‘Did David give you those?’ Eleanor thought back to that other world in Berkshire, the new house, and Ian coming home at seven off the London train in a swarm of commuters. The hot car, Claire bouncing on the back seat, and the other women standing with toddlers and dogs in the treeless car park, July sun merciless on tarmac, flashing off the cars’ metallic sheen. Then Ian, amongst the other men, jacket hooked over his shoulder, tie loose, rumpled and sweaty from London, carrying the Evening Standard and his briefcase.
‘I don’t think it’s fair. You can go off any time you like, and I’m stuck with boring school.’ Claire pushed her plate away, and Eleanor was back in the cottage kitchen, dark enough for the light to be on, October rain spattering against the window.
‘What rubbish. I hardly go anywhere.’ Eleanor stacked plates and cleared the table.
‘I’m having a shower, right?’
‘Don’t use all the hot—’ But Claire had gone. Eleanor fell into a dream, a clutch of cutlery in one hand, thinking of the years when she was married, and her brother David.
By seven she was driving Claire down the farm road to meet Sarah’s mother at the gate. It was raining hard, and they sat in the dark, water streaming down the windows, engine running and lights on so that they kept warm, and Sarah’s mother would see the car.
‘We’re getting all steamed up,’ Clare said, rubbing her window with a sleeve, peering out into oblivion.
‘I’m picking you up from Emma’s tomorrow, is that right?’
‘Yeah, I’ll ring you. Maybe lunch-time.’ She turned to Eleanor. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out with Andrew. The new doctor in Fergus’s practice.’
‘Oh. Is he your boyfriend now?’
‘I’m too old to have a boyfriend. And I’ve only just met him.’ She hurried on before Claire could ask another question. ‘We’re seeing a film. He’s picking me up at half-past seven, so I hope – look, there they are.’ Another set of headlights, another car moving slowly along the road. Claire grabbed her things, hugging the sleeping bag under one arm.
‘Careful – mind the puddles.’ Eleanor tooted her horn in greeting to Sarah’s mother, then began to turn the car and head back up the track.
She had a tepid shower, cursing Claire, and was ready by the time Andrew’s car stopped outside the cottage.
‘Good week?’ he asked as she got into the car.
‘Fine. Hang on – is that my phone?’ Inside the cottage, ringing. ‘You’re not on call?’
‘No, no – I’d have the bleeper, anyway.’
‘I’d better get it.’ Halfway out of the car, Andrew’s voice following her. ‘The film starts at eight-fifteen, and we’re cutting it fine as it is!’ But she was already unlocking the door and hurrying into the hallway.
‘Thank God, I thought you’d gone out. I desperately need someone not elderly to talk to.’
‘Hello, David.’
‘Hi, Eleanor – are you OK? Dad said you were coming down, but he’s got Alice and Mamie here and they’re driving me crazy.’
‘Oh, the aunts. They drive him crazy. David, look, I’m sorry, I was on my way out. I can’t talk just now, we’ll miss the beginning, of the film. I only came back because the phone was ringing.’
‘And telepathically, you knew it was me, and I was in dire straits.’
‘Rubbish, of course you’re not. Just bored.’ And drunk, she thought, realising this. Or had a few at any rate. ‘Look, I’ll ring you tomorrow.’ She was conscious of Andrew, whom she hardly knew, waiting outside. And yet, what she wanted to do was stand in the cold hall and talk to her brother. ‘I’ll see you on Wednesday, I told Dad I’d come down. Or – Davy, you could come here. Claire was saying she wanted to see you again.’
‘Gorgeous Claire – is she still blonde and beautiful?’
‘Oh yes, even more so.’ She was laughing.
Andrew was in the doorway. ‘Are you OK? We’ll be late, they won’t let us in.’
‘All right, sorry. Coming. David, got to go, someone’s waiting for me. No, tell you later. See you.’
‘My brother,’ she explained, as Andrew drove too fast down the track and leaped onto the main road through blinding rain. ‘We’d sort of lost touch. But he always resurfaces,’ she went on, aware that this man, whom she had met twice before, liked the look of, no more than that, was annoyed. ‘Sorry,’ she added. ‘It was a bit of a shock, hearing his voice.’
‘So where is he now?’
‘At my dad’s. At Pitcairn.’
‘Right, your family home. Isn’t that what Fergus said? Where is it?’
‘Aberdeenshire.’ Yes, she thought, my home, my childhood. Suddenly there was something in the car headlights. Then it was gone. ‘Careful! What was that? Too big for a rabbit.’ She swivelled, but saw nothing in the blackness.
‘Fox, maybe.’ They were on the A9 now, and he had steadied. He seemed to have stopped being annoyed.
‘Sorry,’ Eleanor said again. ‘Didn’t mean to hold you up.’
The evening was changed, and the film, which he had wanted to see, and she had agreed to because Marion had said how nice he was, how it was time she went out with men again, floated past, leaving her unmoved. Her thoughts were busy with David, and the past. She had forgotten the sense of excitement he could generate, even on the end of a telephone line. I want to talk to him, she thought. I want to ring him up when we get home, or go straight to Aberdeen tomorrow and see him again.
‘Can I give you a coffee?’ Andrew asked as they came out of the cinema and walked to the car. ‘Or do you have to get straight home?’
Eleanor considered this. What did it mean? She had gone out with only two men since Ian’s death, and this was one of them. The first one had not been much of a success. She had suspected he really just hoped for sex; he seemed like a man who was not sure how to find it. Worse, he had bored her. Now she thought Andrew might turn out to be boring too and really, it was best not to give him the idea this could go on, get anywhere. David had upset her and made everything look different.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘yes. Thank you.’ Immediately, she regretted this, and worried all the way to the Tore roundabout, where she gathered courage, and told him, actually, she was tired, so if it was all right with him, she would just go home. ‘But,’ she said, now regretting having changed her mind, ‘you could have coffee with me, if you like.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘If you’re tired, we’d better leave it.’ Was there a hint of sarcasm in this? Eleanor could not tell, and blushed, glad the car was too dark for him to see. What she wanted, she decided, was that he should be just a friend. Now David was back, she would have that anyway, and without all the tiresome business of getting to know each other first.
The rest of the way home, they politely discussed the film.
‘I still don’t understand,’ Eleanor said as the car drew up at the cottage, ‘how the man with the gun knew they were in Switzerland. It’s a mystery to me, that sort of film. Too complicated.’
‘Well, here’s something simple, instead,’ he said, switching off the engine and turning to her, so that she knew he meant to kiss her, and that if she wanted it to, this could lead (now, or later) to sex. So she kissed him back, but without enthusiasm, not sure she liked his calm face so close to hers. Oh, I am tired, she thought, and my period’s due, that’s all it is. She moved her mouth away, leaning with a sigh on his chest. It was as if she was somewhere above them both, watching indifferently as he caressed her shoulder, tried another kiss.
‘I’ll give you a ring,’ he said after a moment or two.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that would be nice.’
Through the night, she woke once, wondering where she was. She had been dreaming of Pitcairn, and David.
3
Marion came into the kitchen.
That was Eleanor,’ she said. ‘David turned up out of the blue – he’s at Dad’s.’
Fergus disengaged himself from the sports pages. ‘What?’
‘David, he’s at Dad’s.’
‘Your brother David? Where’s he been, then, all this time?’
‘Eleanor doesn’t know, she’s only spoken to Dad. But she’s going down on Wednesday for the day.’
‘What about you?’
‘Teaching all week.’ She sat down opposite her husband and looked at him across the detritus of the Sunday breakfast table. ‘I might go next Saturday, if you’re not on call?’
‘No, it’s Andrew next weekend. But Eleanor would have the kids for you.’
‘Och, I know, but it’s complicated with Ross’s football, and Kirsty’s dancing. Eilidh’s OK, she looks after herself these days.’
‘Aye, I’ve been noticing. Where is she this time?’
‘I told you – Emma Macdonald’s. A birthday do last night, so they all stayed over.’
Fergus folded his paper. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘I suppose if you want me to see to that shed …’
Marion put her boots and jacket on and followed Fergus down the garden. They stood in the crowded shed, between Ross’s old bike and the shelves with Fergus’s tools.
‘I think the water’s coming in the window somewhere.’
Fergus ran his finger along the sill. ‘No, that’s dry. Let’s see now.’
‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Marion turned to go. ‘I’d better get on.’
She walked the garden after she left him, looking for signs of damage after last night’s wind and rain. Eilidh’s sunflowers were leaning sideways, but the stems were strong and unbroken. Marion took a large flower pot and picked up fallen apples from the lawn. As she tipped them into the compost bin, the warm rank smell rose to meet her. ‘Needs turning,’ she murmured, ‘maybe next weekend, if it’s dry.’
In the house, she could hear from the kitchen as she worked, the sound of television in the living room where Ross and Kirsty lay on sofas, Kirsty wrapped in her downie, arguing about which programme should be on. Marion pushed the kitchen door shut and turned on the radio.
In the afternoon, she and Fergus were left to themselves. Ross went to a friend’s house; Kirsty was collected by Fergus’s mother for the weekly visit to Granny’s, to take the dog along the beach and eat too many sweet things for tea. Eilidh had gone to Eleanor’s house with Claire, and was not yet home. Marion meant work in the garden; she would just read the paper first. Fergus fell into a doze by the fire, the papers slipping off his knee. In the silence, Marion felt herself drifting. The sky darkened and it began to rain again. As it spattered on the window, Fergus woke himself with a snore, and snatched at his newspaper. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ Marion said. ‘You were asleep.’
‘Was I? What time is it? Any chance of a cup of tea?’
So she roused herself to make it, and they sat comfortably together, while he talked about work, and the possible need for a fourth partner, and she thought about Eleanor going to Aberdeen, and what David would be like now.
‘I know I should be pleased,’ she said, when they had disposed, for the meantime, of the fourth partner, ‘that he’s home. I mean, Dad’s always so pleased to see him. But David – this is an awful thing to say – David’s trouble.’
‘Well, he’s a bit … never seems to settle, does he? He was in the police for a few years, wasn’t he? The Met.’
‘Och, that was ages ago. You know that. I think they slung him out, in the end.’
‘What’s he doing now? Did your father say?’
‘The police, that was the last thing he should have gone in for. That or the Army. He never liked discipline of any kind. But I suppose it was the excitement. I don’t know what he’s doing now. I only hope he has a job and won’t be sponging off Dad for weeks on end. That has happened, you know. Remember – after Mum died.’
‘Well, your father was probably glad of the company then.’
‘I don’t know that he was.’ Marion pressed her lips together, disapproving. ‘But it just seems to me that whenever David’s around, something happens. Something we could well do without.’
‘Like what?’ Fergus helped himself to more cake, eating one by one the crumbs that showered his jersey. Marion moved the plate away.
‘Don’t have any more,’ she said. ‘I thought you wanted to lose weight.’
‘You shouldn’t make such a good cake, then.’
‘What were we saying? Oh, David. Well, the year we got married, for a start. All that business.’
‘He was only a kid,’ Fergus said. ‘He did get a job, didn’t he? He lived in London for a while after that.’
‘Yes, then when Eleanor moved down to Berkshire, he started going to stay with Ian and her. They weren’t long married when she got ill, really very ill for a while. Some sort of virus – remember? He went abroad after that, or Eleanor thought he had. When he came back, that’s when he joined the police. You must remember that year he came up to see Dad at Christmas, came up with Eleanor and Ian, and their car crashed at Stonehaven.’
‘Oh, I remember that. Eleanor was pregnant, but they lost the baby?’
‘She miscarried in the hospital, the night after the crash. How old was Ross – about five? So Eilidh and Claire must have been, what, two and a half? That was an awful Christmas.’
‘I’m not sure you can blame David for the accident or the miscarriage. He wasn’t driving, was he?’
‘No, Ian was. But it was the van-driver’s fault. At least, there was something wrong with his brakes.’ Marion finished her own tea, and put the mug down. ‘David still hung around, coming to them every weekend, when he was between girlfriends. It was around then that they threw him out of the Met. He said he resigned, but I’m pretty sure … He kept saying he was going abroad again, the States this time, but he didn’t. Then Ian had his heart attack.’
‘So what you’re saying is he brings poor Eleanor bad luck?’
‘Not just Eleanor. Och, I don’t even want to think about it.’
‘I suppose every family has a black sheep, eh?’
‘Well, he’s never done anything really bad. That we know of.’ She paused. ‘I mean, he’s my brother and I’m very fond of him, but—’
The door banged, Eilidh shouted, ‘Hi,’ from the hall, and Fergus rose and stretched, scattering more crumbs. ‘Time I stirred myself.’
‘Me too.’ Marion put the mugs on the tray, and began to straighten newspapers and shake out cushions. ‘Good party?’ she asked, as Eilidh came in.
‘Can I have some of that cake? Yeah, it was great.’
‘Use a plate. Don’t – oh, well, the state your father’s left the place in, I don’t suppose it matters.’
‘Claire says her mum’s going to Aberdeen on Wednesday because Uncle David’s visiting Grandpa. Can Claire come here?’
‘I’m sure she can.’
‘Auntie Eleanor said she’d speak to you about it later.’
Eilidh curled herself in the warm place her father had just left. He ruffled her hair as he went out.
‘Mum?’
‘What?’ Marion paused with the tray.
‘It’s really queer, isn’t it, Uncle David losing touch? I can’t imagine that happening with us. See, if Ross went abroad or something and we didn’t know where he was – I can’t imagine that.’
‘The way the two of you fight, I wouldn’t have thought you’d mind.’
‘That’s different. When you were young, what was Uncle David like? I thought he was nice – remember, he came and brought us a Christmas tree one year, absolutely gi-normous, and loads of glass balls, and you said they were dangerous because Kirsty was a toddler?’
‘What a memory you have, Eilidh. I’d forgotten that.’ She had not forgotten altogether, knew what was coming before her daughter spoke again.
‘Was that the time Timmy was incredibly sick, so we had to get the vet out at Christmas, and then he died anyway? Timmy, not the vet.’
‘Yes.’ Another terrible Christmas, she thought.
‘That was horribl
e. He was a lovely dog, wasn’t he? He was Ross’s special dog, really. I’ve never had a dog of my own. Toby’s so old he hardly moves.’
‘Don’t start, Eilidh.’
‘Where’s the cats, anyhow?’
‘On your bed, no doubt.’
In the kitchen, putting dishes away, Marion went on thinking about the Christmas when David had stayed with them. Eleanor and Ian had not come North that year; they had gone to Ian’s parents instead. The house had been packed on Christmas Day: Fergus’s mother, her own parents, David, her father and both the aunts. Where had they all slept? The aunts with Fergus’s mother, probably. Was that it? All she recalled with any clarity was the spaniel throwing up in the scullery, then collapsing in his bed, looking up at her, apologetic, helpless. All through the Christmas meal, she and Ross had kept going to check on Timmy. It was all she could do to prevent Ross abandoning the meal altogether. I’m not hungry. Mum. They had finally called the vet in the evening. Everyone in front of the television, Eilidh reading, the dog weaker and weaker, Ross very quiet. And David? David beside her in the kitchen: ‘Get the vet, somebody’s on call. Paid for it. They get paid enough. Just ring him.’ So she had.
In the end, Timmy died. He had cancer, he must have had it since long before Christmas. It could not, of course, be anything to do with David. He had been a comfort, the one to stay with Ross and talk to him, the only one able to get the boy to come out of his room.
Marion took off her apron and went to telephone Eleanor.
‘Did you have a nice time with Andrew?’
‘Yes, it was fine.’
‘What was the film like?’
‘Oh, car chases and stuff. I didn’t really understand it.’
‘We’ll have Claire on Wednesday. Just tell her to come home with Eilidh and bring her things for school next day.’
They talked about David, and their father, but Marion could not bring herself to say ‘He brings bad luck,’ or ‘Be careful,’ which were the things she wanted to say. It was too fanciful. Eleanor was the imaginative one; all the more reason not to put the idea in her head. She went to draw the curtains. The hour had changed, so perhaps that was why she had felt so dull and sleepy all day. The thought of the dark months ahead filled her with gloom. I wish I was going to Pitcairn with Eleanor, she thought. They would all be there without her. She shook this off, and resigned herself to television and the ironing. She had no time to brood.
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