by Joan Lingard
Concepción sniffed. She had the collar of her leather jacket pulled up to her ears.
‘Your father lived in this street, too, when he was a child,’ said her mother.
‘So he didn’t come from a poor family?’
‘Certainly not. Your grandfather was a lawyer, and your grandmother a doctor.’
‘Like Felipe and his wife.’
‘That is true!’
They came to No.17 and stopped to read the brass plaque attached to the railings. Under the initials RLS were inscribed the words: ‘For we are very lucky with a lamp before the door.’ Encarnita spoke the familiar words aloud. ‘That’s from his poem about Leerie the Lamplighter. One of your father’s favourites.’ Whenever she thought of the boy who lived in the land of counterpane she saw him with reddish-gold hair and blue eyes. He had become inseparable from Conal.
‘I suppose no one round here would remember him now?’ Concepción glanced about as if someone might pop up to say that they did.
They wondered if some members of his family might still be living here. After all, Encarnita had lived in the house in Nerja for more than sixty years, and Arrieta had done for more than ninety. In their experience people did not move unless they had to.
‘Let’s give it a try,’ said Encarnita.
Leaving the writer’s house in peace, they moved a few doors along the street. They mounted the steps and Encarnita rang the bell. The door was opened by a woman in an overall with a yellow duster in her hand.
‘We look for Conal Alexander Roderick MacDonald,’ stated Encarnita.
‘Excuse me?’ The woman frowned. ‘What did you say his name was?’
Encarnita repeated it.
‘Sorry, hen. No one of that name here.’
They went next door. This time a woman wearing well-cut tweed trousers and a soft heather-coloured sweater came out onto the step. She also frowned as Encarnita went through the names.
‘I’m terribly sorry. I don’t think I can be of any help. We don’t really know many people in the street. We’ve only lived here for five years.’ She smiled at them before closing the door.
‘We can’t try every house,’ said Concepción.
They wandered back down the hill to Morna’s street. They thought they might ask Flick if she knew when Morna would be returning but Flick was not at home. She must be out crazycleaning. They went back to try Morna’s bell, thinking she might have returned from Canada, but she had not. They were standing outside when a woman in black Spandex shorts came sprinting along the pavement to press Morna’s bell.
‘Gone to Canada,’ said Encarnita.
‘Really? I didn’t know. Are you friends?’
Encarnita went through her usual explanation.
‘But how terrible for you! Look, come home with me and I’ll make you some coffee. Any friend of Morna’s is a friend of mine. We help each other out. I live just along the street.’
This woman was called Effie, and she lived alone. Like Morna, she was a social worker, though younger, perhaps about forty years old. ‘I’m a counsellor, really.’ She was vigorous and energetic and she liked to hear the story of other people’s lives. Before long she had managed to draw out the whole of Encarnita’s story. She found it thrilling.
‘You actually met Virginia Woolf? Wow!’
‘Mother only three years old at time,’ put in Concepción.
‘I remember her very well,’ said Encarnita, annoyed at her daughter’s intervention. ‘She wear very soft button shoes.’
‘I’m sure you would remember her!’ said Effie. ‘Who would not? She must have had quite a presence. Imagine, arriving on the back of a mule! How wonderful.’
‘In those days everyone come on mule. No road.’
‘How fascinating!’
‘I have book of hers. About a lighthouse.’
‘To the Lighthouse? Don’t tell me you’ve actually read it!’
‘Bits.’
‘Small bits,’ added Concepción, earning another frown for herself from her mother.
‘This is all absolutely amazing! Morna told me she had a Spanish friend out there – a wonderful woman, an example to us all! – but she didn’t tell me you’d known Virginia Woolf. Or that you had had a Scottish lover.’
Encarnita shifted uncomfortably on her seat, wondering if she had been wise to tell this woman so much. But what was done was done. It had become her motto of late.
‘So now we must set about finding this man of yours. Concepción’s father!’ Effie gave Concepción a smile, which was not returned. ‘What did you say his name was again?’
‘Conal Alexander Roderick MacDonald,’ said Encarnita.
‘Quite a mouthful. Amazing that you’ve remembered all those years.’
Encarnita stared at her. How would she not have remembered the name of her child’s father? ‘Is possible to find him, you think?’
‘Everything is possible,’ declared Effie with relish. ‘Never say die! The first port of call must be the telephone book.’
The problem was that there were too many MacDonalds listed. It was a fairly common name in Scotland, Effie warned them, so it might not be easy. Also, some people were ex-directory.
Humming softly, she ran her finger down the columns, speaking a name aloud here and there. Alistair. Bruce. Colin. Damn it, no Conal. She went through the entire list without finding any Christian names or sets of initials that would match their subject. She was not deterred, however. There were sure to be other ways forward.
‘Leave it with me,’ she said.
TWENTY-TWO
They heard nothing from Effie for three days. While they waited, they did the tourist route around Edinburgh; they went for a ride on an open-topped bus and froze, visited the castle and Holyrood Palace and poked around the knick-knack shops in the Royal Mile, with Encarnita restraining Concepción from spending too much money on MacDonald tartan gifts for the children. They also walked up and down Princes Street and visited Marks and Spencers and Jenners. Encarnita thought that Morna would have been pleased with them.
She was becoming worried about money. The B&B, although it had been described as ‘reasonable’ by Flick, was costing them sixty pounds a night. They had discovered fish and chips, however, a cheaper meal than the one they’d had in the Italian restaurant. When they had tried to bring them into the B&B the landlady had objected. No food in the bedrooms: that was one of her rules. It attracted mice. But, apart from that, fish and chips left a lingering smell behind them and she had other boarders to consider, not that there were any in the house at the moment. The women were forced to eat their supper in the street, which they did not mind overly much. In fact, they rather enjoyed it, not that Concepción would have readily admitted it.
‘I suppose we could always get some work,’ said Encarnita, as they wandered down Broughton Street with their fish and chip bags. This was more of a workaday street than posh Heriot Row, with a butcher and a fishmonger, as well as cafés and restaurants, pubs, Pakistani grocers and second-hand shops, a street where one could eat fish and chips without people looking at you.
‘Doing what?’ Concepción popped another chip into her mouth.
‘Cleaning, of course. What else? We could ask Flick.’ Encarnita licked her salty fingers. ‘That was good,’ she said, scrunching up the bag and dumping it in a waste bin. She liked the brown sauce the man spattered liberally over the chips. ‘Salt and sauce?’ he asked each evening, while holding the salt shaker suspended over the bag.
‘Mama, you can’t go cleaning houses at your age!’
‘Why not?’
Mrs Mack met them in the hall when they came in. Her long thin nose twitched slightly. ‘Your friend called.’
‘She leave a message?’
‘She said she had some news for you. She thought she had a lead. Whatever that would mean?’
Encarnita did not enlighten her. Instead, she said to Concepción, ‘We must go to see Effie straightaway!’
�
��Will you be back late?’ asked the landlady, but they were already on their way.
They were breathless by the time they reached Effie’s street and climbed the stairs to her flat. Concepción had a stitch in her side. Encarnita rang the bell. Effie answered straightaway and brought them in.
‘Tell us the news, please!’ said Encarnita.
‘I think a little drink would be a good idea first.’ Effie poured them each a glass of sherry and raised hers, saying, ‘Salud!’
Concepción drank, Encarnita did not. She had her eyes fixed on Effie’s face. She had the feeling the Scottish woman was trying to avoid eye contact.
‘Now please, you tell!’
‘Well, a friend suggested trying Registrar House. That’s where they record births, marriages and deaths. They’re terribly helpful —’
Encarnita cut across. ‘You find something?’
‘As a matter of fact, I did. I found, first of all, the record of his birth.’ Effie picked up a notebook that was lying on the table. ‘Conal Alexander Roderick MacDonald, that sounds like him, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes!’
‘Born Edinburgh, the first of May, 1918.’
‘That seem right.’ Encarnita sat back. Now they had to believe that this man existed. ‘He two years more than me. In 1939, I nineteen, he twenty-one.’
Effie hesitated before going on. ‘I also found the record of his marriage, I’m afraid.’
Encarnita shrugged. She had expected that he would have married at some point during all those years.
‘He married Margaret Edwina Cecilia Simpson in 1948. They had two children, a son, Edwin, and a daughter, Celia.’
‘You have a brother and a sister,’ Encarnita informed Concepción, who was looking slightly alarmed at the prospect.
‘His wife died in 1995,’ Effie continued.
‘So she dead,’ said Encarnita.
There was a pause. Effie had something further to say but was hesitating.
‘More sherry?’ she invited, splashing some into Concepción’s glass and her own. Encarnita had not touched hers. She was staring into space, seeing far beyond the room into another one where wild flowers sprouted through cracks in the walls and part of the roof lay open to the brilliance of the sky. She looked back at Effie.
‘He dead too?’ she said.
Effie nodded. ‘I’m really very sorry.’
‘Not your fault. Not worry. I was ready. Last autumn I had a dream.’
‘You foresaw his death? Perhaps you have the second sight?’
Encarnita frowned. ‘My eyes good. No need glasses.’
‘Mama, why we come?’ Concepción burst out.
‘To find out.’
‘What good is that for us now?’
‘I not want to die not knowing.’
‘You not near to die so not say so!’
‘That true.’
‘You look extremely well for a woman of your age!’ put in Effie.
‘When he die?’ asked Encarnita.
‘Seven months or so ago.’
‘Only seven months,’ wailed Concepción. ‘Oh, Mama!’
‘I would like to go to his grave,’ said her mother.
Effie was looking apologetic again. She explained that most people in Scotland tended to be cremated. ‘I must warn you that there may not be a grave.’
‘There is nowhere to talk to your dead?’
‘Except in your head, I suppose,’ said Effie uncomfortably. ‘But there may be a grave, of course. I’m not saying there isn’t. He died in Inverness-shire, not Edinburgh. And at home, not in a hospital.’
‘We go there then and find out. Where is this place?’
Effie brought out a map of Scotland and showed them the county of Inverness-shire. ‘You see, it’s up north, and quite mountainous.’ She indicated the brown-shaded parts. ‘That is the village there, where he lived.’
‘I am used to mountains,’ said Encarnita. ‘I grew up with them. He like mountains too. How do we go there?’
In the morning, they said goodbye to Mrs Mack, who wished them a good holiday in the Highlands and hoped to see them again.
‘I think she got used to us,’ said Encarnita, as they dragged their suitcases up the hill to the bus station.
‘Got used to our money, you mean. Perhaps we should start a B&B in Nerja.’
‘Our house isn’t big enough. And we don’t have an en-suite bathroom to offer.’
The landlady had been proud of her en-suite, in spite of the fact that they had only been able to get a dribble of hot water out of the shower, which was housed in a kind of cupboard. They had not complained. They were not sure what to expect when travelling in this country. Concepción spoke of sumptuous bathrooms with marble floors and gold taps when she had travelled with Emilio in Lanzarote and Mexico, but her mother did not believe half of it.
They found the bus station for Inverness. Effie had written the name down on a piece of paper, as well as that of the village where they were to disembark. ‘Ask the driver to let you off at Kincraig,’ she had instructed them. She had said that, if it were not for her work, she would have gone with them, but they were glad she could not. This part of the journey they wished to undertake on their own.
They were first in the queue and thus able to procure a seat at the front. The bus was comfortable and the driver friendly. He called them ‘ladies’ and told them not to worry, to sit back and relax, and he would see that they got off at the right place. They settled down to enjoy the ride.
It was a beautiful journey, even Concepción admitted that, especially once they reached the mountains. They were not as high or as bare as their sierras, nor did they present such formidable chains cutting across the landscape, but they were impressive, nevertheless. This countryside was softer than the Andalusian campo, the colours more muted. The deciduous trees were sprouting fresh green leaves, in contrast to the dark colour of the pines.
The bus took them through various small grey towns, with names like Pitlochry and Blair Atholl, which they found difficult to pronounce. Concepción eyed the gift shops in Pitlochry longingly as they travelled up the main street. They were both enchanted by the sight of Blair Castle, which looked like a black and white castle in a fairy tale. The driver told them little bits about the history of the various places. Scotland’s history was a pretty bloody one, he said cheerfully. Folk were always killing each other, trying to grab each other’s land.
‘Bloody in Spain too,’ said Encarnita.
‘The world over,’ said the driver.
Concepción unwrapped the sandwiches the landlady had provided for their journey, at a small cost. They were ready for something to eat despite having had a full Scottish breakfast earlier. Encarnita thought perhaps it was the climate that had sharpened their appetites.
‘I always knew I would like Scotland,’ she said, as she bit into a cheddar cheese and brown pickle sandwich. ‘It’s good that you do, too, Concepción, since you are half-Scottish. Perhaps that’s why you’re so fond of tartan.’
‘I suppose it is true,’ said Concepción slowly, ‘that I am half-Scottish. I have never thought of myself in that way before.’ She was quiet as they crossed the moors.
‘Kingussie coming up,’ called out the driver. ‘Next stop after that will be Kincraig, ladies.’
When they left the village of Kingussie behind they saw snow-capped mountains on their right-hand side which Encarnita thought, from consulting Effie’s notes, must be the Cairngorms. Effie had drawn a map and written detailed notes for them. And there was the loch with a little tree-clad island in its centre. Small sailboats bobbed near the far shore.
Concepción was up on her feet, struggling with her suitcase. ‘Mama, we have to get off in a minute.’ The bus was slowing.
‘Kincraig,’ called the driver, pulling up. ‘Village is just down there to the right, ladies. Have a good day!’
They alighted and waved goodbye to him. He had come to seem like a friend and aft
er the bus had gone they could not help feeling a little lonely. They stood by the side of the road for a moment to reorientate themselves, before setting off down the hill. Their suitcase wheels were making an awful noise on the road but there was nothing they could do about it.
This was a pretty village, they realised straightaway. It was not stretched out in a long straight line like many of the others they passed through. The road curved, with a side street branching off it, and each of the houses looked different from its neighbour. They passed a hotel sitting up high, went under a railway bridge and shortly afterwards saw the loch on their right. At the foot of the hill there was a general store-cum-post office with cheerful red and white striped awnings. They went in. Effie had said to ask at the shop.
The woman behind the counter smiled and asked if she could help them. Encarnita cleared her throat.
‘Is there graveyard in village?’
The woman frowned as if she had not quite understood. ‘You are looking for a graveyard? Would it be the one at Loch Insh church?’
‘Could be. Where is that place?’
‘I’ll show you.’ She escorted them to the door and pointed across the loch. ‘You see some white showing through the trees, up on that knoll? That’s it. You go over the bridge and follow the road round by the loch until you see the sign for the church.’ She looked at their suitcases. ‘Would you like to leave those? I could put them behind the counter. It would save you dragging them all the way there.’ They were thankful to be rid of them for a little while.
They followed her instructions and when they saw the blue notice board with CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, INSH CHURCH, written in white letters, they unlatched the low wooden gate and went inside. Encarnita felt herself quicken with excitement. She sensed that she was drawing closer to him. They took the path that wound its way up the hill until it led them to the little white church. It was a simple building and standing in this high, yet secluded place, overlooking over the loch, it had an air of great tranquillity. Encarnita could not imagine a more peaceful place than this to be buried.