‘I’d rather have found it out from you than from Mr McDowall.’
‘Well, it felt embarrassing. And then because I didn’t say it right out, it got really difficult to admit it. The moment never came.’
She can understand this. It’s like when you forget somebody’s name and then the moment passes and you can never actually ask them.
‘You should have just told me. God, Cal, I slept on your sofa and you still didn’t say.’
‘I didn’t think it was a big deal. Well, I kind of hoped it wouldn’t matter.’
‘It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if you weren’t actually a...’
‘A dealer. I know. And so are you. But I’m not that sort of dealer, Daisy. I’m not like that.’
‘You’re still at the top end of the market and I’m closer to the boot sale bottom.’
‘Not sure about that. I don’t think the distinctions are so marked.’
‘Oh I do. Believe me, when I go into shops like yours, I know my place.’
She’s inclined to believe him, but she’s been caught out like this before, giving men the benefit of the doubt. We want to trust people if we like them. Even more so if we’re physically attracted to them.
He sits down on the rock beside her. She’s acutely aware of him, warm and full of potential energy. He smells of soap and coconut shampoo.
‘Plenty of people are that sort, though,’ she says. ‘I’ve met them. They’ll go into some old lady’s house to give her a valuation on her furniture, and they’ll find something precious and slip it into the drawer of some piece of old pine, and make a cheeky offer for it. I’ve heard them talking about it in the saleroom.’
‘Yeah. Me too,’ he says, ruefully.
‘And the younger they are and the more charming, the worse it gets. They have this sense of entitlement. It’s strange how when you’ve got something to sell it’s always the wrong time, but when you’re buying, everything is suddenly very popular and hard to get.’
He can’t help smiling at this. ‘Well, I’ve been guilty of that one myself.’
‘Haven’t we all? So did you actually hide the picture of Lilias? Given how valuable it is?’
He looks embarrassed. ‘I cannot tell a lie. I did.’
She has picked up a piece of bladderwrack and is popping the dry pods between her fingers, compulsively, as satisfying as popping bubble wrap.
‘Why, Cal? I mean, what were you planning to do? Get to know me and then make me some dodgy offer for it?’
He shakes his head vehemently. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I told you. I’m not that sort of person. I pointed it out to you! I told you it was potentially valuable.’
After you saw me, says the subversive voice in her head. After you realised I was no fool. No pushover. She wishes he would stop calling her sweetheart, even though she can see that it’s just a habit with him.
‘I’ve hung it up in the big room.’
‘Have you?’
‘I wanted to see her. Lilias. She brightens up the whole room.’
‘See, when McDowall asked me to do the valuation, I’ll admit I was chuffed. I’d wanted a look inside for years.’
‘But you undervalued it all a bit, didn’t you?’
‘Are you sorry about that? Did you want to pay even more to the Revenue? I made an informed assessment, Daisy, and I stand by it. Hell, it would take months to go through it all. Will take months. They didn’t question it. I’d have been happy for them to go in and look at it and prove me wrong. There’s a hell of a lot of junk in there, you know there is.’
‘Don’t I just!’
‘Those boxes and chests of bric a brac, linens and things, they may well have a market value once you’ve sorted them out and cleaned them and worked on them. But looked at cold, just like that… their value is minimal. There are a few good pieces of furniture, old oak and so on, and I listed those individually. The odd piece of good porcelain. Some interesting books that you probably haven’t seen yet. They’re stowed away in one of the cupboards. I came across Old and New Testaments from the late 1700s. Gilt herringbone bindings. They’ll be worth a bob or two, although the really interesting thing is the McNeill family names and birthdates in the back. I had a wee glance at them, that’s all. You’ll want to take a good look at those.’
‘I will. I want to take a good look at all of it.’
‘I know. And here’s hoping we,’ he hesitated, ‘you, make a few more significant finds. The embroidered cabinet, what do they call it here? The curiosity cabinet. That was the real prize, but that’s long gone.’
‘Not from the island.’
‘No. But it’s gone from this house with the McNeills, and Donal will never sell it.’
‘And the portrait? You said that’s potentially valuable.’
‘Maybe aye, maybe no. I only know it’s beautiful and it’s very old and for some reason it seemed to be nobody’s business but yours. And mine for a while. It has a continental look to it. I’d like to get my mum to have a look at it. But I was never going to cheat you out of anything and I’m only sorry you got that impression. I should have told you right from the start that I’d done the valuation of the contents. My bad.’
He stands up, holds out his hand to her. She takes it, partly as the peace offering it’s intended to be, and partly so that he can haul her to her feet.
‘Tell you what,’ he says. ‘Do you want to walk along and have a look at the broch? The tide’s pretty low and it makes it easier to get there. Look, Hector’s up for it.’
‘Hector’s up for anything. Why not? It isn’t far, is it?’
‘No. It’s on your land. Over there. You can just see the mound. There isn’t much of the structure left, but it must have been quite impressive at one time.’
‘As if I don’t have enough heaps of old stones already!’
‘An embarrassment of ancient monuments.’
*
They walk along the beach, over clean white sand, as far as the narrow promontory and then there’s a scramble through shallow dunes, bent grasses, the spikes of flag irises just starting to open, and beyond that a stretch of short turf with blue self-heal and yellow trefoil.
She follows him and pauses, panting. ‘I’m not as fit as I should be.’
‘Too much city living. But a few weeks here will remedy that.’
Hector has been racing ahead – perhaps he has scented a rabbit – but now his sandy head peers over a hillock, encouragingly.
‘It’s well named, this place, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Flowerfield. Auchenblae.’
‘Of course. Yes. Field of Flowers. The island is full of flowers but there are more here than anywhere.’
She can see the broch, Dun Faire, more closely now. It’s a circular structure, built of massive grey stones, with smaller stones scattered and tumbled around it. It stands on a low, rocky knoll, at the tip of this thin arm of land, stretching protectively out to sea. Following the outer ditch, they come upon a single doorway on the north side, with an impressive lintel over the top. This seems to be in a reasonably good state of repair. But beyond the doorway, there is little of the wall left; just enough to show its circular shape.
‘Yet another heap of old stones for you,’ Cal says, happily. ‘Not the biggest broch in the world, but that seems to have been what it was.’
He heads for the door, ducks down and disappears inside. She follows more slowly, with Hector weaving anxiously around her, his herding instincts kicking in. She hesitates on the threshold. It’s quiet inside and she thinks ‘what if?’ What if he has disappeared? Swallowed by the past. What if she is about to be swallowed by the past as well? Even as she tells herself not to be so daft, the thought occurs to her that she is about to be swallowed by the past anyway, if she’s not careful. Isn’t that what
this house and all the land around her, all the heaps of stones, each with its own history, will do to her if she stays here? Absorb her into itself as it absorbed Viola, as her mother feared that she too might lose herself in the endless demands of the house and the land around it. And so, when the opportunity arose, Jessica escaped.
The dog has gone inside in search of Cal. She follows them, dismissing the fantasy. There is a sense of darkness beyond the door, even though the walls are only a little higher than the lintel, but as she passes through, she can understand why. There’s a double layer of stones, with a passageway running between the two walls. Peering along to her left, she can just make out the remains of a ruined stair that must once have given access to the upper floors and galleries. She dredges up her knowledge of Scottish history and prehistory. These were Iron Age buildings, two thousand years old, although the experts couldn’t seem to agree on whether they were defensive or simply grand houses for wealthy chieftains and their extended families. Perhaps both. It would make sense, especially with the siting of this one, as so many others, with an extensive view of the sea. You would always know if someone was coming.
She passes into the interior, already filling up with new bracken and heather, although there are flat flagstones here and there amid mysterious lumps and bumps. Perhaps stones have fallen down from the upper galleries at some point in its long history. Because of the thickness of the walls, the inner room seems quite small.
There is no sign of Cal or Hector, but then Cal whistles to her and she turns around to see that he’s standing six feet above her, having scrambled up to the flat top of the wall and gallery floor, with Hector beside him. He holds out his hand to her. The inner wall has tumbled down here and formed a series of heathery ledges, uneven steps, and it’s an easy climb. He hauls her up beside him. They sit together in companionable silence for a while, dangling their legs over the interior edge, while Hector rushes easily down the same steps, to sniff among the bracken and heather below. Cal pulls a bottle of water out of his pocket and passes it to her.
‘Thirsty work,’ he says.
‘I wonder what Hector’s after.’
‘Wee beasties of all sorts. Maybe even foxes. He never finds them. Or at least whenever he rouses something, he’ll chase it, but when he’s on the verge of catching it, he’ll stop and look vacant. Like, “What do I do now?” I’ve seen it happen. No kind of killer instinct at all. Bit like me, really.’
‘Aye right,’ she says, using the sceptical Scottish double positive. She drinks, hands him back the bottle and he slips it into his jacket pocket.
She closes her eyes for a moment or two and the silence that is really no silence at all presses in on her. She can hear a skylark, its song impossibly high and distant, tumbling through the blue above them. She can hear the trickle of the nearby burn – did they deliberately build near a source of fresh water, those ancient people? – and further off the soft incoming swish of waves on the beach. She can hear the rustle of the dog, ferreting about among last year’s heather stalks. And she can hear Cal’s breathing, feel the warmth of his body next to hers. She opens her eyes, turns and finds that he is looking at her as though trying to puzzle something out. His own feelings, maybe. Or hers. And then he’s kissing her. Or perhaps she kisses him first. Hard to tell. His lips are firm and dry. It’s been a while since anyone kissed her but her instant response to him is almost frightening in its intensity. It takes her by surprise. He tastes of water and desire and he smells of peppermint and heather. They topple over onto the flat top of the wall. There’s a familiarity about him. The ground is dry up here and the stones are cushioned with turf. Years of sand have formed a kind of mulch in which small sea-friendly plants have grown and spread, carpeting the stones. This would once have been a first-floor gallery with others above it when the tower rose to its full height. His face hovers above hers, questioning, intent, and they kiss again, awkwardly, as he tries to cushion her head against the stone.
His tongue is in her mouth. Her right hand is on the back of his neck where the hair is soft and fine, pulling him closer, but her left hand is on the stone, her fingers digging into turf, as though to anchor herself there, to ground herself in the real world. It’s so fast, so sudden, this overwhelming desire that can so easily be mistaken for love.
But may not be.
‘Cal!’ she says, breathlessly.
At the same moment, Hector bounces up to them, and licks their faces.
‘Oh, fuck off, Hector!’ says Cal.
But they sit up, the moment broken, however temporarily.
Cal gets up, hauls her to her feet with Hector frolicking around them. ‘Bloody dog,’ he says.
‘We should go back, anyway,’ she says. There is no particular reason why they should go back, but she can sense herself dragging her feet to slow things down. He’s a comparative stranger. However well recommended he comes on the island, she doesn’t know very much about him, and doesn’t fully trust him. They scramble down from the promontory and head back to the beach below the house.
Hector has rushed ahead of them onto the beach. He tugs at a piece of seaweed, shakes it, kills it satisfactorily, tearing it apart. They follow more slowly, their bodies inclining inexorably together. She wants to take his hand again, but wonders if she should. The dog has abandoned his seaweed and is now digging furiously in the sand beside a little group of rocks, scrabbling with his front paws, spraying damp sand out behind him. He seems to have made quite a big hole. They walk over to see what he has found.
‘What are you like, Hector?’ says Cal, cheerfully. Then he halts, peers down, grabs the dog by his collar and pulls him, protesting slightly, away.
‘What has he found?’ Daisy asks, coming up behind them. ‘Is it something dead? They do seem to like dead seagulls.’
‘No. I don’t know. It looks like... Hang on a minute.’
Cal squats down in the damp sand, and reaches into the hole, the little pit that the dog has created, scraping away some of the sand just beneath the shelving rock, seawater already seeping in.
He tugs at something and out it comes. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Look what he’s found. There, between the stones.’ He’s looking down at Hector in astonishment. The dog is sitting panting on the sand, oblivious and happy.
Cal brushes the sand away from the object and holds it out to her on the palm of his hand. There’s the unmistakable gleam of pure gold.
TWENTY-TWO
1588
Before the candles were lit and the evening meal was served, and when Ishbel had wandered off, Lilias explained a little more about the forthcoming festival. Samhain, at the end of October, was the feast to mark the time when the cattle were finally brought down from the summer pastures, to the north and west of Achadh nam Blàth. Some would be slain and their meat salted, as much as might last through the worst of the winter, but most would be overwintered as far as possible, although feed for them was scarce and like to get scarcer the more the season progressed.
‘Some of the other chieftains are sending cattle to the mainland, to be taken along the drove roads and sold at market, but on an island such as this one, it means shipping them and it’s an uncertain and dangerous business,’ she said. ‘If we were just a little closer to the shore, the cattle could be made to swim.’
‘Are they strong swimmers?’
‘They are. But not strong enough to get all the way from Garbh. Nevertheless, father has been considering sending the best of the beasts off in boats if it can be managed.’
‘Do people stay up in the hills all summer?’
‘Many of the folk come down in July to help with all the summertime work, the harvest and so on. But the remainder bring the cattle back round about now, at Samhain. You’ll see the bonfire lit upon the Dun there, and upon Meall Each as well. It’s a time of great celebration.’
‘But you have never been allowed to go
?’
‘No. For when I tell you that marriages are frequently celebrated afterwards, very soon afterwards, and babies born within a scant nine and sometimes eight or even seven months – plump and healthy babies I might add – you’ll know why.’
She gazed at him, her eyes full of good humour, daring him to disapprove. Her openness about such things would have embarrassed him at home. Here, he was beginning to understand it. She was reserved and dignified when she needed to be, and cautious in her dealings with the strangers. He sensed that if they ever overstepped the mark with her, she would retreat. All the same, she seemed to expect frankness about these matters of life, death and courtship, both in herself and in others. She was full of a sense of fun and sometimes it bubbled to the surface in spite of anything she could do to contain it. Nobody complained or reproached her for it. Perhaps this was because of her position in the community. Her mother was dead. She had no elder sister and it was clear that she was the apple of her father’s eye. McNeill relied on her and had given her a large measure of freedom and responsibility. She was a young woman of consequence in this small world of the island, and being quite outspoken seemed to be part and parcel of her authority. It discomforted and attracted him in equal measure. He thought that here was a young woman who knew her own mind. His own father would certainly have quelled any such behaviour with a glance and a harsh word, but Mateo found himself admiring her. He supposed it to be unusual, even here. He liked her. He had never been so openly friendly with any woman before.
*
The Spaniards had never seen anything quite like the celebrations at Samhain. To Mateo’s eyes, they seemed to be savage and unchristian: nothing like the autumn festival in La Laguna for the statue of Christ that had been brought to the island by the Archangel Michael himself. Well, Mateo was sceptical about that aspect of the story, but the statue of the crucified Jesus of Nazareth, in wood, both venerable and disturbing, was so extraordinary that it might as well have been made by angels, an image of suffering so profound that it was impossible to see it and remain unmoved. Now, he had witnessed so much of the real thing that he could attest to its accuracy, even while thinking that he wouldn’t be unhappy if he never saw it again.
The Posy Ring Page 22