by A. D. Scott
When they first came to the town, Moira was healthier than she had been for a long time. Although he didn’t like her working, the part-time job in the county council—which she loved—meant they could afford this perfect family home. But lately Moira had been off work so many times, they might lose the house that Mal had found through the Gazette, him being able to read the classifieds before anyone else. Lately Moira had been having more and more of her “spells,” as she put it, that he was worried she would have a full-blown episode and end up committed to the mental hospital. The boy’s physical health he never worried about; a strong boy, never a day’s illness, only his brain was a bit scrambled—Moira’s phrase.
Mal was not unhappy working at the Gazette, but thought McAllister much too modern. What’s wrong with the advertisements on the front page? he’d asked his wife, knowing no one on the newspaper would answer his question. That’s the way it’s always been done, he told her. For him a newspaper was the advertising—news taking up too much space.
He didn’t mind Don McLeod; Good at his job but he’s getting past it, he should retire.
Rob he thought too big for his boots. Hector a necessary evil, as he needed him for the football photos, the sports pages being prime advertising spots. He thought Joanne flighty but had nothing against her.
Moira Forbes thought differently. Even though she had only met Joanne in passing, she’d complained to her husband, It’s not right, Mrs. Ross leaving her husband, taking up with the editor, and her still married. She’s probably with him because Mr. McAllister has money and a big house.
Mal Forbes preferred Elgin. He was from there, but his wife was from Daviot, a tiny place a few miles outside town, only notable because there was a station where the trains stopped for water. He accepted they had to leave their home. He knew there were too many prying eyes in Elgin and no hiding Moira’s condition from his nosy cousin Effie.
Thank goodness Mother and Father aren’t alive, he thought as he saw Moira through another bout of screaming and crying and pulling out her hair. At first he’d enjoyed the times when Moira was so full of energy she would literally dance on the kitchen table. The following bouts of sadness were bearable; all she did was lie on her bed and stare at the ceiling, playing with the corner of a pillow slip, chewing it, sucking it, until the thin cotton fabric gave way. As the years went by, the long periods when she was stable became shorter. The cycle of crying and sleeping and doing nothing, followed by hysterical laughter, cleaning the house from attic to coal shed, and hardly sleeping were becoming more frequent.
More than once the doctor in Elgin had tried to persuade him to commit Moira to an asylum for treatment.
“The place in Aberdeen is excellent,” the doctor said. “Think of it as a rest from the illness, not an asylum for the insane.”
“Insane? Who’s insane? I’m not insane,” Moira was so angry, he had to hold her back from attacking the doctor. He held her arms as she shouted, “I’m not insane. Mal, tell him, tell the doctor, I’m never insane.”
He knew that the people waiting in the doctor’s reception had heard. He wouldn’t have been surprised if passersby on the street heard. Sure enough, the rumor ran around town, and he witnessed the sly looks, the shakes of the head, when they walked to church the following Sunday.
That had been bad enough, but his cousin Effie coming to visit regularly, more to stare than offer real help, wringing her hands, saying “The poor soul,” over and over . . .
“Honest to God,” Effie had said, “it’s a right shame. There’s never been any loonies in the family before now.”
He’d thought he might have an episode himself, and smack the interfering cow across the face.
And now this. He didn’t think he could cope. There was no one they could tell. No one to turn to. Once Mal Forbes had broken down and cried real, deep sobs, deep howling crying. No one comforted him. No one heard, so he thought. He didn’t know the sound had carried through to his daughter’s bedroom and terrified her.
He was not a real drinker. But one time, at twelve o’clock midday, he had poured a substantial dram and drunk it down, and the rest of the day paid for it. So drinking as solace was not an option.
His wife blamed everything on Joanne Ross. If she hadn’t interfered, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. It’s all her fault, Joanne high-and-mighty Ross. Quite how his wife had come to this conclusion, Mal had no idea; it was completely illogical, but he knew that once she took against someone, Moira was unshakable.
He heard a slight murmuring from the bedroom. Moira was asleep, knocked out by the extra strong medicine he saved for emergencies, medicine he had great difficulty making her swallow. He knew it was Maureen reading to her wee brother.
“A good lass,” he said to himself. “I don’t know how I’d cope without her.”
• • •
Effie, the woman from the teashop in Elgin, that’s who it is, Joanne reminded herself as she was walking past Station Square deciding where to go to buy a tie for Don, a present for no particular occasion just that she was horrified at the state of the one he had worn every day for the last six months, and it was so disgusting she thought it might harbor a new strain of flora or faunae. The woman, who was walking whilst reading a bus timetable, stepped to one side, Joanne did the same, and then they stopped, looked at each other, smiling.
“Sorry,” Joanne said.
“No, I’m sorry, it’s this timetable, I canny figure out which bus to take.” She flapped the booklet in the air. “Oh, hello, you’re . . .”
“Joanne Ross, we met in your teashop in Elgin. You’re Effie Forbes, the same as Mal Forbes.”
“He’s ma cousin.” The reply was automatic. “I’m here to visit.”
“But I thought . . .” Joanne was certain the woman had disowned Mal Forbes—or was it Moira Forbes—when last they spoke. “I work with Mr. Forbes.”
“You never told me you’re on the newspaper,” Effie Forbes gave her a look, lips in a thin line, as if to say, You lied to me.
“It never came up.” Joanne was searching for an excuse to question the woman. “Can I help you with the buses?”
That simple offer of help did it.
Honest, and, Honestly, and To be honest,—the conversation lasted four minutes and forty-five seconds by the station clock over the woman’s left shoulder. Joanne lost count of the number of times she used the word honest or variations thereof, but by the fifth time, she was certain the woman was lying. That and the way she rushed her words, patted Joanne on the arm, and kept staring directly into Joanne’s eyes to emphasize her honesty.
“To be honest, we’re not really close. I mean, honestly, what with his work, and me in the teashop, we hardly ever see each other, and honest to God, when he married Moira, well, we thought . . . she’s not the friendliest of souls.”
Joanne didn’t know Moira Forbes, but she thought that would be her description of Mal—when she was being charitable.
“Aye, to be honest, we’ve no idea why he would want to move here.” Effie gestured around Station Square. “My mother honestly thinks they were mad to leave, but you know, with the way things are wi’ Moira’s nerves . . .” Her hand had a life of its own; much like a spring on a mousetrap, it snapped across her mouth to stop the flow of words. Too late. Whatever she was hiding had partially escaped.
Her eyes searched around. Rescued by the clock, she gave a shrill cry of “Is that the time? Honest to goodness, I’m that late they’ll think I’m no’ coming. The Laurel Avenue bus goes from over there, does it no? To be honest, I’ve never been here much, so I’m all at sixes and sevens. Nice to meet you again. Bye for now.”
She was off in a fuss of scarves and basket and handbag and umbrella and what looked like a Red Cross emergency parcel tied neatly with brown twine, clearly addressed to Mrs. Malcolm Forbes, which bulged out of the basket. A box, possibly a shoe box, where the wrapping paper didn’t quite meet, also tied with twine, dangled from her fingers. The
re was no address, only the name Maureen in huge capital letters.
Joanne watched Effie Forbes running, or rather lumbering, as the Laurel Avenue bus swung around the corner into Queensgate. She jumped on board; the bus was delayed by a woman with a baby and two small children and the week’s shopping, then took off, leaving Joanne staring after it, wondering what on earth Effie Forbes had been so panicked about.
• • •
As ever, when it was important, it was the unimportant little words, thoughts, memories that put the pieces in place.
“I thought you said it was Mal Forbes who is sick,” Joanne said to McAllister as they sat in his kitchen reading the Sunday newspapers.
“I thought so too, but when I called round to his house, their daughter answered the door saying her dad was sick, then he appeared and said he was fine, that his wife is sick. He’s taking time off to look after her. Fair enough, as long as the work’s done, I don’t mind where he does it from.”
“Aye, I heard she has trouble with her nerves.”
McAllister laughed, “Oh, what it is to be Scottish.” He saw her smile, but she was smiling at his laughter. “Why can’t people say she has a mental illness? It’s nothing to be ashamed of . . . it’s as natural as . . .”
“Appendicitis? Scarlet fever . . . no, not that, that’s catching . . .”
“Maybe a broken bone. I’ve always thought of it as an illness where something snaps . . .”
“But from a reason?”
“Maybe, maybe for no reason, just that a person’s mind is stretched to the limit . . . I’ve seen that more than once.” He was quiet when he said this; he had seen it many times during the war.
“The war is fourteen years over, and still some minds are damaged.” She was thinking of her former husband.
“Moira Forbes, have you met her?” McAllister had never seen the woman and was curious.
“I’ve seen her at the school but I don’t know her. Fiona’s met her. She sometimes comes in with a flask and sandwiches for Mal, so Fiona says. Remember I told you about the woman from the teashop in Elgin? Mal’s cousin? I almost literally bumped into her in town yesterday. She was carrying a parcel addressed to Moira Forbes and one for Maureen. But in Elgin, she said she hardly knows them.”
“Hardly knows—another Scottish way of saying definitely knows but is not friendly.”
“You should write a dictionary.” Joanne was flicking through the Sunday Post and as ever had to stop and read The Broons, her favorite cartoon strip of everyday life in an everyday Scottish family. Ma Broon and the adventures of her brood of assorted children, who were drawn as though they all had different fathers, always made her smile and occasionally had her laughing out loud.
McAllister had taken out his pen and was writing down the side of the newspaper. He stopped, got up, and went to the kitchen dresser, where he kept the copy paper he used to make lists of messages needed for the week. Messages, Joanne was thinking, another Scottish word that confounds the English.
“Messages means shopping,” she’d explained to a girl at school.
“No, it doesn’t,” the English girl had replied, “it’s the plural of message.” They never did agree on that word—or much else, as Joanne recalled.
Elgin. Mal Forbes. Came to Highlands. Why? Mae Bell comes to Highlands. Why? Nurse Urquhart attacked. Why? Anonymous letters, why? Mae Bell leaves without a farewell. Why? Time frame? All close. Events linked? Maybe. But how?
“Questions, questions, all there is is questions,” Joanne said as she looked over the lists.
“Fine, I’ll start another list,” and he headed a paper What We Know.
“Not much of anything at all, McAllister,” Joanne said.
They began laughing, and Annie came into the kitchen to check if she was missing out on something adult. The girl saw her mother was happy, and that was enough. “I want to read, so I’m going to bed here tonight.”
McAllister liked the way Annie treated the house as though it was her home.
“Jean’s asleep,” she informed her mother. “McAllister better lift her up the stairs to bed. Night-night.”
Joanne looked at McAllister and said, “So that’s us told.”
He looked at her and decided he wanted the rest of his life to be like tonight.
• • •
On Monday, Mal Forbes came in for the morning meeting, didn’t say much, and then left.
Early Monday afternoon, Joanne had an hour or so to spare, and checking with Fiona, she learned that Mal Forbes was meeting the manager at McGruther & Marshall, the coal and timber company. She decided to call on Moira Forbes.
She couldn’t think of what to take, so she bought grapes and was horrified at the price. She caught the bus, leaving her bike at work. She walked up the path and rang the doorbell, thinking she had an hour before the children came out of school, which meant an hour to talk to Mrs. Forbes, see if she could help, and be back in time to finish an article on new traffic lights in Eastgate.
She rang the doorbell. It took a long time for an answer.
“Hello, I’m Joanne Ross, I work with Mal. I heard you’re not feeling well so I brought you some grapes.” As she said it she realized how lame it sounded, how much of a busybody she must appear.
The small woman in front of her had an odd shape, short but wiry, reminding Joanne of a circus acrobat she had once admired. Dressed in a glittering leotard, it was the acrobat’s muscular legs and arms and thick torso Joanne had noticed. I bet she could lift a heifer, she’d thought, and was proved correct when the woman bore the weight of her male partner on the high trapeze.
Moira Forbes had the same body shape, but her unwashed fair hair, the darkness around the light grey eyes, skin that resembled a garment that had been washed so often it no longer had an identifiable color, all showed she had been ill for some time. This is more than flu, Joanne thought, this is a long-term illness. She thought it might be the unsayable, cancer, and her heart went out to Mal Forbes and her family.
“I know about you,” Moira said in a tired voice, but there was a hint of malevolence in the whine.
Joanne thought she must be mistaken. The poor woman’s ill.
Moira’s hand reached out, a surprisingly large hand for such a wee woman, and again Joanne was reminded of the trapeze artist. The eyes looking every way except at Joanne, she took the brown paper bag with the grapes, and without another word shut the door, leaving Joanne ashamed at her audacity in visiting a woman she’d never met, for reasons she couldn’t quite fathom.
Joanne took a deep breath, her shoulders dropping as she blew the air out, telling herself, Think how offended you would be if a complete stranger turned up on your doorstep . . .
The voice was too faint to give a name to, but not the tune.
Stormy weather, since my man and I ain’t together . . .
It was coming from the back of the house. Joanne went to the high fence that cut the front garden from the back.
“Da da daaa, da dah da da, dada daa . . . stormy weather . . . hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmhumm, keeps rainin’ . . .”
A shiver ran through Joanne. Mae! She wanted to call out “Mae Bell!” but knew she shouldn’t. She went to the side of the house, to a gate, padlocked, and saw the fence continued three yards before joining with a high stone wall, with meager, child-sized footholds in the crumbling mortar.
Putting her handbag in an azalea shrub, Joanne clambered up, losing the skin from two knuckles before she was over and in a long back garden of mostly lawn. An old air raid shelter was at the far end. She moved quickly. Another two padlocks locked the door, and the single window was sealed up with corrugated iron that was not quite big enough, allowing gaps at the sides for thin shafts of light.
“Mae, Mae Bell, it’s me, Joanne,” she was trying to shout in a whisper.
“Joanne! Oh, Joanne! Get me out of here. Please get me out!” Her voice was weak; her singing had been stronger.
Joanne could hear the te
ars. The panic. “The door’s padlocked, I’ll see if I can pull this off the window.” She had her fingers in the lower gap, was pulling as hard as she could when she felt rather than heard the person behind her—then a crashing, a thunderbolt of pain on the side of her head. Then no more.
• • •
“McAllister, it’s Annie, I’m at Granny and Granddad’s house because Mum didn’t come home. Granny is really cross. Can you tell Mum to come and get us?”
“Your mother isn’t here.” He knew Joanne hated leaving her children for that hour and a half between school ending and her arrival home from work. He knew she would never leave them longer unless something had happened.
“Where is she then?” Annie sounded scared. “Where’s Mum?”
“Annie, what’s your grandparents’ address?” He tried to keep his voice calm but Annie could hear his fear.
“Come quickly.” She hung up the phone.
He ran to his car. He didn’t have time to lock his front door. He drove so fast over the bridge he almost hit the sandstone pillars on the south side. Annie was watching out the window and had the front door open as he was halfway up the garden path.
“I think you should talk to Granddad,” she said. “Granny’s in the kitchen with Jean and I don’t want Jean to know.”
McAllister could see how pale the girl was, every freckle clear, in spite of the steady, I-can-cope-with-anything voice.
“Maybe you should join them,” he replied.
“No.” She was eleven years old yet she was aged; or no age; perhaps the universal age of a female worried to death about a loved one—husband, child, sister, brother, fading parent; a female whose role was to sit and wait; to knit; to make tea, a role all too familiar in the twentieth century, a century of not-too-distant wars. “No.” Annie was certain. “I want to know what’s happened to Mum.” She showed him into the sitting room.