The Bass Rock

by Evie Wyld

  ‘Betty,’ she said, without taking her eyes off him, ‘would you call Mr Hamilton down for me?’

  Ruth sat on the sofa while they waited. There was a long silence through which the reverend smiled.

  ‘What happened to your other dog?’ he asked, without looking at the mantelpiece.

  ‘I don’t know. It disappeared a while ago.’

  ‘A thief?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘Do you think perhaps the girl broke it and is hiding it?’ His eyes narrowed a little.

  ‘I think it’s best all round if we don’t talk about it, Reverend.’

  He smiled again, nodded. ‘Right you are, Mrs Hamilton.’

  Ruth shifted on the sofa and tried to examine the top corner of the room as though there was something important hanging there.

  When Peter arrived, in his slippers and a hurriedly thrown-on jumper – he’d most likely been wearing his dressing gown in his study – he peered into the room as though he expected it to be on fire. Or like a boy entering the head’s office, Ruth thought. The reverend stood, shook hands with him.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, looking from one to the other.

  ‘Quite all right, as I was saying to Mrs Hamilton, nothing in the slightest to worry about. I just did want to flag a few things before the boys return – something I do for all the parents of boys at Fort Gregory, I just find it’s useful to know a little about how a term has gone before they arrive home. Something other than academic progress and manners, something more about their psychology.’ He said the word as though they might be impressed that he knew something of it.

  Peter sat down on the sofa next to Ruth so that once again it felt as though Reverend Jon Brown was the owner of the house and they his guests.

  ‘As you may or may not know, I have an interest in child psychology, and I make it my business to get to know the children of North Berwick. I like to know what’s going on, what makes them tick, and so I have a special relationship with St Augustus, Fort Gregory and Carlekemp Priory where I am the chaplain. Now, nothing to worry about, as I said, but both your boys have struggled in the past term. This is not uncommon – there are changes coming about in Christopher, he’s becoming a young man, and for Michael, he’s had a great deal of upheaval, and I rather feel that, given the death of their mother, these things have been . . . magnified. So this all comes together to create behaviour which you may find a little . . . uncomfortable.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ruth asked. Peter was sitting forward in his seat, as though trying hard to understand something.

  ‘Well. Christopher has been in more than one fist fight this term.’

  ‘Fighting? But that seems so unlike him,’ said Ruth. She’d never seen the boy so much as raise his voice even at Michael. ‘Has he been hurt?’

  ‘Oh, nothing serious, I assure you. A few bruises. An out-of-place nose, but you should have seen the other boy!’

  ‘His nose is broken?’

  ‘Really –’ the reverend held his hands up as though Ruth was being hysterical – ‘don’t get yourself upset.’

  ‘I just—’ She looked at Peter, who remained silent. ‘Peter, are you going to say something?’ He appeared to be deep in thought or memory.

  Eventually he said, ‘It’s just all part of growing up and becoming a man.’ Once he had said this he looked much more convincing. ‘Really they’ve been very sheltered since their mother died. I suppose it’s good to toughen them up. It can’t all be picnics and boat rides.’

  The reverend nodded, pleased.

  ‘But he’s only just fourteen.’ Her chest felt hot. ‘Michael isn’t fighting too, is he?’

  ‘Not so much, no, but he is telling a lot of tall tales. Again, to be expected.’

  ‘He’s lying about things? What things?’

  ‘He’s making up stories, some of them just a bit of fun I think, something to scare the other boys in the dorm. Wolfmen at the windows and that sort of thing. But I’m afraid some of his other stories have been focused on the masters themselves, and that’s where we really need to take a stand.’

  ‘What has he said?’

  ‘Really it doesn’t matter. Children know the value of an adult’s name, and Michael is just trying to win favour with his peers by tarnishing the names of his teachers.’

  ‘What does he say they’ve done?’ An unnamed panic in the base of her stomach.

  Peter stood, a fist of nervous energy Ruth hadn’t seen on him before. ‘Really, darling, the details are not important. What’s important is that he understands that this sort of behaviour is not tolerated in a man. And Christopher needs to get whatever this is out of his system and fight, if he must, but in the ring.’ It was as though a different person spoke through Peter. Ruth imagined a hand thrust into his back making his mouth move, like a puppet.

  ‘As I say,’ Reverend Jon Brown spoke up, smiling, ‘this is not to urge you into any sort of discipline with your boys, that’s the job of the school. It’s more to warn you of how they might be a little changed. Adulthood comes in leaps and bounds, and more than a few tumbles.’

  Ruth did not listen to the winding up of the conversation. What, she thought, was happening? She felt as though her life were a picture made of sand and someone was blowing through a straw at it. Each thing she held to be true – Peter’s love for her; the boys healing after their mother’s death; her desire for her own child.

  And then the reverend was leaving and shaking their hands, and Peter showed him out. Ruth waited for her husband to return to the drawing room, and when he did she stood up.

  ‘Well, what shall we do about this?’ she said.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘There’s a day school in Musselburgh. We can—’

  ‘My God, what are you proposing? You can’t send boys to a day school. We don’t need them back here working the farm.’

  ‘But they’re not happy. That’s what he came here to say – something’s wrong, they don’t like it.’

  ‘You’re not meant to like it.’ Peter’s voice had an edge to it, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, as though she were a silly little girl throwing a tantrum. ‘You’re meant to transform into a man, and that is what’s happening to them. They might not like it now, but in time they will hold affection for the place.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’

  ‘OF COURSE I CARE.’ This he shouted as though all of his strength and soul went into it. His whole head and neck were red with the power of it; he wiped spit from his lips with the back of his hand.

  He was a person changed. Danger was in the room. Ruth sat back down. She felt compelled to look away from him as one would an angry dog. They remained in silence a while longer until Peter’s colour had returned to normal.

  ‘You assume that just because I send them there that I don’t think of them.’

  ‘No, not at all, I—’

  ‘You think I had an easy time at school, that I don’t know the hardships of being a boarder? I don’t do it for my good, I do it for theirs. I’m not having them here with you and Betty and the girl turning into poofs who watercolour and collect seashells. There’s violence in the world that they will have to face up to, and it is my job as their father, their remaining parent, to prepare them for that.’ He nodded to himself. He kept nodding. He was convincing himself. ‘Because that’s what you do, that’s what was done to me, and it didn’t do me any harm! Look at me now, I survived a war, I survived the death of my wife. I survived you!’ The jab was dark and low, and before she knew it she had returned it.

  ‘And will you send your new baby to the same school? Or will she stop you?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Ruth stood up, moved a step closer to him.

  ‘Will you send the baby you’re having with your girl to boarding school to be torn apart or is that an honour you reserve only for your legitimate children?’

  Peter struck her hard across the face and for a m
oment there was nothing in the room but the ringing sound it made. It didn’t hurt so much as it tasted – she had bitten her cheek. Peter looked startled, and turned his back on her.

  ‘You hit me,’ she said redundantly.

  He ran his hands over his head back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘You need to get control of yourself, Ruth. These fantasies are fast becoming tiresome.’

  Her face was warm – his hand had been open. The small seep of blood from the corner of her mouth was quickly extinguished by her tongue.

  ‘I know about the girl,’ Ruth said. ‘You can’t deny me that.’ The words were out now and what would happen?

  Peter sniffed, rubbed at his nose, leaned on one hip. His body held a strange energy, something new beneath the skin.

  ‘The girl?’

  ‘The girl in Edinburgh. Don’t make me spell it out for you, Peter, it’s too humiliating,’ she said. She felt she too might have an outburst and hit him. Perhaps this was the time in which outbursts were allowed.

  ‘I have absolutely no sense of what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  He sat down as though exhausted, and looked at her. His face softened. His voice was gentle.

  ‘I’m sorry, my darling, I can’t think what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I followed you, I saw you on the platform at Edinburgh.’

  ‘You saw . . .? I’m worried, quite frankly. Are you feeling unwell?’ Peter stood, put a hand to her forehead. She leaned away.

  ‘The girl, and I saw her . . . I saw that she had a baby on the way.’

  ‘Ruth, darling, you’re scaring me.’

  ‘Don’t you “Ruth darling” me.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake.’ His softness was awful. His hurt at what she was suggesting. ‘And I made a mistake just now. I’m sorry, I was afraid for you, you were becoming hysterical.’

  She pulled the dog brooch from her jumper. ‘This,’ she said, throwing it on the floor between them.

  ‘I knew you didn’t like it,’ he said.

  ‘This is Greyfriars Bobby, from Edinburgh.’ He looked at the brooch there on the floor for a long while. ‘You didn’t find it in London at all.’ In time, he looked up at her.

  ‘All right. I admit, my secretary shopped for it. I just had too much work on. I told her you liked dogs.’

  Some moment of understanding passed through her.

  ‘You sent the girl, didn’t you? She chose a present for your wife.’ She knew she was correct. She didn’t know what told her, but she was certain.

  ‘You’re talking like a madwoman,’ he said. His tone was a little changed, it had an edge again. ‘I know you’re angry that I’ve been away a lot but I have been working my fingers to the bone so that we can—’

  She cut him off. ‘My God, we moved up here because of her, didn’t we?’

  Ruth saw for one second the face of a caught man, and then it was gone, replaced with rage.

  ‘How dare you accuse me of these things. How dare you.’ He stood and, as he did, he picked up the brooch. ‘I shall have my secretary return the brooch and send you a cheque, shall I?’ He moved towards the door with it, then turned. ‘You know, we were talking about the boys – did you feel you weren’t getting enough attention?’ His voice dripped with disappointment. He walked from the room.

  Ruth caught her reflection in the mirror, and saw the other face staring back at her, younger, thinner, frightened. And then she settled, and saw that that was all she was, young, angular and afraid.

  I

  As our train pulls into Blackfriars I recognise Dom on the next platform.

  ‘Hey.’ Katherine looks up. ‘Hey, look, it’s Dom.’

  I immediately regret speaking. Katherine’s face does not crumple, but something far and deep within her withers, I can see it in the tightening of her lips and the way she pulls her hands close to herself, as if to hide them.

  Dom, like he has heard me speak, looks up, but the reflection of the sun on the window must be hiding us – his face does not alter, he doesn’t raise a hand to wave. Another second passes and then a tension comes into his body.

  A beat. We have slowed to a stop but the doors are yet to open. Dom turns on his heel and begins to run. We watch him pelt down the stairs, nearly knocking over an elderly man, not stopping to right him again. The man clings onto the handrail and shakes his head.

  He’s coming for me.

  ‘Shit,’ Katherine says, and the doors chime open.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask. ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

  ‘Should we pull the emergency cord?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I look up at the departure sign. We have ten seconds until we are due to leave. We can’t look away from the staircase to our left where Dom will appear. I am counting down – eight, seven, and he is there at the bottom of the staircase and his face is not the face of a man, who was once a boy, and who has loved my sister, and comforted her, laughed with her, made love and a thousand pasta dinners with her to eat in front of the television. He is not the man who, after the first time we had sex, held me very tightly and let me cry on him, told me my loathing should be for him only and not for myself. Who brought me a box of worry dolls one year for Christmas and watched me open them, and later held my cheek in the hallway as I tried hard not to tear up, kissed my forehead and said, I’m so very sorry. He is changed. He roars up the stairs, three, two, one, and the doors chime and begin to close, lock, and he slams his body against them, puts his fingers into the crack and tries to prise them open, but they are fast, and we sit looking at him and he is shouting something that I cannot make out, and his spit flecks the windows, his eyes show white all around the blue centres, his mouth is dark red and deep, his teeth are sharp. He looks like an ape, and he bangs on the glass one last time with both fists as the train starts to move; he stands back so he is by our window and for five or so seconds he keeps time with the moving train, his forehead pushing against the glass, looking into Katherine’s eyes, an inch away from her, saying nothing with his mouth, but his message is clear and dreadful.

  He doesn’t see me.

  When the train picks up speed, he pulls back and I watch him standing, his arms by his sides, his fists clenched. He becomes smaller and is gone, we are out in the sunshine and on our way. My sister is white and there are tears in her eyes. When she opens her mouth, her front left tooth is bloody.

  ‘What should I do?’ she asks.

  ‘Come home with me,’ I say. ‘We’ll think of something.’ I move to sit next to her, and in doing so find that my legs are shaking. I put my hand on her knee and she takes it and holds it in hers. Her hand is very cold, and it vibrates with fear.

  At home I ring our mother and tell her not to let Dom know that Katherine is staying with me.

  ‘Don’t you think he’ll assume that anyway?’ she says. ‘What happened?’ Then she whispers down the phone, ‘Do we need to call the police?’

  Katherine is behind me during the call, drinking a black coffee, having refused to join me in a glass of wine, because she is not rattled, because it is not yet even midday. She says loudly, ‘Everything’s fine, Mum, Dom’s just being a bit of a pain, that’s all.’

  While Katherine is out of earshot I say, ‘Don’t answer the door to him.’

  My mother takes this in.

  ‘Viviane. This sounds serious.’

  ‘It’s probably nothing – we’re just being cautious.’

  In the mirror, I see Katherine pouring whisky into her coffee, looking over her shoulder like a child stealing a biscuit.

  The girl is looking out through a crack in the wardrobe door. The glow from the lighthouse on the Bass Rock comes into the room like a ghost and then leaves again. She was midway through dressing for the trip they were to take when he had burst in. The maid had been told to leave, which she did, making those large eyes at the girl as
she closed the door. Poor thing, there was nothing to be done.

  He had taken her by the hair, which the maid had only just finished pinning, and he had laid her on the bed, and when he could not at first find his way under her corset, he had punished her for it, and then ordered her to turn over. He took the grape scissors from her dressing table and cut the laces. She had remained very still, and even so, he had made several cuts upon the skin of her back. There was nothing to be said, it was only a question of weathering the storm, and in any case he was careful, in his way, because he never caused destruction to her face. In order to weather the storm, it was important, she had found, to think of one’s head and one’s body as separate. The body was more robust and could deal with the force he visited upon it. She was always grateful that the gentle bones of her face and hands remained intact. Though wearing her corset would be uncomfortable, and she may have to feign other ailments instead. He did not understand the great problem of the corset. She had reduced too much in the past months, which he did not like, but also she had had that corset specially made for her new smaller frame. Perhaps the maid could cleverly unlace one of the old ones, and rethread it.

  After he had finished, he had tidied himself in the mirror for a moment, and she made the mistake of moving too soon, and had been shocked to tears by the feeling in her ribs, causing him to take her once more by the hair and shut her in the wardrobe. He expected her to sit on the stool he kept in there for her, her hands neatly folded on her lap – he had explained this in detail the first time it had happened. The repercussions of leaving the wardrobe, which was not locked, were great, she knew this, there were still ridges on the backs of her legs from the first time when she had with some indignation come out to use the chamber pot.

  He had left the room humming a tune to himself. She was not to go on the trip after all.

  Sometime later the maid enters the room and lights the lamp. She has a tray with her, and upon it a lit candle, a glass of water and two boiled eggs with bread. The girl sees through a crack in the door as the maid sets the candle down on the side table and creeps to the wardrobe.