‘Nearly home – thank goodness.’ Marion could see the necklace of lights strung out along the Kessock Bridge, the reflected glow of Inverness like a reddish haze across the dark blue sky. She was worrying about whether she had bought the right presents, and beginning to regret asking everyone up for Christmas. It would be all right – it always was, in the end. She closed her eyes and leaned back, while Eleanor drove them home.
Marion had no need to worry about Christmas after all. Three weeks later, their father telephoned her at eight in the morning, as she tried to get Ross out of bed and into the shower, and Fergus burned toast in the kitchen.
‘Dad? What is it?’ Her heart leaping up, the certainty of something wrong.
‘It’s your mother. I thought you’d better know, you and Eleanor. I had to get the doctor out last night, she wasn’t well.’
‘What’s happened – is she all right?’
‘Well, no. Not just yet. She’s in the hospital. A wee stroke, the doctor says. Just a wee one, but she’s not awake yet, not speaking or anything.’
‘Oh God.’
‘I’m away up to the hospital again in a while,’ he went on. ‘But I thought you’d want to know where she is.’
‘But how bad is it? Look, Dad – we’ll come down. I’ll ring Eleanor – we’ll come down.’ And then she thought, I’m in Dingwall today, they’re relying on me, I’ll have to leave it till after school. Drive down in the dark. She knew from her father’s voice that it was bad, that he was shaken. No question, they should go at once.
‘No, no, she’ll be fine. The doctor said the first twenty-four hours were what mattered. They can’t tell yet what the damage is, but if she pulls round out of this – they tell me folks make a good recovery.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, she’s in the best place. The nurses are awful kind. I’ll phone you again when I’ve seen her.’
‘Look, Dad, I’m teaching today. Phone Eleanor, or phone the surgery and they’ll put you through to Fergus. Can I ring the hospital – is that where you’ll be?’
‘I couldn’t say. Probably. Aye, I’ll bide at the hospital. See how she gets on.’
Marion found her pulse was racing. The day was growing dark and confused, and when she put the phone down, she did not know what to do first.
Their mother died that morning. Eleanor called her at school, and she came out of her classroom in a rush, to pick up the telephone in the school office, knowing what the news must be, but not believing it.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ Eleanor said, her voice full of tears held back. I’m sorry, Marion, I should have left it till you got home, but I felt you had to know.’
Marion went back to the classroom, and taught for the rest of the day. She and Eleanor would go to Aberdeen next morning, when they had made all their arrangements.
Claire was to go to Marion’s house after school and stay the night. Marion took a casserole out of the freezer; made a list for Fergus; found someone to take Kirsty to Highland-dancing; reminded Ross about his football kit; brought the ironing up to date; made sure someone would give the old cat her tablet, feed all the animals, and leave the Betterwear catalogue at the front door. When Eleanor said, ‘I’ll drive if you like,’ she could only sigh with relief.
As they drove down the A96, a faint haze of snow drifted through the air towards them. Pitcairn House seemed bitterly cold, the fires unlit, newspapers spread on the kitchen table, unwashed dishes in the sink. Both sisters, bleakly facing how it was going to be at Pitcairn without their mother, set to work.
‘Ach, don’t worry about cleaning,’ her father said, finding Eleanor with a brush and dustpan, about to sweep down the stair carpet.
‘We want to leave everything tidy for you.’
‘I’ve Ruby,’ he said. ‘She’ll come in an extra day or so, now, maybe.’ Eleanor realised he had thought of this already. ‘Your mother would have done without Ruby, you know. She said there was no need, with just the two of us. But I persuaded her. She was company, anyway, Ruby’s a cheery soul.’
‘But she’s getting on, Dad. You think she’ll want more work? Maybe Susan Mackie – what’s her married name, I always forget – maybe she knows somebody.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said, which meant he would not. ‘Anyway, what I came to tell you – where’s Marion?’
‘In the kitchen, I think. She was going to make us something to eat.’
‘Well, I’ve had Alice on the phone. They’re coming in past. Would there be something for them as well?’
‘Oh, I’m sure we can manage.’ Eleanor went to find Marion. ‘The aunts are on their way. Can we feed them?’
‘You should see the freezer, Eleanor. Mum has everything labelled – soup, casseroles – you’d think she knew. There’s enough to feed Dad for months.’
‘But she didn’t know. Marion, it was right out of the blue, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, yes. Of course it was. She was organised all the time – always plenty to eat. Too much for just the two of them, really.’
‘She was like you.’ Eleanor saw this as if for the first time. ‘You are like Mum – not to look at, or only a bit. But you’re methodical, the way she is … was. Oh Marion.’
‘I know.’
They stood looking at each other, and Eleanor fought back tears.
‘Right,’ Marion said, turning away. ‘I’ll get more soup out.’
Mamie was tearful; Alice seemed as usual, if a little more grave. Mamie embraced them, Oh dearie me, we saw her a week syne, and naethin wrang ava. Alice touched Marion on the shoulder, and said what a shock it had been. Sitting down to eat seemed pointless, but the organising of it (you sit there, no that’s fine. I can manage – who’s for soup?) a relief. Mamie, protesting that they didn’t need more than a bite, nobody had an appetite at such a time, had a bowl of soup and several sandwiches. Alice, to Eleanor’s surprise, also ate well, and seemed almost cheerful by the time Marion filled the coffee cups. Their father hardly touched his food, and got up before everyone else had finished, to go out and ‘see to something in the garden’.
‘Go and look for him,’ Marion murmured to Eleanor as Mamie and Alice vied to wash up and clear away. ‘See he’s OK.’
Eleanor put on her coat and boots and walked down the garden. Her father was standing by the wall near the henhouse now dilapidated, looking out over the fields towards the woods. Eleanor had a sudden memory of herself, seated astride the wall, watching the tinker family, hearing their dog bark.
‘You all right, Dad?’ She slipped her arm through his.
‘Aye, lass.’ He patted her hand, but did not move, and they stood there together for a moment in silence. Oh, why did she die? Eleanor thought. He’s going to be so lonely.
‘Dad, do you remember that family – two wee boys – the woman came to the back door and told our fortunes. I think she came every year round this way, with her family, but I can only recall the one time. They were tinkers, I suppose, and they had a sort of camp – over there.’ She pointed towards the woods. Her father did not answer at once. Thinking he did not remember, Eleanor went on, ‘There was something else. For some reason, they’re connected in my mind with that terrible fire at the Mackies. The barn – did their hayloft not go on fire?’
‘It did.’
She saw that he did remember. He shook his head. ‘Poor souls,’ he said. ‘Aye, I mind on them. Her and her bairns. They appeared every summer for a few years. Her man took work on the farms, but he was a shiftless cratur. Folk employed him because they felt sorry for her. What made you think of them just now?’
‘I don’t know. Standing here – this is where I was when I saw them first.’ Eleanor called up the memory again, herself balanced on the wall, then running inside for some reason. ‘She had a baby too, didn’t she? As well as the boys.’
‘It was a terrible thing to happen,’ her father said, and there was a note in his voice of something more than regret for people he had scarcely known, more than thirty years
ago. Eleanor looked at him.
‘What?’ she asked, but as she spoke, memory unlocked.
‘They died in the Mackies’ fire.’
‘Oh – oh, that was it. I remember the fire.’
‘Dan was in two minds about letting them take shelter there for a night or two. I think in the end he said no, he didn’t like her man at all. But the weather was heavy, and a storm forecast. They must have gone in after all, when the Mackies were in bed.’
‘They all died?’ Eleanor saw herself and Marion, up at the window, a fierce glow in the sky.
‘No, just the woman and her baby. Somehow the boys got out, or maybe they weren’t in the barn. I canna mind now but the man had been out drinking, and he wasn’t back. They found him in a ditch the next morning, still fu’, and knowing nothing about it.’
John Cairns turned to go back up the garden to the house, and Eleanor followed him. ‘What happened to the children?’
‘Oh, the Welfare must have taken care of them. What’s it now, Social Services? I dinna ken what happened to the fellow. Never saw him again.’
Eleanor paused by the bench at the back door, and turned to look down the garden again. Her father stopped with her, waiting. The lilac trees were bare, the garden brown and grey in weak November light.
‘What an awful thing to happen,’ Eleanor said. ‘How did – I mean, did they ever find out how the fire started?’
‘The man smoked. Could have been one of his fag ends. Dan wasn’t keen on having them at all for that very reason.’
‘And his wife and baby burned to death?’
‘A tragedy. You know, Eleanor, some folk say they see her whiles, going round the doors, carrying her bairn.’
‘Her ghost?’
‘Ach, I’ve nae time for stories like that. Neither had your mother. But Ruby swears she’s seen her here. Though why the poor soul should haunt this house, when she died up at the Mains, goodness knows.’
‘But he was out,’ Eleanor said. ‘How could it have been his fault?’
‘A cigarette end can smoulder away a good long time.’ He hesitated. ‘Did your mother speak to you about it?’
‘Mum? No, why? I have a sort of memory of the fire – well, the excitement of it. Was that not the night David went missing? Out late with Stanley.’
‘Oh, we got him home well before the fire started.’ Her father was emphatic. ‘No, no, your mother always had a fear he’d something to do with it – him and Stanley, with their matches. They were terrible lads for lighting bonfires. But there was no question – he was home before it started. I don’t know that he was even up at the Mains that night. They denied it, anyway.’
Eleanor thought of heat smouldering beneath straw, the smoke threading through, the first tiny lick of flame.
‘They played with those boys, him and Stanley,’ she said.
‘What boys?’
‘The tinkers’ kids.’
Before her father could reply, Alice opened the back door.
‘We’re away,’ she said. ‘But we’ll be back the morn, just to see you’re managing, see if there’s anything wanted.’
‘There’s no need,’ John Cairns said, as he and Eleanor stepped into the kitchen, shutting the door behind them. ‘Chisholms are coming out this afternoon. I phoned them and we decided yesterday – the funeral’s to be on Friday. So I’m fine.’
Alice seemed to hesitate. She spoke directly to her brother, as if Eleanor were not there. I’d like a word,’ she said, ‘afore we go.’
Mamie was in the living room with Marion; Eleanor could hear her voice, querulous, rambling. She looked from her father to Alice, saw the likeness between them, and how, for once, her father looked as old as his sister, for all the seven years between. There was some tension she could not understand, and she wanted to protect her father.
‘It could wait,’ he said, passing a hand across his eyes.
‘Just as you like.’ But she did not move. Then she turned to Eleanor. ‘Ask Mamie if she’s ready, would you, Eleanor?’
‘All right.’ Eleanor went out, and Alice shut the kitchen door behind her. For a moment, she thought of waiting, of standing there to listen. But of course, you couldn’t do that sort of thing. She heard her mother’s voice suddenly, its warning, advising note, and hurried down the hall to Marion.
In the afternoon, they saw the minister and the undertaker. At six, Marion cooked a meal none of them had appetite to eat. On the Friday, they would come to Pitcairn with their families, and stay on, just the two of them, over the weekend. Something had to be done about Faith’s things.
‘Only,’ Marion said, as they made a pot of tea before they went to bed, ‘I don’t know if I can face it.’
‘Let’s put it off, then, if Dad doesn’t mind,’ Eleanor suggested. ‘It doesn’t seem true, anyway, that she’s dead, that she’s not coming home.’ She sighed. ‘I wish she’d been brought here, not taken to the funeral place. She should be here.’
Marion poured tea into mugs, and set the tea-pot down. ‘It doesn’t matter, really. I mean, she’s not here any more, at all.’
‘But that’s what I’m saying. I can’t believe it.’
‘Well, we’re going to have to.’
‘Not yet,’ Eleanor said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Not yet.’
Their father seemed very calm, as if he had managed better than Eleanor could, to believe what had happened. And yet, he talked about Faith as if she still had an opinion which must be taken into consideration.
‘She would want you lassies to sort out her clothes, and take her bits of jewellery away with you. Take whatever you want. It’s no use to me.’
‘Let’s not do anything in a hurry,’ Eleanor said.
‘Well, well.’ He seemed to accept this, and looked down into the fire Eleanor had lit, cradling his mug of tea. After a moment, he said, ‘There’s one thing exercises my mind, lasses. One thing there is a hurry for.’
Marion and Eleanor looked at each other. They had talked of this on the way here, unable to decide what to do about it.
‘David,’ Marion said.
‘We need to speak to him. He’ll have no idea at all.’
‘Well, how could he,’ Eleanor burst out, ‘if he never gets in touch?’ She felt, under all the new grief, anger with herself, guilt again. It was because of me he lost touch, kept away.
Their father went to find David’s card, and the envelope it had come in. But the postmark was blurred.
‘It’s London, at any rate,’ Marion decided. ‘WC something.’
‘But that just means he posted it in the centre,’ Eleanor pointed out. ‘Maybe he’s been working there. Look, I have phone numbers somewhere, in the old address book, for one or two of his friends. I’ll look them out.’
‘Och, I’m sure if we put our minds to it, we can find him,’ Marion said, patting her father’s knee.
‘Aye, that’s the ticket. I wouldn’t want him not to be at the funeral. Terrible for him not to be at the funeral.’
Eleanor felt something almost like jealousy, as she watched her father sink back in his chair, looking not at them, but at something in the past or future, at David.
In the morning, he stood at the front door to see them off. Beside him, as they turned for a last wave, the ghost of their mother, small and straight next to her husband’s stooped figure, the light in the hall behind them, and on either side the stone urns, yellow-leafed ivy trailing down from them over the top step. Upstairs, a curtain seemed to move in their parents’ bedroom window, a trick of light, a shimmer of winter sunlight on the glass.
‘I feel so bad leaving him,’ Eleanor said. She blinked away tears, swallowing hard.
‘We’ll be back,’ Marion promised. ‘Only a couple of days.’
For a long while they drove in silence. On either side, the landscape lay bleak and bare, the sky stone grey, heavy. Then, when they were beyond Inverurie, Marion said, ‘Do you remember my friend Violet?’
‘Was
she the one with incredibly long pigtails?’
‘Yes, and lovely frocks. Well, I thought they were lovely then.’
‘I remember Violet. She was there when the gypsy came. Or just after – she said they were dirty.’
‘What?’
‘Tinks. That’s what she called them, you must remember.’
Eleanor was about to begin on the story her father had told her, when Marion said, ‘You know, Violet didn’t believe me when I said my mother used to be a dancer – on stage. We had quite an argument about it. She accused me of making up stories and I got really upset.’
‘Violet had a narrow view of life, as I recall.’
‘I suppose she did. She wouldn’t go to the Academy – she wanted to work in Esslemont and Mackintosh in Aberdeen, and sell ladies’ outfits. So she did. Anyway, we went out to the back door, Mum was there doing something, and I said to her, “Violet doesn’t believe me about you being a ballet dancer. She says I’m telling lies”.’ Marion paused, remembering the angry, hurt feeling, the belief that her mother would put things right.
‘What did Mum say?’
‘Nothing. She just picked up her skirt – it was summer, she had a dress on for once, and she whirled across the yard – entrechats, well, some sort of jump, and then she twirled round and round. It was so amazing.’
Then Marion, and Eleanor (who had not witnessed this, but saw it now), watched her again, transformed, their tiny, unyielding mother, spinning across the yard and out onto the grass, brown hens squawking and fleeing as she pirouetted past them, skirts flying, head flicking a second behind her shoulders, face composed and aloof. Suddenly, it was over, she was straight and still by the coal bunker, holding her skirts with curved fingers, then swooping down in a deep, deep curtsey.
‘Oh Marion.’ Eleanor was blinded by tears, and had to slow down, come off the main road, stop the car.
‘What a disappointment we must have been,’ Marion said, gulping down a sob, trying to laugh. ‘Two great lumps of girls, far too big for ballet.’
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