have time to go and sign a few boring papers?’

  ‘More improvements,’ said Tuft. ‘Instant custard. Cup-a-Soup. Gravy granules.’

  She curled back round to the topic of my job while she was whisking. ‘The only thing about your appointment that troubles me, dear, is what you gave up to come to us. It struck me when the minister told me you’d accepted.’

  ‘Can I do anything to help, by the way?’

  ‘Hold my ciggie for me?’ She winked as I lit one.

  ‘I was only part-time in the last parish,’ I said. ‘This is actually a great move for the old CV.’ I was starting to talk like her. ‘Running a small deal single-handed is much better than being one cog in one wheel of a big one.’

  ‘CV, eh?’ said Tuft. ‘We’re but a stepping stone in your meteoric rise?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’ She was pretty savvy for a volunteer. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘I hope you’re looking forward to fundraising,’ she said, ‘because we’ve only got hard money for your post for a year and after that you’re self-supporting.’

  ‘Hard money?’ I said, trying not to smile.

  ‘I haven’t always been a dotty old lady in pearls.’ She took the cigarette and winked at me again. ‘I’m slightly engaged in bottom-covering, though, if I’m perfectly honest. I pressed pretty hard to divert St Angela’s money to you. You need to show a profit or it’s egg on my face.’

  ‘So … they’re funding my job? St Angela’s?’ The name had come up in my interview and I’d assumed they were the nearest Catholics, till a quick google had put me right.

  ‘They focus on the most difficult placements, the most challenging cases. Last-ditch efforts, you know. And it’s not getting any easier.’

  Finally something sounded like it needed a deacon. Cases and placements.

  ‘I mean you do know,’ said Tuft. ‘Things are so tremendously much better these days in some respects, don’t you think? Morning-after pills and medical abortions have helped a lot. You’re not shocked to hear me cheering them, are you?’

  I shrugged. She’d know better than me that the Church of Scotland took a practical view. I might have felt an ancestral twinge but I ignored it.

  ‘Although I’ll never approve – never! – of all the scans and genetic testing. Be that as it may, the pool … the available … I mean, the children who are still looking for homes need all the help they can get.’

  ‘So it’s not really Simmerton that needs a deacon,’ I said.

  ‘It’s Simmerton that needs fresh blood on the team. Paddy at Dudgeon and Dudgeon, and you at the kirk. Unstoppable! It eats money. As you can imagine. Simply devours it. Do you still have Canadian contacts you could squeeze?’

  ‘So Dudgeon and Dudgeon are their lawyers?’ I said, finally catching up. I had wondered how a country firm could specialise as much as Paddy seemed to think they did.

  ‘Pro bono, case by case,’ Tuft said. ‘All of this is very dear to Lovatt’s heart. Well, it would be.’

  ‘Was he adopted? You know Paddy was, right?’

  ‘That’s what gave him the edge,’ said Tuft. ‘But not Lovatt. No, no, no.’

  ‘Did he adopt?’

  ‘Oh, my good gracious, no.’

  I waited, but she just handed me an unwrapped dishwasher tablet and went back to whisking. ‘That’s the main reason I didn’t just join the St Angela’s board and do the fundraising direct. Too incestuous. Instead, I joined the church, joined the fundraising committee, rose to be its chair and carried out a coup. Simmerton Kirk is not only a major direct sponsor through its own efforts, but we act as the launderer of all sorts of cash from elsewhere. Oh, yes, the compounding potential of Church connections i
s not to be sniffed at.’

  ‘Launderer?’ I said.

  ‘Clearing-house, if you prefer,’ said Tuft, with another wink at me.

  * * *

  I didn’t care that Paddy was crowing as we set off into the mouth of the drive again. The fog was even thicker and the temperature had plummeted. His torch app was picking up sparkles of frost on the ground but I was aglow.

  ‘You’ve got a crush on her!’ Paddy said. ‘You want to ki-iss her. You want to mar-ry her.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ I said, loud enough to echo, even with the fog and the baffle of trees all around us. ‘She’s fantastic. Can you imagine her hobbling through Florence with her knickers down, spraying piss everywhere? I adore her. He’s okay too.’

  ‘He is,’ Paddy said. He put an arm round me and cuddled in close for a bit of warmth. I couldn’t return the favour because I was carrying the leftover crumble and a bottle of sloe gin.

  ‘And she’s not just comic relief,’ I said. ‘She’s head of the church fundraising committee that’s single-handedly keeping St Angela’s afloat.’

  ‘St Angela’s,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s pretty amazing, Finnie. This sleepy little town.’

  ‘I thought I’d be able to swan in and wow everyone,’ I said ‘Turns out I’ll have to paddle hard to keep up.’

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ Paddy said. ‘It’s going to work out okay.’

  ‘It’s going to be great. Owls, deers, dogs, poachers and all!’

  ‘Drunken bum,’ said Paddy, squeezing me and dropping a kiss on my parting.

  ‘One thing bothers me,’ I said. And waited.

  ‘My mum,’ said Paddy.

  Paddy’s mum. He’d warned me as we were walking up her path on my first visit. ‘Don’t mention adoption,’ he’d said. ‘We never talk about it.’

  She didn’t hide it from him, he told me, but she didn’t discuss it with … ‘Outsiders,’ he said, screwing up his face at me. He knew how it sounded.

  I shrugged.

  Later, when we were engaged and I wasn’t an outsider any more, I thought it would change. Paddy screwed up his face in just the same way again. ‘She doesn’t want you judging.’

  ‘Judging what?’ I said. ‘That’s crazy.’ She’d hit the jackpot, as far as I could see. A single woman getting a healthy white infant in a closed placement. It’s horrible, but Tuft was right. Adoption’s a worse meat-market than dating. Those poor kids of fifteen and sixteen, smiling out so bravely from their photographs. Sibling groups, spina bifida, foetal alcohol syndrome. It would break your heart. Did break my heart when I was attached to a group home in the old parish and got to know them. Seven great kids, with their fat files and their care teams and their cautious progress plans.

  ‘Judge me, maybe,’ Paddy had said. ‘Coming out of care. No way I’m descended from dukes and earls, is there?’

  ‘Who cares?’

  ‘My mum. And she’s a bit scared of you. Because of the job. The Church. But you know that.’

  I thought about it. I was used to ‘the job’ flummoxing people. The dog-collar especially. But it had never seemed like fear that got dished out to me in the neat little semi where Paddy’s mum, Elayne, lived alone with her knitting machine and her thriving eBay business. It had always seemed more like disapproval. I was too old for him at thirty-five. Too old for her, she meant, thinking of grand-children. I wasn’t a proper professional, probably after his money. My hair was too messy. I knew, from the way she looked at me, that she wondered where I’d got such tight corkscrew curls to go with my olive skin. And I smoked. She used to pull a tablecloth over the knitting machine and tuck it in tight underneath whenever I was there. ‘I advertise my products as coming from a smoke-and pet-free home, you see.’

  And it definitely wasn’t fear she felt for my family.

  But walking down the drive that Monday night, full of food and wine, still laughing about Tuft and her stories, Lovatt and his devotion, even Paddy’s mum couldn’t bring me down.

  Then a thought struck me. ‘Pad? Why did you put it in your CV that you were adopted, if you didn’t find out about St Angela’s till after?’

  Paddy grunted. There’s a grunt he makes, almost a laugh, when I’ve surprised him. ‘Sobering up, are you?’ he said. After a bit he went on, ‘I think I just wanted to make a fresh start. Coming down here, the job – both jobs really, the house and everything. I wanted to be less…’

  ‘Furtive?’ I suggested.

  ‘Jeez, you had that all ready and waiting! Less uptight, I was going to say.’

  ‘Mission accomplished. Signing papers after all that whisky,’ I said. ‘Man, they can drink! Tell me you read them first. Because I didn’t.’

  I hadn’t had the chance. Paddy had brought a cascade of them through, with just the signature lines showing, and said, ‘Paw-print, Finn!’ holding out a Bic.

  ‘Have we met?’ he said now. ‘First I read them, then I signed them, and then I put them in your bag. Oh, wait! Dammit, I meant to put them in your ba— What?’

  I had stopped walking. ‘I’ve left it behind. I got distracted, with the crumble and gin to carry. I’ve left my bag in the kitchen.’

  ‘It’s only been five minutes,’ Paddy said. ‘They won’t be in bed yet. Let’s go back.’

  ‘No choice. It’s got the lodge key in it.’

  I didn’t think there was enough space between the banks of pine trees to let a wind blow through, but it got colder as we turned and retraced our steps. The glow faded until my face was stinging and my eyes watering.

  ‘They’re definitely still up, then,’ said Paddy. Even more lights were on in the house now, upstairs as well as down. It shone out into the spangling fog, looking like an advent calendar with Christmas only days away.

  ‘I still don’t think it’s a nice house,’ I said. ‘But it’s got something.’

  ‘Straight out of Agatha Christie,’ said Paddy. ‘Like Tuft said.’

  I laughed. ‘I know! Porters, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Shame they wrecked the kitchen, though.’

  I glanced at him. It wasn’t like Paddy to notice décor.

  ‘Catch Tuft muddling through with a scrubbed table-top and a dresser!’ I said. ‘She had that dishwasher stacked and her cloths in bleach before we’d finished chewing. I reckon she only gave us the leftover crumble so it didn’t clutter the fridge.’

  ‘We’ll definitely have to have a bit of a wipe round before we ask them back.’ Paddy had dropped his voice since we were nearly on the doorstep.

  The front door was still open and the vestibule light was on. And there sat my handbag on the letter-shelf of the hat stand.

  ‘Bingo,’ said Paddy. ‘We won’t need to disturb them.’

  ‘They’re a bit laid back security-wise,’ I said, ‘after what they said about the dog-walkers.’

  ‘City slicker! Is everything still there? Phone? Wallet? No one’s nicked your Tic-Tacs?’

  ‘There’s no papers, though,’ I said, checking all the side pockets. ‘Are you sure you put them in here?’

  ‘No,’ said Paddy. ‘Like I said, I meant to. That’s weird, though. Why wouldn’t Lovatt have left them here too?’

  ‘Typical lawyer,’ I said. ‘Handbags are one thing. But papers? He’s probably put them in a safe.’ I looked around, then pushed the bell that was half hidden by ivy at the side of the doorway.

  ‘Finnie!’

  ‘They’re still up. Where’s the harm?’

  ‘Put the bag back. Quick. Pretend you haven’t seen it. Pretend you rang to ask about it.’

  ‘You’re a partner,’ I said. ‘As per the papers. Stop acting like Bob Cratchit.’ I rang the bell again.

  ‘Maybe they’re both in the loo,’ said Paddy, after a minute. ‘I hope Tuft doesn’t do her Florence routine.’

  I rang a third time. We looked at one another as the silence from inside the house seemed to grow and grow. ‘Do you think they’re okay?’ I said at last.


  ‘Maybe they’re at it,’ Paddy said, but neither of us managed a smile.

  I stepped across the vestibule and knocked on the inner door. Then I put my ear to it. From inside the house I could hear the swish of the dishwasher, but nothing else. I tried the handle.

  ‘Finnie! You can’t just—’

  It opened. ‘Tuft?’ I called. ‘Lovatt?’

  Paddy was standing beside me now. ‘Maybe they went out the back to look at the … I was going to say stars.’

  ‘They haven’t got a dog, have they?’ I stepped into the hall and looked around at the half-open doors, the long corridor towards the kitchen. The fire had died down to ashes but no one had put the guard over it. ‘Or chickens or anything that needs to be shut up at night?’

  ‘Lovatt!’ Paddy shouted. ‘It’s us again. Is everything okay?’

  The dishwasher stopped and there was absolute silence. I put my bag down on the carpet and began to walk towards the kitchen. My palms were sweating.

  The kitchen door was half open too and all the lights were still on. The freshly wiped counter tops shone, clear and empty. Tuft didn’t have so much as a fruit bowl messing the place up. The hob set into the island was white ceramic and chrome and it glittered under the light in the hood above it. There was just one dark mark towards the back. Gravy or pasta sauce or something. Except we hadn’t had gravy or pasta sauce. We hadn’t had anything that colour.

  Paddy took another step into the room, moving past me. ‘No,’ he said.

  I walked up to the island and looked over.

  Tuft Dudgeon lay on her back on the floor, with Lovatt sprawled diagonally over her. Her eyes were open. Her mouth was open too and full of blood. It had stained her teeth in patches. And the lipstick that had seemed such a pure true scarlet looked nothing of the kind. Not now that so much real red was all around. I looked away from her face. Her arms were thrown wide and there was blood on her hands, seeping from deep gashes crisscrossed on her palms. There was blood underneath her, in a smear to one side and a splat to the other. It was creeping down her stockinged legs, revealed because her pleated blue skirt had kicked up in a cow-lick on the floor under her skinny hips.