The Posy Ring
Page 33
‘He won’t be happy about it, will he?’
‘No. He won’t.’
‘What will he do?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing right away. That’s not the way he works. He’s a great believer in the revenge served cold theory. So he’ll bide his time and get his own back. He never forgets an injury. Never forgets and never forgives.’
‘You make him sound like a monster.’
‘He’s a narcissist, that’s for sure. Why does the world excuse men with talent for behaving badly?’
‘Because they’re men? With talent? It’s outrageous, but they seem to get away with it. Can’t you persuade your mum to stay on? Even for a little while?’
‘I’ve tried. She’s set on going back. She’ll take the dresser, so that’s one less trip for me to make. I have other projects I want to work on.’
‘There are things in my house you could work on too. The bed. But I’d quite like to keep that. I was wondering if the carved oak bed would fit in Viola’s bedroom.’
‘The oak bed? Really? Something else you don’t want to sell?’
‘I know. But it would be fun, wouldn’t it? To sleep in that bed. Not in the tower, though.’
‘Lots of room to move,’ he says, sliding his arm around her. ‘Talking of which.’
They make love silently, which is something of a feat and also surprisingly stimulating and intense.
In the morning, they have breakfast together, and then Cal and Daisy haul the heavy dresser out of the workshop and manage, with a great deal of huffing and puffing and a good deal of hindrance from Hector, to install it in Fiona’s hatchback.
Fiona hugs Daisy and kisses her on both cheeks before getting into the car. ‘Look after him!’ she says. ‘I worry about him, you know.’
‘He worries about you too.’
‘I’ll survive. Good luck with the house.’
‘You’ll have to come back and see it properly. You haven’t seen the half of it yet.’
‘I will,’ she says.
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
Hector sits sadly watching her go. The car – laden with the dresser – labours up towards the lane where she gives a cheery double hoot, and then drives off towards the ferry terminal. The cottage seems emptier without her. She’s such a large, vibrant presence that it’s hard to imagine her being cowed by anyone, let alone her own husband.
Cal and Daisy sit outside in the sunshine, watching Hector, who is eyeing the birds squabbling over the feeder, his ears semaphoring his intense interest.
‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’
He shrugs. ‘Oh, sweetheart, your guess is as good as mine. I worry about her a lot. I have to keep reminding myself that she’s a grown woman and she can probably cope. But she’s my mum and I love her.’
‘She’s a very lovable person.’
‘She’s not the only one.’ He turns to her and kisses her very tenderly. ‘Vous et nul autre,’ he says.
‘Un temps viendra.’
‘My flower girl. From Flowerfield. What do you want to do today?’
‘We should be working.’
‘I know we should. But there’s always tomorrow. It isn’t every day you meet the love of your life, is it?’
She takes a deep breath. ‘Let’s walk from here to Auchenblae. Is the tide out?’
‘I think so.’
‘Then let’s walk along the sand. Let’s walk home along the shore and see what the sea has brought in for us today.’
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the many good friends, including my Scottish island friends, who have motivated me to create Garve and Flowerfield. I’m indebted to Oenone Grant for a great many fascinating conversations about art and antiques and to Alison Bell for all our ‘Dobbies days’ that have kept me on track and inspired. I don’t think I could have done it without you. Thanks must also go to Gary Skilling for information about inheritance and taxation, to all at Thomas R Callan, the friendly saleroom in which I learned so much about antiques and collectables over many years. Huge thanks to my best ever editor, Ali Moore, to Sara Hunt, Robbie Guillory and all at Saraband, and to Joe de Pass for the perfect and perfectly beautiful map of Garve. Finally, love as always to my artist husband Alan Lees, who first painted the island for me to my somewhat demanding specification, and to our son Charles. I couldn’t have done it without you either.
THE Annals of Flowerfield
will continue with
The Marigold Child
When Daisy Graham and Cal Galbraith are renovating Auchenblae, they make a distressing but intriguing discovery hidden behind 16th-century panelling in the ancient stone tower. It is an uncanny find that will herald a family crisis – and lead to momentous changes for all of them, not least Cal’s much-loved mother, Fiona.
Meanwhile, on 17th-century Garve, Ruaridh McNeill’s grandson Kenneth, an uncompromising and pugnacious man and now the laird, desperately wants an heir. His Irish wife, Róisín, is pregnant, but she has twice given birth to stillborn girls and feels trapped in a situation she is powerless to control. Can travelling poet Alasdair Galbraith and his sister Catriona do anything to help the unhappy young woman?
And in the present, why does the island legend of Lus-Màiri, the changeling child, seem so relevant to the history of Auchenblae – and to Daisy herself
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Czerkawska is a Scottish-based novelist and playwright. She has written many plays for the stage and for BBC radio and television, and has published eight novels, historical and contemporary, including The Physic Garden, The Jewel, and The Curiosity Cabinet (with the same Scottish island setting as The Posy Ring) for Saraband. Her short stories have been published in many magazines and anthologies. She has also written non-fiction in the form of articles and books and has reviewed professionally for newspapers and magazines. Wormwood, her play about the Chernobyl disaster, was produced at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre to critical acclaim in 1997, while The Curiosity Cabinet was shortlisted for the Dundee Book Prize in 2005. Catherine has taught creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and spent four years as Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of the West of Scotland. When not writing, she collects and deals in the antique textiles that often find their way into her fiction.
Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Four
Five
Seven
Eight
Ten
Eleven
Thirteen
Fourteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-Two
Acknowledgements