Bruce grinned. ‘He’s all right, I guess. A bit bumptious. Too full of himself. Needs sorting out. Not a bad golfer.’
‘Did you beat him?’
‘We were all square at the seventeenth. I packed it in then, so as not to be late.’
‘Was he willing to pack it in?’
‘To him it was like leaving the church before the service was finished.’
‘You used to be like that yourself’
‘I’ve learned sense.’
‘So will he. Janet will sort him out, no bother.’
‘What’s she like?’
‘Ah well, now, that would take some answering. When I was a kid, I had a Bible with coloured pictures. One was of Jephthah’s daughter. That’s all she was called: Jephthah’s daughter.’
‘Never heard of her. But then, I didn’t have your religious upbringing.’
She smiled. ‘Well, Jephthah was a mighty man in Israel. He won a battle with the Lord’s help and, to show his gratitude, he made a vow that he would offer as a sacrifice to the Lord the first person he saw coming out of his house when he got back home. Well, out ran his daughter to welcome him. He was heartbroken. She was his only child, you see, and he loved her very much. But he’d given his word to the Lord and – this is the bit that reminds me of Janet – she insisted that he keep it. So she was sacrificed. The picture was of her being prepared for it by her maidens.’
‘Was she burned to death or did the priest cut her throat?’
‘I don’t think it says. That’s Janet. She’d like to be a sacrifice if she could find a cause good enough. Black hair, pale face, tight lips, mad eyes.’
‘I can’t see Douglas coping with a woman like that.’
‘Not many men could. She’s a rum lady is Janet. Climbs clifs that would frighten a goat. Crawls into a cave as black as hell, with not so much as a match. Thinks she’s got second sight and it’s possible she has. Pokes her nose into everybody’s business. She’s got herself mixed up in something that could turn out nasty but I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘Who are these people she was staying with?’
‘What people?’
‘Called McAuslan.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘David. Her cousin. The guy that owns this hotel.’
‘He was kidding you. I expect he didn’t want Douglas to know she was staying with Angus. Like me.’
This was dangerous ground.
‘Angus being McAllister?’
‘That’s right. Her, me, and another dame. I’ll tell you about her later. This is her scarf. Here they come at last. My God, he’s wearing a kilt.’
‘She doesn’t look so fierce.’
Janet was smiling graciously. Like Jephthah’s daughter, thought Nell, feeling uneasy.
‘You didn’t say she was a fine-looking woman,’ said Bruce.
‘Keep your eyes off her books.’
But he didn’t and no other man in the bar lounge did either.
The three youths, Donald, Dugald, and Torry, had been told that the conceited character in the kilt was the mysterious ex-barmaid’s husband. They jested lewdly as to whether under that bright tartan sulked a cock with bits bitten off it.
Janet and Douglas went over to their friends.
‘Bruce, meet Janet,’ said Nell. ‘Janet, meet Bruce.’
Nell could see that Bruce, a sensitive big bugger though he didn’t look it, was immediately aware of Janet’s rumness and found it fascinating.
Janet, for her part, was gracious to him, like a princess to a well-meaning lout.
Nell took note, grimly.
Introducing Douglas, Janet was indulgent. If he’s a buffoon, her smile said, don’t hold it against him, he can’t help it. Admire, please, his kilt, see how straight his sporran is hanging, and isn’t his moustache cute?
Evidently he had not apologised satisfactorily for the hanky-panky on the Afghan rug. Nell rather liked him. He thought so highly of himself that he didn’t give a damn what other people thought of him. And why not?
‘What are you two drinking?’ asked Bruce.
‘Thank you, Bruce,’ said Janet. ‘Flodday Mist with a little water, please.’
Douglas pretended to find that funny. ‘When did you start drinking whisky?’ he asked. And what other vices did you pick up in McAllister’s house, his tone implied.
‘This very minute,’ said Janet, smiling sweetly. ‘To celebrate this happy occasion.’
‘All right.’ He couldn’t help making it sound as if he was giving his permission. ‘I’ll have the same, Bruce, if you don’t mind.’
At the bar Bruce had a word with David, now behind it.
‘These McAuslans,’ he whispered, ‘are they here?’
‘They don’t drink,’ murmured David.
Bruce laughed. ‘You’ve been rumbled, though. Douglas knows.’
‘Yes. Janet told him.’
‘Mind you, I don’t think the lady needs anybody’s help.’
‘That’s not so, Mr Ballantyne. She’s very highly strung. You see, she has pyschic powers. She sees things happening before they do. An aunt of hers, who was like that, went mad. Her family have always been anxious about Janet.’
‘Is that so? I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear it.’ But why an God’s name would a woman like that marry a man like Douglas, with no more imagination than a golf ball?
‘Will you be ready for dinner soon?’ asked David. ‘We have prepared a private room for you.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ Was it so that there would be no cursing to offend the other guests? Or was it in case Janet, as the Yanks say, blew her top?
He went back with the drinks on a tray.
‘Our host says we’re to have dinner in a private room. He wants us to go there shortly.’
‘I’d like to drink a toast first,’ said Nell.’ Will you join me, Bruce, in drinking a toast to Janet and Douglas?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘May they have a dozen kids.’
Douglas laughed. ‘Three more and we could have a rugger team. But thanks all the same. Janet, let’s drink to Nell and Bruce. May they be as happy for the rest of their lives as they are now.’
He end Janet clinked glasses and drank the toast.
It seemed to Bruce that a weird look had come into Janet’s eyes.
‘Well, shall we go and have our dinner?’ said Nell.
‘Another toast first,’ said Janet.
They waited. Not even Nell knew what she was going to say.
‘To Fidelia.’
‘Don’t spoil the party,’ said Nell. ‘But why the hell not? To Fidelia. Good fortune to Fidelia.’
‘Who’s she?’ asked Bruce.
‘The owner of this scarf,’ said Nell.
‘And of this necklace,’ said Janet.
‘Is she another of McAllister’s guests?’ asked Douglas. He put a sarcastic emphasis on the word.
‘She’s a very unfortunate woman,’ said Janet.
16
The room looked out on to the hotel car park with only a glimpse of the sea-loch but the four sitting down to dinner were not concerned with scenery. There was a vase of roses on the table but they were hardly noticed. The food, which included Mary’s special trifle, was appreciated but not discussed. Even the wine, the hotel’s best, at ten pounds a bottle, was drunk without the praise it deserved. In spite of Nell’s glowers, Janet set out to spoil the party. Before they were seated, she began to talk about Fidelia. She had on her witch’s cap all right, though Nell, not having second sight, could not see it.
When she had finished her account, she sat pale-faced and trembling.
If ever there was a woman needing to be treated with caution, here she was. Bruce and Nell exchanged quick winks. Jephthah’s daughter? asked Bruce’s. Who else? replied Nell’s.
Douglas, however, so delicate with his chip shots around the green, showed now the tact of a gorilla.
‘That’s all very well,
Janet,’ he said. ‘You’ve just heard her side of the story. A father’s got rights too, you know.’
He was lucky he didn’t get a roast potato between his eyes.
‘Of course, I’m sorry for the woman,’ he went on. ‘We’re all sorry for her. But you’ve said yourself he’s got the law on his side. Now, whether or not we think the law’s an ass, we’ve got to respect it. It’s the rule of law that upholds civilisation. Isn’t that so?’
‘I should have known your opinion would be crass.’
‘What’s crass about saying that the law’s got to be respected? All right, if it’s a bad law then change it, but do it constitutionally.
‘We’re talking about a woman who’s having her kid taken from her.’
‘It’s the same principle, Nell. The law’s decided against her.’
‘What kind of law is it,’ asked Janet, ‘that says a child should be taken from her mother who’s looked after her since she was born and given to a man who’s never shown any interest in her before and who makes his living out of prostitution?’
‘That’s her version, Janet. Have you heard his?’
‘Why has she never got a divorce?’ asked Bruce. ‘That way she could have kept her kid.’
‘She’s a Catholic,’ said Nell. ‘Very devout. Prays to the Sacred Heart. Doesn’t believe in divorce. Her own worst enemy. We don’t really know her. She’s got the blood of savages in her. There’s a funny look in her eyes every now and then.’
‘But she needs help,’ said Bruce. ‘I’m not surprised she’s not getting it from McAllister. I always thought he was a selfish bastard.’
‘Angus just wants to paint,’ said Nell. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It seems to me a very selfish attitude,’ said Douglas. ‘But isn’t there someone you left out, Janet? The girl herself, this Letty. What does she want? Has anyone asked her?’
‘She wants her father and mother to be together,’ said Nell, ‘as any child would.’
‘Well, maybe that’s what Gomez is here for.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Janet.
‘I expect if it was put to the child she’d have to say she wants to stay with her mother. That’s natural. But what does she really want? We don’t know that.’
‘She told me twice that her father’s rich,’ said Nell. ‘I bet she wouldn’t mind living in Forbes Park.’
That had to be explained to Douglas. He said he wouldn’t mind living there himself.
If, thought Nell, he came to Flodday hoping for a happy reconciliation in bed, he’s going the wrong way about it. All the same, she couldn’t help liking him for his – yes, crass was the word – crass but honest opinions.
He now uttered one of his crassest. ‘Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, Janet, I don’t think you should get mixed up in it. They’re foreigners. Let them sort it out themselves. They’ve no right bringing their problems here.’
‘What’s Fidelia’s nationality?’ asked Bruce.
‘She’s Filipina,’ said Janet, ‘but she’s lived many years in Basah.’
‘Which is now part of Malaysia. Where was the kid born?’
‘In Basah, I think.’
‘Then she’s a Malaysian. Gomez might have no claim on her. It would be worth investigating. She needs a better lawyer than Patel.’
‘It would take a hell of a lot of money,’ said Nell.
‘If we all put together,’ said Janet, ‘we could do it.’
What they put together was their sense of shock and disbelief. It was in all their eyes as they stared at her.
‘Angus too,’ she added.
‘If there was a chance of it coming off,’ said Bruce, ‘it might be worth trying, but there’s no chance.’
Douglas could hardly speak for incredulity. ‘Are you suggesting that we should finance this woman’s lawsuit?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Do you know what lawsuits cost? There was a libel case reported in the Herald the other day that lasted only a week and cost a million pounds. A lawsuit’s the quickest way to ruin yourself financially.’
‘Wouldn’t you take that risk to see justice done?’
‘For a stranger? A foreigner? An Asiatic?’
It looked, thought Nell, as if Janet the witch was about to turn him into something loathsome, like a crocodile. But perhaps he was immune to her magic. In any case, he was already like a crocodile, in the thickness of his skin.
‘I must say, Janet,’ he grumbled, ‘you’ve managed to spoil our celebration dinner.’
17
After dinner Nell and Bruce went to join in a ceilidh in the lounge bar. Later Douglas slunk in without Janet. Sad Gaelic songs were sung merrily, with everyone roaring out the choruses. A piper played a lament. Flodday Mist flowed. Emboldened by it, Douglas, the only man there, except the piper, wearing a kilt, volunteered to sing ‘Sweet Rothesay Bay’, which he’d often done at golf-club dos. His forebears, he explained, had come from Rothesay. In the old days it too had been a Gaelic town. He was vociferously applauded. He forgot Janet’s unjust rejection of him.
The singing could be heard at the harbour where Janet had gone to throw bread to the swans. Though after ten, it was still daylight. She was thinking of the unhappy people at Ardnave, threatened by demons. She could do nothing to save them. She knew that something dreadful was going to happen but she did not know what and, even if she did, she could do nothing to prevent it. That was what had caused Aunt Chrissie to go mad. She had foreseen the deaths of friends in a boating accident. Similarly, at Ardnave, the tragedy, whatever it was, could not be averted.
Shortly after midnight the ceilidh broke up. Nell and Bruce went off to bed hand in hand and humming an air that had taken their fancy. He had consumed a quantity of wine, whisky, and beer, but was not, she hoped, drunk and incapable. He might in fact be sober enough to notice and be disgusted by the fat which she had let accumulate over the past two or three years and in which her jogging and her abstinence from alcohol had so far caused little decrease. When her bra was removed her breasts would sag, like loofahs: a sight that might inspire fond love in a cannibal chief but not in an Australian with recent experience of boobs like apples and pears. Worse still, when her girdle was removed, and it would be one hell of a job removing it, as it had been getting it on, her belly would overflow, like the bloody Nile, and she would stand revealed as a fat slob. Bruce, on the other hand, except for his paunch, was still a big handsome man whom any woman would be delighted to sleep with.
In their bedroom she asked him not to switch on the light: the moonlight was more romantic. He quickly stripped off until he was as naked as in the honeymoon photograph. As if remembering that occasion himself, he struck the same pose.
There was no time to lose. It would not do to keep any man, however virile, hanging about too long, especially if he had drunk a lot and might fall asleep at any moment. Unfortunately, the girdle proved as difficult as she had feared. No matter how she pushed, pulled, and wriggled, it would not go up over her breasts or down over her hips.
Below in the street some revellers were staggering home singing Gaelic hymns.
Bruce came to her assistance. To make it easier for him she lay down on the creaking bed and held her breath. He took a firm grip and tugged. The girdle tore. It came off then as easily as a banana skin and was tossed aside.
He crawled into bed beside her. It creaked mightily. They laughed. Joyfully they made love.
‘I’m not past having a kid,’ she murmured, and thought, fondly enough, of Angus.
‘I’m not past it either.’
‘Too true you aren’t.’
‘A girl, Nell, or a boy?’
‘Why not twins? This is worth twins at least.’
‘At least.’
It was then that Nell, as happy as she had ever been in her life, remembered poor Fidelia and wished her well.
In Room 18 Douglas was feeling seedy after so many mixed drinks. He was also feeling self-piteou
s. Not because Janet had sent word through David that she was sleeping in the brush cupboard that night. In his present state he couldn’t have managed it with Elsie Hamilton, who helped more than she should, far less Janet demanding magic from him. No, the reason was that he had fallen into one of his fits of depression when he felt that he was not appreciated as he should be, as a golfer, as a singer, as a wearer of a kilt, as a civil engineer, and generally as a good fellow. They affected him only when he had had too much to drink and, of course, in the morning they were all gone. Tonight, in an effort to cheer himself up, he admired himself in the long mirror, first wearing his kilt and then only his jockstrap; soon he took that off too. Alas, his symbol of virility lay sulking like a puppy in disgrace and refused to perk up in spite of his coaxings. Nonetheless he was proud of it. It was his, and only his. He might let women like Cissie and Elsie have a loan of it as it were, for they could be depended on to let him have it back undamaged and recognisable. Not his Janet, though. He would never forget the night when she had come in and caught him looking at himself like this. Instead of pretending not to have seen, as a modest wife ought to, she had gone down on her knees and kissed him there. Never had he felt more embarrassed and less concupiscent. He had gone to bed in a huff, with his back to her, for a change.
In their room David and Mary were discussing Janet and Douglas. Janet had told David that she might not be returning to Clarkston with Douglas on Monday: she might never be going back there. Did she intend to stay at Ardnave with McAllister? asked Mary. No, though she was going to Ardnave tomorrow morning to find out what had happened between Mrs Gomez and her husband.
Before she fell asleep, Mary murmured that, if anyone ever tried to take her girls from her, she would kill him.
David lay awake a little while longer, wondering and shuddering.
18
As soon as the car with Janet, Nell, and the two girls drove off, Angus made for his studio, now a refuge rather than a place of work. Fidelia saw him sneak off but said nothing. Later he heard her go upstairs, no doubt to do some more praying. Only if they avoided each other could the hours between now and tomorrow at eleven be passed bearably. What he had said to Janet about putting his work first, no matter who got hurt, he had meant, though in his studio he just sat with his head down and stared at the floor. This crisis would pass. However it was solved, they would all have gone. He would then be able to raise his head again and get back to his painting.
Poor Angus Page 18