Tower of Silence
Page 4
Some nights Mary put her hands over her ears so that she would not hear, but after a while she stopped doing that because it was far more interesting to listen–to spy on mother and father and know their secrets, even though some of the secrets were not very easy to understand. One day I will understand, though. One day I’ll understand what it is that father does, and all that thing about babies.
There was no need to feel in the least guilty about listening through the wall, because Mary’s parents deserved to be spied on. It served them right for always wanting Mary’s sister to come back, and for not letting Mary take her sister’s place.
In the event, having people staying overnight at Teind House in twos and threes was not as bad as Selina had feared. In the main they were nice, usually retired couples who were touring Scotland. Once or twice there were groups of three or four ladies who had been widowed or divorced, and who had got together to share little holidays. They did not in the least mind doubling up in the two big twin-bedded rooms at the front of the house.
And it was rather pleasant to serve dainty little breakfasts in the square morning room at the back of the house. Selina wore a crisp white apron over a navy frock, and always spoke softly because the aunts had considered that hearty breakfast conversation was slightly ill-mannered. Gentlemen especially did not like loud voices at the breakfast table.
Gillian had helped Selina to find and buy two large coffee pots with matching cups and sugar bowls. They were rejects, but they were rejects from a good pottery manufacturer, and they looked nice. Selina had also hunted out some of Great-aunt Rosa’s cut-glass jam dishes, and always put the marmalade and the honey on the end of the table that caught the morning sun so that the honey turned transparent. She had found Great-aunt Flora’s recipe for Orkney pancakes as well, and offered them to guests as an alternative to toast. It was unexpectedly gratifying when some of the ladies asked for the recipe for the pancakes.
‘You ought to bake a large batch and freeze them,’ said Emily Frost, who came down from the warders’ little community at Moy each morning to help cook breakfasts when there were people staying. ‘If you got a microwave you could have them ready in minutes.’
But Selina was not sure about freezers and microwave ovens, which she found bewildering. She was not actually sure about Emily, either. Emily had come as a shock that first day. She had a face that reminded Selina of a wayward pixie, and hair so red it was practically crimson, four earrings in each ear, and probably a tongue stud as well if you looked closely. Surely Gillian had not considered that a child with crimson hair and eight earrings would be suitable to help with the guests?
‘Don’t underestimate her,’ said Gillian.
And in fact Emily was cheerful and willing, and except when she made suggestions that frightened Selina to death, like this newest one about a microwave, she was quite easy to have in the house. Neither of the great-aunts would have countenanced her clothes or her hair, of course, and they would have thrown up their hands in horror at her method of transport, which was a huge black motorbike, surely the noisiest machine ever invented. Emily wore a shiny black crash helmet whilst riding the motorbike, but once inside Teind House the helmet was left in the scullery, and her hair subjected to a variety of arrangements. At the moment she was gluing it into spikes all over her head, which made her look like a modern-day elf.
‘I’ve had a request from someone who wants to stay here for a couple of weeks,’ said Selina to Gillian on the phone.
‘Well, that’s great, isn’t it? What’s the problem?’
The problem was that Selina had not really visualised long stays when she had embarked on this project.
‘But think of the dosh,’ said Gillian promptly. ‘Three or four hundred pounds in the bank, just for cooking an extra breakfast each morning.’
‘But–she’s a writer,’ said Selina worriedly.
‘So? What kind of writer is she? Because unless she writes hardcore porn or something—’
‘Novels,’ said Selina hastily. ‘She writes novels. And she said she wants a bit of solitude to assemble some research.’
‘Well, she’ll certainly get solitude at Inchcape.’
‘Oh, yes. She says she’ll be quite happy to have her lunch and supper at the pub. So I suppose,’ said Selina doubtfully, ‘it would be all right.’
‘Of course it would be all right. What’s her name?’
‘Joanna Savile.’
‘I think I’ve heard of her,’ said Gillian. ‘She’s not a bestseller, but she’s quite well known. She writes modern whodunnits, I think–very pure and moral.’
‘Yes, that’s what she said. And she wants to gather some background about institutions for the criminally insane, which is why she thought of Inchcape. Because of Moy, you know. She’s trying to set up interviews with the governor and the doctors there.’
‘Sounds fine to me. What is it that’s really worrying you?’
‘Well, noise for one thing.’
‘Oh, she’ll probably bring a laptop,’ said Gillian. ‘So you needn’t be worrying about typewriters being bashed into the small hours. In any case, if you give her that big L-shaped attic on the second floor you’ll hardly know she’s there.’
Selina supposed this would be a reasonable arrangement.
‘Perfectly reasonable,’ said Gillian.
‘I’d better get a couple of her books to read beforehand,’ said Selina.
Contrary to all her expectations, Selina liked Joanna Savile.
She arrived more or less when she had said she would, which was at around seven o’clock in the evening, driving a big estate car with careless expertise. She had long, rather untidy, hair the colour of autumn leaves, and hazel eyes and a skin that reminded Selina of buttermilk. She wore an ordinary tweedy-looking jacket, a silk shirt and dark trousers, and she had brought Selina a huge bunch of the most beautiful bronze chrysanthemums.
‘There was a farm a few miles back selling them on a roadside stall, and I couldn’t resist them. You said that Teind House was very old, so I thought they’d be bound to look good somewhere. They smell wonderful, don’t they?’
She carried her suitcases cheerfully up to the second floor, refusing offers of help, and Selina, rather anxiously leading the way, noticed that both the cases were very good ones. Great-aunt Rosa had always said you could tell a lady by her accessories, and Joanna Savile’s suitcases and also her handbag and shoes were leather and expensive-looking.
The second-floor room was not really much more than a half-attic, with sloping ceilings and casement windows, but Gillian, who presumably knew about these things, had told Selina at the start of this bed-and-breakfast project that it could be made very comfortable. When Selina said there was not really any money to be doing rooms over, Gillian had said, ‘Oh, phooey, all it needs are some new curtains and a new cover on the window seat. Chintz, or something William Morrisy. I’ll splash some paint around while I’m here–that’ll freshen it up no end. And aren’t there some odds and ends of furniture in the junk room? I’ll help you sort a few pieces out and we’ll polish them up and move them in.’
The room, its walls and ceiling newly emulsioned by Gillian, was, Selina had to admit, now rather charming. The glazed chintz for the curtains and chair covers had been bought in Stornforth market–‘for a fraction of the price you’d pay in a shop’, Gillian had pointed out, and Selina had not dared say she had never been to a market stall in her life.
There was a wash hand basin in the corner, and Gillian had unearthed a porcelain soap dish that matched it, and also a huge blue and white Chinese bowl for the dried lavender that Selina still collected and scattered about the house. In the junk room they had found a small gateleg table, too narrow to use as a dining table, too large for what Aunt Rosa had termed an occasional table, but which Gillian, appealed to for guidance by phone, said would be just right for a laptop.
‘I’ve put it under the windows so that there’s a view over the orchard.’
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‘And straight across to the Round Tower,’ said Gillian. And then, because Selina was clearly in a bit of a stew, she said, ‘That’ll be fine. If this Joanna Savile is any kind of writer, she’ll probably see the place as the inspiration for a plot. Murder in the Tower, or something.’
‘It’s been done,’ said Selina with one of her rare flashes of dry humour, and Gillian had laughed and said, Nothing new under the sun, and the view from up there was great anyway, because you could not see the ramshackle little road that hardly anyone ever used and Matthew McAvoy had tried to have closed.
And now, here was Joanna Savile looking delightedly around the room, admiring the gateleg table and the little Victorian bookshelf in one corner, and the Victorian patchwork quilt that had been made by Selina’s great-grandmother, and whose colours had faded to gentle muted blues and lilacs. And the view was simply so beautiful, said Joanna, standing at the window looking out, and how clever it had been of Miss March to give her a room high up; it meant she would be able to work up here quietly without disturbing anyone.
Selina, who had decided on a rule of non-involvement with everyone who came to Teind House, and had vowed to keep firmly to serving breakfast only, heard herself saying, ‘Would you like a cup of tea after your long drive? And I don’t suppose you’ve had supper yet?’
Over one of the curious, unfamiliar meals that Emily Frost had prepared and left in the freezer (‘because you don’t know when you might find yourself caught out with a guest wanting an evening meal’) Joanna said, ‘I’ve managed to fix a visit to Moy for tomorrow.’
Selina had been worrying about whether the food was properly thawed and heated. You could not really go by taste because Emily seemed to have added some rather fierce seasoning. Now she hesitated, and then said, ‘For–for research, is it?’
‘Yes. I’ve been in touch with Patrick Irvine–the head of the psychiatric wing. He thinks he can probably arrange for me to talk to some of the inmates.’
‘Won’t that–forgive me, Miss Savile–won’t you find that distressing?’
‘Yes, possibly. But I’ll have to try to switch off afterwards. Listen, do call me Joanna. Actually, to be absolutely correct, it’s Mrs Kent not Miss Savile.’
‘Oh—’
‘It doesn’t matter at all. It’s easier to keep being known as Savile because of the books, and my husband’s working abroad at the moment, so I feel more like “Miss” again anyway.’ She smiled. Her upper lip creased when she smiled, so that it was as if a mischievous schoolboy invited you to share an amusing secret. She had taken off her travelling things to eat the hastily prepared supper, and she was wearing an ankle-length skirt and what Selina thought was a chenille jacket, the colour of horse chestnuts. The aunts used to have a tablecloth of the exact same material, only in crimson with bobbles round the edges. It seemed odd to see someone wearing the material as a jacket. Joanna said, ‘Krzystof–my husband–is due back in three weeks’ time. If I’m still here it would be all right if he joined me for a night or two, wouldn’t it? We’d eat at the pub, so you wouldn’t be put out at all. And he could share my room.’
Selina was instantly thrown into confusion at the thought of this lovely girl’s husband sharing a room with her after several weeks’ absence. The bed was quite large enough for two to sleep in, but there was the thing. Beds and married people, and a reunion…And she had called him Krzystof, which meant he was foreign–middle-European from the sound of it. Hungarian or Romanian or something.
And they would have sex, of course, there in the second-floor room that used to be the cook’s when the aunts had a live-in cook; there in the bed that had been in the guest room; there between the sheets that went religiously to the Stornforth laundry after each guest. Selina might even find she was lying in her own room, wondering about them–perhaps hearing them…
Joanna said, ‘I did think it might not be possible, of course. For Krzystof to stay here, I mean. I thought you might have other bookings…’
Other bookings. I’m being given a polite way out, thought Selina. Is she seeing me as a prim old maid who can’t cope with married people in bed together? This was so unpleasant a thought that she said firmly, ‘I don’t believe there are any other bookings that would cause a problem. I’ll need to look in the diary, but I’m sure it will be quite all right.’
There was the curved smile again. ‘I’m so glad,’ said Joanna. ‘It would have meant going back to London just for a couple of nights to see him before he sets off again.’ She speared another forkful of Emily’s peculiar dish, whatever it was, and said, ‘He works for the Rosendale Institute in London; he’s one of their translators. They specialise in religious artefacts, so he has a terrific life swanning around the globe, negotiating with archivists and curators while the field workers scrabble around trying to find Tibetan prayer wheels and Russian icons and pagan masks.’
‘How very interesting. Have you been married long?’ She’ll say, oh ages, thought Selina. She’s easily twenty-eight and probably a bit more than that, so they could have been married for quite a few years, and surely that means they aren’t likely to be quite so passionate about being reunited—
Joanna said, ‘Eight months. I do miss him.’ And then, as if pushing away an unwanted emotion, ‘This chili con carne is absolutely delicious, Miss March. I’d love a spoonful more if it wouldn’t be greedy.’
‘But of course,’ said Selina, thankful that she had apparently done the thawing and reheating properly, and relieved to find out what Emily’s peculiar concoction was called.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emily Frost was coming to the conclusion that Selina March–Miss March she preferred to be called, wouldn’t you just know she would?–was a bit of a weirdo.
Emily had not much wanted to come to Inchcape at all, but dad had said it was a good posting for him as well as a promotion. He would be third-in-command: a wing governor in his own right, so it was not to be sneezed at. Still, if Emily absolutely hated it after–well–say three months, they would see about her setting up somewhere on her own. Providing, he said sternly, that she got a job at least for the duration. Stornforth was not very far, and there was a cottage hospital there and a bird sanctuary; she might find something quite interesting. Or there might even be something at Moy itself. Something in one of the offices, maybe.
There had not been anything at Stornforth, but after they had been at Inchcape for a few weeks Emily had begun helping out at the village school. Two afternoons a week it was, and only helping to supervise the tinies, the five-and six-year-olds, painting and playdough and things, but Lorna Laughlin was pleased with what Emily was doing and the kids were great. Lorna was the schoolmistress. Anywhere else she would have been called head teacher or something, but in Inchcape she was the schoolmistress, as if she was something out of Dickens for heaven’s sake!
But Inchcape itself was like something out of Dickens–Emily had never been to such a backwater in her life. It was a good thing that there were staff cottages, all of them about ten minutes’ walk from the main prison buildings, because otherwise they would never have found anywhere to live, because it did not look as if anyone had moved from Inchcape for about a hundred years.
Selina March did not look as if she had moved for about a hundred years, either. She looked as if she had been born here in Queen Victoria’s time, and had stayed here getting more and more twittery and faded every year. When Emily first went to help at Teind House she had avoided looking in any of the mirrors, because she had a horrid suspicion that, if she did, there would not be a reflection of Selina in any of them.
Patrick Irvine said he would like to study Selina March sometime. He said she sounded like something that had reached the chrysalis stage, died, and become fossilised, like a fly in amber. Emily thought she would not be at all surprised if that were the case because living at Inchcape was like living inside a time-warp. If she stayed here for any length of time she would probably become fossilised herself.
Emily hated the clock, which Miss March reverently said had been Great-uncle Matthew’s. It had to be wound every Saturday night at exactly six o’clock–Emily had not liked to question this practice in case there turned out to be a ghost story attached. Like Great-uncle Matthew rising up from the churchyard and tottering into Teind House in his shroud, and winding the clock with his fleshless fingers, and then stumping sulkily back to his grave. Selina March did not seem the kind of person who would tell a story like that, never mind believe in it, but you never knew. From what Emily could make out, Great-uncle Matthew had been a selfish, finnicky old fart whose ghost would enjoy haunting poor old Selina, and making her feel guilty about forgetting to wind up a creaky old clock for God’s sake!
Miss March clung to the past. Her bedroom had silver-framed photographs of the aunts who had brought her up, and on a low table were more silver-framed photographs of a man and a woman. They were black-and-white photos and a bit faded, but you could see a resemblance between the woman and Selina March. The man did not especially resemble anyone: he had nice eyes, and crinkly hair, cut the way men used to have their hair cut at least fifty years ago. Next to the photos, neatly folded, was a really beautiful black lace stole–the kind of thing ladies had once worn over evening dresses in the summer. It was cobwebby with age, but when Emily touched it a faint, wistful perfume stirred from its folds.